Trucks of Missouri

Sometimes people like us feel a little out of place in this state. The top and bottom images were found in a parking area of Kansas City's City Market. The middle one was on Interstate 70 in the central part of the state (phone cam shot through the windshield). But, for the most part, St. Louis and Kansas City are beacons of blue.     

The Eclipse

 

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Fringe programming for the following special report:

The weather forecast was dicey: partly cloudy, a chance of showers. Some friends who have a country house between St. Clair and Sullivan hosted a big viewing party. It was an ideal location. Clouds started to pass by before the eclipse began, creating anxiety. Then it cleared, leaving nearly perfect conditions. The experience was mystical.

The pink-purple spots at about 1 and 4 o'clock in the first photo are Bailey beads, sunlight refracted around mountains and valleys at the moon's edge. The color shows the presence of helium when run through a spectrograph and proved the existence of that element in the sun.

We heard that you could use a kitchen colander like a multi-eyed pinhole camera. It works.

 

If You Haven't Finished Making Your Holiday Plans . . .

Why not consider Thanksgiving dinner at the Travel Centers of America truck stop in Foristell, Missouri, about 50 miles west of St. Louis? Hey, and you get $5 off at your next visit. Come back at Christmas!

Our stops on the way to Kansas City were a bit more frequent than usual due to a certain special passenger. She slept through most of central Missouri, though. Who wouldn't?

     

Hands Up Don't Shoot: Ferguson, Missouri

Most of my readers know about the events following the death of Michael Brown, an 18 year old black man, shot by a white policeman on August 9 in our suburb of Ferguson. The metro area has been on low boil ever since. Some of the protests became violent and there were a lot arrests. Many have demanded that criminal charges be brought against the policeman, Darren Wilson.

That issue has been pending before an institution unique to American's criminal system, a grand jury. There have been fears of riots if Wilson is not indicted. The city is on edge. All area police are on duty. Hundreds of National Guard and FBI personnel have been brought it.

The decision was just announced at 8:25 PM our time. Wilson was not charged. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCullough gave a detailed summary of the procedure and evidence on TV tonight. As I write this late Tuesday we do not know what will happen in and to St. Louis next.

I found the image above stenciled on a bus shelter. It illustrates the common chant of the protesters: hands up, don't shoot. All of us here might wonder if we should call the number below. 

                        

New Bridge On The Mississippi

For a several decades, STL has had one main bridge that carried the Interstate highways (55, 64 and 70) across the Mississippi. It's choked with traffic at rush hour and always seems to be under repair. A couple of other old bridges were essentially extensions of the city streets. It was time for more capacity.

Thus, the brand-new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge, just for I 70 and another means of access to downtown. It's a wonder the thing got built. Illinois wanted a toll bridge with many more lanes. Missouri, a low-tax, low-service state, insisted it be free and who cares if it's wide enough. Since the men and women of the armed services are held in high esteem these days (it wasn't always so - think Vietnam), Illinois wanted to call it the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Cardinal-worshiping Missouri wanted to name it the Stan Musial Bridge, after the greatest god in the team pantheon, who died last year. Hence, the compromise, with a name that falls liltingly off the tongue and probably has too few lanes (just two in each direction).

The public was invited to wander around on it yesterday afternoon. Many big-shot politicians showed up, including some I actually like. Cars may travel on it today. It is handsome. I hear the night lighting is fabulous. Much of it is visible from my office window so we'll get that later.

So, we will have several days of architecture, crowds, politicos, signage and barge traffic on the ice-filled Mississippi.                         

Along The Route

Shots along the route of the Idiotarod. The obstinate Missouri mule is our official state animal but there are a pair of bears on the state seal. Several of them surround the Peabody Opera House downtown (which has not produced an opera since its multi-million dollar restoration and reopening a couple of years ago. They mostly present pop trash.) I like the bears. They are stylish and unthreatening. Somebody got the top one with a can of Silly String, but that's what it's for. The bottom one quietly observes the Where's Waldo team racing up 14th Street.

Chaumette Winery

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No, we don't normally drink at lunch. (Almost never, actually.) Under the circumstances, though, we decided to pretend we were in France and just laissez le bon temps rouler.

There are a surprising number of wineries in Missouri, mostly clustered in two groups: one about 75 miles west of St. Louis, south of the Missouri River, the other the same distance southeast, in the hills west of the Mississippi. The second area surrounds Ste. Genevieve, where we spent the weekend.

The best known in that area is Chaumette Winery. It has a group of several homes, a wedding chapel and a superb restaurant. Since they only serve lunch on Sunday we headed over around mid-day. Although I've never been able to develop a taste for our state's wines (and, as the top picture illustrates, Lord knows I made another try) the meal was fabulous. We might make a special trip down here for dinner and a night away.

The bottom photo is a detail from a painting in the restaurant called The History Of A Missouri River Town painted by Brian Dawes Haynes in 2002. The old song says that Davey Crockett kilt him a bar when he was only three. This guy looks ten times older and I'm betting on his opponent.

What's Weird Upriver

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Greetings from Hannibal, Missouri, a town that makes its living from a long-dead American author, Mr. Clemens. It's late, so just a quick note. We had dinner at a place highly rated on the travel web sites, called Labinnah. What could that mean? It's Hannibal spelled backwards! Har! The food was very good, the people were nice and the decor was, um, eclectic. This small statue was on a window sill. Can't be Hercules with that hairdo and briefs. Sort of looks like a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mitt Romney. But then I bet the original Hannibal was pretty strong, too, leading all those elephants across the Alps.

Downtown St. Louis 365 will have to wait until the morning.

We interrupt our Halloween coverage to ask Missouri to VOTE FOR ROBIN CARNAHAN FOR U.S. SENATE

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Tomorrow is election day in the U.S. Last night supporters of Robin Carnahan, the Democratic candidate for senator, held a rally in Forest Park. In attendance was our other senator, the brilliant Claire McCaskill; Sen. Dick Durbin from the neighboring state of Illinois; Rednecks For Robin (we are rumored to have a few); and Gov. Jay Nixon, with Robin and brother Russ, my congressman, in the background. At the bottom, Mrs. C. and Sen. McCaskill share a moment of party unity.

This blog tip toes into politics only occasionally but this is something I feel very strongly about. We do advertise the occasional rant. While every politician and political party has flaws, I proudly stand with the Democrats. The way I see it, our two main parties have distinct views about the roles of the individual and government in society. The Republicans promote individual liberty unfettered by government regulation. Unless, of course, they don't like your behavior. It's code for letting business have its way to screw individuals and foul our nest. Democrats like business (I own a business, after all) and want the country to be to be prosperous, but we ask for the balance of power to be more equal, evening the playing field between the small and the powerful.

Carnahan's opponent, Roy Blunt, a long-time congressman, is the consummate government corporate insider. He has received astounding amounts of contributions from corporations, their lobbyists and now, since the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case, buckets of cash from anonymous sources. He has the hubris to refuse to answer questions about it. This is corruption, pure and simple.

So I'd like my fellow Missourians to think long and hard before you cast your ballot tomorrow. Maybe you disagree. That's healthy. Write something about what you think.

We're back to Halloween pictures tomorrow because Wednesday morning could present a scary landscape.

STL DPB On The Road To Kansas City

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We're in Kansas City for a special event tonight. If the photography gods smile (meaning someone else has to take some of the key shots 'cause I'll be in them, and no one but me at the event knows squat about photography) there will be pix tomorrow.

KC is about four hours drive west of St. Louis. It is a smaller metro area than out town but it ha a lot going for it. The locals say that Kansas City has more fountains than Rome. Based on personal observation, I'd say it's true. What you see above is a detail from the J. C. Nichols Memorial Fountain at the edge of KC's famous Country Club Plaza, the first shopping center in the US and still very upscale.

We hit bands of heavy thunderstorms on the drive across Missouri yesterday, illustrated below. When it let up, we could enjoy our states's bucolic countryside, as in the last picture. By the way, CDL stands for commercial driver's license, i.e., truck drivers get special discounts.

I completely forgot it was theme day until I looked at the portal. This post qualifies. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Vanity Plates

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This may not happen anywhere in the world outside of the US. They used to have it in the UK but I think the nanny state swept it away. Personalized license plates, sometimes called vanity plates, are available in many American states for a fee, so car owners get to promote themselves or their views. Some of the St. Louis metropolitan area is in Illinois. My son, city photoblogger U "R" Us, lives in Illinois but this isn't his car dedicated to me. He drives a Honda, not a Toyota. I have a vanity plate, too, pictured below. The message is very obscure. You probably have to know me or do exactly the same work to understand. A print of the STL CDPB photo of your choice will be awarded to anyone who can decode it. Employees of STL CDPB, our sponsors, travel agents, legal counsel, photo equipment vendors and family are excluded.

WHAT I'D LIKE TO DO (Thursday night): sleep. 220 miles / 354 km of driving round trip for a single hearing, three hours prep time and conference call about a re-make of our firm's web site and assembling today's blog post are enough. Thanks heavens I have Robert Mondavi to blow me a kiss goodnight.

TOMORROW: ex libris.