Bremen, Kansas is a town of 45. My wife grew up in the suburbs. The old family farm and home is now owned by her youngest brother and his wife. Their children are grown but everybody is home today for Thanksgiving, from 89 year old grandma, my generation, our young adult children and a variety of their rug-rat sized kids. And dogs. A lot of dogs underfoot.
Last Saturday afternoon, I was shooting in Forest Park just before and after sunset. One of the park's resident hawks was perched on top of the only building left from the 1904 World's Fair (Meet me in St. Looie, Looie. Meet me at the fair...), which is what FP was created for. She or he sat there for a long time, surveying its domain. If nothing else, this illustrates the fun you can have with a big honkin' telephoto lens.
Sculpture is scattered throughout the Missouri Botanical Garden. This caught my eye on my last visit. The figures are lifesize and perfectly modeled but I find them disconcerting. The girls' expressions are serious. The one on the right looks a little anxious. It makes me think they are running away from something but run as hard as they can, they never move forward, never escape this bit of woods.
Near the riverfront south of the Arch, a herd of cement mixers stand in a cyclone fence corral under a railroad bridge that crosses the Mississippi. The bridge doesn't even have a name. It's a tough neighborhood.
A couple of years ago, the Missouri Botanical Garden was filled with the work of Tacoma, Washington, glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. Some of the work was left in the garden after the main show closed. I have posted some photos in the past, like this one back in April.
The Grand Basin again, but from the top of Art Hill this time. It is foreshortened by the lens but that's a long hill down to the water, which is one of the reasons why it is STL's favorite sledding venue. The other is the great surroundings. St. Louis University, where I went to school, is only a few minutes away. When my friends and I were poor undergraduates, we used to liberate trays from the cafeteria and use them for one-person, butt-bumping, tipsy sleds. You really had to be careful when you reached the bottom. The drop off the edge is close to a meter. If the Basin was well-frozen, you would bump hard but keep on sliding. But if there was no or this ice... You get the idea.
