STL DPB ON THE ROAD - TEXANS AND VISITORS

Toto, I don't think we're in Greenwich Village anymore. And, I think I found my new profile picture.

Taken at the Texas State Fair.           

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - TEXAS STATE FAIR

Yay! I got the pig races!

We are in Dallas for a wedding. The State Fair of Texas is in progress right in the city. As a photographer I could not pass this up. None of the family would come with me; it was 95F / 35C in bright sun. They told me I was crazy. They were right. I'm still not walking well and I damn near got heat stroke. But I got some terrific shots. 

I happened to walk by a building where pig races were about to start. Can't pass that up. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

More of this to come.        

STL DPB ON THE ROAD AGAIN - DALLAS

So here we are in Texas, alien territory to me. This is what you see when you walk off a plane at Gate C2 at Dallas - Ft. Worth International Airport. Hope the American Airlines captain gets her next flight. 

Our hotel is in what passes for downtown in this big city. It's spread out. A plaza just outside the door has this sculpture of Pegasus. It was the logo of Mobil Oil, which became Exxon-Mobil, which became a mountain of fraud and deceit. Bottom, what we see while waiting for an elevator back to the lobby, with the convention center sprawled out beneath us.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

"Love is all you need," John Lennon sang. "It's easy." Not necessarily. It is effortless for a parent to love a child and vice versa. It's in our genes. But perhaps serious, abiding love comes with time, maturity and deep commitment. Your opinion may vary.

Found on the riverfront south of the Arch, next to the Paint Louis section of the flood wall. 

Another travel day today.  A lone star tonight.        

RAILROAD ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI

There is some complicated theory about why Chicago, rather than St. Louis, became the railroad hub of the Midwest US. We are more central but, if nothing else, Chicago doesn't have that big river in the way.

This is an old, big rail bridge across the Mississippi. It is on the southern edge of downtown with three hard arches crossing the river. I don't know what the boxy, blank building on the right used to be, or how someone hung out that window to paint a simplified face. Must have had some cliff climbing skills.       

TROMPE L'OEIL

This old building downtown used to be a warehouse with access to a railroad yard just in front of it. Now it's partly a hotel and partly fancy condos. The trompe l'oeil paint job might be thirty years old and is showing its age. The equestrian statue in the center is identical to the Apotheosis of St. Louis statue in Forest Park. Note the painted eagle flying across the far left side of the building.

Note also our bizarre Civil Courts building just to the right, with its Ionian columns, pyramid and sphinxes on top.              

CITY DAILY PHOTO OCTOBER THEME DAY - ORANGE

There isn't a lot of orange stuff around STL. After all, this isn't the Netherlands or Florida. I drove around aimlessly on Sunday afternoon looking for material and found this. It's a bit north of downtown, looking down hill to where the Mississippi should be. That gray slab is a piece of the flood wall that was closed earlier when the river was high. It's not now but the roadblock gave me something to shoot.