Antifreeze

From the Loop Ice Carnival. There were many ice sculptures up and down Delmar Boulevard, several of them about alcoholic beverages.

Of course, the bottle itself it ice. Is a super frozen shot of vodka what you need to warm up in our recent frigid weather? I've read that drinking alcohol is a really bad idea in the cold. It causes the blood vessels around your skin and muscles to dilate, radiating heat away from your body.     

Ice In The Missisippi

Phone cam shot taken from my office window a few minutes ago. We usually see a little ice in the river during the winter but not like this. The low here overnight was -4 F / -20 C. Up in Chicago, it was -25 F / - 32 C. It's not that far, about 300 miles or 482 km northeast.

We expect spring-like weather for the weekend.

Taps

One of the vendors in Soulard Market, ready to pour you some of the awful (IMHO) products of Anheuser Busch Inbev, while grilling hot dogs or sausages behind. Anheuser Busch used to own this town until it got sucked into the Belgian-Brazilian conglomerate Inbev. Budweiser was everywhere, even all over the world. The first advertising sign I saw in Tibet at a little airport restaurant was for Bud. The sign was in English, Tibetan and Chinese. The picture of the can said Anheuser Busch, St. Louis, Missouri.

I'm not fond of Budweiser. I'm sipping a Cotes du Rhone as I write this.        

Madeleine Monday

A donkey and two goats eating right out of her hand. No fear at all. She's been to Mrs. C's family farm many times since she was tiny. I don't think I'd want those tongues licking my hand. When I was tiny my parents took me to, um, Central Park.

This kid has quite an imagination. Sometimes when we are in the living room she will run in circles around the coffee table, claiming that she is being chased by dragons. Mom has to scoop them up and pretend to save her. She started it yesterday. After dragons, she claimed she was being chased by ghosts, spiders, snakes and I don't know what. Then she announced that she was being chased by snails. "That's no problem," Emily, her mother said. "Snails are really slow." "But they're on roller skates," she shot back, continuing her race.       

Rest

We have an old farmers market south of downtown, Soulard Market. Haven't been there in a while. They had a pre Mardi Gras event for children yesterday. Ellie liked it a lot more than the adults.

There were few vendors at the outdoor stalls in January but the inside area was busy. The prices are reasonable but it can be tiring. You can only eat so much sausage.         

It Must Be A Camel

I was out of material. This is not a town like Paris, Vienna or New York where you can just walk out your door and get something interesting. But, since we just had penguin wanna-be's strolling Delmar Boulevard, it's reasonable to have a desert schooner prowling Soulard. What? Ask Frank.        

How It Starts

I've wondered how ice sculptors begin to extract an image from a plain block. Minutes before this was taken, one of the men did a tracing of a cardboard template onto the ice. Hard to imagine how they can execute the design freehand and get it exact.

I wanted to get in closer but I could not get around the person in the left foreground. Don't know why she was shooting phone video. She was carrying a Canon 5D Mark IV (US$ 3,300) with an expensive, high-end L series lens. (I'm ex-Canon.) It can take fabulous video.