Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Second year at the Fair
We got an early start so that we could have her home in time for a nap. The girls have to squint into the morning sun for a photo opportunity on one of the family lawn mowers.
Here she has escaped from her Mama and Grandma and is rushing along the sidewalk near the DNR building.
A group photo on her favorite new bench. She was fascinated by the holes in the bench.
The state's largest pumpkin isn't really that large this year and it doesn't look very much like a pumpkin.
We all had lots of fun.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
First day of the Fair
We, of course, love the Fair. So we do not view this as a negative. This is just what the first day of the Fair does to our street. We are located a two block walk from the nearest Park and Ride free bus shuttle to the Fairgrounds.
And we refuse to mind. We love the Fair.
I cropped my eclipse photo.
We are glad to be home.
I cropped my eclipse photo.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
2,000 posts
I failed to notice yesterday but given the significance of yesterday's events I am not even disappointed. Still, I need to mention today that Total Eclipse of the Sun was my 2,000th post on this blog.
Today?
Well, 2001, and we were in Saint Louis so we went to look at the Gateway Arch.
That was on the sidewalk as we walked from the parking garage down towards the riverfront. Actually the parking garage is one of the best stories of the day. We drove from the motel down to Exit 40 and turned into downtown Saint Louis. We passed a couple of surface lots with staff on duty collecting $20 to park. That seemed like a lot but it also seemed like what the market might be. Eventually we got right down to the area in downtown directly opposite the Arch. We pulled into a ramp which was marked as having public parking. Before we took the ticket I asked the attendant what their rates were. $2 for the first hour. We entered the ramp, did the amount of tourist activity that satisfied our Gateway Arch urges, got back to the ramp and paid $3 and went on with our lives.
We parked downtown in a major metropolitan area and viewed the most significant local tourist attraction in the area (except perhaps for the Budweiser brewery) and paid $3.
We've all seen this a lot on TV but here is what it looked like today from close up, the Gateway Arch.
Fellow Traveler for scale, sun burst on the stainless steel arch against a cloudy and grey sky for artistic effect.
It is the largest stainless steel structure in the world.
It's big, much, much bigger than it looks on TV. That seems to be true of nearly every thing I have only seen before on TV when I see it in person. It is much, much bigger than it looks on TV.
She ran up and down those steps on the right but that is her story. The bridge in the background is the MLK bridge. That hulking thing frame left is, well, it's the Arch.
The local tourist information touts an old church and an old courthouse in the city within a few blocks of the Arch.
We checked them both out.
The old church is only old by time as measured on this side of the Atlantic (not even beginning to consider time as measured on this side of the Pacific). There have been three churches on that spot, the most recent is the first of those three to be a stone church. It is a pretty nice old stone church. But it really isn't very big and it really isn't very old, having been consecrated in 1834, but it is stone. It is probably the most grand stone church that any city of mid-continent USA could imagine constructing at that point in history. It has historical value and I am glad we took a look. At that moment we were dealing with a brief but substantial rain sprinkle and a brief but very bothersome camera battery hassle. Both circumstances were resolved fairly rapidly but I didn't get a photo of the church.
I did get a photo of the old courthouse.
The diversion from our motel back downtown to view the Arch meant for a very long day of driving, our longest so far on this road trip. We both think that it was still a good idea. It would have been a shame to come to a major city where neither of us had ever been before and not view the major local tourist site. For those coming to Saint Louis, definitely, definitely make the trip to the Gateway Arch. It should be on your must see list. Further, the public parking ramp at North 4th Street and Olive Street should be on your preferred parking list.
Today?
Well, 2001, and we were in Saint Louis so we went to look at the Gateway Arch.
We parked downtown in a major metropolitan area and viewed the most significant local tourist attraction in the area (except perhaps for the Budweiser brewery) and paid $3.
We've all seen this a lot on TV but here is what it looked like today from close up, the Gateway Arch.
It is the largest stainless steel structure in the world.
It's big, much, much bigger than it looks on TV. That seems to be true of nearly every thing I have only seen before on TV when I see it in person. It is much, much bigger than it looks on TV.
The local tourist information touts an old church and an old courthouse in the city within a few blocks of the Arch.
We checked them both out.
The old church is only old by time as measured on this side of the Atlantic (not even beginning to consider time as measured on this side of the Pacific). There have been three churches on that spot, the most recent is the first of those three to be a stone church. It is a pretty nice old stone church. But it really isn't very big and it really isn't very old, having been consecrated in 1834, but it is stone. It is probably the most grand stone church that any city of mid-continent USA could imagine constructing at that point in history. It has historical value and I am glad we took a look. At that moment we were dealing with a brief but substantial rain sprinkle and a brief but very bothersome camera battery hassle. Both circumstances were resolved fairly rapidly but I didn't get a photo of the church.
I did get a photo of the old courthouse.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Total eclipse of the sun
Carbondale, Illinois, outdoors on a hot and sultry day in late August. Whose idea was this? And which other person thought it was a good idea?
But it was a good idea in the end.
We made it down I-64 to exit 50 where we turned onto Illinois 127 south and into one of the worst traffic messes of this or any other lifetime. The first little town just off I-64 was Nashville. One stop light, no other impediments to traffic.
30 minutes.
About 18 miles to Pinckneyville where in the middle of town Illinois 127 has to divert around a square in the middle of town because they have placed the courthouse in the middle of the road.
30 minutes.
Fairly clear sailing after that until we joined the queue to enter Grass Lot A of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. They had two or three people working the entrance but were allowing entrance only of a single lane at a time. One kid stood there with a flag moving the line up to the next kid who was monitoring entrance to the lot. Some people had to stop to pay. EVERYONE had to wait while those people paid. We and most other people had pre-paid and when we finally got to the front of the queue (after about 45 minutes) we were just waved right in. The slightest, tiny bit of planning would have had a pay lane and a pre-paid lane (there was plenty of room) which would have made paying in advance an advantage instead of what it was today, nothing at all. We WERE allowed to park.
Next was the shuttle bus which was OK although it was just an orange school bus with open windows. By now temperatures had reached the low 90s with a dew point in the upper 70s. Hot and sultry, dangerous weather conditions. Eventually the temperature reached 97 with a 79 dew point. Dangerous even for the young and fit.
But we got to the stadium OK. One of the main reasons for buying stadium admission was that NASA certified viewing glasses came free with stadium entrance. We prepared to go inside.
Did I mention sultry and hot? And inside under the seating area a pretty much complete absence of even the tiny hint of a breeze available outside.
We got oriented and hydrated and sought out our seats.
A 14,000 seat sell out on aluminum benches with an artificial turf field.
We stayed about 3 minutes, long enough to locate the sun (not hard but it was behind us and too high in the sky to viewed in anything but an uncomfortable twist) and to test our glasses. The glasses tested to be as good as advertised but those aluminum seats were uncomfortable to the touch and the non grass field wasn't doing anything to help either. It was just too hot to stay inside.
On the way out one of the vendors volunteered that we could take cardboard from their broken down merchandise boxes if we wished. We accepted the cardboard and once outside found a tiny bit of almost shade and set up shop. Here is the fellow traveler with her eclipse glasses, Saluki fans and our water bottles and cardboard.
She is smiling but only because she has been given the UBA and that is the only possible way she knows a photo is occurring. She CANNOT see me, she cannot see anything other than the sun through those eclipse glasses.
So by that point the moon had started its path across and a tiny corner of the sun was obscured. We got to half eclipse or so before a bank of clouds rolled in.
The sun is powerful and often you could tell where it was behind the clouds but mostly it was not visible at all for about the next twenty minutes or until just before totality.
And then, perhaps due to the insistent encouragement of the gathered Carbondale Thousands, at just before totality an opening appeared in the clouds exactly where the sun was.
And so we saw it.
Total eclipse of the sun.
Lasting for two minutes and 40 seconds.
There we stood, eclipse glasses off, totally not necessary for this period of the event, staring straight at the black disc of the moon surrounded by the corona of the sun.
Cool. Very, very cool. A really good idea.
I had obtained a really good solar filter for my camera but during the early lead up had found it impossible to locate the sun through the filter.
Afterwards I found a chair where I could lean back and take my time.
Successful photograph of the sun starting to reemerge from behind the moon.
So we made it here on time and we saw the show.
On the way home the traffic jam for Pinckneyville started 5 miles outside of town. It took approximately an hour to get through that town.
Then the single stop light in Nashville took about 45 minutes.
But those are just stories that will become humorous with the passage of time.
We were present for the total eclipse of the sun. That's two for me in this life time and three if you count the total annular eclipse that we viewed in Utah a couple of years ago. There's going to be another one here in Carbondale in 2024. Stay tuned.
But it was a good idea in the end.
We made it down I-64 to exit 50 where we turned onto Illinois 127 south and into one of the worst traffic messes of this or any other lifetime. The first little town just off I-64 was Nashville. One stop light, no other impediments to traffic.
30 minutes.
About 18 miles to Pinckneyville where in the middle of town Illinois 127 has to divert around a square in the middle of town because they have placed the courthouse in the middle of the road.
30 minutes.
Fairly clear sailing after that until we joined the queue to enter Grass Lot A of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. They had two or three people working the entrance but were allowing entrance only of a single lane at a time. One kid stood there with a flag moving the line up to the next kid who was monitoring entrance to the lot. Some people had to stop to pay. EVERYONE had to wait while those people paid. We and most other people had pre-paid and when we finally got to the front of the queue (after about 45 minutes) we were just waved right in. The slightest, tiny bit of planning would have had a pay lane and a pre-paid lane (there was plenty of room) which would have made paying in advance an advantage instead of what it was today, nothing at all. We WERE allowed to park.
Next was the shuttle bus which was OK although it was just an orange school bus with open windows. By now temperatures had reached the low 90s with a dew point in the upper 70s. Hot and sultry, dangerous weather conditions. Eventually the temperature reached 97 with a 79 dew point. Dangerous even for the young and fit.
But we got to the stadium OK. One of the main reasons for buying stadium admission was that NASA certified viewing glasses came free with stadium entrance. We prepared to go inside.
We got oriented and hydrated and sought out our seats.
A 14,000 seat sell out on aluminum benches with an artificial turf field.
On the way out one of the vendors volunteered that we could take cardboard from their broken down merchandise boxes if we wished. We accepted the cardboard and once outside found a tiny bit of almost shade and set up shop. Here is the fellow traveler with her eclipse glasses, Saluki fans and our water bottles and cardboard.
So by that point the moon had started its path across and a tiny corner of the sun was obscured. We got to half eclipse or so before a bank of clouds rolled in.
The sun is powerful and often you could tell where it was behind the clouds but mostly it was not visible at all for about the next twenty minutes or until just before totality.
And then, perhaps due to the insistent encouragement of the gathered Carbondale Thousands, at just before totality an opening appeared in the clouds exactly where the sun was.
And so we saw it.
Total eclipse of the sun.
Lasting for two minutes and 40 seconds.
There we stood, eclipse glasses off, totally not necessary for this period of the event, staring straight at the black disc of the moon surrounded by the corona of the sun.
Cool. Very, very cool. A really good idea.
I had obtained a really good solar filter for my camera but during the early lead up had found it impossible to locate the sun through the filter.
Afterwards I found a chair where I could lean back and take my time.
Successful photograph of the sun starting to reemerge from behind the moon.
On the way home the traffic jam for Pinckneyville started 5 miles outside of town. It took approximately an hour to get through that town.
Then the single stop light in Nashville took about 45 minutes.
But those are just stories that will become humorous with the passage of time.
We were present for the total eclipse of the sun. That's two for me in this life time and three if you count the total annular eclipse that we viewed in Utah a couple of years ago. There's going to be another one here in Carbondale in 2024. Stay tuned.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Road trip
We are once again out on the highways and byways of our great continent seeking entertainment.
Today's journey brought us to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home of the high A league affiliate of our local team, theTwins. We came to see a home game for the Cedar Rapids Kernels who would be taking on the Beloit Snappers.
Mostly we were here to see the new phenom, the Twins number 1 draft choice, Royce Lewis. He is barely 18 years old, having turned 18 in June. It is a very long road to get there from here but we happily took this opportunity for an early peek at a player we may see again. Here he takes his first swing of the evening.
Good luck to the young man. He is athletic to be sure but his results on this evening were not the best. He was 0 for 3 at the plate and had an error in the field as the Kernels shortstop.
This is what the league race looked like going into this evening's game.
Cedar Rapids won the game and moved within a half game of Beloit for fourth place in the West. I have no idea what that means for them in terms of post season possibilities
The fellow traveler posed in our seats, first row behind the home dugout, with the scoreboard in center field visible behind her.
Four different Kernels pitchers combined to produce a pitching gem, holding the Snappers to two hits and no runs.
After the game there were fireworks.
Before the game the fellow traveler was insistent upon the gift shop.
We bought the shirt. The rubber ball was just a tiny bit harder. At the conclusion of the game each member of the Kernels was given a Burger King logo small rubber ball to toss into the stands. We were in the first row behind the home team dugout, I held up my hands and eventually number 15, Colton Davis, looked right at me and tossed me his ball. I am pleased to report that I am still capable of making the catch on a short toss of a rubber ball.
As a result someone has a new shirt and a new ball with a story.
It was a beautiful night in Iowa, a fabulous night for baseball and fireworks.
Tomorrow we will venture even farther south.
Today's journey brought us to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home of the high A league affiliate of our local team, theTwins. We came to see a home game for the Cedar Rapids Kernels who would be taking on the Beloit Snappers.
Mostly we were here to see the new phenom, the Twins number 1 draft choice, Royce Lewis. He is barely 18 years old, having turned 18 in June. It is a very long road to get there from here but we happily took this opportunity for an early peek at a player we may see again. Here he takes his first swing of the evening.
This is what the league race looked like going into this evening's game.
The fellow traveler posed in our seats, first row behind the home dugout, with the scoreboard in center field visible behind her.
As a result someone has a new shirt and a new ball with a story.
It was a beautiful night in Iowa, a fabulous night for baseball and fireworks.
Tomorrow we will venture even farther south.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Ides ride
Today was a rarity for August, a day when it was plenty cool enough to allow an afternoon ride.
I tried a new route down to the Capitol. The route needs some work but it is promising in that it avoids the giant climb over the railroad tracks. That climb starts at the bottom of one of the iterations of Glacial River Warren found here in town (think really deep valley) and then goes high over some tracks and then down off the bridge to a spot back on top of the other side of the glacial formation. Big hill. Hills are one thing but this totally artificial uphill just to get over some railroad tracks has gradually come to irritate me.
I got to the newly renovated Capitol to find that the front lawn has been completely restored to lawn.
Count me surprised but glad. That was always the wrong place for a parking lot.
But here is what surprised me the most, located on the curb in front of an area school building that I ride past on almost every ride, both north and south.
It's a bicycle repair station. There is a pump, some tire tools, a couple of wrenches and a couple of hex wrenches, all of the tools cabled to the stand which also includes a stand to place your bicycle on while you do the work.
I just hope that my next on the road flat tire occurs somewhere near this new public amenity.
I tried a new route down to the Capitol. The route needs some work but it is promising in that it avoids the giant climb over the railroad tracks. That climb starts at the bottom of one of the iterations of Glacial River Warren found here in town (think really deep valley) and then goes high over some tracks and then down off the bridge to a spot back on top of the other side of the glacial formation. Big hill. Hills are one thing but this totally artificial uphill just to get over some railroad tracks has gradually come to irritate me.
I got to the newly renovated Capitol to find that the front lawn has been completely restored to lawn.
But here is what surprised me the most, located on the curb in front of an area school building that I ride past on almost every ride, both north and south.
I just hope that my next on the road flat tire occurs somewhere near this new public amenity.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
The Ocho
Today is 8-8 and in honor of that juxtaposition of eights and the Vince Vaughn movie "Dodgeball", the folks in Bristol have designated ESPN-U as the Ocho for today and are running odd sports including dodgeball on trampolines and ultimate frisbee. Stuff you don't see very often.
Today was pretty much like yesterday and today's ride was pretty much like yesterday.
Except today I had a guest rider.
It was a full ride again today. Full ride is an endurance sport and today required a bit of endurance. Life is good, we had a nice time out there.
Today was pretty much like yesterday and today's ride was pretty much like yesterday.
Except today I had a guest rider.
Monday, August 7, 2017
Waning
One of the very first signs of fall.
The Fair is at the very end of summer. When they close the Fairgrounds for final Fair preparation it must be true that summer is on the wane.
Today the Fairgrounds are closed.
I rode past the site of last week's gas explosion. It is right on my regular route to Minnehaha Falls.
There was a TV crew on site, interviewing some of the onlookers I guess even at this point well after the event it still has some news value.
Here is the Falls from down at the end of the main gorge.
It was a pretty day out, a nice day for a ride.
I rode the full distance.
The Fair is at the very end of summer. When they close the Fairgrounds for final Fair preparation it must be true that summer is on the wane.
Today the Fairgrounds are closed.
Here is the Falls from down at the end of the main gorge.
I rode the full distance.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Destination 2
Excuses are easy.
I kept catching sniffles from the baby.
The weather went really bad, nine days of rain in a row.
I went to England.
It was TOO HOT.
Today was our anniversary (where did all of that time GO?). We have both been riding an at least fair amount. Today seemed like a really good time to do something significant. We have been to the destination to the south. I am not a bicyclist in this city if I cannot ride to Lake Vadnais, the destination to the north. Today that's where we went.
Those familiar with the regular route will know that we usually ride past Lake Vadnais on the west side of the lake and then make a lateral move over to approach the lake from the top side. This means that we ride through Sucker Lake before we arrive at Lake Vadnais. Today Sucker Lake featured a couple of big white birds.
Swans. And a bench.
GRider at the upper end of Lake Vadnais.
The picnic tables at the main parking area.
Checking stuff off the list is good. Today we checked some stuff off.
It was a nice day for a ride, there was never a point when it seemed too hard, even the change in elevation coming up from the lake was handled fairly easily.
I will say, though, that now a few hours after the ride I feel like I worked pretty hard today.
Which is a feeling I enjoy.
I kept catching sniffles from the baby.
The weather went really bad, nine days of rain in a row.
I went to England.
It was TOO HOT.
Today was our anniversary (where did all of that time GO?). We have both been riding an at least fair amount. Today seemed like a really good time to do something significant. We have been to the destination to the south. I am not a bicyclist in this city if I cannot ride to Lake Vadnais, the destination to the north. Today that's where we went.
Those familiar with the regular route will know that we usually ride past Lake Vadnais on the west side of the lake and then make a lateral move over to approach the lake from the top side. This means that we ride through Sucker Lake before we arrive at Lake Vadnais. Today Sucker Lake featured a couple of big white birds.
GRider at the upper end of Lake Vadnais.
It was a nice day for a ride, there was never a point when it seemed too hard, even the change in elevation coming up from the lake was handled fairly easily.
I will say, though, that now a few hours after the ride I feel like I worked pretty hard today.
Which is a feeling I enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
