Cape Girardeau History and Photos

November 28, 2013November 29, 2013

Through the Mountains

I hated not being home for Thanksgiving, but I liked the empty roads the holiday presented me. I had a pleasant day’s drive through the mountains in West Virginia and Virginia.

Jan was driving last time

I pretty much missed seeing the mountains the last trip through there with Friend Jan.

A. It was at night.
B. I was asleep because I found the best way to be a passenger when Jan is driving is to have your eyes closed.

I wish I had done a better job with these. It’s hard balancing the camera on the steering wheel while you’re rocketing downhill on a twisty road. If I had been able to adjust the polarizing filter and diddle with the zoom and exposures, these would have been more interesting. As it was, I just pointed and pushed the button.

Photo Gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery.

November 27, 2013

Altenburg Christmas Trees

I was busy shooting photos for my Last Generation project in Perry County, so I didn’t have much time to hang around the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum while they were putting up this year’s Christmas Tree Exhibit. In fact, the only shot I could find was of Dorothy Weinhold perched on a ladder putting the finishing touches on her tree.

[Drat! I just discovered that the Dorothy photo is on a harddrive buried in the back of the van. Sorry, Dorothy, I don’t have any way to get to it. I’ll have to sub a photo from an earlier year.]

Director Carla Jordan posted on the Heritage Center’s website, “The museum will be open every day from 10am-4pm this season (except Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Years Day.) We will be open until 8pm every Thursday evening in December, and until 9pm on Dec. 19th & 20th for the Christmas Country Church Tour. Admission is always free.”

Warren Schmidt Video

Fortunately, Warren Schmidt my favorite right-wing curmudgeon and executive board president, transformed a bunch of still photos into an impressive video so you can sample the flavor of the exhibit.

Past exhibits

Travel update

If you saw Wednesday’s Athens Winter Storm Video, you might figure out why I decided to stay another day in Ohio. The West Virginia DOT website showed most of the route through the mountains as clear, but there were a few patches that were marked as slush and a couple that said “severe.”

Iffy road conditions and a gazillion cars heading for grandma’s and already late didn’t sound like fun. I’d rather drive when the roads are clear and everybody is holed up with football, parades and turkey.

I slept late, then went up to the library to research the protest movement in the late 60s and early 70s for an exhibit I’m doing in the spring. There’s a pretty good chance I’ve spent more time in the OU library in the past two days than I ever did when I was a student.

I was scurrying to get back to my car before the parking meter ran out when I spotted the iconic War Memorial statue warming his back in the last rays of the afternoon sun. He must have needed it: there’s still a patch of snow on his shoulder.

I should be Florida-bound Thursday. I hope there will be some turkey left when I pull into the driveway.

November 26, 2013

Athens Winter Storm Video

If you’ve been following my travel saga on Facebook, you’ve heard me worrying about the weather. Well, the winter storm caught up with me in Athens, Ohio, Tuesday.

Temperatures hovered just above the freezing mark all day, so I got to splash around in cold, miserable rain that was trying to make up its mind. When I sat down to dinner, it was raining with an occasional flake mixed in. Just as I started to get up, I pulled up the weather ap on my tablet. It was clear from looking at the amateur weather stations that the line of 32-degree temps had just hit us.

I called Wife Lila to tell her that huge flakes of the catch-em-on-your-tongue variety were falling from sky.

“Take pictures,” she said

“Take pictures,” she said. “That’s cool.”

“You don’t understand,” I tried to explain to someone in Florida, “the SNOW is cool to look at, but the air it’s riding in is COLD.”

“Take pictures anyway,” was her response. “Shoot video.”

“Yes, Dear,” was my response (as it should have been the first time she asked. I’ve been away from home so long my reaction time has gotten slow).

The video is pretty neat

OK, I’m glad she made me do it. The picture at the top of the page is a screen grab from the 37-second video. That’s why it’s not as sharp as if I had taken it with my Nikon still camera.

November 26, 2013

Truck on I-55

I’ve passed this high-flying 18-wheeler a bunch of times over the years, but this is the first time I’ve bothered to pull off the road to snap a picture of it. It’s on the east side of I-55 near Sikeston. And, yes, it’s the real deal, not a billboard or a model.

I was prepared with an excuse if a cop pulled up to tell me that stopping on the Interstate isn’t allowed: “But officer, my Check Engine light came on and I wanted to make sure everything was OK.”

Of course, when your van has 181,000 miles on it, the Check Engine light is ALWAYS on. I get out, raise the hood, check to see if the engine is still there and then keep driving down the road. If the light ever DOES go out, I’ll assume that the bulb burned out, not that the problem mysteriously healed itself.

The Kid has theories

(That might be the reason Kid Matt concocted this Shameless Plug page. He doesn’t want to have to drive to some Podunk town to pick me up when the van dies.)

(He has a second theory, too: he says everybody is too busy heading out for Turkey Day, preparing for Turkey Day or recovering from Turkey Day that they aren’t going to be reading the blog this week. That’s why you’re going to get some light-weight content while I’m on MY way back to Florida.)

Oh, by the way, I covered the Sikeston Rodeo. Jim Nabors performed there in 1965. Here are more photos of the 1965 Rodeo.

On the road

Speaking of travel, I left Cape Monday morning for Athens, Ohio. I was worried about the weather because of all the freezing rain, ice pellet, snow and sleet warnings along the route. On top of that, there was a forecast for four inches of snow in Athens on Tuesday.

To get home I was going to have to go over some pretty tall stacks of rocks where Florida Friend Jan saw her first snow in January. I may end up staying an extra day in Athens if West Virginia gets any serious snow.

As it turned out, I must have been racing the frozen precip all day. I could see I was on the eastern edge for at least 40% of Monday. The snow pellets sounded like my car was being peppered with BBs; the snow, fairly heavy from time to time, was pretty. It swirled around in the wake of traffic, but it never stuck.

Here was the obligatory Good-Bye selfie. It only took 19 frames to get one even close to having both of us in it.