Category: United States

Memory Lane Cemetery

Posted on by Annie

If you want to really know the history of a place, find the cemetery. The Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City, New Mexico displays over a century of history, plot by plot. It’s not fancy, but this is a family plot. I can almost imagine the sons erecting this wired barrier in the hot sun, marking their spot for the ages. This family plot my have a fancier fence, but the signs are pure poverty, or perhaps just practicality in a mining town where money was hard to come by for most. I can almost see people lettering the signs, hammering the boards together, then…

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Sunday Serenity: Desiderata

Posted on by Annie

So here I am in downtown Terre Haute with my left hand in a cast. I decided to walk around a little bit and see something other than the little hotel room where I’m staying for the next several days waiting for the doctor appointment on Thursday to tell me my next move. I see this sign and wandered closer to read what it says. Impressive. But not as impressive as the statue behind it. Meet Max Ehrmann, a Terre Haute native. If that name sounds vaguely familiar probably should if you grew up in the 1970s. He wrote the Desiderata,…

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Sunday Serenity: Middle America

Posted on by Annie

My whole life I’ve lived on either the West Coast or the East Coast, never far from ocean. Spending the last month going through Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois and now Indiana is showing me parts of the country I’d not paid much attention to before, so as we close out May, here’s a salute to the middle of America. This view is what the western-bound pioneers saw as they went through Scotts Bluff. They were one-third done with their journey at this point. All I can think looking at this is how tough they were compared to me, driving a nice…

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Glass Botanicals

Posted on by Annie

The Missouri Botanical Garden has a wonderful display in the Climatron (a big glass dome, so think oversized terrarium) that features glass art amid the many species of plants normally living in there. It was fun to wander through and spot the glass installations and how they echoed the nearby foliage. I loved these huge leaves. I had fun with the water, playing with the camera settings to make the water look like silk. This water installation was amazing in its construction and reflection. I almost missed this one because I was so busy looking down, not up. Lesson learned: look…

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The Big Muddy

Posted on by Annie

I’ve flown over the Missouri countless times, seen its wandering path through the middle of the country. I’ve driven across it in South Dakota, and even dipped my feet in it at a boat launch near a McDonald’s in the middle of Saint Louis. Seeing the expanse of the wide Missouri in a natural setting, at ground level, at water’s edge, was a completely different experience. This is a huge river, fast-flowing from floods above this week (with flood warnings all the way from the Dakotas past Saint Louis, even though there are four big dams above Kansas City to control the…

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