Essentially the Only One

Two more from yesterday's drive home through Illinois. A vertical lift rail bridge over the Illinois River in Ottawa, IL, and the Starved Rock Lock and Dam as seen from Starved Rock itself.

Taken near Magnolia Hollow Conservation Area on Sunday afternoon.

I can't quite put my finger on why I like this view so much. It might be the multihued foreground contrasting with the bones of trees in the background, although even they are brushed with a little color.

But I do.

Columbia Bottom Conservation Area this evening. Winter continues its approach, but today was warm (64°F/18°C) and sunny for the bulk of the day. This helped generate a very pleasant ambience for a trip through this Mississippi Valley conservation area.

Unfortunately for both me and ducks, a hunt was in progress that kept me away from some of my favored spots, but it didn't really matter that much. I didn't even that bad for the ducks, the two and half hours I spent brought only one gunshot to my ear.So I wandered around deliciously aimlessly, sopping up the light and warmth before the sun dipped below the horizon, stealing all the warmth of the day with its disappearance.

My friend and work colleague Shobna grew this sweet potato. It has not been carved or altered in any way - this is how it came out of the ground.

Amazing!

This serious looking statue is a representation of Dr. Edmund A. Babler, a St. Louis surgeon. The statue and the 3.8 square mile park in which it sits were commissioned and donated by Dr. Babler's brothers in his memory. Quite a memorial.

The park itself is found west of St. Louis in Wildwood and consists of rolling hills on the south side of the Missouri River.

It's a rather beautiful park, but one I've avoided for many years because I have associated it with my first marriage. It was a fairly common hangout at that time, and is clearly still popular with young West St. Louis County residents. This little group camped out beneath the statue very much resembled those I was part of in my younger days - it was a little eerie seeing them. Almost as if time had turned back.Still, I have made it a sub-textual objective of mine to wash this entire region free of older and unhappier memories and my explorations over the past few years have worked towards this happy goal.

Just how far I have come was clear to me as I re-explored this pretty wood on Sunday afternoon. Dark emotions that would have clouded any such visit a decade or so ago were not there. I felt quite relaxed. Not altogether surprising - I have put together a very full and satisfying life since. But you never know...I drove through the woods, finding these little pavilions that once I had partied under, now showing a delightful mossy age to match my own. A little further on I came to a burned-out building; too enthusiastic a camp fire, I guessed. Still, it gave me a pretty evening view though the bare trees.While taking this shot, a very fit and energetic disabled woman swung by on her racing tricycle and asked me to move my car so she could access her van's wheelchair lift. She then did me the favor of spotting a deflated rear tire on my Toyota - not flat, but getting close. A brief interaction, but enough to generate a sense of the park of today and not a repository of yesterday's memories. For that, I was as grateful to her as I was about the tire, but I did not tell her so. Home then, out past the central area with that imposing statue, with those old memories vacuumed up and away into the sky.

A freight train speeding along as I headed home from the Illinois American Bottom this evening.

While last night's election results will mostly make me miserable and my Republican friends happy - and I always like to see my friends happy - here in St. Louis the county passed, by a wide margin, a smoking ban. This result ratifies a similar ban proposed in the city, so that by 2011, St. Louis will be essentially smoke-free (except certain bars, and naturally enough, the casinos!)

By now it is overwhelming clear that public smoking bans have definite health benefits, most strikingly on heart attacks, so this is good news. Now, if we could only clean up the rest of the garbage in our less-than-pristine industrial air!

Bellefontaine Cemetery closes at 5 p.m. each day that it is open. Fortunate it is then that the clocks went forward today in addition to the shortening days as winter creeps in. For that let me enjoy the long shadows and pale light of a fall evening. Add to that a still vibrant palette of autumn colors, and I enjoyed a feast of dappled, glowing light this night after Halloween.