Essentially the Only One

A companion post to Edward's.

I'm slowly going through the mass of photos from our vacation that have not yet been posted here, and here's three from our meeting with Ed on 12 July.There's Edward's back, perhaps only seconds after he took one of the photographs he posted himself. Spokane Falls.The power station.

Safe and sound. The cat is angry, but fine. House in good shape, garden overgrown. I wish I was still on vacation...

Our journey up to Chigaco last Tuesday took us up Route 100 following the line of the Illinois River valley.
One of the towns we passed through was Kampsville.

Situated on the western bank of the river, Kampsville exemplifies all the charms and idiosyncrasies of a small town in the American Midwest.

Like many river villages, it looks like it was built yesterday. This is probably because much of it was; as you can see from the photographs this area is subject to flooding. So the houses tend to be utilitarian in design, often prefabricated or mobile homes. Some are built high on steel stilts.

There are exceptions, like this restaurant where we stopped for home-made pie (peach and blackberry).

We arrived late in the afternoon, so the place was deserted except for us, three staff members and a worn-looking retiree sitting at the bar. A quiet Wednesday afternoon in Kampsville.

The only activity was the gentle back and forth of the ferry carrying a handful of cars across the river to Route 108.

I watched as a Volkswagen Beetle (the old series - still far more classier than the newer and less-than-satisfactory remodel) waited for the boat.

A small ramp in the road led up the ferry entrance. Cars coming to Kampsville would drive down past this village sign.

Buried in a hollow and shaded by the afternoon sun, it struck me as a modest and uninspiring welcome. Suited, though, to this unprepossessing town.

It really should be so much more. The countryside around is beautiful. There are a number of riverside parks and reservations close by. In another part of the world, I could imagine this town as a tourist trap, not a sleepy backwater.

The ferry headed off with the Volkswagen. It didn't look at all exciting on the other side of the Illinois so we did not follow it.

Time was pressing though. We had to reach Chicago at least a reasonable hour.

So we walked back to the gas station where we had left the car.
Past the stained shacks and pools of flood water, past the riverboats tied to the bank.

All looked like they has seen grander days. Some even looked as if they had been floating restaurants or even small casinos, but there were no signs or lights to advertise their trade.

Perhaps they come to life at the weekends or later in the season. I hoped so.
But I doubt it, or even if that does happen, it is hardly a moneymaker. Like so many rural towns in this area, the prevailing impression is of a gritty poverty. Not desperate, but barely getting by, and the antithesis of any sense of America as country of abundant wealth. I find such places to be real and honest. I feel at home in them in a way that I never feel in the glitzy McMansions of the big city suburbs.

I would be happy to see the poverty overcome and prosperity established for all the people, but not at the cost of turning these towns into little bastions of affluence, all show and no substance. There is a middle way.

Perhaps now, in these days of economic disturbance and the growing realisation that the disparities and expectations of wealth between the rich and poor have grown too great, this country can return to the ways of real worth, compassion and caring.Finally, into the car and further on up the road.

Taken on a grey, bland, and overcast day.

I perked up what was a rather blah landscape by applying a linear contrast function. Now it looks more like the moody land and seascape that I imagine Bonnie Prince Charlie fled through after the horror of the The Battle of Culloden.

My wife, my sister and my brother-in-law being kept at a respectful distance by a small group of sheep. Devon coast, England, summer 2008.

And here's the music that was going through my head at the time...

Another photo visit to the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Dennington.

Here's an interior view, showing the beautiful woodwork, much of it 600 or 700 years old and still in immaculate condition. But what caught my eye when I was framing that shot was a captivating little detail far off the ground.

Looking up to the stone supports that form the base for the wooden arches that hold up the roof, I saw that each had been fashioned into the shape of a head. (As shown by the yellow arrow in my photograph).

A close up revealed a surprisingly detailed view of some unidentified medieval person. Was it someone of significance, or perhaps a more ordinary figure? In this case, perhaps the beautiful wife of the stone mason. Were these the ordinary folk, high up and overlooking the far grander monuments to the wealthy and renowned of the village.

I liked to think so. These faces were open and friendly, much as I might like myself to be remembered in future centuries.

Whiel we were in south-western England this summer, we took a trip to one of the big new (as of 2001) local attractions, Cornwall's Eden Project.

Essentially a botanical garden stuck in a disused quarry, it's a striking site - and sight - with its series of geodesic domes - biomes as they call them - supporting a variety of tropical and mediterranean vegetation that you would not normally find in England. Looking like a series of giant flies' eyes stuck on the landscape.

Stylishly designed and laid out, I have to say I found it almost over-the-top with its self-proclaimed greenness, particularly as underneath it all are all the trappings of another cleverly conceived money-making tourist trap, complete with concert stage for rock bands.

Perhaps this is a overly cynical viewpoint, but I saw nothing there that I have not seen for years at the Missouri Botanical gardens (possessor of a geodesic dome of its own for decades), a much less flashy but deeply serious organization that has been dedicated to the preservation of wildwide flora for many years. And I could say the same about Kew Gardens in London as well as many other similar institutions worldwide.

Small quibbles. There were lots of people there having a good time, and it certainly provides Cornwall with another good tourist destination.

The whole area was very colorful, with flags galore flying from bamboo poles, and the restaurant/shop complex was a fine as any mall I've come across.

Ironically, perhaps my favorite part was a very dense slope of English wildflowers, any one of which you might find locally but not as colorfully crowded as they were here. Inside the domes, there were tropical and others beauties galore to gaze at, all in very good condition. A strong testament to the engineering skill behind the domes and climate control apparatus.

Still, I had this continually nagging feeling that I should be more impressed than I actually was. It never left me. As we were walking out, I saw this sign concerning one of the local attractions. Somehow, it seemed to sum up my feelings about the place very well. Even if they are perhaps a little unfair.

One week ago, to the day, I was fast asleep in the TravelLodge Motel near Needham Market, Suffolk, with talk of a visit of to this tomb and the church that houses it, St. Mary the Virgin in Dennington (see previous post) in my dreams from the evening before.

So this photograph was yet to come, yet now it has passed, and emphatically so as I deal with what has been a frustrating day of automobile and financial disruptions. Nothing too serious, but enough to cause us to rejiggle our plans.

However, last week none of this was apparent and I was looking forward to the church visit and feeling the increasing pressure of the end of the vacation creeping up on me. Last days on a holiday are always a little melancholy, and the last day itself, with the silent drive to the airport, the unhappiest.

But as I consider these events over the course of just one week, I am pulled back to this tomb of the Bardolphs dating all the back to 15th century. A Knight and his lady lying there, a wyvern at her feet and an eagle at his. A week in my life means nothing to theirs, so long passed. And, as people, they mean nothing to me, beyond this sculpture that marks a life sufficiently important to warrant such recognition. Yet I find myself projecting something onto them, a sense of life that exists beyond time. Do their spirits - and the spirits of all others who have lived before and now gone - register anything in this living world of light and sound? Or am I as much of a shadow to them as they are to me?

Unanswerable questions but ones I like to contemplate.

Sunday tomorrow, the last day of my long vacation. Back to work on Monday. I can't say I feel overjoyed at the prospect, but neither do I feel dismayed. It'll be good to see my workmates again.

In the meantime, on this unseasonably mild St. Louis day (81 F), at 7 in the evening but with a mind and body that feel it is 1 a.m., I'll tap a few more things that struck me about my holiday.

As I said earlier, I had very little internet access. This meant I got most of my news from newspapers. Or should have - in fact, all the British newspapers were largely filled with comment and speculation and precious little of the hard stuff. In every case, their websites prove to be vastly superior. This was a little dismaying, I guess real news does not sell. Regardless, I came away deeply unimpressed with the state of print newspapers. Nor was the BBC TV much better - same story, website is good, broadcast news mostly drivel.

The food in England was very good. Dairy products in particular have a richness and flavor that is not found in mainstream American offerings. Cheeses, cream and milk put the US to shame. The standard of cooking in the pubs and restaurants was overall excellent - as I said earlier, you usually had to pay a lot for it. After a while, I got a little tired of seeing a whopping bill for a smattering of food placed on a large plate with a few swirls of some sauce and a dusting of icing sugar for decoration.

Beer was still good, if also very pricey. Worth it.

I lugged ten lenses, two camera bodies, flash unit, tripod and ball head, laptop computer plus filters and other accessories as hand luggage all the way there and all the way back. All I lost were one puffer bottle and a hex wrench. I regard this as something of a miracle. My hand luggage weighed more than my main check-in luggage, but I managed to move it about. Lots of bumps, scrapes and scratches on my stuff, but only cosmetic damage. Everything worked - almost - and I used it all.

What failed was the hard drive on my laptop while I was in Scotland. However, I had prepared and brought with me a second drive preloaded with Windows and all necessary programs. Using a pair of nail slippers as a primitive screwdriver, I was able to swap out the corrupted drive with the good one and save the day. No pictures were lost; the boot drive failure was due to a corrupted Windows start-up file. I simply used it from that point onward as back-up drive. One case where obsessive preparation actually paid off!

But now I have an astonishing almost 8000 image files to go through, many of them duplicates of the same scene with slightly different camera settings. That will keep me going for a while.

Having a lovely time... wish you were here!

I have just a few minutes of internet access, so here's a brief update. We're coming to the end of our stay in Slapton, Devon. A delightful time spent with family, sea and some sun. Cool, and wonderfully so compared to St. Louis. Next up comes Scotland.

It feels very good to set aside work and simply be.

I don't know when I'll be back online - we're going to places with limited internet access - but you can be sure I'll be having a good time!