Skip to main content

Night Again

Here is the chimp once again, flailing in front of his typewriter, banging keys for my amusement, making noise but not a masterpiece.  Today's mission, up early to travel east of Emerald City to try and glimpse Comet Catalina.   It is almost blistering cold this morning in December.  Out by the old school, funeral home, American Legion building there is a country road that will serve as my headquarters.  Coordinates for the elusive comet kinda, sorta in my head.  Clear skies, warm truck, my gear at the ready.   



I present this first picture not because it was crafted with mastery, but simply because I was fortunate to get a shooting star.  Unknown to me at the time I was unaware until I got it home.  The moon shines brightly but luckily I was able to catch the streaking object in the upper right hand part of the picture.  




While on this country road I decided to pan the camera down from the heavens and to take advantage of the Illinois landscape.  New nowadays that were not around when I was growing up in these parts are the many phone towers.  In fact it is almost impossible to take a picture of the land without one.  This road is a good one for such pictures:  the power lines start on the left for right side pictures, and then switches over to being on the right side for left side picture taking.  Very considerate of Ameren. 







This picture taking trip is over.  I didn't get the Comet, and sadly, failed to get it down here on the days it was closest to earth - cloud cover.  But I got some moderately interesting cold landscapes of a barren countryside.  Plenty of reason for the chimp to continue clattering. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless.  Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001.  It was one of those things that can generate crime:  two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job.   Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things.  Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold.   But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find.   His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead.  He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds.  He will be paralyzed for life.   None of this is pleasant.  Reading the f...

Florida Air Museum - Part 3

Welcome back to a pretty neat tour of the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland Florida.  There's a lot to see and a couple of the old Geezer Gold Wing guys are already sitting down instead of walking around looking at the exhibits. That's John who is wore out and making a call to his wife.  In all honesty, John was pretty well bushed before the ride.  He told me his daughter's family was down from one of the Carolina's with the grand kids and he must have played with them too much.   He's about to take off on his own and head for home, but he's going to miss a couple of neat things out on Hangar A.   But, before we walk over there, we have lots yet to see here.  If you saw The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Howard Hughes, you'll remember that he went up in a plane during the filming of one of his movies to prove a point about flying.  He crashed trying to execute a roll and this is a picture of the plane he crashed.  No...

The Mary Davis Home - Part 2

None of these pictures were taken by me,  they came right from the MDH website.  I am posting these so that friends who have never seen inside where I worked can gain access.  After 27 years I have many stories, tales and acquaintances.  But, I wouldn't know how to express them appropriately in a few paragraphs.  I enjoyed 98% of my stay there and hope I made a difference in the lives of a fraction of the kids who entered.  The original MDH at this site was just the front part.  The large red-roofed area in back was added on in the 90's. This is the Jerry Carlton library.  It was unofficially named after one of the counselors who truly loved the place.   He passed away around 2002, I think.  Mr. Farber looks like he is explaining a few things to a client. The classroom. Activity area with the gym behind the windows. Another shot of the classroom. It was a little different area to teach since we had 2 classes and 2 teachers i...