My View of the World
It has been a few years since I visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park so I thought it was time to finally bring up a full gallery of pictures from my visit. This park is located in southern Colorado.
Click on any picture to see a larger slideshow view.
Ft. Wayne Indiana is an interesting town in the northeast corner of the State. I go there on an annual basis to pick up my supply of Sechler’s Pickle products. I am simply addicted to their kosher dill green tomatoes. During a visit a few years ago we discovered a local museum that had a large section to do with Prohibition. That is what I am offering for ISOA Saturday today. Take the time to read the mural included to see some pretty quirky things about my home State. I will leave the more historical report for a future post.
I thought I would use this week’s ISOA post to show you some pictures of old buildings and such I have found during my travels in Indiana.
Antonito Colorado is without a doubt one of the strangest towns I have ever been in. We went through the town on our way back from Mesa Verde two years ago.According to the statistics, it has a population of about 800 people, we didn’t see more than a handful while we were there.
One thing that Indiana simply doesn’t have are mountains. To me, there is just so much majesty in mountains. Sometimes I have brief glimpses of being a mountain man but I think that is probably just too much watching “Jeremiah Johnson” than anything approaching reality. 🙂
So, this InSearchOfAmerica post gives you some of my favorite pictures of my travels out west in the last decade.
In this weeks ISOA post I thought I would finish off my report about San Francisco. Of course the first view is the Golden Gate Bridge, second is The Wharf. Don’t miss the Aquarium, it is one of the best in the country. We must have roamed about 6 miles one day throughout the neighborhoods. Not bad for a couple of senior citizens. Regretfully we never managed to get a ride on a cable car.
As usual click on any picture to bring up a larger slide show view
I will be the first to admit that I have only been in California on a handful of occasions and only once in the 21st century. But here is my gallery celebrating your State. I visited San Francisco and those pictures will be coming soon. But for this gallery I want to concentrate on the central farm lands and such. Here is a gallery of that:
As usual click on any picture to see a larger slideshow view:
I need another ISOA post to take my mind off this very stressful week.
For this week’s ISOA (in search of America) post lets go to the Oklahoma State house in Oklahoma City and focus particularly on the paintings and sculptures there. This was one of the most lavish state houses I have been in and it was also the most paranoid as far as security is concerned. It was my feeling that they didn’t really appreciate people taking pictures. When a young Asian couple were taking pictures of the unoccupied House chamber a guard came up and confiscated their memory card from their camera. I try not to let that experience blunt the memory of the great paintings there. I guess I looked a little less threatening than those Asian kids did as he didn’t take my card…
As usual click on any picture to see a larger slideshow view
Here we are in mid-January in the Midwest so there isn’t much growing. But that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the flowers I found in the Des Moines Botanical Gardens a few years back. I haven’t had to deal with much snow so far but I still got the winter blahs…. so I need plenty of flowers. 🙂
As usual click on any pic to see a larger slideshow view
One of the most impressive city projects I have ever seen is the Wildnerness Park that extends through downtown Omaha Nebraska. I goes on for about a mile with bronze after bronze celebrating the buffalo that once populated so much of that State. Here is a rather extensive gallery/slideshow but it is still nothing like actually seeing them in person.
As usual click on any picture to see a larger slideshow view.
I have been remiss to put out a gallery post of my visit to the Spirit of Vincennes Rendezvous this past May. Since I am a Hoosier I know I am supposed to see George Rogers Clark as a hero but I just can’t get over his brutal slaughter of so many Native Americans in to clear out the State for others to take over. He, like Andrew Jackson, are just not heroes of mine. But that doesn’t take away from the historical significance of the rendezvous.
As usual click on any picture to see a larger slideshow view
I spent a couple of summers during high school as a farm hand. A lot of it was putting up hay but some was helping with the planting and harvesting. I hate to admit it but some of these antique tractors were the same models that I drove during those years.
Everything is being automated now. Even the tractors are beginning to be driven by GPS enabled robots. Less then 1% of us are now working the land. Its good to look back on the past to see where we have been. I enjoy the continuing tractor shows here in the Midwest. Read more
A part of my “In Search Of America” journeys is about documenting the many different containers used in our past. Each one is as much an art object as it was a functional container for our goods. They come in various sizes and materials. Here is a sample of some I have collected:
Recently I visited the Zoar Village in central Ohio that is one of the few villages where the whole town is on the National Register of Historic Places. As is often the case Zoar was platted by Germans escaping religious prosecution by the Lutheran church in the early 1800s. It was a communal colony but unlike most did not discourage gawkers so it has a rich pictorial history that I hope to bring you more of in future posts. For now just enjoy some of the buildings found there. It shamefully seems that many of these type sites are falling out of favor with tourists so if you are in the area give them a visit and maybe a small donation.
As usual click on any of the pictures below to see a larger slideshow view.
On one of my recent uRV trips to northeastern Indiana I visited the Swiss Heritage Village. It was recommended to me by the tourist information center in the city of Berne. I was not aware that there was a strong Swiss presence in that part of the State.
Here are some pictures of that visit.
(Click on any picture to see a larger slideshow view)
I felt very privileged that Phil Montgomery who is a docent at the village gave me a personal tour. The info about the area was very interesting and the buildings were well restored for their appropriate time periods. The large cider press was awesome…
