Rachel Visits

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Butch

We like to have our grandchildren visit us every few weeks and this weekend was Rachel’s turn. We picked her up after lunch on Saturday and when we got home Karen cooked up a batch of sugar cookies for Rachel to decorate. She frosted them orange, then she and Rachel piped yellow, brown, and black frosting onto the cookies to make delicious Halloween treats.

Karen & Rachel Making Sugar Cookies

Later that afternoon we went to see the movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua. It was a fun movie for kids to see and you can read my review the first part of next month.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Lance and Cherise pack up a bag for Rachel when she visits that has her jammies, a change of clothes, some stuffed animals to sleep with, and various toys and activities that she’d like to play with when she’s here. One of the things she brought was a book of animals with anaglyph (red-blue) 3-D pictures. 3-D is one of my favorite hobbies and I take every chance I can to make Rachel interested in it. We try to see all the 3-D movies that come to town. So when she showed me her book of animals I decided to make a little 3-D treat for her. I took some photos of her and while she and Karen were out shopping, I turned them into 3-D views that use the same glasses that came with her animal book. If you happen to have a pair of red-blue 3-D glasses hanging around, and who doesn’t these days, you can see our girl in three dimensions.

Rachel in 3D

After she and Karen were done shopping I gave her the 3-D pictures and we drove over to my mother’s so Lance and I could install a new ceiling fan. I did actually help but mostly it was Lance who did the heavy lifting.

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A Daytrip to Galena

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Butch

When we got up last Saturday morning, I asked Karen if she would like to do something special on this lovely, bright and sunny day. She thought a drive to see the fall colors would be just the ticket. I don’t like to drive aimlessly, so I suggested we drive to Galena, Illinois, have lunch, and look at the shops when we got there. Since we have to drive through some of the nicest parts of Iowa for autumn folliage, this worked out well.

We drove up US Highway 151 to Dubuque. For years this was a windy, narrow highway with curbs, but it is 4-lane divided the whole way now. Now and then you can still see the old road running along parallel where the new road deviates from the previous course. In Dubuque we crossed the Mississippi on the old bridge which we haven’t done for many, many years. Our current route to Sue’s (Karen’s sister) takes us over the new bridge. Once across the river, it’s just a short hop to Galena.

Galena was Ulysses S. Grant’s home town, but nowadays the town has lots and lots of shops servicing the tourist trade. Usually when this happens you get all too many water parks, fast food restaurants and chintzy souvenir shops, but Galena has somehow escaped that. Most of the shops are fairly high quality. The reason I suggest going there was they have a number of art galleries and I hoped to see some sculpture. There wasn’t much, but one shop had a couple of small bronzes. The first was a chickadee or something that was nice but unremarkable. The other was about the size of a grapefruit and was a nesting pelikan. It was beautifully done but a little out of my price range.

We wanted to go to a couple of particular shops which turned out to be of no particular interest but did see these interesting buildings off the beaten track where we parked the car.

Galena Buildings

Driving back down town we hit the main conglomeration of shops and had lunch at a nice little restaurant. Our “Wait Person” was named Andy and he was loud and had the irritating habit of squatting down next to the table like so many restaurants require their employees to do. I guess they figure that people should have eye contact on an even level and not have to look up at the waiter. Or maybe it’s to appear more friendly or something. I don’t really want to be pals with the serving staff so I find the approach intrusive. From time to time Andy would stop round and do his squat/check back. I cringed a little every time I saw him coming but he would have something interesting to say when he talked to us and by the time we left I decided he was a thoroughly nice guy.

Karen in Galena

All this shopping resulted in a lot of walking around and while I tried to have a seat when I could, I can only do so much of it before my poor old arthritic knees start to buckle. We headed back to the car and had just as nice a ride home even if the sun was in our eyes a little.

Posted in Daily life | 4 Comments

Fall Campout at Red Oak Lodge

Posted on October 11, 2008 by Butch

This weekend was our fall camp out at Red Oak Lodge. Not long ago the Conservation Department decided to upgrade the rifle range by the cabin parking lot. This resulted in the access road to the cabin being relocated. It was a horrible mistake. They rerouted the road straight up the hill and straight down the other side. One of the requirements for using the cabin is that all one’s camping equipment must be backpacked in. With the relocation up and down the hill, it is almost impossible to carry a night’s worth of equipment. It all but killed me the last time, so this time I called and said that it had done such damage to my knees that I would like to have permission to drive my equipment in. They were surprisingly cooperative and allowed me to do so. Since I was going in anyway I took the heavy items for the other campers too. Normally you need to have a handicapped sticker and I think I will look into getting one of these.

Those who had items to be driven in stopped by our house earlier on Saturday so we were ready to go when we arrived at the parking lot. The drive in was a little bumpy but once we discovered to keep one side of the car on the ridge in the middle of the road, we stopped bottoming out. I was able to drive down almost to the cabin itself and unloading was much easier than it might have been otherwise.

We started coming to the cabin in 1974, so we have been at it 34 years now. This is the first time we have driven our equipment in.

Only John Hawn was there when we went in. The others arrived at intervals throughout the afternoon. People who attended were John and Sue Hawn and their dog Chutney, Karen and I, Lance, Cherise and the grandkids and their dog Nora. Regular attendees Bob Peterson, and Doug and Lynne came. We saw some old friends who hadn’t been there for a while, Lyle and Anne Hanson and some new people came this year, Steve and Ann Piper.

As usual, everyone brought snacks to eat during the afternoon. One of the biggest topics of conversation was Bob Peterson’s new book. For 14 years he has been researching European and American painting styles and has published a reference guide to make sense of it all. He showed the results of all this hard work.

Bob showing his book

Bob explains a detailed chart

Ben was curious about everything. The little darling needed to get out and explore, and he preferred to do so without any adult supervision. He was particularly intrigued by places that could cause him harm, the edge of the cliff for instance. But we kept our eyes on him and no harm came of it.

Ben at the pump house

John and I brought pumpkins and as it started to get dark we carved jack-o’-lanterns out of them. This seems to be somewhat of a tradition these days.

One by one the attendees started to drift back to the parking lot and then to their own warm beds at home. But Hawns, Lance’s family, and us stayed for the night. It had been a beautiful day and evening was just as nice so Karen and I slept on the porch like we do whenever we can. We invited Rachel to stay with us. She accepted so we put her air mattress between ours.

We got the coffee going first thing in the morning and prepared breakfast. Lance had brought a supper of white chili that he shared with Karen and I, and in the morning we returned the favor by cooking breakfast. We had toasted English muffins with bacon and Gouda cheese.

Lance and Ben closing the shutters

Just before we were ready to pack up I looked around the cabin and thought there must have been much, much more than we had brought in. But it all packed up neatly and was no problem at all. We took a group shot of everyone who had braved it through the night.

John, Chutney, Sue, Cherise, Lance, Nora, Rachel, Butch, Karen and Ben

Sue a twisted her ankle at some point during the weekend so she rode out with me while the others walked back. People unloaded their own equipment from our van and packed it into their own cars and off we went.

Rachel on the way out

Posted in Autobiography | 7 Comments

Movie Reviews – September 2008

Posted on October 1, 2008 by Butch

Here is what we saw:

Title Made Saw Rating
Crossworlds 1996 9/4/2008 2
Nim’s Island 2008 9/6/2008 3
Fly Me To The Moon 3D 2008 9/17/2008 3
Smoke 1995 9/26/2008 3

Here are my reviews:

Crossworlds

Our hero has a crystal pendant that his mother gave him. He finds that someone is desparate to get it. Even to the point that they will kill him for it. A beautiful girl is involved and when all hell breaks loose, she takes him to meet her friend. Together they have many adventures in many dimensions. Their efforts to keep the pendant and a scepter that holds the pendant have more or less luck throughout the movie but they get it in the end and defeat the evil wizard. This looked like a setup for a sequel which hopefully never comes. This movie wasn’t really bad, just a little bad. A high 2.
Netflix – 2 stars

Nim’s Island

Nim and her father live on a deserted South Seas island. They think of it as their own island. He is a scientist and she’s lived all her life with him there. Her mother was also a scientist, an oceanographer, but died sometime before the movie begins. Nim has some sketchy memories surrounding her mother’s death. They involve a cruise ship named The Buccaneer. One day her father goes out in his boat to collect some specimens of plankton and gets caught in a storm. His boat gets wrecked and he can’t get home. Before he leaves he tells Nim he loves her and that he’ll be home soon, and only lets her stay by herself under protest. He of course is trying everything he can to get back. During his absence the cruise ship returns with a boatload of passengers who think it’s just great to party on this deserted island. Nim thinks she is being invaded. In the meantime an author living in San Francisco who writes adventure novels needs to get some information from Nim’s father about the volcano on the island. She discovers that Nim is all alone and despite being an agoraphobic makes her way halfway around the world to save Nim. She is accompanied by her fictitious adventure hero. In the end the hero tells her that he’s not going to prop her up anymore. Nim succeeds in scaring the passengers of the cruise ship away. The father makes his way home and the author arrives safely. It’s implied that the father and the author fall in love. The movie seemed a little wooden to me and you have to ask yourself why Jodie Foster who plays the author would allow herself to be in a movie like this. Not the greatest movie but nothing really wrong with it either. A low three.
Netflix – 3 stars

Fly Me To The Moon 3D

We saw this when we were in California. It was animated and 3D. Three young flies dream of having an adventure inspired by the grandfather of one of them. Set in 1969, they decide they are going to try and get on the Apollo moon landing mission. They succeed and return home safely but have a couple of close calls. Simple plot. I didn’t care much for the animation. I didn’t like the looks of the flies and the people were just terrible, first generation CG. But the 3D was “knock your socks off” and the story was ok. Every scene in the movie was done in hyper stereo which provided ultimate depth. Usually this results in the character looking like they have long thin faces but I just learned that with digital animation they can flatten the characters and they get restored to normal when the hyper is introduced. There is lots of fun when they do “fly throughs”; in amongst the grass on their way home and into the electronics on the Apollo spacecraft. This was an ok movie but not great.
Theater – 3 stars

Smoke

This is an older movie and one I meant to see when it was in the theaters. I just never got around to it. I like Harvey Keitel and William Hurt. The plot is a series of short, interwoven stories that revolve around a tobacco shop in Brooklyn. Keitel plays the owner, Hurt is a customer who is a writer who has been unproductive since his wife was murdered. A young black man saves his life when he is crossing the street and not paying attention. That guy is in trouble with local criminals. Keitel’s exgirlfriend shows up with news that she needs help with the daughter that Keitel never knew he had. The black kid finds his father and goes to work for him. The threads are woven tighter than a rope. Everything turns out pretty much ok and it was fairly fun to watch.
Netflix – 3 stars

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Our Trip to California – Part 2

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Butch

We went to the beach at Half Moon Bay on Friday. When we first got to town we stopped at a seafood restaurant, Sam’s Chowder House and had lobster rolls. They were pretty tasty. Then we headed for the beach. Karen held Wyatt’s hand and went to stand in the surf. This beach, like many in California, has a serious back tow problem and she didn’t want him to be swept away. At first he just got his feet wet and ran away when the waves came in, but the more he did it the more fun he had and the longer he wanted to spend in the water. Towards the end, a big wave came in and soaked both Karen and Wyatt. I think that persuaded them to come out.

Frolicking In The Surf

Wyatt also wanted to play in the sand and I helped him build a sand castle. I loaded a beach pail with sand and made bastions for the four corners of the castle. Then Wyatt and I filled in between them making walls. A rake for a flag and we were all set.

Building A Sand Castle

On Saturday we went out for breakfast again but it got so late we had lunch instead. We went to La Mediterranee. Zach and I got the sample plate. Of all the delicious things to eat on it, the very best was the pomegranite chicken. Wendy says that is her favorite too.

La Mediterranee

After lunch we went to Zach’s sister Erin’s house. She and her husband Bryan were putting on a baby shower for August and it was nice to meet all of Wendy and Zach’s friends and relatives. They got lots of good stuff too.

Baby Shower

We were due to leave on Sunday and just before we did we gathered everyone and took some pictures. Here is one of Karen and I and the boys. I know Wendy had this photo on her blog but we loved it so much we had to have it on ours too. We had also hoped to have a shot of the four of them together and one of all six of us but it got too complicated.

Grandsons

Our flight wasn’t until 4 o’clock California time but we left around noon because we had to return the rental car and take the tram and get something to eat before we took off and all that worked out perfectly. Because we were flying east the time was 2 hours later when we landed and that was around midnight Iowa time. We still had to drive back to Cedar Rapids from Des Moines. Karen had to work the next day so I told her to try and get some sleep. In repayment, the little sweetheart let me sleep in on Monday morning. We had a great time.

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Our Trip to California – Part 1

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Butch

On September 16 we flew to California to visit Wendy and family and to hold our new grandson August for the first time. We had to drive to Des Moines to catch the plane because the air fares out of Cedar Rapids were so high. We didn’t fly out till about noon, so we didn’t have to leave too early in the morning. We had two pretty good flights that weren’t as grueling as they sometimes are. When we got to San Francisco we took the tram from the arrival concourse to the car rental building. I had run out maps to get from the airport to Wendy’s so the whole process wasn’t too hard. We did almost take a couple of wrong turns just as we were leaving the airport, but we caught ourselves in time and got on the right path.

We drove right to Wendy’s house and honked as we pulled up in our rental van. The whole family came out to greet us and we finally got to get our hands on August.

A Kiss From Grandma Grandpa Holds His Guy

After our initial hugs and kisses I called Wyatt over because we had an important ceremony to perform. With his help we officially welcomed August to the family with a celebratory Dutch Rub.

Celebratory Dutch Rub

Here are a couple of pictures of our new one that Wendy was kind enough to give me.

August After Changing

Augie's Little Hand

Augie Sleeping

If we didn’t want Wyatt to feel left out with all the attention we were giving Augie. We brought him a couple of presents, actually we shipped them ahead. One was a remote control Wall-E robot and the other was a robot sticker book. Both were great hits and he played with them for hours.

Wyatt, Wall-E, and Lemur

Lemur is in the picture because I always have Wyatt go and get him when I arrive. I normally put him on my head like a coonskin cap. Wyatt was having Wall-E wear him the same way I do but in this picture he was off for a minute and I selected this picture so you could see Wall-E better.

Wyatt and the Sticker Book

Wyatt loved playing with his sticker book. One funny thing, in this picture you can see Wyatt wearing a T-shirt that sports a pirate ship. As fate would have it, it was “National Talk like a Pirate Day”. As soon as Wyatt found that out he changed his shirt and couldn’t be persuaded to put the pirate one back on for anything. Aarrrrgh!

More coming soon….

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Movie Reviews – August 2008

Posted on September 1, 2008 by Butch

These almost got forgotten with Augie’s arrival, but here goes…

Here is what we saw:

Title Made Saw Rating
The Dark Knight 2008 8/1/08 3
Live Free or Die Hard 2007 8/3/08 3
Flawless 2007 8/8/08 3
Nowhere in Africa 2001 8/10/08 3
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D 2008 8/11/08 3
Kung Fu Panda 2008 8/14/08 3
Central Station 1998 8/26/08 3
L5: First City in Space 1996 8/31/08 3

Here are my reviews:

The Dark Knight

Batman’s efforts to rid Gotham City of crime are starting to have an effect. A mobster from Hong Kong steals the mobs’ money. Batman is after him. The mob is after him. And into this mess drops the Joker. He promises the mob he will get their money back if they will give him half. But the Joker has his own agenda and money doesn’t enter into it. He is content to give Batman and the other authorities a moral dilemma. Not should we pick good or evil. But if you can only save one, will it be Batman’s longtime sweetheart or the crusading District Attorney. Batman is looking to get out of the biz and he hopes the new DA is the figure that will take his place. Ebert gave this movie 4 stars when he only gave Ironman 3 1/2. I just don’t understand. Perhaps he thought it was somehow deeper but sheesh, we are talking comic book heroes here.

Theater – 3 stars

Live Free or Die Hard

My brother calls this movie “Die Hard in a Wheel Chair”. This time, the ultraorganized criminals are shutting down all of America’s infrastructure. Engineered by smalltime hackers, all but one of which the bad guy has succeeded in killing in an effort to cover his tracks, McClane chases the villains all over with lots of explosions, falls, karate fights, and general daring-do. The young hacker’s piece of the business just happens to be the right one to save the day at the last minute. This is an improbable but very exciting movie.

Netflix – 3 stars

Flawless

I don’t remember this movie ever being in the theaters. It’s a diamond heist caper set in the early 60’s. A woman executive who is constantly passed over for promotion finds herself receptive to a suggestion the janitor makes about stealing some of the London Diamond Company’s rough stones. If they took £1,000,000 for each of them, the company would hardly even notice. The janitor would do all the work but needs the woman because the company president has recently changed the way he remembers the vault’s combination. He can’t go where she can. She gets the numbers and passes them to him but starts to get cold feet. The janitor carries on. When they discover the robbery in the morning, not just a few diamonds are missing, but the entire vault is empty. There are a couple of nice twists at the end. Clever and likeable characters.

Netflix – 3 stars

Nowhere in Africa

This is a German language film with subtitles. In the mid-1930’s a Jewish attorney from Germany has gone to Africa but only finds work as a ranch hand. He sends for his wife and daughter just before it is too late. They are not happy to be in Africa, but things are getting worse and worse in Germany and they do not dare go back. Most of the movie is about their adapting to the completely different way of life. The movie is a little long but not too bad. I liked the character of the daughter who takes to life there perfectly.

Netflix – 3 stars

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D

A scientist doing seismic research in Iceland disappears. A decade later his brother who is doing the same type of work is told that their lab is going to be shut down. In the meantime the scientist’s son has come to visit his uncle and they notice some interesting fluctuations in the data on the monitors in the lab, which makes them think that they should go to Iceland too. They find a notebook with cryptic clues which leads to an Icelandic seismic institute and hopefully the man who saw the missing scientist alive last. The institute is no more than a name but the man’s daughter lives in the building and she just happens to be an alpine guide. They go to where they know there is an entrance to the volcano and set to exploring. They find many interesting rock formations one of them being just a fraction of an inch thick which shatters when they walk on it and they fall all the way to the center of the earth. As you can imagine many strange things are there, but as you can’t imagine it’s not as hot as hell. After being chased by dinosaurs and carnivorous plants, they find a geyser that they hope is going to blow them back to the surface. It does and they land at Mount Vesuvius. In the meantime the son just happens to have collected a backpack full of huge pure diamonds. The movie was fun enough. It was nothing great. The 3-D was pretty good too.

Theater – 3 stars

Kung Fu Panda

Po, a lazy panda has always wanted to be a kung fu master. When the old head master is set to retire, he is going to impart the golden scroll of wisdom and there is going to be a big celebration. Po wants to attend but it’s at the top of the mountain and he barely makes it there in time. For some unknown reason he is selected. But he knows hardly anything of kung fu and the other masters are not happy. The head teacher has to find out a way to inspire Po. He discovers it’s through eating and then the training begins. Just in time too because the evil snow leopard, the best student ever to come out of the Academy, has just escaped from his maximum security prison cell. The other masters don’t stand a chance against him and it is Po who is left to save the day. This is like every kung fu movie you ever saw. But it is animated and so becomes one that is really, really funny. Every cliché you can think of is there. I thought the animation of the ducks was particularly good.

Theater – 3 stars

Central Station

A former teacher makes her living in Rio de Janeiro’s central train station writing letters that are dictated to her. This helpful act on the part of the teacher towards the poor and illiterate is a wonderful service. But there is a dark side, she often tears up or fails to mail the letters. When a woman and her son come to the teacher to have a letter dictated to her former husband she throws the letter away as she often does. But the woman comes back a few days later and dictates another letter with a picture of the son to be included. As they are leaving the station the woman is hit by a bus and killed. The boy he is left homeless. After several days to teacher realizes he is living in the train station and together they set out on a cross-country journey to find the father. The movie is the story of that journey. It’s not often you see a movie in Portuguese. And the hinterlands of Brazil are interesting to see. By the end of the movie it is kind of touching.

Netflix – 3 stars

L5: First City in Space

L5 Earth’s first space city in in lunar orbit. Everything is going fine but they start to have a shortage of water. They send an unmanned craft to a distant comet that is mostly water with a rocket motor that will alter its course just enough that L5 can capture it and mine the water. Something goes wrong with the engine and the captain of the city or whatever he is has to travel to the comet and clean out the jets manually. He only has enough time to get there before the course correction won’t do any good. As he is fixing things there is a huge solar storm and all radio communications are lost. Did he get the job done? Is he alright? This movie really shows its age. The computer graphics necessary for this type of thing are sadly out of date. It was originally intended as one of IMAX’s first 3D movies and I suppose that would really have helped the look of things. The acting was wooden and the plot was simple, like many IMAX movies. This is a low 3.

Netflix – 3 stars

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August Quinn Thorpe Copley

Posted on August 31, 2008 by Butch

Welcome to our family young August!!!

August Quinn Thorpe Copley

Wendy will be publishing a more detailed blog I suspect, but she said it was ok for me to put mine up ahead of hers. At 2:21 Sunday morning, California time, August 31 the newest member of our family arrived.

He weighed 9 pounds 12 ounces and was 21 inches long, a standard size Thorpe baby.

Posted in Genealogy | 14 Comments

Brucemore Garden Show – Year 2

Posted on August 24, 2008 by Butch

Last year I participated in the Brucemore Garden show. They invited me back this year too. The entry fee went up from $15 to $50 but even then I thought it was an opportunity to make some money. Last year I sold five pieces during the show at about $100 each. As it turns out one customer took my card and called me around Christmas time to see if I still had any of the yard art she particularly liked. She wanted to buy it for her son for Christmas. I had three of those left and when she came over to look at them she saw that I had arranged them in a little cluster. She liked that affect and said she would take one for him for Christmas. If he liked it she would come back in the spring and get the rest. She did just that. When all was said and done I had four pieces left from last year’s show.

So starting with those four pieces I made 15 more. I did them in the week before the show. Five of them were the tall yard art pieces like last year. Five of them were the shorter ones with the circles on the top. And five of them were a new design, a plant table about 16 inches square and 2 feet tall. The taller yard art pieces were made from re-rod last year, but I found it only cost slightly more to make them with square bar stock so I went in that direction.

Tall Garden Art

When I looked back at last year’s entry I noticed that I had decided to wear the same shirt as I did this year. I suppose I’ll have to wear that one from now on until it wears out. Here I am waiting for the customers to arrive at the nine o’clock starting time.

Waiting To Start

One of the pieces I made last year was called the Celtic Hare. It didn’t sell then so it’s been living its life in the shrubbery at the top of my driveway. We decided to give it a second shot and it finally sold in the early afternoon.

Celtic Hare

In keeping with the yard art theme I designed a plant table for Karen for her birthday last year. I thought it would be too big to offer as a standard item at the show, so I modified the design a little to be a smaller plant table. I made five of these new tables and furnished them with colorful slate tops. We also took Karen’s table along and said that they could order one if they liked it. I got one actual order and two possible orders that may or may not pan out. Here’s what Karen’s looked like.

Karen's Birthday Table

And here’s a picture of the new ones along with some of the shorter pieces of yard art. The one with the Ghinko leaves disc is left over from last year.

New Tables

Things got off to a pretty good start. Within the first hour I had sold two to one customer. And by the end of the second hour I had sold another one. That meant that all my out-of-pocket expenses and the entry fee to the show were completely covered. It only got better after that. Sometimes I would be answering a technical question for customer and Karen would be busy selling a piece to a different customer. As the day went on we ended up selling 12 pieces altogether. If you add in the orders for the tables that makes 15 pieces, and there were many others who said that they were interested in getting one but needed to take some measurements at home first. Karen calls the day a “Triumph”.

Posted in Sculpture | 9 Comments

The Dick Pinney Art Project Continues

Posted on August 15, 2008 by Butch

Last May, Rachel and I came up with a little art project.

You may remember that Rachel first noticed Dick Pinney’s work on a visit to the Cedar Rapids Art Museum. She liked it best of anything we saw. I told her that he had done quite a number more of those things and we decided to see how many we could find. The Cedar Rapids airport was the next place we visited. You saw these two murals in my first blog on the subject.

A few weeks later we went to see another two. Our next visit was to the Vernon Inn Restaurant.

Vernon Inn Mural

After that we went to Mercy Hospital. This one was fairly difficult to photograph. It was at a T intersection of two hallways, the mural being on the cross of the T. It was much wider than the hallway that led to it. That meant I could get no farther away than the width of the hall that it was in. I had to take it in three different shots and stitch it back together in Photoshop.

Mercy Hospital Mural

And here it is cut into a couple of pieces so you can see some of the details better.

Mercy Hospital Mural Details

Just today we went to see two more murals. Cedar Memorial Cemetery has one just inside its front door. The receptionist who greeted us seemed very interested in our project and suggested a couple of places to look for more murals, unfortunately I already knew about all of them.

Cedar Memorial Cemetery Mural

After we were done looking at the first mural, I called Xavier’s Restaurant where the next mural was. The manager said that they would be opening in about 10 minutes and it would be okay if I came right then. We were already on our way so we got there about five minutes later. It was fairly difficult to take a picture of this mural because the light was so dim. I wasted several exposures on blurry images, but once I figured out to use the timer I had much better luck.

Xaviers Mural

We still have quite a number on our list that we can go to see. The problem is many of them were in downtown establishments. I don’t think any of them were ruined by the recent floods because they were on the upper floors, but in many cases the businesses haven’t reopened yet. So we will probably be able to see them in future, just not yet.

We’ll keep trying though.

Posted in Family | 5 Comments