“Man is damned to be free.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
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Category: Photography
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Overcast day and hot air balloons
Yesterday the sky was overcast so the balloon photos don’t have much in the way of a nice, sharp blue sky as background. I didn’t mind so much, it being my first hot air balloon race and never having been that close to the balloons before. I thought the balloons, themselves, added enough color, though I think some of it is lost in the photos. I used a polarizing lens with the film camera and hopefully these might be more colorful.
The following are my favorite photos from the day, from my digital camera. I actually liked the white background on the red and blue balloon, and the flame showing through the balloon vents. And the lack of background color didn’t matter much to the one that’s a closeup of the burner and balloon ‘throat’.
But I’ve beat your bandwidth enough, and will refrain from photos for a post. Or two.
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Dancing with Balloons
I had an incredibly good day today, but I am exhausted tonight. I got to the Balloon race site at 11:00, was there until about 6:30, and only sat down twice. But the weather was perfect, the people were wonderfully friendly, and the balloons were awesome.
I have oh so many photos to post. You’re going to be sick of the photos over the next week. Not only did I fill two cards in my digital camera, but I also managed to take 5 rolls of film. I figured to space them out by inserting a few here and there in my posts.
Forest Park is so pretty, and they had the balloon race in what’s called the Great Basin area – a huge hill overlooking a lovely pool and fountains. This was a good choice because everyone had a good view of the balloons, and plenty of space to sit and stretch out; or like me, stand up to take photos and not have anyone tell me to sit down. In fact, I had a very pleasant conversations with a person who is the VP of the area’s local Optimist Clubs (they provided periphery security as a fund raiser for their organization), a first grade teacher, and another photo buff, in addition to a couple of park police, and a guy who had bad knees (met him sharing a bench when I had to sit or fall over at one point).
The great thing about this race is that they have a photo contest every year, and allow photographers to walk among some of the balloons as they fire up. So here are several of us trying to get the usual pics inside of the balloon, where the sun picks out the color of the balloon; however, there was a breeze and the Jack Daniels balloon kept falling over, so we were having more fun playing keep away from the falling multi-story booze bottle. (More on this balloon at Tin Foil.)
With another balloon, the crew let those of us who had a free hand actually help with holding the basket down. That one was great – to get so close to these big beasties is amazing.
Instead of sitting in the back or front, I picked a side location, and other than it being on a hill and standing for over three hours in one place, it was a perfect spot. I had a great view of the balloons, and when the parachuters who opened the show came in for a landing, they glided directly overhead. Those photos, though, are on film so you’ll have to wait to see them.
The breeze and conditions had to be just right so the ‘bunny’ of this Hounds and Rabbit balloon chase – a huge Energizer pink bunny– was a little late taking off, but was worth the wait. I could not believe how big that thing was. The photo shows it in relation to people and cars on the ground.
Once it was launched, then 70 balloons inflated and took off after it, in a specified order (there wasn’t enough room to start all of them at once). Imagine a sky full of 70 hot air balloons. It was amazing.
I parked quite a distance away, and the walk back to the car was a little challenging, considering that my feet hurt like the devil. But the late afternoon light was lovely and the crowd walking back to their cars was mellow, full of cute kids and sweet dogs.
A very good day.
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Driving
I made a vow to myself yesterday that I wasn’t going to drive at night again. Kicking around town is fine, and I like getting up in the pre-dawn for a trip; but long trips that end later in the night, when your windshield is covered with bugs, and your eyes are blurred with the lights of a thousand SUVs shining directly into them–no.
Especially driving into St. Louis along that miserable mess that is I-55, I-70, and I-64 from the East. All three freeways combine, and then split suddenly apart into two bridges and then combine again. I know that both routes end up in the same place, but late at night when I’m tired, I forget and when they start to split, I panic, and then screech over to the left.
Then once they combine, you have to immediately get into the one and only lane that leads to I-44, which happens to leave the freeway at a 20MPH curve, slowing traffic going 60 MPH to 5 MPH instantly. But this lane is in the middle of these other lanes, that split into differen roads. You look into the mirror and tap your break like mad, hoping that whoever is behind you sees that the lane has slowed suddenly and drastically.
I didn’t get many pictures yesterday or today. I did find some corn for Scott. Unfortunately, it was behind bars. Good corn gone bad, I suppose.
And I found this odd tree with odd seeds and odder leaves.
I have the balloon race at Forest Park tomorrow, and should do better. The Glow was tonight, but I was too tired.
Dad is safely tucked away in a nursing home. Temporarily we all say, as he gets the therapy and care he needs to be able to use a walker. His roommate is a man who looks much younger than Dad– probably 60’s or 70’s. A handsome man, with hair that is darker brown with some gray at the sides. He sat, very nicely dressed, in a chair and just looked out the window the entire time we were there. Didn’t stop looking out the window. Didn’t acknowledge the activity associated with Dad. Didn’t once turn around.
Next to his small TV on his dressar is a cardboard figure of a car – an old convertible, a chevy I think. Behind it is a older photo of a young man and woman sitting in a car that looks much like the cardboard figure. Above the TV is a corkboard just filled with notes and photos, and an old Navaho blanket covers his bed.
I am burning with desire to take his photo.
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Looking for fall color
I had the nicest note today from Mike Rodriquez saying, “…partially thanks to you (your wonderful writings about the river and the countryside surrounding SL) we’re moving back to our childhood home in Lindsborg, KS.”
My first reaction on reading this was, “Wow!” followed by a particularly warm and fuzzy feeling followed not too long after with another “Wow” and then a more thoughtful, “Boy, I sure hope they don’t get hit by a tornado”.
Tornadoes, heat, astonishing political dichotomy, and the ever present bugs that see me as a walking buffet aside, on days like today I renew my love of this land, even though the humidity was enough to drench me within a half mile starting my hike. I can only nod when Mike talks about moving back to Kansas because I remember walking steep rocky trails overlooking one river one day; an old country road surrounded by flowers against the backdrop of yet another river the next–all within 25 minutes of my home– and think how can anyone not want to live here?
How many places can you walk the same trail, over and over, and still feel as if it’s bright and shiny new: one time small pink flowers grow out of short dark green depths; another, tall golden brown weeds form a mosaic of gleaming color against rich yellow and light green.
This week when I walked Powder, new small white flowers carpeted the forest floor and I felt like calling out, “Don’t you ever get tired of growing?” But that would only startle the fawns that have now become so used to me (or people really, but I like to think it’s me, personally) that they quietly graze by the side of the trail only a few feet away.
I hadn’t been to the Route 66 State Park since Spring because normally it can be quite warm in the summer, and since horses are allowed on the paths, it can also be a little odorous at times. But it’s also a good place to check for the beginnings of fall color in this part of the state (though a more accurate check requires a trip further north).
I had the park almost to myself, and when I started across the old Route 66 bridge, I decided just to stop, right there on the bridge, and take some photos. I’ve been wanting to try out my fisheye lens of the river and surrounding hills; normally a fisheye distorts an image too much, but this time, I think it worked nicely, capturing what I see every time I cross this old, rusted bridge.
There’s a specific path I walk when I go to Route 66, but I thought since I had the place more or less to myself (though stopping on a bridge to take photos isn’t the best of ideas in these times) I thought I would explore the back roads from the car, and then stop and hike wherever the mood hit. I’m glad I did or I wouldn’t have found this marshy pond not to far from the river. In the pond was a marsh bird, fishing for frogs and small fish.
When I parked the car to put on my telephoto lens, the bird hid behind the weeds, peeking out at me, coyly, as if it were playing a game of hide and seek. I just sat there in the car, camera pointed out the window, and soon enough the bird cautiously stepped out behind the weeds and resumed it’s hunting–giving me a chance to get a better picture than I normally can.
Are you ready to move here, yet?
Loren wrote about his trevails with technology today and I felt for him–good technology done badly is the craft of the devil. But when he wrote about walking to St. Louis to deliver something to me and it being probably faster than dealing with a rigidly uncompromising system, I thought there could be worse places to walk to, or around.
I ended up taking my usual walk, a circular route that goes from parking lot to river and back, past open meadow and closed forest. There was a group of deer along the way, but they’re shy unlike the ones at Powder and ran as soon as I got close. There’s one spot where I can climb down the hill to the water along a loose limestone and rock trail. The path was badly overgrown and I couldn’t safely make it all the way down the hill, even with my hiking stick. But it was nice to be clambering around a hillside on loose rock, feeling the challenge on muscles and balance.
You can lose yourself when hiking hills, though as Kierkegaard found, no one may notice:
The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss–an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc.–is sure to be noticed.
