Ferry Across the Mississippi

 My very excited 4 year old grandson and I went on an adventure in 2007 and crossed the Mississippi River on the ferry at Canton, MO. just below Lock and Dam No.20 

an excited little boy

The Canton Ferry is the longest continually operating ferry service on the Mississippi River.
The first known ferry service began in 1844. This ferry  provided not only local transportation, but also served as a gateway to the west for many covered wagon caravans and gold seeking forty-niners.

Early Canton ferries were powered by two horses walking on treadmills connected to paddlewheels. Today the Canton ferry is powered by two 195 horsepower V-6 diesel engines. 

It carried us across the mighty Mississippi for a $5 fee.

our Jeep looked pretty little next to the big trucks!

 looking out at Lock and dam No. 20

Loading up to go back across

Cemeteries in Europe

Maybe it's because I grew up across the street from a cemetery, and the vacant cemetery field was my playground for flying kites and picking wild aspargus and daisies. I learned to ride my bike on the quiet cemetery lanes. 

 That may be the reason I feel at home in cemeteries here and abroad and often find myself stopping along the road during my travels to take photos.

This is near the mountain village of Castans, France.

This is a cemetery in Greece, in the Peloponese.

And this is in Northern Italy

 This is a cemetery in Portugal

 

and in Cardona, Spain

and in London I unexpectedly came across Captain Blighs tombstone

Lima Cemetery

I was visiting a friend near Clermont, Iowa in 2007 and we went out to the Lima Cemetery and I wanted to share this amazing tombstone with you.........

 

 

Windmills

Windmills from my travels...

France

Holland

Lesvos,  Greece

Shopping!

A photo tour of foreign markets

Hong Kong

Bolzano, Italy

Amsterdam

 

Greece

Portugal

France

Prairie Birthday

An excerpt from an essay in Sand County Almanac entitled 'Prairie Birthday'.

It is an ordinary graveyard, bordered by the usual spruces, and studded with the usual pink granite or white marble headstones, each with the usual Sunday bouquet of red or pink geraniums. It is extraordinary only in being triangular instead of square, and in harboring, within the sharp angle of its fence, a pin-point remnant of the native prairie on which the graveyard was established in the 1840's. Heretofore unreachable by sythe or mower, this yard-square relic of original Wisconsin gives birth, each July, to a man-high stalk of compass plant or cutleaf Silphium, spangled with saucer-sized yellow blooms resembling sunflowers. It is the sole remnant of this plant along this highway, and perhaps the sole remnant in the western half of our county. What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked.

Aldo Leopold would be pleased to know that the compass plant, and many other prairie plants that he wrote about are blooming still in the little cemetery just off Hwy 12 here in Wisconsin. I love that because of the angle of this cemetery fence a small remenant of native prairie land was preserved.

Ancient Olympia

In June of 2000 I drove to Olympia, Greece. The area is hilly and mountainous; most of the area around Olympia is forested.

I found the hotel and spent the evening exploring the town.

I walked into the school yard to take photos and was joined by three young girls who were delighted to try their English out on me. They requested that I take their photo.

The railroad depot in Olympia

But the reason for the visit to Olympia was to view the site of Ancient Olympia, the site of the first Olympics.  In the 6th century,  Olympia was abandoned to the flooding of the Peneus River and it remained buried until its discovery by archaeologists in the 19th century.

The entrance into the stadium

The starting line

The Temple of Zeus, completed in 456 BC, was one of the largest temples in Greece. Today, none of the columns remain standing; earthquakes have taken their toll.  The building held six columns on each end, with thirteen on the flanks, and was built entirely of local shell limestone.