Daylight at the Lodge

Pere Marquette Lodge is a 1930’s style lodge built by the CCC. It’s a nice, solid-feeling place to spend a chilly fall evening, and get a well prepared meal.  Here are some more photos, this time in the daylight.  What a comfortable place to just sit, read, or surf the net.

Pere Marquette Lodge

My continuing trip through downstate Illinois…

A night journey adjacent to the river ends at Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois, just north of St. Louis.

These lodges were built in the 1930’s at the height of the depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). You can’t find a more comfortable or a more solid structure anywhere. Here is my supper, a glass of Australian Yellowtail Shiraz (“ripe cherries, strawberries, and vanilla aromas”), it sounds sweet, but the waitress assures me it’s supposed to be dry, and it is. I can only taste the cherries, but “earthy”, not sweet cherries. To go with it (vegetarians, close your eyes) I order a pulled pork sandwich. For some reason these most excellent sandwiches are only available south of I-80, southern Illinois being part of The South in many ways. My inlaws used to make this at Christmas–it was roasted in a Weber grill covered, then served in a hamburger bun with barbecue sauce.

[A group passes through the lodge as I sit here blogging, connected to the free wifi. I hear someone describe their experiences building the lodge years ago. They were charged $2 a day for room and board and were paid $3.50 an hour. She says it was all very exciting and they had the time of their lives.]

Back to last evening. I catch up on email near the huge limestone fireplace at the end of the huge room.

In the center of the main room is a lifesize chess board. Some of the people I saw at dinner play for a while.

Adjacent to the lodge are cabins which I am told go for $125-130 a night, also a campground with tent spaces and a shower. This morning I see frost on the ground and realize I have grossly underestimated the nighttime temperatures for the season, and that tonight I will be sleeping in my own bed. In addition the fuse on the cigarette lighter I was using to charge my cellphone has blown, taking out the radio as well. The only thing I have to listen to (besides the mp3 player, which I can’t do while driving) is the cassette player, which still works, and a Berlitz Arabic tape I bought at a used bookstore in Carbondale. My camera as well is acting up, the batteries only able to take a dozen or so pictures after being completely recharged last night. Time to return to civilization. On the return trip I will cross by ferry into Calhoun county and enjoy a nice afternoon drive back north though river country.

Ste. Genevieve Ferry

Yesterday when I was at “Roacher” as the town of Prairie du Rocher” is pronounced locally, I was told that the ferry was again operating, after being closed for high water. Here is what it looked like two days earlier, when I was told around dusk that the last ferry leaves around 5:00 (glancing at my watch I saw it was around 4 P.M.) and that the ferry was finished for the day. My informant, who was fishing, pronounced Illinois with the “s”, as “Ill-i-noiz”.

The ferry is the shortest way between Prairie du Rocher and it’s sister town of Ste. Genevieve. The closest bridge over the Mississippi River is some 20 miles downstream at Chester (for some reason they say they’re the home of Popeye), but at $12 per car for the ferry crossing, the bridge is the cheaper route.

Ferry prices.

The ferry parked.

Fishin’.

The way that ferry is anchored, it’s not going anywhere.

A barge passes, going downriver.

Turning in the opposite direction there is an impressive sunset over the railroad tracks.

The French in Illinois: Ste. Genevieve

Saint Genevieve isn’t actually in Illinois,it’s across the water in Missouri. On the other side of the Mississippi river is the French town of Prairie Du Rocher, which my map says has the “French Colonial district”, and Fort Kaskaskia, the scene of annual French ethnic New Year festivities.

The pole in the last photo is a record of high water marks from various years.

H1N1 Art Gallery

Last week when I went to the main campus to get my Swine Flu shot they had run out.  Today I went back in the first hour they were open and was number 200.  “We’re doing a hundred an hour, not bad,” someone commented (hopefully not a math major).

On the way out of the house I had grabbed my camera, remembering the graffiti on the train cars by the exit that I had always wanted to photograph.  It was nearly sunset, but I did get some photos.  I hope they don’t say something nasty.  The only one of them I can read is the one that says “void” in big blue letters.  (They’re clickable.)

Swedish Buddha

Sometime during the Migration Period, this Buddha made it as far as Sweden.

The bronze figure is 6th or 7th century and is from northern India, Kashmir, or Afghanistan. It was found on the Swedish island of Helgö, a trading and manufacturing center in Lake Mälar near Stockholm.

More speculation to add to the Norwegian stavkirke/Thai temple mystery, and the genetists’ question of migrations.

Walk

Finally it stopped raining. Also I just received my new mp3 player, a Sansa Fuze, in the mail and have loaded it with the Pimsleur’s Arabic CD that I got on my Minneapolis bookstore spree.  Time for a walk to the lake and elsewhere.

These guys are terminally cute, even though they do nothing but bark stupidly.

They say owners look just like their dogs.  As I started walking down the alley, a guy came out of the house and gave me a stare exactly like the dogs.

Onward to the lake.

Marsh grass, silver and rustling in the wind.

Picnic tables, but no picnickers.

Outhouses.  There is a building with flush toilets (and cold running water) but sometimes it’s locked.

These are always open.

My new sneakers aren’t broken in and after an hour of walking my feet rebel, but it’s too nice to go in, so as dusk approaches I head for the residential area.  In the alley someone put out a sunflower head to feed the squirrels.

I find the hole in the fence and climb up the embankment by a hidden path to an old abandoned railroad track where you can get a good view of the surrounding industrial area.

In the west, sunset.

To the south, an alley with those square black plastic trash cans that keep rats out and striped rumble strips across the alley to keep cars from going too fast.

O little town of south side Chicago, how still we see thee lie…

In the east, a full moon rises.

And it’s time to descend before it gets any darker, through the secret hole in the fence…

All this time I’ve been thinking about Australia, so after the walk, which turned a bit chilly, it will be time to cook some nice hot Granny Smith apples I have tucked away in the fridge.

Storage

By request. (AJP, Sig, and Trond)

Out of all the things anyone would want to see in Chicago, why storage?  Okay, this is my storage at my old apartment building that I get in exchange for mowing the lawn.

Door.

Lawnmower next to door. Note padlock. This used to be a coal chute.

Inside.

Lawn.

I hope you are satisfied.
This is the real reason for going. My Jordanian mint.

Once a week when I mow the lawn I also grab seven sprigs of mint and take them back to my new apartment. They go in a vase by the window for my tea. When they are gone, it’s time to mow again. The small leaf blades aren’t grass, they’re fresh garlic.

Bridge Poem Video

Sometimes a photos can’t give a complete impression of public art. I have finally gotten around to uploading the video I took some days back of walking across the Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge in Minneapolis and looking at the John Ashbery poem on the lintels.  The video is 3 minutes and shows the spoon sculpture in the sculpture park before crossing the bridge east to Loring Park. You can see the poem start on the left of the bridge, then somewhere in the middle of the bridge you can see the poetry lines on the other side for people crossing the bridge from east to west.

The camera is a bit shaky going up the stairs due to arthritic knees–I was taking the video with my left hand while hoisting myself with the handrail. I suppose I should really claim runner’s knee, which it is, since an athletic overuse injury sounds so much more glamorous than mere aging. Then I rushed a bit to get across–the bridge is not particularly pleasant for those who don’t like bridges. The video doesn’t show a clear view of all the lines, so here is the poem again:

And now I cannot remember how I would
have had it. It is not a conduit (confluence?) but a place.
The place, of movement and an order.
The place of old order.
But the tail end of the movement is new.
Driving us to say what we are thinking.
It is so much like a beach after all, where you stand
and think of going no further.
And it is good when you get to no further.
It is like a reason that picks you up and
places you where you always wanted to be.
This far, it is fair to be crossing, to have crossed.
Then there is no promise in the other.
Here it is. Steel and air, a mottled presence,
small panacea
and lucky for us.
And then it got very cool.

John Ashbery

Bridge Walk

A walk on the Washington Street Bridge in Minneapolis, starting from the west bank, going up over the inside of the pedestrian bridge, circling the pedestrian bridges on the east bank at the U of M and returning on the outside of the bridge on the downstream side. (images are clickable)