That's Just the Nature of Things

My sister and I were finally able to get together for lunch recently. She has been pretty sick for a couple of months, so I was glad that she was feeling well enough to meet. We went to our favorite pizza parlor in Pacific, Missouri as that is close to being a halfway point for us to drive. The pizza was great, as was the company. After we ate I enjoyed taking photographs in the area.

Pacific, Missouri

It has been incredibly beautiful around here, despite the severe storms that have come along with early, high temperatures. We have been getting out whenever we can to enjoy the weather. Shaw Nature Reserve is lovely year round, but spring brings out the daffodils and bluebells, among other things. We took a five mile hike into the back of the reserve, and had the place to ourselves, except for the ten deer that we came upon. Ten! It was amazing, for sure. But the stinkers were running through the woods so I was unable to capture a picture of them.

Shaw Nature Reserve

Saturday I attended the annual Family History Conference put on each spring by the St. Louis Genealogical Society. Their conferences are always great, and I was particularly excited for this year's event. One of the main speakers was Cyndi Ingle, creator of Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet. The site holds a categorized index of more than 335,000 online resources, including my website on researching house history. Not only is she a wealth of knowledge, she is also a wonderful speaker. Also on the program was Jan Alpert, who was offering up tips on using DNA in genealogy. This was of particular interest to me, and not just because I have had my own DNA analysis done. I also had my father-in-law tested, and his results were puzzling to all of us. The ethnicity breakdown for him showed 50% Great Britain, 26% Scandinavia, and 24% Europe West. As I have researched his family back to the early 1800s and found nothing on either side of his family but Germans, the 50% Great Britain makes no sense. For that high of a percentage you would expect that one of his parents was English and that is certainly not the case.

Once I studied the map that you can find when digging deeper into the test results, it sort of began to make sense. Their designation for Great Britain dips way down into parts of France, Belgium, and Germany. As his ancestors are from northwest Germany, I can see where that statistic is coming from. But why in the world do they include that part of the world in their Great Britain designation? It certainly is not the most helpful thing to do.

I spoke with a couple of people who are knowledgeable about DNA at the meeting, and they suggested that I have my father-in-law retested with a different company. I may eventually do that, but I also found out that for $19 I can upload his test results to one of the other testing companies so that I can gain access to their reporting systems. So I will probably start with that and see what happens. I want to have my husband tested as well, since my mother-in-law and one of my sister-in-laws have been tested. It will be fun to compare all of them.

While I was sad to be sitting inside a conference center all day on Saturday as it was a beautiful day, Jim and I got out for a nice walk at Francis Park on Sunday. We have been busy getting ready for an epic adventure, so it was nice to take a break from planning and get outside.

Bob Cassilly's sculptures at Francis Park

March Came in Like a Lamb

The old idiom is that March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb. That has not been the case this year, with the temperature hitting 74 degrees last Saturday. We have already been under tornado watches/warnings twice in the past couple of weeks. The warm temperatures have thrown the trees, shrubs and flowers for a loop, with many blooming at least a month early. There is always the concern that a cold snap will nip the blooms in the bud.

Shaw Nature Reserve daffodils

With that in mind, I went to Shaw Nature Reserve on Saturday expecting to see an array of color. Other than a field of daffodils, mother nature was keeping her buds close to her chest in the reserve. No matter, it is always a beautiful place to take a walk.

Gardenway Motel

Across the street from the entrance to the reserve is a Travelodge. I have always wanted to stop and shoot the old Gardenway Motel sign, so I pulled into the parking lot of the Travelodge to take the picture. I had no idea the size of this closed Travelodge! All I could think was how many homeless people or veterans it could house. As I drove around the back, I was surprised to see a miniature golf course, two swimming pools and an old-school playground. How many little hands got blisters from crossing the monkey bars? How many butts got burned going down the metal slide? How many scraped knees from the merry-go-round? What a nice little facility it must have once been, and the close proximity to Six Flags must have been of some advantage once upon a time.

Travelodge

Sunday was not quite as nice as Saturday, but Jim and I headed off to the Missouri Botanical Garden in the morning. He had not yet seen the Orchid Exhibit. What we didn't know is that it was corporate partners day, and they all got in for free. I have never seen so many people at the garden, except for special festivals. And we arrived early! It was packed inside the Orchid Show, so we'll need to go back when we won't get jostled every time we turn around. Thankfully, out in the garden itself it was not so crowded. The colors are really popping here! Every day at the garden is a good day, and we love to spend our time together walking and taking pictures. We are so blessed to have such an incredible facility here in our city.

Missouri Botanical Garden

A Birthday and Some Cakeway to the West Cake

My sister had a big birthday yesterday and because I am a nice baby sister, I will not mention how big. I took her out for lunch on Monday because I had a class at the Missouri Botanical Garden yesterday, and she has breakfast with friends every Tuesday morning anyway. On the ay to pick her up in Union, I stopped at the Endangered Wolf Center to snap a few photos of their cake. The facility was closed, but the cake is located outside their gates so that wasn't a problem. This location is one of the fifty that was selected for a cake by public vote, and the artist is Maura Pusateri.

Endangered Wolf Center

The Endangered Wolf Center was established in 1971 by Marlin and Carol Perkins. The mission of the organization is to preserve and protect Mexican gray wolves, red wolves and other endangered canids. The 63 wooded acres just west of St. Louis, Missouri off Interstate 44 provides the wolves and other canids the opportunity to thrive and hopefully be reintroduced back into their native habitats.Tours and special events are offered at the center, as well as opportunities for scouts to work on their badges.

Shaw Nature Reserve

My second stop was at Shaw Nature Reserve, located in Gray Summit, Missouri.   The property was purchased by the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1925, and  currently consists of 2,400 acres of land. There are numerous hiking trails, and bicycles are allowed as well. With the ever changing landscape of native plants, the reserve is a photographer's dream and beautiful in every season. Artist for this cake is Elaine Taylor.

Purina Farms

Located near Shaw Nature Reserve is Purina Farms. I have to confess that I have never been to this destination, despite having raised two children who both went through the scouting programs. I am not even sure they ever went there on a field trip. And that is really too bad, as this free venue offers wagon rides, dog agility performances, cow-milking demonstrations, and a baby animal petting area. I can't wait to have visitors this summer so we can check it all out.

On this trip, however, I neglected to follow my own advice and I didn't look at their operating hours. I assumed (you know what happens!) that since it is June they would be open. Wrong! They are closed on Mondays. However, a very nice security guard let me enter after extracting a promise that I would grab a quick shot and leave. The website for stl250.org indicated that the cake is located in the arena by the Visitor's Center. I drove around a bit, and did not spy the cake. My hero showed up in a golf cart and offered to take me to the cake. Evidently it was not where it had originally been placed, as he didn't see it either. While walking around he said that no one told security they were getting a cake, and all of a sudden people were showing up at the gate saying they were there for the cake. "I was pissed off for two weeks because no one offered me any cake!" Ha, ha! We eventually saw the cake at the bottom of some stairs, and I took a couple quick pictures and then took off after thanking him for his assistance.There is no artist listed for this cake, so perhaps someone on the staff designed and painted it.

After I picked up my sister we stopped in downtown Union to capture the cake at the Franklin County Courthouse, designed by artist Paul LaFlam before driving to Washington for the Washington Historical Society's cake, by artist Gina Harmon.

Franklin county Courthouse

Washington Historical Society

Old Dutch Hotel & Tavern

We had lunch in Washington at the Old Dutch Hotel & Tavern. The original hotel opened 80 years ago, but this remodeled facility just re-opened a couple of years ago. Our waitress was great, though the food was slow coming out despite the fact that they were not crowded. It didn't matter to us as we were busy catching up, and both of us thought our meals were great.

So it was a good day, with five more cakes off my list (which brings me to 145 cakes) and fun times with my sister celebrating her birthday. And hey, I even got her a cake!

Shaw Nature Reserve Photo Shoot

Over the weekend Jim and I attended a photography class at Shaw Nature Reserve. The class was Saturday and Sunday mornings from 7-11 a.m. Getting up at 5:30 both days so that we could arrive on time was a bummer, but the class made up for it. There were 9 students in our group, plus the instructor. Saturday morning was quite foggy, which made for some interesting photos. In retrospect, I wish the instructor would have deviated from his lesson plan and taken us down to the lake for tips on how to shoot in fog. I definitely could have used some advice, but I think I got a couple of nice shots.

park shelter in the fog

fog on the lake

Instead, he started with a short overview, and then we went to the planting beds near our classroom. I tend to shoot mostly on automatic exposure, but for the class I brought my tripod and tried working with different f-stops. Quite frankly, my camera does such a great job on automatic that often the pictures I shot on auto ended up being better than the ones I played around with both days. But I can see that there are situations when you want to have more control over the look of the photo, so it is helpful to learn some tricks of the trade. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the weekend.

I am glad that we took the class, and that photography is something that we both enjoy so that we have a shared hobby. Added benefit? The couple that shoots together doesn't shoot each other!