RSS Feed
Category Archive: places
On a narrow spit of land, at the confluence of two mighty rivers, lies ancient Cairo. Not the one in Africa, with pyramids and camels, rather the one along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, Cairo, Illinois. Cairo has seen better days, the 1920 population of 15,000 having dropped below 3,000 souls. Once a shipping center [...]
Before interstate engineers replaced our river crossings with solid, straight, under-supported super-slabs of concrete highways, spidery steel bridges carried us across the impediments to the relentless to- and fro- of an increasingly mobile society. When you pass through the steel rib cages of these older bridges, especially the narrow, long spans, crossing a river feels [...]
On a recent roadtrip I followed the path of two of America’s most famous roads – the Oregon Trail and old Route 66. They say the adventure is in the journey, not the destination, but both of these pathways existed to traverse the country as quickly and safely as possible on the way to the [...]
Most of the smaller towns that I passed through on a recent road trip had their version of the local movie palace. And most were closed down along with the rest of the storefronts along the main street. The emptiness of middle America is remarkable and so sad. We all hear the [...]
Over the recent Thanksgiving holiday break I took a roadtrip from Colorado to my native Kentucky. This is the vast Flyover land of the center of the United States. It is roughly the former vast inland sea from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains. It is certainly the least densely populated one third to [...]
As almost anyone can attest to, one of the very first buildings that most people see on arriving in Boulder is the First Christian Church on CO 36/28th Street, in southeast Boulder. Built in 1960 and designed by Nixon and Jones, it is an excellent introduction to Boulder’s great collection of late Modernist architecture. The [...]
Currently at the Denver Art Museum is an exhibit of the photographic work of Robert Adams. Robert Adams grew up in Colorado and is best known for his photographs of the New West – the human impacts on the landscape. Unlike Ansel Adam’s stunningly beautiful images of western landscapes, Robert Adam’s images are a combination [...]
A year ago today, the Fourmile Fire was raging in the foothills just west of Boulder. It started on Labor Day and I was in the studio, working, with the door to the balcony open when I started to smell smoke. That first hint of smoke grew and when I finally went out on the [...]