There is no more iconic shadow in my city. This was taken from the observation deck on top of the Arch, 630 feet / 192 meters above the ground, and therefore even farther from the Mississippi River. The horizontal bands in the center foreground are a series of large staircases leading from the Arch grounds to the street below, and it's usually farther still to the water (although the river level looks high to me in this one).
And remember, the June theme is the road.
Home again and desperate for local material. When we were sitting at the dinner table Thursday evening I noticed a nest under the eaves of our front porch where a downspout creates a little nook. A beautiful chubby robin flitted in and out with bits of material, sometimes sitting on what we assume are eggs. The most direct view through a window on a cloudy day wasn't very clear but when I stepped out on the porch the bird stayed in nearby trees. We hope to see some little peeping beaks soon.
My sister and brother-in-law have spent their careers at Penn State. They are a bit puzzled why the university feels the need to replace a sizeable and architecturally interesting art museum with another about twice as big. They thought it might have something to do with rich alumni donating more art than there were walls to hang it on, so they would build more wall space so rich alumni would donate more stuff. Or something.
Gotta get some new local material but it's supposed to rain most of today. We'll see.
Penn State has a remarkably large art museum with an interesting collection. So, because they have rich alumni, they are building a new one almost twice as big. The entrance to the current one has these sculptures of Nittany Lion paws (see yesterday's post). My brother-in-law, the witty psych professor, says that they are sometimes referred to as faux pas.
American colleges and universities all have some sort of mascot or character. I think it's a federal law. My school, St. Louis University, is in the running for the most absurd with the Billiken, https://www.slu.edu/about/key-facts/what-is-a-billiken.php. Penn State has the Nittany Lion, named for wildcats that may once have prowled Mt. Nittany down the road. (It's in the middle of the Alleghenies.) There is a statue in the center of the campus where every single graduate must get a photograph. The eyes seem awfully blank to me.
Home tonight.
