What I don't get about the snow blocks is, why are they so close to the sign and the highly secure rope? They are just TEMPTING people to touch the snow blocks. Do you not want to touch those snow blocks after reading this sign?
This "Tree House" created by Jim Baller, Bob Baller and Judy Grufman was the second place finisher in the 2008 Snow Sculpting Competition. This competition was part of the Saint Paul Winter Carnival daily events. The cash prize for second place was $600 dollars. Photo submitted by swc.
This was the first place snow sculpture from the 2008 Saint Paul Winter Carnival held at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds. I didn't catch it at first, but there is a mechanical dog looking up at the Rocket Man. This creation by Jon Baller, Curt Cook and Joseph Hauwiller Jr won them a cool $1200 cash prize. Not bad for playing in the snow eh?
You warm climate, southern/coastal states can build your castles, shapes, and amazing things out of beach sand. But us cold climate, northern snow states can do something you cannot, we can create those very same things using snow! Today's contribution photo from swc was taken at the State Fair Grounds. The snow sculpting competition pits teams from around the region creating incredible shapes from blocks of snow. This event is part of St Paul's 122nd Winter Carnival celebration.
Keeping with yesterday's theme of 'sort of a repost'. I'm posting a photo from the Atkinson graveyard. My first post from here was on the October theme day of 2007. My original shot can be found here. Today's photo is a slightly different view. If you're new to the blog, you'll have to read the archived October 2007 posts and find out why McDonald is located right next to a cemetery.
This is sort of a photo repost from the late summer time of 2007. I've cropped out the main focus of the original photo [a neon sign] and I'm concentrating on only the tree silhouette. I'm submitting this capture to a photo contest. The theme of the contest is "silhouette" and this is my best photo for the contest. If you've been a regular visitor of this blog, you'll most likely figure out what photo this is from.
One more contribution photo from swc. These flowers can be seen as you enter the main entrance to the Minnesota State Fair Grounds. It's now been almost four months now since my garden of flowers and vegetables has been dormant from the cold climate. This colorful scene can only be found indoors during the long cold winter months. That's just how it is around here.
As I sat in my seat at Williams Arena watching the Minnesota Gopher mens basketball team play against Michigan State, I pointed the camera up to the ceiling and snapped a couple of photos. I really was after the structure of the ceiling and all the engineering that went into the making of "The Barn" as it's more commonly known as. The result of the game was a loss for the Gophers. However, since Tubby Smith has become the new head coach, this team is competitive, they are fun to watch, they are darn entertaining and I'm anxious to see what a couple of years will do to the team after Tubby has a couple years of recruits.
I hate to do this, but I need to take a break from all of these cold, wintery photos and post a colorful photo taken back in August 2007 from the Minnesota State Fair grounds by contributor swc. These very large, hand grown flowers can be found at the main entrance to the grounds.
I captured this mother and son throwing snow at each other the other day while I was in Rice Park, downtown St Paul. It was actually fun to watch them since I had my camera in hand. They gave me about three to four minutes to capture the shot I wanted. They were really having a blast with this snowball exchange and were laughing the entire time. The expression on the boys face is pure joy.