Don't See This Often, Eh?

Drove into work yesterday morning and there were flashing lights as I approached the entrance. Here sat this Chevy Silverado, upside down on the lawn. It was rather slippery on the drive in as the overnight fog turned to ice on the roads. This driver slid across the road, through the opposing traffic, hit the curb and flipped the truck over into the position you see. The driver was shaken, but walking around and doing well thankfully. Wow!

Real Sea Monkeys?

Remember those ads for sea monkeys in the back of magazines? You could buy these sea monkey eggs from whomever was selling them. They'd send them to you in the mail and poof, you had growing sea monkeys. In reality, they were a form of brine shrip about the size of a period at the end of a sentence. Those are not sea monkeys in today's photo, these are Sea Horses. This was taken at the Minnesota Zoo by my wife in one of their very large fish tanks. I really like the colors in this photo. I'm not sure why these sea horses reminded me of the sea monkey ads, but I had to share it with you all.

Spiral Bridge Mural With Trolls?

I'm not sure about the trolls, but they are in the painting. This mural can be found downtown Hastings. I believe it is on the side of the Scandinavian Marketplace building which can be seen in this photo from an earlier daily photo of mine. The spiral bridge in the mural is actually what the original bridge looked like as you crossed the Mississippi River leaving Hastings.

I've found an archive photo of the original spiral bridge from around 1900. Here is an aerial view of the bridge that shows a lot clearer photo and just where the bridge was located, I'm not sure of the date of this photo. I believe the bridge at the time was for horse and buggy plus people crossing only. I'm not sure when the bridge was torn down for replacement, but I'm sure it couldn't have lasted too long once automobiles started crossing the bridge.

I'm rather curious if anyone knows of any other spiral bridges that are in place or had been in place at one time. I would have to believe this is quite original for it's time. I've never seen another and with today's automobile use, it certainly isn't practical.

Floods Of 1965

Same location as yesterday's photo in Hastings, but the focus is on the High Water Mark sign. If you look close there is a squiggly blue line above the '18 April 1965' portion of the sign post. That is how high the water of the Mississippi Rose rose to at it's peak during that seasons floods. I left the light and the sitting bench in the photo so you have something to compare the height of the water mark. One thing to keep in mind, from the top of the walking path in the photo to the actual running water in the river is about a 15 foot drop.

Fall Colors In Hastings

Photo of the river bridge as you leave or enter Hastings. This bridge crosses the Mississippi River and waaaaaay in the background on the right side of the river is a lock and damn, I believe it's number 4. This photo was from a month ago when the fall colors were just about at peak.

Rear View Mirror

This beautiful building is the City Hall in Hastings, this is the back view of the building. I'm not sure if this building was originally something else at one time or if they built it like this as a city hall. I really like the curved arches that flow through out the building, the windows, the roof, and some of the detailed brick work. What strikes me as odd is the chimney. It's not made from the same brick type and it's off center.

We Know How To Build Snowmen

This is Hedican the snowman. He was built by Paul Bunyan a long time ago. No no, I'm kidding. This 54 foot tall snowman, made of stucco was built in 1974 by the North St Paul Jaycees. I'm not sure when the change happened or why it happened, but the snowman used to have black buttons and never had a name printed on it before. The snowman sits on the corner of Highway 36 and Margaret Street in North St Paul.

Birds eye view via Live Search

Let's Turn To The Side

Another photo of the Baker Recreation Center in St Paul, but from the side this time. Now if you look at yesterdays photo, you would never know that the building went partly under ground. There is only a small portion that is under the sidewalk and it's for the water hose storage for the ice rinks.

Baker Recreation Center

This building is attached to Baker playground. It was built in 1938 and is still in use today. The bottom portion of the building stores a lot of the sports equipment for the playground, including the water hose to make the ice rinks for skating. The upstairs portion looks like it's still in use, but I'm not sure what for these days. I can tell you, it was where I went to pre-school a long time ago. I doubt that is what it would be used for today as they built a larger, newer rec center up the top of the hill which you can see in yesterday's photo.

Theme Day: Photo From The Waist Down

Today is theme day, photo from the waist down.

52 Daily Photo sites are participating in the December theme, please use the links to below to visit them. Due to time zone differences and other factors, the theme photo may not be displayed until later if you are viewing early in the day.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 Yesterday I mentioned sliding down the hill I was standing upon. Today I'm pretty much at the bottom of the hill looking up so you can see what a hill it can be for sliding. I'd be curious how fast one could get on various slides as some do run faster than others. Speed was one thing, but how far one could travel was another thing and an all new challenge. The record that I witnessed was by a friend of mine that I went to school with. If you look at yesterday's photo, there are two visible baseball fields, but there is a third baseball field just outside of the photo to the right. The longest slide down the hill is to about where home plate would be if you can visualize where that would be. Trust me, it's a very long journey to get there and was done on a slide with the metal blades and the wood sitting area [I'm sure there is a specific name for this type of snow sled].

For reference, I sent my two children running up the hill so you can see just how big the hill is to am eight and six year old. The recreation center is also in the background. The second level was a great place to sit in the chairs and look out at the city. One could see for miles from the vantage point.