Watah bugs

Graceland, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. I'm going to Graceland. 

After leaving Louisville, I plotted a slightly off-course trip to Graceland. A few hours out of my way to visit Elvis seemed a small price to pay.

But in looking at the atlas a little closer, I saw a dotted road, my favorite kind to travel, heading south from Nashville into the heart of Dixie. It was the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile-long national park that begins in Tennessee and ends in Mississippi, or the other way around. Sorry, Elvis, not this trip, because I decided to drive the Trace.

I have more pictures that I'm still working on, but processed these four tonight and was blown away by these bugs. Little skittery things that move across the surface of a stream more smoothly than I move through air caught my attention and I clicked the shutter with the hope of getting something. Well, here's what I got.

Look how it doesn't break the surface of the water.

 Six points resting on the surface.

I think this one shows really well the dip in the surface at the points of contact.

This is my favorite. I never saw the reflection of the trees overhead until I blew this image up.  See the right rear leg of the bug on the right? Amazing! Isn't nature grand?

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Thought of the day:

Away, away from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs -
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind.

(Percy Bysshe Shelley, "To Jane: the Invitation")

Away, away, from men and towns,

To the wild wood and the downs —

To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress

Its music lest it should not find

An echo in another’s mind.

Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/n/nature_quotes_iii.html#C2d2JZRk2YoToDiI.99

Away, away, from men and towns,

To the wild wood and the downs —

To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress

Its music lest it should not find

An echo in another’s mind.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, "To Jane: The Invitation"

Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/n/nature_quotes_iii.html#C2d2JZRk2YoToDiI.99

Away, away, from men and towns,

To the wild wood and the downs —

To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress

Its music lest it should not find

An echo in another’s mind.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, "To Jane: The Invitation"

Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/n/nature_quotes_iii.html#C2d2JZRk2YoToDiI.99

The mother of all antique stores

I'm back on the road after spending time with my brother and his family near Louisville. Just a couple more days and I'll be settled down again for two months in Georgia.

We hit a lot of the highlights in and around Louisville, including Mammoth Cave, Cave Springs Cemetery, a quick exterior view of the Jim Beam distillery, and a rockin' antique store. If they don't have it, you don't need it. 

The place is called Joe Ley Antiques and once upon a time I would have been a shopping fool, but that life is gone. It's still fun to look, though, and I did plenty of that.

It was a cold, miserable, sleety day, a good one to spend inside, but first these spray-painted, um, things, needed their picture taken. They look a bit like jesters to me.

Lots of stained glass, all over the store.

Another set of three, in the background, that goes with the three above.

This also has to be from a church. I've seen windows just like this. No comment about the doll in front.

Isn't this a beautiful thing? If I still had a house I'd be thinking of places to put it.

It's hard to imagine how much effort it takes to keep things even basically organized. There were glass cases, boxes, and crates of house hardware alone, in a full spectrum from shine to rust.

Only one Marilyn, though, as far as I could tell.

Signs were all over the place. And there's another stained glass window to the right of the Exit sign.

This butcher block table took me back to the hellish days of working in our bakery. We had a table that was four feet by eight with depressions worn into both sides from chopping dough. This table had a consistent dip to the middle, pretty useless for rolling anything out or even placing a pan down on, but still a really good conversation piece.

Now be honest. Have you ever seen Stations of the Cross outside a church? No, not me, either.

Three guesses.

Cash registers for real and imaginary transactions.

I remember Fudgicles that we got at the corner drug store for 7 cents.

Yum. Both of them.

Just the kind of piece I would have been looking for a spot for in my house.

Very tempting, but I already have a Walmart toaster, and how much does a girl really need?

This is the kind of thing that gets me thinking, what can I do with this? This time around, though, what I did with them was leave them in the store.

Here's an eclectic mix.

Traveling? If you don't need a suitcase, how about a saddle? Or a wagon? Or a pink firefighter's helmet?

Now here's cool, and it was very tempting, but I have no counter space.

Just in time for dia de los muertos.

Not exactly Louisville Sluggers, but they're in the same family.

If I only had a spare staircase....

Pretty. Just pretty.

Just to give you an idea of the sheer pandemonium of the place.

And here's the one, silly, crazy thing I now wish I'd bought. I have just the spot, too. Maybe it will still be there when I go back.

[added 10/31: I forgot to show this one. There was a pair of these and they were attractive, as ragged as they are, in a sick kind of way]

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Thought of the day:

On the other hand, I don't understand the enthusiasm for everything in the antique shop that Grandma threw out. There, the sense of quality has declined; otherwise Grandma wouldn't have thrown it out.  (Arne Jacobsen)

The strange procession which never moves; or, I see dead people

After leaving Springfield, Illinois I continued to head south to Paducah, Kentucky to visit my sister. First on the agenda was the National Quilt Museum, which does not allow photographs, and what a shame that is. I've never really understood that policy, as anyone who shoots without a tripod and the right lighting can't possibly make a publication-worthy image, but it's their ball game so you just have to go along with it. Still, it's a good museum and you don't have to be a quilter to appreciate the exhibits here; they're works of art in their own right.

My sister also took me to Maplewood Cemetery in Mayfield, home to the Wooldridge Monuments. Cemetery fan that I am, it's amazing that I've never heard of these. The statues were built for Colonel Henry G. Wooldridge to commemorate family members and other loved ones of his life.

There's Henry, standing taller than the rest of the family, sculpted from Italian marble. He's the only one buried here. A fox, a deer, and two chasing hounds are included.

Other family members were sculpted in limestone by artisans from Paducah and Mayfield. The female statues represent Wooldridge's mother Keziah, his sisters Minerva, Narcissa, and Susan, and his nieces Maud and Minnie. The male statues that are not of Wooldridge are of his brothers Alfred, John, Josiah, and W.H.

 Henry again, on his horse Fop.

 His mother, Keziah.

Henry on Fop, with one of his two hunting dogs, either Towhead or Bob. I keep running into that name.

One of his nieces, Maud. The scroll bears the letters H.G.W.

 Nice detail on the hair, Pinterest-worthy.

The Wooldridge Monuments were placed on the National Register of Historic places in 1980. The nomination form is interesting because it gives lots of detail about the individual figures. It's a PDF document that you may have to download before it will open.

The gates to the cemetery are also on the National Register. One of the many lists of places I wanted to see when I had to leave my house in March was everything on the National Register of Historic Places and I have found them all over the place. 

The gates are only part of the National Register items. The monuments are actually three pairs of gateposts. When closed the main pair's gate says "The United Daughters of the Confederacy Memorial." I tried to close them but thought they'd fall off the posts so I left them alone. Can you imagine having to explain how and why you broke something on the National Register?

This pair of posts which supports the gates are the only ones to bear bronze plaques.The post on the left honors veterans of the World War, and the one on the right Confederate veterans.

We made a few more tourist stops in and around Paducah, and I headed east-ish to Louisville to see my brother. Much nicer to have the sibs near you in the land of the living, not carved in stone.

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Thought of the day:
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. (George Burns)

Lincoln's tomb

Springfield, Illinois is home to Oak Ridge Cemetery, the site of Lincoln's tomb, as well as many museums and historic sites, including the top-notch Lincoln Museum. 

Oak Ridge was the first stop on a busy day between Wisconsin and Kentucky, and is yet another place in another city that have both been added to the list of places to return to. For someone whose kids have orders to pull the plug, send me through the crematorium, and scatter the remains, I sure enjoy visiting other folks' final resting places, and the older the better.

Lincoln's tomb is away from the cemetery entrance in a spot chosen by his family in May of 1865 but construction did not begin on it until 1869; it was finally dedicated by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1874. It was named a Registered National Historic Landmark in 1964.

These are two of the four statues that anchor the corners of the monument, which represent the major armed services commanded by Lincoln during the Civil War - artillery, navy, cavalry, infantry. They were cast in part with metal from 65 cannon donated by the U.S. government.

Access to the tomb is through the ground-level door, shown a couple of pictures above. Lincoln is not actually buried in this Arkansas marble monument, but is ten feet below and slightly behind it, encased in steel and concrete. Mary Lincoln and three of their four sons are also buried here in separate crypts; son Robert is at Arlington.

The obelisk is 117 feet tall; fifteen feet were added during a 1899-1901 renovation.

Lincoln holds the Emancipation Proclamation. Shields below the statuary, each representing a state, ring the monument in a solid chain, symbolizing an undivided nation.

This is a beautiful and dignified monument - highly recommended.

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Thought of the day:
Now he belongs to the ages. (Secretary of War Edwin Stanton)