A brief stop in Wichita, the last city of any size before heading west across the vast plains and into the desert. So they have that going for them.
Wichita, Kansas – April 2022 – Hey Dorothy, We Are In Kansas
Tag: Statue
Columbus – July 2019 – Greenlawn Cemetery
Our Saturday continued with a tour of Greenlawn Cemetery. While nowhere close to as impressive as Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, or even Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Greenlawn is the final resting place for numerous famous Ohioans including 5 governors, as well as a number of military sections for the various wars since the mid 1800s, among the 150,000+ people buried here.
Columbus’s favorite son – famed aviator and more – Eddie Rickenbacker.
Buenos Aires – June 2019 – Recoleta Cemetery Part 1
One of the cultures of Buenos Aires is one that celebrates in a grand way those who have died. The best example of this is the world renown Recoleta Cemetery.
If you search for ‘worlds most impressive cemeteries’ Recoleta Cemetery will always be included in any list. It is huge, historical, ornate, impressive and at times macabre. There are so many stunning scenes that it will be broken up into 3 postings, to keep the size reasonable.
Recoleta Cemetery – final resting place for the rich and famous of Argentina.
Buenos Aires – June 2019 – Recoleta Cemetery Part 2
The tour continues, including a visit from (I think) a young actress doing a photo shoot!
Buenos Aires – June 2019 – Recoleta Cemetery Part 3
Our visit to Recoleta Cemetery concludes, but not without a stop to pay our respects to Evita!
Why so many photos? With almost 4,700 ornate vaults, the photo ops were better than nearly anyplace I have ever been.
Artesia, New Mexico – May 2019 – History in Bronze
Artesia, New Mexico is an oil and gas town. That history, as well as the old west cattle grazing is celebrated throughout town in bronze statues. Also featured are some of the cultural leaders, including the librarian.
San Antonio – May 2019 – Random Views from the Tourist Spots
San Antonio is a great city, full of character. As usual I find the more interesting sights away from the big tourist spots, but the Riverwalk and the Alamo did provide a few interesting views.
Adios San Antonio!
The Riverwalk
The Alamo.
Houston – May 2019 – Random Views
We had a great couple of days in Houston, coming away with a great feel for the city. This posting is to cover the random sights that don’t fit anywhere else, like the featured image above from the Sam Houston Park Village with a little church in the middle of the skyscrapers downtown.
Even though I had been in Houston briefly a couple of times previously I had never seen the Astrodome. The world’s first indoor baseball and football stadium when it was completed in the early 1960s, it still stands unused.
The Wateralls across from the Williams Tower is 64′ high, 1 foot for each floor of the nearby skyscraper.
The ‘Twilight Epiphany Skyspace’ is located on the campus of Rice University. I had read that this was a cool thing to see, but when we got there in the middle of the afternoon I couldn’t understand why. It turns out you must be there at sunset or sunrise – maybe next time.
Houston is notorious for their traffic, with over 6 million people in the area and very little public transportation. They do however have a streetcar that covers a few miles in the center of the city.
As well as crossing a man made pond in the middle of Main Street.
Discover Park has an interesting pinwheel display with a device that when you blow into it just right, kicks off fans that make all the pinwheels spin.
Buffalo Bayou Park is a nice urban park space complete with a skateboard park.
The highlight of the park though was our tour of the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern. Once used for retaining water for the city, it is now a cool space to explore on a guided tour.
The city has numerous examples of public art.
I have often wondered who has the concrete contracts for road construction in Texas as they build ramps that seem far longer than needed, and never pile up dirt to make the overpasses shorter.
In the theme of ‘Everything is Bigger in Texas’ – As we left the city and reached the suburb of Katy, Texas we made a stop at a Buc-ee’s. A Texas based chain, Buc-ee’s are massive – this one has over 60 gas pumps (the photo is only showing about 1/2 of them)!
The highlight though was the World’s Longest Car Wash (according to the Guiness World Records) – the 255′ long one at Buc-ee’s easily cleaned off 2,000 miles of dirt and grime. Now it is off for San Antonio!
Houston – May 2019 – McGovern Centennial Gardens
Just south of downtown Houston is Hermann Park, and the McGovern Centennial Gardens. It is a small, well thought out space with flowers, plants and statues.
The statues featured great Latin American leaders, as well as (strangely) Scottish poet Robert Burns!
Houston – May 2019 – It Takes A Big Head to be President
David Adickes is a Texas born sculpture who, among other works, created large busts of American presidents for a park in Virginia. That park no longer exists, and many of the heads have made their way back to David’s studio in an industrial part of Houston in the shadow of a freeway bridge.
The overall feel of a bunch of giant presidents heads is surreal, but very cool.
And one giant Charlie Chaplin!
RDZ Photography 