Category: snow
For nearly half the year, Minneapolis has a good chance of being blanketed with snow. White covers the landscape in winter the way darkness covers the world at night. It unifies the landscape like shadows do in the summer. Sometimes the snow will give dimension, visually explaining the form of the object if covers, but more often than not, it hides it.2
Bunge and the Carnival
Just another stop on the way, the Bunge Grain Elevator sits quietly abandoned on the west end of the Union yards by the University. You can actually see it from 35W, but not many people are seeing it now. It's visible from the stretch of 35W just north of the missing bridge. This is also the place where I had my near run-in with a train. The Winter Carnival starts tomorrow, but the hunt for the medallion has already begun. On top of building ice sculptures, skating and general winter fun; the powers that be hide a medallion somewhere in St. Paul and then give clues in lyrical form in the local paper. The one who finds it enters local legend and wins a big prize. I'm still fuzzy on the details, maybe Kate can help me with the details. One element I love is that the clues come out at half-past midnight, so the locals are out digging up the parks in the middle of the night. Gotta be hard-core to play. If you have any details or links to share, please comment! This photo has a lot of angles. The composition is relatively static, but the tracks, trees and the silos are at angles. Another element I enjoy is how everything is mostly white. It seems like a black and white picture, but it's not. I've done this before here and here. I warned you about it here. It also obeys the rule of thirds. I'm headed over to St. Paul to find some images of the Carnival, so keep in touch to find out what we do around here to avoid cabin fever. Please feel free to comment some links to green things for me; I'm starting to crack. If I can just make it through February...2
Peace Park by Lake Harriet
This snow-covered bench sits in the quite little park across the street from the Harriet Rose Garden. I love to spend time at this park at all times of the year. It is a nice reflective place with a wonderful Japanese garden. It has little bridges and sculptures surrounded by shaped trees and flowering shrubs. I believe that there is a plack somewhere that explains the sister city relationship with Hiroshima as well. But I'll have to wait for the spring thaw to update you on that. Enjoy the peaceful Christmas aftermath; find a bench in a park and reflect on the new year.6
Snow for Christmas in Minneapolis
Just in time for Christmas. I ran out and grabbed a few pictures of the snow as it fell. It was sticking nicely on the trees and everything else. This is the Lake Harriet band shell. Very beautiful place in the summer and there are performances almost every day through the summer, but I had it all to myself today. Lake Harriet is part of the Chain of Lakes including Calhoun and Lake of the Isles. I live by Isles, so that's the one I take the most pictures of. Thanks for the well wishes for a safe trip on Saturday. I used up my luck and karma points. About seventy miles north of home I spun out and went in the ditch. Neither my sister or I were hurt and even the Jeep got out unscathed. I did need to be towed out; we ended up at the bottom of a very steep ditch on the edge of a lake, so it was a little unnerving. Several cars all went in at the same time, one went in right ahead of us and everyone hit the brakes, I did too and started fish-tailing. Wild ride going off the highway backwards into the snow in the dark. We decided to hold off going to Chicago on Sunday, opting for this morning. There were dire snow and wind warnings for the length of Wisconsin Sunday and we didn't want to tempt fate. Merry Christmas and may all of you other traveling fools have a safe and boring holiday trip. Remember, turn into the slide.