Iced In

It's been warm and sunny the last few days, which means that all of the snow and ice from our recent winter storm has finally melted. We ended up getting mostly sleet here, which turned into a slippery coat of ice about six inches deep. It wasn't good for making snowmen, but it essentially kept us homebound for about a week. We live on a hill, and along a street that seems like it's always one of the last streets in the city to be cleared. Several cars got stuck trying to navigate the road - including a poor Door Dash driver who got was just trying to deliver a meal to someone down the road.

This is what the streets in our neighborhood looked like for a few days:



I did utilize all the time stuck indoors to go back and look through some older pictures, converting a bunch to Black and White just to see how they'd look. So here's a selection of some older photos, for your viewing enjoyment:



Way back in 2021, we took a little road trip to St. Louis. This was the view from our hotel room:



And one time a few years ago, I ended up in the Ozarks on a cold and rainy day. It had stormed, and the creeks and rivers were nearly flooded. This is Big Piney Creek at Longpool:





And after doing a short hike, I ended up at Lower Longpool Falls.





After that I headed up deeper into the Ozarks, driving along roads that dipped through some heavy fog.



And then I headed down Falling Water Road, which follows along Falling Water Creek. As you'd guess from the names, there are a lot of cool waterfalls along Falling Water Creek. The first one you see is the aptly named Falling Water Falls. The creek was nearly at flood-stage when I took these, and the falls were roaring.



One good thing about having these in Black and White is that it hides the color of the water. Since it was flooded, the water was muddy and brown (looking more like the chocolate river in Willy Wonka than the clear and turquoise waters they usually are).



And further down the creek is Six Finger Falls:







And then last year I made another little trip up to the Ozarks, and the waterfalls were flowing well again:





And it was another foggy and rainy day as I drove around the Buffalo National River:









And also last year, we made some trips to the Big City. Here's a few shots from Chicago (specifically from the Hancock Tower):





And then a few from New York:















And one last picture, which I really like because of how it looks like the public art/sculpture that looks like Pac-Man is peeking out from behind the carousel.