Golden day

Sometimes in late fall in New England, there are golden days. Friday was one of them.

I took a lot of photos in the morning and then again in the afternoon. These are all from the late afternoon after a friend and I had a wonderful time talking over coffee.

I was driving up South Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts - the town where I live - when I caught a red light at West Housatonic.

It looked so beautiful in this clear light that I pulled my little Nikon out of my pocket and took this shot.

Then I turned right on East Street to return an audio book, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, to the Berkshire Athenaeum.

If you haven't read this amazing, mystic first novel by David Wroblewski, I recommend it highly.

Anyway, I was standing in the library's lower parking lot when I took the photo above looking east on East Street.

Still on East looking east I put the camera in it's telephoto phase and took this picture of the Wendell Funeral Home and Pittsfield High School, it's spire pointing to the moon.

Click on the shots to blow them up. Photos by Grier Horner/ All rights reserved.

Let me apologize for the technical problems that have blocked my efforts to post recently on my main blog site, http://grierhorner.com/blog.

A wing and water

From my window seat on the plane Tuesday, I shot its wing which was upswept at the end. The gold beads are raindrops on the window.

In the top center of the photo you can see the reflection of my camera, and to either side of that my hands. We were coming back from Louisiana.

Here's another shot (see the October 27 post) of rain lashing the parking lot of our Louisiana motel Monday night.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Photos by Grier Horner/All rights reserved.

Liquid gold

I shot this picture from my motel room window in Lake Charles, Louisiana, last night. It was raining like mad. This was the rain beating insanely in the water covering the parking lot. A street light cast it in this amazing light.

To see a large-scale version, click on the picture.

We were supposed to leave Lake Charles Monday morning but terrible weather in Houston messed up our plans. So we went back to Jared at Enterprise and rerented our navy blue compact for another day and returned to the Best Inn and Suites and rerented a room.

We got up at 4:45 am Tuesday and got home about 7:30 this evening. With no complications, except I couldn't tap into the wifi at the airports in Houston or Cleveland and was very frustrated.

You wonder why we went to Lake Charles? The Shadow knows.

Photo by Grier Horner. All rights reserved.

Pistol packing bridge

On the subject of the Interstate 10 bridge in Lake Charles, Louisiana, I neglected to mention one swashbuckling element of its design.

That touch was casting 5000 braces of crossed pistols in the design of the railing - a tribute to the spirit of the pirate Jean Lafitte, who prowled these waterways.

Lafitte and other waterborne brigands are celebrated in Lake Charles with a festival called Contraband Days.

Click on the photo to enlarge it.

Bridge over the Calcasieu

By the dawn's early light the bridge over the Calcasieu River in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is bathed in gold in this photo from a series I took from my 3rd-floor motel room.

Now you see the bridge, which may be replaced, in the light of early afternoon.

And finally, a view at sunset.

The structure is over a mile lone and climbs until it is 90 feet above the river which flows to the Gulf and the Waterway. It's that high so ocean-going freighters and tankers can pass under it.

Now that the 57-year-old bridge needs to be replaced because of its deteriorating condition, the federal government, I am told, wants a low bridge.

But Lake Charles is pushing for a high bridge to accommodate modern ships that sail in from the Gulf or the Intracoastal Waterway.

Under debate for years the new bridge won't be built anytime soon, one local told me.

Photos by Grier Horner. All rights reserved. Click on photos to see them in a large scale foremat.