Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On The Road and In Your Backyard

On The Road and In Your Backyard

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

So far, this feature has been about travel, with the occasional “local” picture or two. I think limiting this to just travel is just that – limiting. So I’m changing this up a bit to include neat, colorful, funny, interesting, poignant, etc. pictures that don’t require travel.

As always, if you’re on a trip or have a story to share, you can just pitch in below.

I’m pleased to announce the release of the new picture submission tool for this feature. Using this tool will ensure I don’t mess things up, will make it much less time-consuming for me, and will make for a much easier process all the way around.  This would not be possible without the efforts of valued commenter Major Major Major Major. His help has been invaluable in this feature, not to mention in the pie filter and rotating quote.

The form is here and has a few simple rules:

  1. You have to have made at least one comment that’s been approved/published.
  2. It’s a picture and not too big (you can include up to 7 pictures in a single submission)
  3. You must include your commenter screenname and email (kept private) to verify you, just like making a comment. Only your nym is published.
  4. No more than 10 form entries per hour.
  5. You can include an overall description, per-picture descriptions, dates, locations, etc.

If you are a lurker and thus not a commenter, or should you wish to submit a video, archive of multiple pictures, links to pictures hosted online, or want to include more text or pictures than the form allows, send an email.

Travel safely everyone, even if it’s just down the hall for that second cup of coffee!

 

 

This is from – gasp – May. I can’t believe it’s late July; time flies. I’m trying to clean out the email picture archives and expect my attention to be pulled away from the site, so I’m going to spend a couple of hours early in the week setting up posts to run through the week. Towards the end of the week, I’ll look at the submissions from the form and get them setup for publication next week.

 

From OzarkHillbilly (who deserves my apologies for not running this sooner!):

Elephant Rocks State Park is just an hour down the road from me in the heart of the St Francois “mountains” (in quotes because the highest of these is 1772′ Taum Sauk mountain), an ancient caldera. There is a certain sensuousness to the place and it is easy to get lost for hours with a camera there. From the state parks website:

*A train of circus elephants dance trunk-to-tail* to form an awe-inspiring sight to the young and to the young at heart. This is the appeal of Elephant Rocks State Park, named for a train of gigantic pink granite boulders perched atop a hill, just like circus elephants! This curious geologic formation at the heart of the park is called a tor, or a high, isolated rocky peak which is usually formed of disjointed and weathered granite. This tor was created nearly 1.5 billion years ago by molten magma being pushed to the surface. For millions of years, the magma slowly cooled, forming coarse, crystalline reddish-pink granite.

When the Ozark plateau was formed during a great uplifting of the entire area about 250 million years ago, the vertical cracks (or joints) between the rocks became more pronounced. Time and weather took its toll, clearing the weakest pieces out of the joints and laying the immense, oblong blocks of granite bare to the elements. Slowly, the corners were worn away to give the boulders their smooth rounded shape, and trees and shrubs grew in the cracks to help enlarge the joints and wear away the surface of the rock. Physical and chemical weathering has also created circular depressions called tinajitas which hold temporary pools of water and often house tadpoles.  There is no record of the actual number of “elephants” inhabiting the park. Old ones erode away and new elephants wait beneath the cracks and joints of the granite hillside. The park’s pink patriarch, Dumbo, is 27 feet tall, 35 feet long and 17 feet wide, weighing in at a colossal 680 tons!
……..
Throughout the park, there are several alternate paths available. Some are handicap-accessible, and others are only for those not using wheelchairs (or strollers). The first of these spurs is a granite gravel road that leads to the ruins of the engine house which repaired the trains that ran to and from the quarries in the area.  The oldest of these (it opened in 1869) is Missouri’s first recorded commercial granite quarry. Known as the Graniteville Quarry, it is just outside the park. These quarries provided architectural granite for buildings in states from California to Massachusetts. Most notably, granite from these quarries can be seen in St. Louis. Facing stone for many of the piers on the Eads Bridge, as well as millions of paving stones for the levee and downtown streets came from these red granite quarries. Additionally, many St. Louis buildings are constructed using Graniteville granite. Even the turned columns on the Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City contain this granite. Now known commercially as “Missouri Red”, it is used primarily as building veneer or for monument stones.

 

Looks like it was a nice day – I bet most of us would kill for a day where you wanted long sleeves on a hike! Thanks again, OH, and do send more!

 

 

Reader Interactions

48Comments

  3. 3.

    raven

    Damn, I goggled it and it’s right next door. I don’t know how I missed it those many years ago when I was visiting that area. I’ll always remember the Vida Blue Car Wash and Helpee Selefee Laundromat in Lake Wappapello!

  6. 6.

    raven

    @Felonius Monk: Indeed I did and I even made a note of it. I assume Cmr Wakefield was Regular Navy? In Dunkirk they use the French destroyer Maillé-Brézé (D627) as several ships. It was commissioned in 1957 but they did a pretty good job of making it look authentic. My dad’s can was one of the 34 WWI DD’s that were converted into APD’s (The Green Dragons).

    My cousin was an Air Force officer and served on the DEW Line in the 60’s

  9. 9.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Alain, speaking of May shots, did you want me to resubmit those Australia photos on the new form?

  10. 10.

    Felonius Monk

    @raven: He was a real laid-back guy. My favorite uncle. Married to my father’s younger sister. An avid fisherman and a hunter (mostly geese and ducks).

  14. 14.

    raven

    I stood on a wide and desolate shore

    And the night was dismal and cold.

    I watched the weary rise, –

    And the moon was a riband of gold.

    Far off I heard the trumpet sound,

    Calling the quick and the dead,

    The long and rumbling roll of drums,

    And the moon was a riband of red.

    Dead sailors rose from out of the deep,

    Nor looked not left or right,

    But shoreward marched upon the sea,

    And the moon was a riband of white.

    A hundred ghosts stood on the shore

    At the turn of the midnight flood,

    They beckoned me with spectral hands,

    And the moon was a riband of blood.

    Slowly I walked to the waters edge,

    And never once looked back

    Till the waters swirled about my feet,

    And the moon was a riband of black.

    I woke alone on a desolate shore

    From a dream not sound or sweet,

    For there in the sands in the moonlight

    Were the marks of phantom feet.

    “Iron Bottom Bay” by

    Walter A. Mahler, chaplain, USS Astoria

  16. 16.

    Felonius Monk

    @raven: You are probably correct. He would usually answer my questions about the war, but he never bragged. But he usually never volunteered info about his war experience.

  18. 18.

    Alain the site fixer

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I’ll have to wait for Major major major major to reply. I thought you could type it in but I just woke and have to get trash out, etc.

  19. 19.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @raven:

    I routinely get appointed as guardian ad litem for elderly people who are no longer able to make decisions for themselves with regard to the establishment of guardianship. About 10-15 years ago, I wound up on a case with a retired engineer (he had previously been in a senior management. position at some large manufacturer). Anyway, he had Alzheimer’s. Couldn’t tell you where he was, what year it was, the names of his children, BUT he had been on Eisenhower’s planning staff for Normandy and beyond, and remembered all of that in great detail, down to the identities of participants in meetings.

  22. 22.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @raven:

    I knew a man from my Orthodox parish – very peaceful, always a smile, spoke no English. He was from the border area between Russia and the Ukraine on the eastern side. He and his wife spoke some offbeat dialect somewhere between Russian and Ukrainian – the Russians had some difficulty understanding him, I think the Ukrainians had an easier time. I didn’t learn until after he died that he’d been the valiant People’s Red Army, sloughing across the rubble from 1942 onward. He wound up on the American side of the lines in Soring 1945. Ultimately, the US Army assimilated him, and he went on to be a ski paratrooper during the Korean War.

    Most peaceful man I ever knew. When the church changed out the brass memorial plates on the wall for uniformity (each parishioner gets one after they pass), his kids were long gone, so I kept the plaques for he and his wife.

    @Alain the site fixer:

    Thanks – no worries!

  23. 23.

    Felonius Monk

    @raven: Any idea what year that Astoria photo was taken? I”m looking at it on my phone now. I will put up on a big screen later and take a look. There is a website for the Battle of the Savo Islands.

  26. 26.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Felonius Monk:

    Also, speaking of naval battles, I had lunch with one of my oldest childhood friends Friday. I knew vaguely that his dad had been a junior naval officer, but being a kid without any knowledge
    Of history, I never thought to explore his wartime service. When they were helping their mom clean out the house, they found a boxful of his photos – he’d been assigned to the USS Natoma Bay, and he had a bunch of photos from the Battle of Leyte Gulf, burning flattops and ships galore.

  28. 28.

    Alain the site fixer

    @OzarkHillbilly: not a chance. You’re always one of my faves! I seem to be drawn to the mountain/ish folk – you, JR, etc. A major inspiration for the form was to get past having a box full of emails as it’s not the best appproach. I can’t wait/hope to get some old caving photos from you once we get into the colder months…

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Alain the site fixer: I don’t have much in the way of caving photos that I can share. Cave photography is a very special discipline and one that is very difficult to master. I never even tried, for various reasons. Most of the cave photos I have aren’t mine to share. I do have a few snapshots in print form from the way back pre-digital age. I have thought of scanning some of my Mexico shots for folks, but have no idea how well that would work out.

  39. 39.

    raven

    @Felonius Monk: Sorry, here’s what I found

    The “plankowners” of USS ASTORIA, her commissioning crew in a photo taken 2 June 1934.
    -U.S. Navy photo from Brent Jones collection

  48. 48.

    Mel

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: @Felonius Monk:
    My grandfather was like that, as well. He would answer questions, but never brought up his service or started a conversation about what he had seen. He always seemed quietly haunted when he did talk about it. He served on the USS Lindenwald during her deployment in the Pacific. The Lindenwald was at Leyte.

    Grandpa told me once about the Lindenwald’s crew shooting down a kamikaze fighter just a few hundred yards from the ship. He said he remembered time “slowing down”, and him feeling almost nothing as the crew / gunners did their jobs, but then as the Japanese plane crashed into the water, time “starting back up again”. He said he remembered feeling such relief and joy that the Lindenwald and the men on nearby ships had survived that particular attempted attack, and that he was still alive to tell my grandmother and my father how much he loved them, but that night being overwhelmed with sadness and guilt because of all the men he knew who had died.

    When he was in his 80s, he once told me that he often wondered in his old age about the Japanese pilot who died that day – whether the pilot had had a wife, parents, a little boy or girl waiting at home for him as well?

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