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Random Panoramas

I just found these panoramas that Google Photos made from my photo library.

Click on the photos to see the full view.

Arizona State Line

Andrews, South Carolina

View from Smithfield Station in Smithfield, Virginia

Centennial Park, Atlanta, Georgia

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Providence, Rhode Island

Utah State Line

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Innovations in Flight at the National Air and Space Museum - Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center These are snapshots from the video I recorded walking around the event. via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpTLAdDuXqU

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I Stayed In A Lighthouse!

Well, it's faux lighthouse but still.

The lighthouse is modeled after the at Hooper’s Straight Lighthouse which is located at Chesapeake Bay Marine Museum in Saint Michaels, Maryland.

I stayed in the Captain Sinclair Suite (top floor) in the Lighthouse at Smithfield Station in Smithfield, Virginia. When you stay in the top suite, you get access to the lighthouse stairs and cupola.

Some of the things I enjoyed were the spiral staircase in the middle of the room, the light at the top, the sunlight from all directions in the daytime, and the panoramic views from the 6 dormers and the 360 degree views from the top.

There's an actual lantern at the top!

These are photos from the bed. Even at night the view was dramatic.

I want to move in! It was definitely a unique experience that I would do again.

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Holland in Virginia

I was all set to go to a farm to see and pick tulips but I didn't buy the tickets right away. When I went back to buy them, they were sold out. I even woke up early to get same day tickets and they sold out while the tickets were in my cart.

But then I saw that the Netherlands Carillon area had tulips too! You can't pick them but you can see them.

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Here's the view from the grounds of the Carillon.

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New Prince Mural in East Point, Georgia

We came across this new mural of Prince in East Point, Georgia.

I didn't expect to see it but I was already wearing purple.

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Paisley Park

It only occurred to me when the plane landed in Minneapolis that I could go to Paisley Park along with the other places I hoped to visit if I had free time. Our goal was to finish our work on Wednesday so I checked the tour schedule for Thursday. There was a tour at 11:30. I didn't try to book it since everything was up in the air.

We worked late Monday through Wednesday. Technically we were done Wednesday but had to do some quality assurance checks and have our exit conference, which was scheduled for 4:00. We were done at around 4:30. I decided to at least drive by and see it from the outside.

If I'm ever back, I'm going to come early or leave later so I can visit.

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Frank Lloyd Wright Houses in the Minneapolis Area

On Thursday evening, we didn't work late on this work trip so I drove around to see some sights.

I had mapped out a route of stops in a particular order using Google Maps on my laptop and sent the link to my phone. Only when I left the car rental place, did I find that the link did not work properly on my phone so I had to wing it. I ended up visiting everything in the wrong order. And it took maybe twice as long because I think I have the "Avoid highways" setting on the phone.

Note that three of these are private residences and I was careful not to trespass.

Henry Neil House, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Paul Olfelt House, Saint Louis Park, Minnesota

Malcolm Willey House, Minneapolis, Minnesota

And it was night time when I finally made it to the former Fasbender Medical Clinic in Hastings, Minnesota. It's currently an office for Edward Jones financial advisors.

I attempted to see another house in Stillwater but it was just way too dark.

This was my planned route.

And this is what I actually did.

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Camping at Janes Island State Park in Maryland by bigtoeinthewind We went camping at Janes Island State Park on Maryland's Eastern Shore. We arrived after sunset (DON'T DO THIS) but still enjoyed ourselves. via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J66yU1v84c8

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The perfect view leaving out of National Airport.

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Feeding Baby Gators by bigtoeinthewind We fed baby alligators in Kissimmee, Florida. via YouTube https://youtu.be/mfdhe0_52w4

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Looking back at these photos from the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad makes me want to go on a real train trip.

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International African American Museum, Charleston, South Carolina

I visited the International African American Museum located on Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina. Gadsden’s Wharf was the first destination for an estimated 100,000 enslaved Africans during the peak of the international slave trade. Some researchers estimate that 40% of the enslaved Africans in the United States landed at Gadsden’s Wharf.

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National Memorial for Peace and Justice In Montgomery, Alabama

I finally made it to the Equal Justice Initiative's National Memorial for Peace and Justice (also known as the National Lynching Museum). We actually drove there from Nashville in 2018 soon after it opened but arrived less than an hour before closing. A docent there told us that we would need at least an hour to walk through the site so we should come back another time. She was correct. It takes at least an hour.

The memorial square is made up of 800 hanging weathering steel monuments. When I walked into the memorial I thought they were like headstones as they were on the same level as the viewer. Each rectangle represents a county in which one or more documented lynchings took place. Inscribed on each rectangle are the name of the county and the names of the people who were victims of racial terror lynching in that county.

When you turn the first corner, the floor has a decline and the rectangles appear raised up. After the next corner, the floor descends even further and the rectangles are hanging all the way above the viewer's head. At that point, it's harder to read them and they seem closer together. The entire time you are in the square you can hear the running water from the fountain.

After walking through the hanging monuments, next is the memorial park. The memorial park has duplicates of all 800+ rectangles lined up and laying down. This is when I realized that they looked like coffins. Seeing them laid out that way really showed me the magnitude of the lives senselessly lost. And on top of that, one rectangle could represent one person or 20 people.

They are grouped by state and alphabetically by county so if you missed a rectangle for which you may have been looking, you'll have the chance to see it here.

After walking through the memorial park you see the sculpture by Hank Willis Thomas which addresses the contemporary issues of police violence and racially biased criminal justice.

Lastly, are historical markers created as part of the Community Remembrance Project. EJI’s community remembrance work is part of a larger movement to create an era of restorative truth-telling and justice that changes the consciousness of our nation. 

About the Memorial for Peace and Justice:

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened to the public on April 26, 2018, is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

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South Carolina Barbecue in Atlanta?

So we went to Rodney Scott's BBQ in Atlanta. Rodney Scott is a James Beard Award-winning chef and pitmaster who branched out from the family business Scott's Bar-B-Que in Hemingway, South Carolina.

The place was very trendy and I liked that a lot. It looks like the place used to be a car dealership.

I will say this. We had had recent experience with the original recipe so we went in with that expectation.

We ordered whole hog (pulled pork) sandwiches which come with pork rinds on top, chicken wings and pork rinds. The presentation was good.

We liked the original recipe better. For me, there was too much seasoning on everything. For him (the other half of "we"), he felt like the pork rinds were more like what you buy in the store and didn't like them on the sandwich. He also hated that what we got in Atlanta cost more than what we got in South Carolina.

We are both going to try again - maybe the location in Charleston.

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We Drove To South Carolina For Barbecue

We drove to Hemingway, South Carolina, for barbecue because of a YouTube video.

I was game because why not? Also, I have two family lines that are from South Carolina (Mayesville and Summerville). Mayesville is on the way and Summerville is not that far and I wanted to see them.

We went to Scott's Bar-B-Que.

They cook the whole hog pit-style over wood from freshly cut trees. Here you can see wood being unloaded.

As expected the place was no-frills. That's how you know the food is good!

Since we drove far we got several items. We got pulled pork, ribs, and a whole chicken. Each came with a vinegar-pepper sauce. We also got pork rinds. We didn't order sides or anything else.

We loved the pulled pork, the ribs and the pork rinds. We ate it for several days which is probably not a good thing. We had a discussion about whether pork is bad for you or if it's the things added to the pork that's bad for you. I digress. The chicken was so-so.

The vinegar pepper sauce was a lot though. I think I prefer a sweeter sauce instead of the vinegary sauce but that's not what you would get in the region of South Carolina according to this display.

We also went to the newfangled Rodney Scott's BBQ in Atlanta. The next post will be about that.

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Hemingway, South Carolina, home of Scott's Bar-B-Que.

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Pure joy. London, August 2015 https://instagr.am/p/CZNno0gshga/