I started my Army adventure at Fort Leonard Wood and that’s were I finished out this fiscal year. Here’s some odd and ends from my three weeks in Missouri.
The week-end I spent photographing cemeteries in St. Louis, there was an annual balloon festival. A docent at Bellefontaine told me about a park where I could be away from the crowds and get a view of the race. Unfortunately, the wind was taking them the opposite direction…but I got a few shots on the drive back to the hotel by following the balloons.
In researching how MO got its’ motto, “Show Me State,” I found several interesting facts: It is bordered by eight other states, only it and Tennessee share that many borders. It was the starting point for the Pony Express Trail, Oregon Trail and Route 66.
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| World's Largest Rocking Chair, Fanning, MO |
>The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers meet in St. Louis. The northern part of the state has Interior Plains while the southern part has the Ozark Mountains.
Monocoupe II0 Special – STL
It’s in the center in more than one way…24th to enter the Union…St Louis is called the “western-most Eastern city” and Kansas City the “eastern-most Western city”…
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| TW Finds Friends in a Hotel in Rolla, MO |
2010 census put Plato, MO as the 'mean center of the United States population’…it has both Midwestern and Southern cultural influences (which I found reflected in the food).
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| More Airport Art – STL |
“Show-Me” came from either a speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver in 1899 or a miner’s strike in Colorado in the mid-1890’s; they used Missouri miners who needed to be shown CO mining methods.
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| Missouri Survivors’ Memory Quilt |
The lobby of the building was displaying parts of the 2010 Missouri Survivors’ Memory Quilt.
On any Post, you can find war machine displays.
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| M93A1 FOX Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle |
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| M1117 “Guardian” Armored Security Vehicle |
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| M48A2 AVLB Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge |
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| Stained-glass Display |
Versions of the AVLB were used as early as WWII.
From the third floor of the building I was working in, I was able to observe a formal presentation.
