Ice Archives

February 12, 2018

The Frosty Flag

When I went out grocery shopping late Saturday night, I thought I could feel moisture in the air. In fact, When I came out of Sam’s, there was a fine mist on my windshield.

“This could turn into freezing drizzle and be really nasty,” I surmised. There was a state salt shaker prepping the intersection of William and I-55, so I wasn’t the only one concerned.

MODOT painted an ugly picture

My weather apps couldn’t make up their minds about heavy snow, light snow, no snow, etc. I saw a bunch of posts from truckers saying that north central MO highways were littered with wrecks, and a glance at the MODOT Traveler Information Map showed that almost everything but SE MO was painted as partially covered, totally covered or Don’t Even Think About It.

Facing a frosty flag

When ice finally did start forming, I debated taking a drive to see if it was worth shooting, but it didn’t look all that exciting, so I gave it a pass.

When I woke up this morning, I saw icicles hanging off the carport again. My all-weather, lighted flag had a strange look to it. It had gotten wet, then frozen overnight. It thawed out fine later in the day, but it looked odd for a few hours.

The closeup at the top of the page looks positively arty. You can click on the images to make them larger.

January 9, 2014

Mississippi River Ice

The Mississippi River never iced over enough for me to shoot people and cars crossing over to Illinois, but I have taken pictures of floating ice before. These photos were taken in the mid-1960s.

Walking across the river

Fred Lynch posted a Frony photo from 1936 showing people and a bike on the river, but he said it didn’t run, possibly because the paper didn’t want to encourage such behavior.

The ice floes were a little thicker when I shot the river in 2000.

January 26, 2013January 26, 2013

Home, Home Again

When we were getting close to Cape, I told Friend Jan, “The Cape bridge is really pretty at night. You might want to be ready to shoot a photo when we get closer.”

She started waving her cellphone around, making little squeals of what I hope were pleasure.

I had already called Mother to tell her we were about home and asking her if she wanted us to pick up anything from Hamburger Express. She did.

I had just made the right turn at River Campus to go work my way down William when Jan hollered “STOP!! Turn around! Look at the moon!”

She used up a whole day’s worth of exclamation points in 12 seconds.

So, minutes after entering Missouri, we were exiting Missouri, to go back into Illinois to go back to Missouri. You can see how this has been a long trip.

Day started off with ice

We spent too much time sightseeing on Thursday (pictures to come) to make it all the way from Athens, Ohio, to Cape in one shot, so we stopped on the west side of Louisville. The weather report didn’t look good, so I wanted to be on the west side of town so we wouldn’t hit morning rush hour and snow at the same time.

When I went to load the car, my head and feet almost swapped places. The whole parking lot was a shiny sheet of ice. I’ve never seen an ice sheen that perfectly smooth. The whole car was coated, too. It was time to give Jan a new experience: ice removal.

I handed her a can of spray deicer and a scraper and told her to have at it.

She handled that spray can like a well-trained riot cop with Mace.

“You need a smaller car”

When it came time for the scraping, she said, “You need a smaller car. I can’t reach all the way to the middle.”

“No, I need a taller passenger.”

That’s when I came clean: “The deicer speeds the process up, but the car’s defroster would have had the windshield warm enough for the wipers to slide the ice off,” I explained.

I should have waited until she put the can of deicer down before I broke that news.

December 29, 2012

Capaha Park Lagoon

This is one of those “almost” photos that came close to working, but had some flaws that kept it from being really nice. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

You shoot a silhouette by having a strong backlight and underexposing the foreground until you are essentially left with a photo of a shadow. It works only if the background is plain, however.

I like the moment with the girl’s leg caught in flight and the fingers just barely touching, but there isn’t enough separation between the running figures and the background. The guy’s legs and head, in particular, get lost in the shadows.

Capaha Park ice

This photo, which I’ve run before, is more appropriate to the weather Cape has been having, although it’s a much warmer winter so far than what we had when the lagoon froze over in January 1968.