Tag: Scenics

Posted on

Let’s Save Bloomfield Road Spring

I checked out the middle section of Bloomfield Road yesterday. It’s a nice road if you don’t like trees. So, what can we do to save the last piece, the part from Benton Hill Road to Hwy 74? The answer is, probably not much.

A worker pointed out that the property across from what used to be Mount Tabor Park had been sold and the owners brought in the loggers to clear cut the land. Looks like the really nice trees are gone before the road crews got a crack at them.

Selective cutting

Even where the trees weren’t cut en masse, trees of any size were selectively harvested. It might be that the owner knew the road builders were going to cut them anyway, but it definitely gives you an idea of how tree loss is going to be “minimized” along the stretch.

Days are numbered

This tree probably saw travelers in wagons pulled by horses pass by to shop in Cape. Considering how close it is to the road, I’d say its days are numbered. Just beyond that tree, before the white wooden fence IS something worth preserving.

The Bloomfield Road Spring

I’ve written several times about how my mother and her grandmother used to stop at the spring in the curve of Bloomfield Road just north of Elmwood for water on shopping trips to Cape from Advance. Advance resident and historian Paul Corbin talked about his family camping alongside their wagon on trips to and from Cape.

The spring is still there, crystal clear and running enough to keep ice from forming on it when the nearby ditches were glazed over.

I guess the road folks could put up a tiny marker to remind us of what we’ve lost, not that anybody doing 55 in a 35 could see it or stop to read it.

Wooded homesites; non-wooded roads

A combination of governmental agencies, private logging and people too impatient to drive the speed limit have killed an historic scenic route into Cape Girardeau.

I’d love to save the spring, but I’m not sure that’s practical. If they don’t get it now, they’ll get it when the road is Mount Auburnized to four lanes in the next decade. The clearing of that land signals more development, which means more cars, which means more “need” for speed and “improvements.”

Other road “improvements”

Gallery of Bloomfield Road Photos

These photos show the next and final section of Bloomfield Road that is to be widened. Some are of private property that is adjacent to the road that has been logged. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

Posted on

Bloomfield Road Opens

The paper said Bloomfield Road was going to open today. TV news said it was going to open, but the signs said “Local Traffic Only” when we pulled up there this afternoon. Figuring that Mother was local and I had Florida tags and could claim I was lost, we kept driving. Before long, though, it was obvious that the road was blocked, so I grabbed my camera and started hoofing it. (Just as I was starting to leave, “Ryan” (no last name given) started removing the barricades from the road.) Click on any photo to make it larger.

I gotta tell you I really didn’t want to do this story. I’ve written about how I feel about the loss of an historic scenic road too many times. It’s a battle lost. I was going to make a strong case for trying to save the last segment, but I’ll show you tomorrow why I’m not even sure that battle’s worth wasting energy on. By the way, I refer to Phases 1, 2 and 3: the section in front of Campster School (1); this section ending at the Benton Hills intersection (2), and the final section, from the Benton Hill intersection to Hwy 74 (3). News stories refer to phases up to 5, but they’re dealing in more detail than I am. Sorry for any confusion.

How does it look?

Well, if you hadn’t seen it before, you’d think it looks pretty good. If you’re looking for the trees you knew and loved, they’re pretty much gone. “It won’t take long for the trees to fill back in,” a workman told me.

“Trees that are two or three feet around?”

“Well, uh, no, THOSE trees won’t come back quickly.”

Did they “minimize” tree loss?

On July 21, I wrote this:

Remember back in May when the city held a meeting to talk about the $1.25 million road-widening project? City officials said that as many as 150 trees would have to be taken down in order to widen the road from 22 feet to 28 feet. City Engineer Kelly Green was quoted by Scott Moyers as saying that the city has taken measures to minimize the loss of trees, but that some would have to come down in order to widen the road.

I’m going to say that ALL of the trees that appeared to be close to the right of way line were cut down except for the two next to the portable toilet. I might give the credit for saving three, but I think the one if the foreground was a little bit outside the line. If the city engineer or anyone else involved with the project would like to show me any stealth trees I missed, I’ll be around until the end of the week.

Any good news?

The project DID result in the construction of a nice, hilly curvy bike / ped path. The only problem is that it starts and stops without connecting to anything. The kinds of folks who find trail riding appealing aren’t going to brave traffic on Bloomfield Road to get there on their bikes.

How fast will traffic move?

The speed limit on the new section is 35 mph, the same as the old road. When I commented to my workman friend that one of the problems with the old road was that the 35 mph limit wasn’t enforced and that cars were moving at 45 or 50, he just sort of snorted and said, “at least.” So, how fast do you think they’ll go on a wider, straighter road? I’d love to rent a radar gun and log the average speeds once the road is fully open. Better yet, I’d love to sit out there with a speed cop who needs to make a quota.

Note those trees on the right side of the road? How long will it be before a speeder hits one of those and the outcry is to cut them “for safety?” And, if Mount Auburn Road is any indication – it was originally billed as a scenic drive – we can anticipate a push to make it four lanes within the decade.

Large Wooded Homesites

After all, those people who moved out to the country to enjoy their “large wooded homesites” and golf communities can’t be delayed a few minutes to appreciate the nature enjoyed by generations of the rest of us.

What about the final phase?

When I wrote about the project in July, I was hoping that it would be possible to rally enough support to see that the beauty of the final section of Bloomfield Road was preserved. I’ll post photos tomorrow to show why it may not be worth the energy and shoe leather to do it. I’ll also show the one thing on the final phase stretch that SHOULD be preserved for historic reasons.

Here are other stories about road “improvements”

Photo gallery of Bloomfield Road

Here are more photos of the new section of Bloomfield Road. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

Posted on

Water Park Holiday Lights

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the Family Aquatic Center at Osage Center (AKA to me as the Water Park) was all lit up for the holidays. I was already in the left lane to turn toward Kingsway, so I didn’t even slow down.

I should have stopped that night. It wasn’t 25 degrees and the grass didn’t crunch under my steps.

I had planned to do a piece on the Occupy Cape Girardeau movement, but Jim Stone and I spent most of the day roaming and visiting, so I didn’t have the energy to do it justice tonight. I was looking for something quick and easy to post. (Click on the photo to make it larger.)

How did I shoot the photo?

  • It was dark, so the camera autoselected an ISO (“film” speed of 1600. The high speed, plus the dark areas resulted in about half a dozen red and blue spots of “noise” that had to be edited out in Photoshop CS5 Extended.
  • It was darker than dark, but my fingers were too cold to fiddle with a tripod, so I grabbed my monopod to take at least a little shake out of the photo.
  • I was shivering and the cold made me need to pee, so I backed up against a utility pole to give me a little more stability (and to finish up as quickly as possible).
  • Frames that were given more light also required a slower shutter speed, which made them less sharp. Frames that were grossly underexposed showed the lights and were sharper, but lost the nice curvy lines of the empty pool. (The light color wasn’t ice; it was light reflecting off the walls of the pool.)
  • This compromise was a .625-second exposure @ f/4 at 26mm. I could have zoomed in tighter. When I went to edit it, I cropped in from all four sides to emphasize the lights. When I shot it, I thought I’d like the lights surrounded by more darkness, but that wasn’t the case.
Posted on

Jim Stone and Main Street Neon

Jim Stone, Shari Stiver and I had our own mini-reunion October 2010 after the big official one. We promised to do it again. Jim had something come up that kept him from coming Octoberish, but I was lucky enough to still be in town the first part of December, when he could make it. We thought we’d give it another shot.

Right before we were to get together, though, Shari said she was suffering from a bout of bronchitis and wouldn’t be able to make it. We tried all kinds of entreaties.

  • Brother Mark and his friends had just finished baking hundreds of cookies; he’d send a sample of those down with her.
  • Jim offered to pick her up and drive her to Cape.
  • I offered to go half on a bottle of oxygen to keep her alive.

Finally, on Friday, it looked like she might make it, but, alas, she cancelled on us at the last minute.

“Jim, do you think this is the 2011 version of when she used to tell me, “I’d love to go out with you, but Friday night is the night I wash my hair?”

He was kind enough not to answer me, because I think I already knew the answer.

So, anyway, we spent the afternoon roaming around. Late in the afternoon, I spotted that the back door at Central High School was open. He hadn’t been back in the place in decades, so I said, “Let’s go.”

(I subscribe to the Roger Miller King of the Road Theory: “I know…every lock that ain’t locked when no one’s around” when it comes to this kind of thing.

Wandering the hallways naked

“I’m from Florida. You’re from Boston. We’re old and confused. We’ll just tell anybody that asks that we’re late for our math final and we can’t find our lockers and that’s why we’re roaming the hallways naked.” (Recurring dream / nightmare.)

Jim was properly impressed with the quality of upkeep. (We did note some peeling paint in the stairwell leading up to the auditorium stage.) I tried to convince Jim that we should go up to the third floor to his old haunts in the science department. He was reluctant to explore too far. He’s done some work for the State Department, so he might know more about rendition flights and whether they apply to people snooping around in old high school buildings than I do. We wiped our fingerprints off and exited the building, speaking to a number of people on our way out who didn’t give us a second look.

Jim wanted to cruise downtown to see if there was any life after dark, so we ended up at Port Cape Girardeau for dinner. I had some fancy-named nachos that were excellent – way better than the taco chips drenched in Velveeta cheese that you usually get.

Neon at Broussard’s

Instead of heading back to the car, I started strolling along Main Street. The neon lights and people on the street in front of Broussard’s Cajun Cuisine caught my eye.

Wow, more neon

I looked behind me and saw more neon.

You’re from Boston?

I was just lining up a third shot when I noticed that Jim was huddled in a doorway to get out of the slight breeze that was blowing down the street. “Stone, you’re from BOSTON. How can you be cold?”

“If I was in Boston, I’d have warmer clothes. I didn’t remember that Cape could be this cold.”

In fairness, a street thermometer showed the temperature to be about 27 degrees. One weather forecast said that we might experience record low temps for this date, although I don’t remember what the old record was.

So, instead of being able to bring you a nice collection of neon photos from Main Street, I had to put Stone in my van and crank the temperature up to Melt. You know how it is when folks get old. They can’t stand the cold like they once could.

Other Jim Stone stories

About Proudly powered by WordPress