October 7: Stemler Conservation Area and Baltz Cemetery

Paul and I had planned to go hiking that Sunday. But we wanted to be back in time for the Cardinals game at 2:00.  He found a trail of the week in the Post Dispatch while drinking coffee in front of the fire, so we headed off. It was chilly. We were wearing hats and gloves--a classic Fall day.

The trail is only two miles long, but there were off shoots that were a bit confusing on the map.  It wasn't a problem to just turn around and get back on the trail.  The conservation area backs up to farms, fields with horses and even subdivision.  The problem was that we encountered two cute dogs along the way. A larger, lab mix and the small, stuffed animal-type pictured above. The lab hung out, raced around, was friendly, and then darted off, seemingly in the distance of houses. The little guy above kept following us on his stubby little legs. We didn't know what to do at the trailhead, so we accompanied him down the road a little way, hoping to find someone who knew where he belonged as he had no tags. We came across the old cemetery below.  Paul consented to cross the no trespassing signs to explore it, but drew the line at letting me do any gravestone rubbings because most of the stones were so fragile.  The little stubby dog followed us into the cemetery, but then didn't follow us out. (There was a house right next to it with children's toys in the yard. Hopefully the owners returned from church and rescued the little guy.)

\

Yes, I know I'll eventually be under the ground in one, but until then, I still enjoy cemetery walks and photographing headstones.

October 1: Lafayette Square Park at Dusk

One of the Treemendous Geocaches

Perfect October evening at Lafayette Square Park.  Paul and I walked around the park and then down some of the streets surrounding the park. We had dinner at Molly's in Soulard, sitting at a bar table and watching the Cardinal game. Not crowded and peaceful.

Bellefontaine Cemetery with Christine: Sunday September 22

Grave of Joseph Luyerties. Story has it that this is the likeness of an Italian model Luyerties met on a trip to Italy. His love was unrequited, so he had a giant likeness of her sculpted--and he kept it in the foyer of his mansion until he died at 50 and it became his headstone.

Christine and I wondered the graveyard, taking photos, talking on a Sunday morning. I brought a thermos of coffee.

Christine noticed this grave; the later dates and the young age of the deceased piqued my curiosity.
Seems Joseph Barzanty was a genius at making mazes. His puzzles were featured in the Post Dispatch and he won competitions as a child, became something of a local celebrity.Plagued by bipolar disorder and depression, he took his own live in 1992 at the age of 21 by jumping off of an overpass.

Soulard Market and LaSalle Park, September 21

A Saturday morning stroll through Soulard Market stalls, sharing a Bloody Mary with Paul. Sixty degree temperatures. If you go early, around 8, the crowds aren't so large. 

The organic stand: awesome zinnias!  I bought several bunches eleven years ago as the centerpieces for our wedding at the Stupp Center in Tower Grove Park!

Outside the market in the courtyard where musicians sometimes play.

Paul walking over to LaSalle Park.

Graffiti on the overpass sign.

After crossing 55, an alley leading to LaSalle Park

Reminds me of New Orleans:  small courtyards with broken bits of glass and assorted oddities.

Sculptures in LaSalle Park

Mailbox:  Paul always notices the details.

Typical architecture in Soulard and LaSalle Park.

Calvary Cemetery: Saturday, September 15

Time for autumnal walks at Calvary and Bellefontaine Cemeteries, a tradition of mine since the early 2000's when Paul came up with the idea to take our Creative Writing field trips there. The weather today was perfect--65 degrees--breezy, varying between overcast and sunny.  Just spooky enough for an hour and a half walk with my camera, journal and coffee.  I was glad I chose Calvary today.  For the last three years or so, I've forgone Calvary for Bellefontaine because the latter, being multi-denominational, has the most diverse head stones and inscriptions.  But I've become so familiar with Bellefontaine over the last few years, that my walks have lost the eerie meandering feel that I so love about roaming through cemeteries. Incidentally, I noticed an empty condom package littering the otherwise pristine grounds--it reinforced the morning's themes of sex and death.

I found plenty of new details--and also ran into some stones and monuments that I'd seen before. Coming up a hill and around a corner, my pleasant Halloween-type experience was interrupted by the site of Mev Puleo's grave.  Puleo was a photo journalist who attended SLU around the same time I did.  I didn't know her personally, but her legacy in the field of social justice is legendary.  Before dying of a brain tumor at 32, she authored a book called The Struggle is One,  After walking up a hill and rounding a corner, I ran  into her grave and remembered a fluke sighting. When I was living in Boston, I spotted Puleo walking through Harvard Square with (I'm assuming) her fiancee while I was taking a cigarette break on the front steps of Wordsworth.  This was probably some time in 1990. I was in the throws of self-centered depression. Puleo looked very happy. This was probably about four years or so before she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, six years before she died.

I'd been sort of looking for Tennessee Williams' grave--or at least--the Italian section of Calvary with all of the photographic portraits on the headstones, but happily, I couldn't find them--which means I can save that for another day.  Instead, I ran into the Carr Children Monuments. I always forget they are in Calvary and not Bellefontaine.   Very sad tale of death of toddlers--but the tombstones, once meant to be comforting reminders to their parents after their deaths, possibly of cholera--as there was an epidemic in St. Louis around that time--are the ultimate eerie experience now.  This morning, I was not alone. A couple with expensive cameras got out of their car to photograph the monuments as I was walking by.

Even though I couldn't find the Italian section, there was no shortage of graves of the Irish.  I couldn't resist photographing Patrick Mahoney's grave..Who knows when he lived or died--what seems most important--and I agree--is that "he enjoyed it all."  I spotted an Irish flag, something I either hadn't noticed before or is relatively new, flying over the Dolan graves, next to a large monument inscribed with "God save Ireland." This kind of cheered me up and, walking a bit farther, I stopped to finish my coffee and journal. From my vantage point on a marble step that had broken away from one of the monuments, I could still see the flag in the distance.

Great Rivers Greenway: Monday, September 10

The new section of the Great Rivers Greenway at Jefferson Barracks opened last weekend. Paul and I the trail (1.8 miles one way) on Monday, but we had unsuccessfully searched for the trailhead over Labor Day weekend on a muggy Sunday.  The photos are from that Sunday, driving around Jefferson Barracks, photographing the myriad numbers of thin deer that were just standing around, looking for hand outs from people in cars.

The actual trail is paved and flat, good for rollerblading or bike riding or a leisurely stroll along the river to the Casino.

Rockwood Reservation: Lime Kiln Trail and a little extra

Sunday, September 9: 75 degrees at 3 p.m.. Sunny.  The remnants of Hurricane Isaac put the green back on the trees after this summer's drought.  Exhilarating hike over rocks, up hills.