It was very warm yesterday. After church, my wife and I made a little excursion to an area downtown where I had wanted to take photos earlier, but I didn't then have a camera with me. This time I took my nice digital camera but the darn batteries were dead. Fortunately, I had my cellphone. So at some time in the future we will return and I will take better photos. In the interim, these can be considered "studies". There's a lot to photograph! This will take up several installments.
From yesterday's heat, we have shifted to clouds and wind and cold. Tonight I will have to protect plants from freezing. It is always like this here; weeks of increasing warmth in early Spring, everything at last turning green, and then a late freeze to kill it all off again. Winter gives us one, final, slap in the face. But it might not be a hard freeze, so the setback should not be severe. Most of what my wife and I planted can be protected, and should survive.
I emphasize that you see what the camera saw. No enhancements. If it looks drab, dull, bleak, that's because the scenes were just like that.
Approaching Municipal Drive...
Pump Station Four, a place I remember well, is visible in the left side of this pic.
Not a lot of traffic.
The highway department did what it could to make this stretch of road attractive.
But you can only do so much.
This motel has been around for many years.
It could use a bit of work.
Lubbock International Airport (what a joke) is coming up! But we do have the meanest airport security around. Everybody I know who travels by air hates this airport because of the shabby way they are treated. I avoid air travel like the plague. I just won't do it. In the wake of the various security measures after 9-11, a crappy and dehumanizing experience just got worse. Tell you what, I'd rather be FREE than SAFE. Stuff THAT sentiment up your hole, John Cornyn! Unfortunately, most modern Americans are clueless wimps.
This is what you see:
On the left, the continuing eye-sore, the OMNI BUILDING. The city would like it to be demolished.
Fair Park Coliseum-- Elvis Presley played there, back in the day.
"The Federal Building" dominates this view.
This structure has something to do with the cotton seed oil industry, I think.
"The Federal Building" is right in the middle of this pic. If you serve on a Federal jury, this is where you go. Also Bankruptcy Court and related things. Impressive antennas on top!
Lubbock's only hi-rise apartment complex is part of the skyline: Park Tower.
I-27 is not in such great shape anymore.
Last weekend my wife and I headed north on I-27, toward the airport. She took photos along the way. I left these photos in their natural state, to reveal the natural drabness of the landscape. This installment begins another little photo series:
Here, we are just about to get ON I-27.
And now we are on the "on ramp"...
Heading north...
Hotels and Motels...
Parched vegetation...
Nice bricks! They tried to make this stretch of highway look decent and they did OK.
Downtown Lubbock skyline coming up on the left...
There will be another one, soon, another "on the road" type series.
