Flying by the Seat of Our Plans

My sister, my brother-in-law, and my two nephews came to play for a few days in St. Louis.  I was willingly tasked with taking candid portraits of the boys.  Playing with them for a few days and taking way too many pictures of them was a blast, but those photos will be a different post.  This one is just for the urban landscapes... Inside the Old Courthouse Dred and Harriett Scott statue which is located in front of the Old Courthouse, the site of the first two trials of the Dred Scott case.   I recognize that these panoramas are ridiculous, but they are fun! - John

I was hoping to go home to Raleigh for the weekend of my Dad's birthday in April, but flight schedules and pricing made that a no-go.  My parents have made Orlando their vacation destination for golf, relaxation, and Disney, so I decided to check flights to meet up with them on their most recent trip.  Flights to Orlando from St. Louis are nonstop and affordable, making a quick weekend getaway an enticing proposition.  Mom was thrilled and we wrote up a card for Dad to open on his birthday, explaining that I would join them for a couple of days in a few weeks.  Dad expressed interest in fishing, as well as the EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival, so plans were a go!  First, we had a lovely day at EPCOT.   Mom and Dad at Italy in EPCOT Mom enjoying our lunch at a new restaurant for us, Via Napoli, which has pizza ovens named after Italian volcanoes.  A browse through the Carbondale mall left me with no choice but to return home with this Hot Topic Little Mermaid dress

We planned to head into Shawnee National Forest in an effort to learn how to take pictures of the Milky Way in preparation for the Montana trip in June.  The Forest offers the darkest skies within a 2-hour drive of our house according to the Dark Sky Map.  We figured that if we can get the pictures to come out here, we should be able to see even more in the darkness of rural Montana. Clouds rolled in as we packed the truck the first night.  By the time we finished dinner, nary a star could be seen.  We cancelled the trip and headed to the local lake to practice some long exposures in the daytime.  It was really windy and choppy, so we used some filters to lengthen the exposures to smooth out the lake and show the motion in the tree. I awoke at about 1 a.m. and was restless, so went outside and saw that the sky had mostly cleared, so made the trip to Barger Lake.  It has a dam at the north end that would allow unencumbered views to the south.  We wanted to integrate so