Eric

Tuesday afternoon, Eric arrived to spend the better part of about twenty-four hours with his Dad. We got caught up on what's been going on, what's coming up, and some photography and animation ideas. It was a nice day so we both grabbed our cameras and headed out to see what was happening in Des Moines.

The pagoda along the developing riverwalk caught our eye so we stopped and tried to get a few shots of that striking structure. Right now, the area around is not very pretty but it's going to become the Robert D. Ray Asian Garden. Based on some of the other gardens along the riverwalk, I expect this could become quite attractive in the next couple of years.

We turned downstream and soon found the new skating rink being put to good use. The skaters appeared to range from preschool to nearing retirement age. Families, couples, young adults, and elders were all smoothly making their way around the rink. Holiday music was being played over the speakers loud enough to hear but not so loud that normal conversation was challenged. The curious blue dome things at the far end contain skate rental and snack counters. Around the rink, a layer of spongy black material allows the skaters to walk around with skates on their feet. All in all, an excellent addition to the river area.

We continued our walk around downtown, stopping in to warm up at Java Joe's. Eric shared that some of his friends really hadn't grasped the concept of our skywalks so he got a couple of pictures of that feature of downtown and we proceeded along to the south.

On our way into the downtown area, we'd seen the new science center and wanted to get down to see that new feature. While the majority of the displays are inside, we found the exterior and surrounding grounds to be intriguing as well. They obviously made nice efforts to make the walk to the building a trigger for the curious mind. There are interesting questions and solar system objects and orbits embedded in the concrete. These seats sit on orbit marks in the concrete illustrating an atomic structure. Lots of very good ideas went into this place. It's fun!

We also visited the new library area (it was closed for the holiday) and the Des Moines Art Center. Again, we were pleased to see interesting displays being enjoyed by a few dozen folks on a Tuesday afternoon.

The next morning we enjoyed breakfast at Hy-Vee and played around with some pretty basic animation ideas. I tried some but don't know how to get this site to show them yet. I'll keep working on that.

We got Eric set up to do some web development on his laptop computer and then it was time for him to head home. It was nice to have the day to visit.