Goin' to Kansas City

Friday afternoon, Linda and I loaded up and went to Kansas City to attend a reception that evening for my son and his classmates and his commencement Saturday afternoon. Of course, we had our cameras so I collected quite a few shots. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the collection of images to really organize well relative to the chronology of the weekend so bear with me a bit.

Country Club Plaza
This is a very attractive and interesting shopping and dining area along the river. The effort that has been taken to provide a visually interesting experience makes for a lot of nice photo opportunities. Several very attractive fountains are nestled in the Spanish style architecture. Tile roofs, wrought iron, and decorative tiles reinforce the impression that we not in Kansas. It was a nice treat to get to roam around Friday afternoon and again Saturday morning when the number of people was relatively low.

Loose Park
Saturday morning, we set out to find a few of Kansas City's other notable fountains. One of them seemed familiar from an earlier visit to the area. Loose Park, south of the Plaza, is a beautiful park and home to the Laura Conyers Smith Municipal Rose Garden maintained by the Kansas City Rose Society. I'd taken photos with Eric and expected it would look great in the morning light; I wasn't disappointed. The rose garden will get better but there were already some very attractive views. The design alone provides some interesting shots.

I remembered there was also a pond but couldn't find it again until we drove around the park; turns out we'd probably been within fifty yards of it. The Saturday morning strollers and runners like to loop the water and the waterfowl don't seem to mind unless there's a dog along. We sat on a bench for a bit and had a pair of geese come up to graze on some grass close enough that we could hear the blades breaking when they pulled.

Kansas City
We visited several other Kansas City sights. The image in the upper left is detail from the top of the Liberty Monument. A towering round monolith atop a bluff overlooking Union Station and the southern face of downtown, this complex houses the National World War One museum. From the foot of that tower, the Western Auto sign that was featured in Eric's senior project was a unique image. The memorial fountain dedicated to the memories of firemen lost was beautiful in the morning light. The image in the center and the fountain in the upper right are from the river walk. In the lower left is the south lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. There are giant badminton birdies on each side of the museum as if it were the net; pretty striking modern images in a rather classic setting. The lion statue was displayed inside the museum. The red metallic thingy is my artsy shot; it's the KCPT television tower against the morning sky, rotated for a little more interest. The last image is of the restaurant where Linda and I enjoyed dinner Friday night, Gates Barbecue. I try to visit that place nearly every time I'm in KC... yummy for my tummy!

Commencement
These last images are rather poor excuse for graduation photos. It seemed that I was always either out of place, out of focus, or out of step with the proceedings to get a really good photo of Eric receiving his diploma. Fortunately, there was time after the proceedings to get in one with him.

This commencement was truly an joyous and entertaining celebration of what these students had accomplished. Often a rather boring formality at the end of the year, these guys know how to make it interesting. To some degree, it was just another example that they'd accomplished their goal: to develop a greater sense and capacity for creative expression. As the student speaker put it, it was as if they'd taken all the art geek, non-jock kids from all the schools around and brought them all together on one place; now it wasn't enough to be good, you were surrounded by the very good. It was a treat to be in their presence.