Monthly Archives: November 2013

Chihuly and Thanksgiving

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New Mexico greetings to one and all!!!!

It’s been a little over a year since the Caterpillar Visitors Center and the Peoria Riverfront Museum opened up in downtown Peoria and it sure has been a great improvement to our city!

For those of you that remember Lakeview Museum, the PRM is a huge upgrade and they really have done a nice job with it! Since PRM has opened, we’ve had a couple of major shows with a great show of photographs from nature photographer Ansel Adams and now a show of glass work from the George R. Stroemple Collection. In this collection is the work of one of my favorite artists, Dale Chihuly! Chihuly’s glass work is incredible and if you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and come down to PRM in the next few months and check it out!

Here’s my snap of the exhibit room at PRM of the Chihuly and Friends show!

It’s Thanksgiving week and like me, I have a feeling that a lot of people that I know will be taking advantage of this short work week and traveling! I’ve traveled down here to New Mexico to spend Thanksgiving with my folks and am very happy about that!!!! I’m thankful for the people and things in my life, so this is a great time of the year to reflect on all of that!

If you’re going to travel this week to visit family and friends for Thanksgiving, make it a safe one!!!!!

Have a great week as always and thanks again for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmcprm22nov13

Washington, Ill.

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Sunday the 17th started out like a normal Sunday in Central Illinois. The weather people had talked about some rain and maybe a storm or two in the morning and then a sunny afternoon. At some point around 9:00am things started to get dark outside at my house (about 25 miles west of Washington). I checked the radar on the internet and you could see some storms and rain coming, but nothing looked too ominous. At some point at my house, it started to rain pretty heavy and then a bit of hail and a lot of wind! The trees were blowing and things were rocking pretty good for about 15 minutes and as fast as it started, it was over. No damage or issues and I’m thinking it’s just another storm that we have here in the Midwest. I couldn’t have been more wrong! The storm really picked up when it got on the Eastern side of the Illinois River and it rocked the Pekin, Il. area pretty good. The storm then headed North and hit Washington, Il. and just nailed the city. By now you’ve probably seen the photos and video of the devastation and unless you’re in it, it doesn’t seem as real. I found out a couple of people that I know lost their homes in this storm and for me that’s when it really became real. You’re then putting a face with what you’re seeing on TV and the reality starts to hit home!!!!

It’s been speculated that because this happened on a Sunday morning and people were at church, more people weren’t home and hurt or killed by this storm. I don’t know if this is true, but I’d like to think that it is!

In the coming days we’ll hear more about what can be done to help out the people effected by this storm and I know that it’s going to take awhile for things to be rebuilt! The good thing that I’ve come to know about Central Illinois is that it’s a very giving area and we will help our own!!!

Thanks for checking out my work and I hope that you’ll keep all these people in your thoughts and prayers!

Kev

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kmc17nov13

St. Joseph Plantation

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!!

We got back from our quick little vacation down in New Orleans a few days ago and it was really great to be down there as it always is! There is just so much going on with all of the great music and food and it’s always a good time!

One of the things that we like to do is to get out and away from the city and drive on the back roads in the area! Part of the fun of this is to go along the Mississippi River and see some of the different plantations that are still there. There are a number of really good ones and each time we are there we try to see a new one. The St. Joseph Plantation is a working sugar plantation that has been around since 1830, so there’s an incredible amount of history there! After taking the tour of the St. Joseph plantation, we were able to walk around the grounds and see some of the other buildings. One of the buildings that caught my eye was some of the slave cabins that were there on the property. When you see the main plantation home and all of it’s elegance, comfort and style, it’s a bit shocking to see the complete opposite of the slave cabins!

Here’s one of my shots from the St. Joseph Plantation that I really like!!!

I hope that you’re going to have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!!!

Kev

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kmc11nov13

Laissez les bons temps rouler

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Monday morning greetings from New Orleans to one and all!!!

It’s always great to get out of town for a few days and to have more then a few days means a much longer road trip!! Being from the Midwest and going to the gulf coast from New Orleans over to the panhandle of Florida has been a family tradition for my family for many years! We spent many a Easter vacation in Biloxi, Mississippi when I was a kid and came to love this part of the country! Here we are all those many years later and we are still drawn to the Gulf Coast!!!! Lots of great food and drinks and that famous Southern hospitality, it’s always a can’t miss time!!!!!

One of my favorite places in New Orleans is Pat O’Briens! If you’ve been there, you know all about Pat O’s!!!! If you haven’t been Pat O’Briens, you need to add it to your list of places and things to do! There’s something special from sitting outside on the courtyard patio to being inside in the dueling piano bar! Their motto is “Have Fun” and I can’t think of a better place to do that!

Here’s one of my snaps of the world famous Pat O’Brien Hurricanes!!!! What a drink!!!!

As they say down here in NOLA, “Laissez les bons temps rouler” and for those of us that don’t speak French, “Let the good times roll”!!! That’s a metaphor for life!!!!!

Have a great week as always and thanks for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmcpob3nov13