Ladee's Travels

This memorial is located in the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza .  It honors the Arizona Casualties of the Korean War .  The bell is beautiful.  It is very tempting to ring it.

Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza is the home to the anchor from the USS Arizona and a mast.  (Note that the original Arizona bell now hangs in the University of Arizona (Tucson) Student Union Memorial Center bell tower. The bell is run after every home football victory.  Other artifacts are permanently housed at Arizona State Capital museum.) You can read about the USS Arizona here . This is the anchor and you can see the mast in the distance.  The base of the anchor holds the names of those lost during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  This is the view of the mast looking forwards the Arizona Capital building.  A dormant fountain has the Arizona state flag. The pigeons are lined up for a private viewing.  There is also a time capsule at the exhibit.  Hmmmmmm, 2075 seems like a very long time.  This is a little closer to the mast.  This plaque tells more about the USS Arizona Signal Mast.  You can click on the photo to enlarge...

I work near the Capital building and have started exploring the monuments and memorials in the area. I find it quite interesting that I have lived in Phoenix for such a long time, yet there are still a lot of sites that I do not take the time to visit. Isn't that true of our own hometowns a lot of the time? This is located in the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza .  The first memorial that I visited was Ernest W. McFarland.   You can read more about him here . He was a democratic senator for Arizona, the tenth Governor of Arizona, and chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court.  He is also honored as the "Father of the G.I. Bill." The area is very nice and is across the street from the Arizona Supreme Court.  It is Winter in this photo, so you can imagine that it would be very shaded in the Spring and Summer.  The fountain and seating were very interesting in that they looked like large books.  A wall shows a list of his accomplishments. Amazon has a few b...

The Stephen Foster Memorial is located on the University of Pittsburgh campus.  Yes, Stephen Foster is yet another Pittsburgh native. We weren't able to enter the building due to a scheduled event, but the grounds were wonderful.  Be sure to check the official campus website (here) so that you are sure of the hours.  I am going to show a few of the photos that I took and the things that caught my eye.  References that I give are taken from this wikipedia description.  The building was designed by Charles Klauder, as was the Heinz Memorial Chapter . The gate and lamp are beautiful works done by Samuel Yellin. This is a closeup of the Samuel Yellin work. Paving stones always capture my eye.  Red front door, with ironwork by Samuel Yellin. This is a sundial on a stone base (the gnomon is missing).  This was dedicated in 1914 to the Pittsburgh blues of the War of 1812.  The stained glass windows were done by Charles Connick...

The Heinz Memorial Chapel is on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.   Click here for a wikipedia description of the building. All architects and designers are listed on the site and I credit my information to wikipedia. I won't repeat a lot of what is provided, but will give a brief description. This building is worth seeing.  It is in an area of the campus along with the Stephan Foster Memorial and the Cathedral of Learning. One of the main features that drew me to this building is the stained glass.  The neo-classic design was by Charles Klauder and the stone was grey Indiana limestone.  All of the wood in the chapel is oak.  The lectern and pulpit area are of English pollard oak.  The pews are of Appalachian oak.  Ahh, there they are, the stained glass windows. There are 23 Chapel windows, design by Charles Connick.  The windows are about 4,000 square feet, with 250,000 pieces of glass. There are 391 identifiable...

I love the river cruises in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is not complete unless you travel the river and see the connections on each shore. This is quite interesting. It appears to be an overturned barge, painted, with a little bit of graffiti.  Not the best photograph, and certainly not the most glamorous along the river. This is the baseball stadium with the stands filled to see a Pirate game. This is the sunset showing off Heinz Field, the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers! As the sun dips in to the Pennsylvania hills, you can see the Carnegie Science center. The lights are on the rails of the incline.  The incline is the best way to get to the top of Mount Washington for a beautiful view of the nightlights of Pittsburgh. I am fascinated with all of the bridges around the city and the great variety of construction methods. No cruise is complete unless you can look at the sunlit skyline with Point Park in the foreground.