Tall Stacks – Christine M. Grote

I’d like to take this opportunity to catch up on a couple of things meriting mention.

First, I’d very much like to thank everyone who has bought Dancing in Heaven, and those who have read it and given me feedback. In particular, I’d like to thank Nancy who blogs as dogear6 at My Life in Photos. Nancy was kind enough to write a review of Dancing in Heaven for me that I have linked on my Dancing in Heaven page and that you can read here.

Second, I’d like to thank Sue who blogs at Dreamwalker Sanctuary for the Versatile Blogger Award. You can read interesting facts about Sue and the Versatile Blogger Award at her Versatile Blogger post. As I told Sue, it was kind of her to nominate me, but I would not be officially accepting the award as I have already done so in the past. You can read about my seven fascinating facts, and who I nominated for the award, at my post, Rapunzel Speaks and Gives out Awards.

Now, on to the entertainment portion of today’s program.

In the fall of 2006, I was taking a photography class at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio. One of our requirements was to prepare a slide show. I decided to do one about the Ohio River, set to the song Old Man River performed by Bee Adair. Which is all rather insignificant. But I spent a lot of days journeying along the river, looking for photo opportunities.

The other thing you need to know is that every two or three years, Cincinnati hosts a Tall Stacks event on the riverfront where riverboats gather and a big festival is celebrated. Tall Stacks was being held in 2006.

One day I was driving east along the river and I pulled over into a park to see if there was anything photo worthy, when a couple of red and blue flags caught my eye. Being curious, I wandered over and much to my delight, found the Mississippi Queen and the Delta Queen moored side-by-side. The river was low and they were waiting until it rose to continue their journey to Cincinnati.

I got there just in time to see them pulling in their landing ramp, untying the large ropes strung to sturdy trees, and casting off up (or maybe it’s down) the river to Cincinnati.

I entered the photograph in a contest and received an Honorable Mention for it. The photograph appeared (in a very small version) in the 2007 Best of College Photography Annual.