Robert Pence

There's a lot to photograph in Seattle! Great photo set. I haven't been there in thirty years; thanks for the refresher/update! Excellent work!

Nice neighborhood to retire to. Thanks for the beautiful tour.

In my 2 1/2 years at Dover AFB, somehow I completely neglected Wilmington. I regret that now. I often went to Philadelphia and always drove there. I wasn't train-aware then; I could have driven to Wilmington and taken the Pennsylvania Railroad to Philadelphia with more convenience.

Excellent tour; thanks for sharing the photos.

Both towns very nicely done, and -- dare I say -- cute?

When it stands all alone, independent of any surrounding influences, it can be cold, sterile, and harsh. Sometimes it helps to have surroundings that soften it a little bit. For example, Maag Library at Youngstown State University:

A big plus for me, in my recollections from spending a couple of weeks in that part of the country about fifteen years ago, is the culture of friendliness and hospitality among the people. Their sense of community isn't dependent upon having franchise coffee shops; it centers around long-time locally-owned restaurants where people gather to keep up on gossip and discuss national events. Local festivals and events bring people together to share their talents, the extent of which might surprise some urban easterners who don't expect much sophistication in small rural cities. I think I could be very contented living in some of those places.

Agreed. And when they break (and they will) it's not a big deal to replace them. The same if someone steals them. Harbor Freight has some budget-conscious LED light sets that work well enough for town riding, too.

Some impressive buildings, both old and new. Duluth is bigger than I imagined. It once had an inclined-plane railway.

With the exception of some excessively-wide downtown thoroughfares, Rochester looks pretty good. Retail, lodging, and Clinic facilities look like they're clustered together nicely, and everything is clean and orderly. The bus shelters are interesting; they have more of a permanent structure appearance than the ones I've seen in most cities. The former theater housing the Barnes & Noble store looks rather like one of the John Eberson creations that was built with an atmospheric ceiling that looked like a night sky when the auditorium was darkened.

Excellent photos. I've never visited Providence and didn't realize it's such a great-looking city.

Me, too. Thanks for bumping it.

Good photos. It's a shame they tore down the old bus station that was still there in the early sixties; it had been built in the early 1900s as the interurban railroad station, serving several electric rail lines that ran through Indianapolis. It was just a block from the Capitol, as I recall, and the vast old trainshed still stood and spanned what once had been seven tracks. Although buses took it over by the late 1930s, in the 1960s the tracks still were in the floor,

Some of them don't do anything except get gullible people up in a lather over nothing. I have a few acquaintances who forward to me every alarmist thing, including some that are technically completely implausible, that they read on the internet. Some people with nothing better to do just like to start rumors and hoaxes to see how far they will spread.

Spectacular event! In 2007 from the Goodtime III I saw one forming, but I don't think it ever touched down:

One of the best ones I've read recently!

Two handsome, classic downtowns, well photographed. I prefer Albany's some, probably because the streetscape isn't littered with parked cars. I assume that's thanks to what look like very large outlying parking decks. I'll agree with Loretto that the mall is visually interesting in its own right; I just think that its juxtaposition with the downtown collection of traditional, classic government and commercial buildings is jarring. I haven't been to Albany, so I'm wondering if other traditional downtown buildings were sacrificed to create the mall?

Nice job of thorough documentation! These are two architectural landmarks that are important to the downtown urban fabric, and although both need a lot of work, their potential is great.

Thank you! I think the flowers are pretty nice, too. :-)

7200' stunning! I'd speculate it takes long-term conditioning to handle sustained exertion at that elevation?

They're supposed to get 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall. I thought about cutting one off and taking it to the store and showing it to them and demanding a refund. :-D You can't imagine how much water they take when they get that big!

This has been a tough year for flowers and for me. Here's what can happen if you nudge them along with Miracle-Gro and good potting mix and lots of TLC:

Yep, zinnias are direct-planted, usually after mid-May. In four or five days the first shoots appear, and they they grow like gangbusters. This year a storm at the end of June dropped a tree across my back porch and patio and damaged or destroyed a lot of stuff; I didn't get the results I hoped for on my patio, but I guess i'm fortunate to have gotten what I got. This year I bought my zinnia seeds from Park Seed ( www.parkseed.com ). In past years I've gotten higher germination rates and more robust growth with seeds from Olds and Ferry-Morse. Look for California Giant Zinnias. Watch out for powdery mildew; zinnias are extremely susceptible, and you'll see a white powdery dust-like formation on the leaves. Spectracide Immunox stops it, but it's best to prevent it by spraying as soon as there are a few adult leaves, and continuing about once a month throughout the summer.

This afternoon (Sep 16, 2012)

Excellent tour. Some of these views emphasize a big selling point for Cleveland; the compact character of downtown puts many of Cleveland's iconic structures in an area where they all can be encompassed in one photo. It's an imposing CBD that mixes classic buildings with some striking newer ones, and this is a major element of it.