Archives March 2011

Springfield’s power plant is ran by City Water, Light, and Power, the largest municipally owned utility in Illinois.  The CWLP coal fired power plant sits at the edge of Lake Springfield, an artifical resevoir formed between 1931 and 1935 by building a dam across Sugar Creek.  The lake was created both as a water source for Springfield, and as a cooling lake for the CWLP power plant.

This is one of those iconic buildings that stands out to me from my childhood.  You can’t drive in or around Springfield with out noticing its massive steam stacks.  I probably thought they were cloud generating machines as a kid.  We also had a boat and would spend many summer days on Lake Springfield, with the power plant always in the background.

“CWLP”

Whew, it has been a crazy week!  For those that don’t know, I am getting married in 3 weeks.  We are having a beach sunset wedding in Fort Myers, Florida.  After the wedding, we will be out of the country for a week on a cruise.  I am very excited, and I still intend on taking photos for my Photo 52 Project, but they may not be posted right away (the main one would be the week we’ll be out of the country, as I won’t have any access to the internets).  This weekend we had our couples Wedding Shower, and the whole week has been crazy busy leading up to it.  I was walking around the hall snapping some photos while everyone was getting things ready, and this is my favorite.  This is my Mom, my Aunt Sue (the woman who introduced me to my Fiancée), and my Sister, all working hard getting the food ready to go before the Shower.  Heather and I are lucky to have such wonderful and amazing people in our lives that will help out and do what ever is needed of them for us, and while this picture is only of a few people, I speak for everyone in our family, and our close friends.  Thank you everyone for an awesome weekend!

“Preparations”

Another abandoned house?  Yup!  This was more of an abandoned mansion though.  There were many neat things about this house, and I would have loved to get closer to it, but there were signs that the property was still watched after.  There was a new chain link fence out front, plus alarm signs and stickers all over the place, and some other little signs that just didn’t make me feel comfortable walking up in to the yard and around it too much.  So I popped on the telephoto lens and shot from the fence for the most part.  I can only imagine how grand this house must have been when it was first built, but now is just crumbling apart.  There were signs that someone tried to restore it at one point, but I think they gave up on their efforts too.  This is a tower that looked like was part of a breakfast nook in the front corner of the house.  It was pretty cool looking with its copper roof and windows going around the top.  I would have loved to get a look inside this place too, and wish I knew more about the history of it, who built it, and what happened to them that the house is now mostly abandoned.

“Sanctuary”

Another dreary sunless day in Central Illinois.  We have had a lot of rain lately, combined with above freezing temperatures has lead to a lot of excess water in the area.  I decided to drive out to the Taylorville Lake dam and see if it was overflowing any water.  Well, it indeed was, and this is the most I have ever seen it.  On a typical summer day, this dam will be dry, and you can walk down in the overflow area.  The roaring sound alone from the water spilling over the dam was awesome.  It also made for some cool shots.  I used my 70-300 lens on my tripod with a remote shutter release for this shot.  I was pretty happy with how it came out and I only made a few minor tweaks to it in Picasa.  I’m looking forward to warmer/sunnier weather though.

“Cascade”