Here’s the next set of photos from my month in Argentina.

The Patonia is enormous, and one of the least densely populated places on earth. The photos below were taken on our bus trip from Buenos Aires to Bariloche, all in the latter portion of the trip. The Patagonia begins as a vast plain of almost complete nothingness. It then evolves into grasslands, rolling hills, and finally, at the tail end of the trip, breathtaking mountains and rock formations footed by bright blue lakes, serpentine turquoise streams, and the occasional grazing cow or goat.

You can click through the set of photos below or, if you want the full experience, click on the photo itself and watch a full-screen slide show.

So I’ve finally finished sorting, editing, and organizing the photos I took from my month in Argentina. I’ll post them in batches over the next few weeks using the very cool Picasa slideshow feature. The first batch is from Puerto Madero, a picturesque waterfront of shops and restaurants lining Buenos Aires’ old port. As usual, the food at the two restaurants I tried was fantastic. These were all taken on one of my last nights in the city. If you click on the little speech bubble in the corner, you can see some short captions I wrote on a few of the photos. You can also click on the photo itself to go to the Picasa site, where you can do a full-screen slideshow. Pretty cool ap.

Have I mentioned that I love this city? I flew in last night at dusk, and it was pretty incredible to see the city lights, Elliott Bay, Lake Washington, the islands and the mountains from a plane at sunset. This afternoon, I took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. Took this photo from the boat. I’ll upload more photos to Flickr as soon as I sort through the huge mess that is my photo library.

Bariloche the town is a bit touristy and schlocky in places, though still not without its charm. But the views from the town out over the Rio Negro into the foothills of the Andes are unspeakably beautiful. I’ll upload a whole set of photos onto Flickr in the next day or so. But here are a few shots in the meantime.

Some pics I took this afternoon during early rush hour. Others after the break.

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Last fall, I stayed in the Chicago suburb of LaGrange with a college pal and his wife. While there, we went to a pee-wee football game to he his cousin play. I took a few photos. Little kids in full football pads are awesome. The only thing funnier is little kids in full hockey gear.

Last-minute pep talk from the coach.

From left to right: Lining up for kickoff; a quick sub; place-kick practice.

Halftime. A quick spit-polish from mom.

The lime curtain. Possibly the Colts’ starting linebacking unit next year.

The bloody war zone that is the line of scrimmage.

Went to HR-57 over the weekend, a great little spot at 14th and Q in Northwest D.C. The place is named after the congressional resolution declaring jazz a unique American institution.

The bar itself is a non-profit. So they don’t sell much in the way of booze or food. Cover is ten bucks, and for three more you can bring your own beer or wine. They usually sell one plate of soul food. The night we were there featured fried chicken, collards, and some red beans and rice for six bucks.

The band in the photos is the Donvonte McCoy Quartet. McCoy’s a jazz landmark in D.C., and a terrific talent on trumpet. But it’s the guy on the piano who blew me away. Unfortunately, I don’t recall his name. He came to D.C. from the Bahamas by way of New Orleans, and is now studying at Howard University. He’s really, really good. Unfortunately, there was no mic on the piano — or if there was, it was way too low — so he was often drowned out.

In any case, the place is a great time, if a little sweaty in the summer. But everything in D.C. is sweaty come August.

More after the break.
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After the break, a few shots I took of Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi, home of Prentiss, and where the Cory Maye-Ron Jones raid took place.

Above is a shot of Mississippi 13. The official name of the road as it passes through J-D County is “Golden Pine Road.” But in recent years, it has become known to locals as “Dope Road,” due to the apparently thriving drug trade that uses the road as a thoroughfare. The DEA concluded a big investigation there in 2004, resulting in about a dozen indictments.

If Prentiss is a poor, depressed community, Jefferson Davis County is the same on both counts, only worse.

There was something very likable about the countryside, though. There’s some real pastoral beauty in places. There’s also some dispiriting, crushing poverty, like none I’ve ever seen.

In any case, here are a few photos I took while getting from here to there:
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Unfortunately, the only photos of Cory Maye circulating about on the Internet are his prison photo, a photo of him in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit, and in handcuffs being frog-marched from the courthouse in Hattiesburg. Here’s one from his mother:

And below, a recent picture of Ticorianna, the girl who as an infant laid on the bed as the raid transpired. She’s nearly six, now:

Here’s a front view of the duplex. Cory, Chanteal, and Ticorriana lived on your right. Jamie Smith and Audrey Davis on your left.

Here’s a close-up of Maye’s side of the duplex.

Here’s the back. This is the door that volunteer officer Phillip Allday kicked open, and that Ron Jones entered when Maye fired. When I was at the duplex, I imagined being a cop, knowing that I’d just attempted to kick down the front door, and that I and my fellow officers had just attempted to kick down the back. The place is very small. It’s utterly unfathomable to me that, had I known there was someone involved with drugs inside, I would enter the building with my gun still in its holster.

After visiting the duplex, I’m convinced that the raiding officers that night didn’t think there was anyone inside the Maye side of the duplex.

(Note: I originally had photos from inside the apartment posted here. The current resident, who gave me permission to take them for publication, has since asked that I take them down. I don’t think they’re so pertinent to the discussion as to justify upsetting the current occupant. So I’ve agreed.)

Here’s the main room inside Cory’s apartment. Obviously, someone else lives there, now. So disregard the furniture inside.

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Another view.

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Here’s an inside view of the back door. The door is essentially in the same condition it was in the night of the raid. I’ll have some more on the door frame after I get confirmation on a few facts.

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Here’s the bedroom view from the door.

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By my approximation, this is about the view of the door Cory had the night of the raid. Save, of course, for the fact that it was dark.

Here.

I believe Seattle is now my favorite city in the U.S. Wouldn’t mind living here someday. Great climate. Friendly people. Lots of culture. The best open-air market I’ve ever visited. And you have beach, water, mountains, city, snow, and countryside an hour or two from downtown.

The undergroundish pictures are part of a very cool bit of Seattle history.

Apparently, the original city was built on a hillside, which made sewage a problem at high tide — geysers of raw sewage three to ten feet high would routinely erupt from Seattleite toilets. After a thirty-plus block of the city burned in a fire in 1889, the city thought it would be a good time to solve the problem — by bringing dirt down from the mountains, and elevating the entire city. Given that the project would take about ten years, during which very little else would get done in the city, business leaders balked. But with a big tax base and East Coast investment, the city went ahead with the plan anyway, but confined it to property owned by the city. It amounted to a battle of wills.

So you had this bizarre scenario where the city imposed 10 to 30 foot retaining walls along the sides of city streets, then filled in the walls with dirt, gravel, and cement, lifting the city streets into the sky. The streets towered over the sidewalks. Each corner apparently had a ladder you had to climb to get from sidewalk level to street level. This of course created huge problems (it’s not ADA-compliant!). People regularly fell off the street to their deaths. Sometimes horses fell down to the sidewalks, as — regularly — did horse waste. In fact, any number of items might topple off the street onto the sidewalks and pedestrians below.

So after the project was completed, business owners got together and installed i-beams to connect the street to their buildings (generally at the top of the first story). They then built brick arches across the opening, effectively creating enclosed sidewalks, though a full story below. That also had the effect of raising the entire city one story. Street-level stories were now basements. Second stories became first stories, and so on.

For a while, people still treated the now-underground story as a kind of street level for pedestrians. They put thick, glass skylights in the brick arches to allow in light for shopping the “storefronts.” Our guide told us that one amusing side-effect of this development is that the skylights served as a kind of built-in advertising mechanism for prostitutes. They’d linger over the skylights in flowing gowns, allowing the men below to, um, “inspect the goods.” They’d also typically print their rates on the bottoms of their shoes.

Over time, the new “street level” became the norm, and those covered sidewalks and old storefronts were abandoend.

A local newspaper columnist rediscovered the passages in the 1960s, and began to write about them. Miracllously, he was able to secure rights from the business owners, the city, and find an insurance company willing to underwrite the idea of a walking tour (Lloyd’s of London was the only insurer that would bite). In the forty years since, Pioneer Square has been rejuvenated from slum to trendy tourist stop.

It’s pretty damned fascinating. The tour guides are witty and knowledgeable — even a little bawdy.

The bar pictures are from F.X. McRrory’s Whiksey Bar, a large restaurant-tavern near and dear to my heart because (a) it boasts the largest collection of bourbon in the world, and (b) it’s the subject of this LeRoy Nieman painting, which hangs in my living room.

I’m off to Anchorage now, then to Kodiak Island, Alaska this evening.

Pics from day one in Seattle here.

Not enhanced yet.

I love this town.

I’ve been browsing the photo files on my computer and though I’d share with you a few straggler photos and groups of photos I came across.

Tonight: Stray pics from my trip to Boston this past Memorial Day.
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First, hearty thank-yous to all of you who sent tips and suggestions of things to do during my vacation to San Francisco. We didn’t have nearly enough time to do all we wanted, but still had loads of fun. I have several posts in the queue related to my trip, but first I thought I’d share a few of my favorite photos.

If you’re up for “hey, look at my vacation pictures,” click “more.”
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Some great stuff among the winners of the College Photographer of the Year competition.

Yes, I’m going to force you to look at photos of my road trip to Asheville, North Carolina.

Click “more” to see.
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Just a few more. Then — pictures of stuff not in Indiana!

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