T Stands For Trip To Missouri

I'm sure, if you were here last Monday and Tuesday, you read that I was gone.  I was in Webb City, MO (Missouri), a state just to the right of Kansas.  I owned a house there until last Tuesday, when I signed papers to donate it to the Webb City Jr. High School.

I know you are going to ask why I did this.  It's because I was tired of having to visit there every time a renter left the place in shambles.   For most of the time, a rental agency kept it for me, but they charged me more money each month than I made on the property.   They also charged me exorbitant fees to make any repairs, clean the place afterward, and mow the grass.  I was losing money hand over fist, and decided to give it to the school.  They were very grateful for the property, and I was THRILLED to get rid of it.   I figure I no longer have to pay taxes, home owners insurance, and fees to a rental agency, so that is money in my pocket I can spend on art supplies.  For the time being it will be used as extra classrooms.

While there, my dear friend Scott and I removed everything I wanted from the residence and garage that didn't affect the value of the property.

But since this is T day,

here is where we ate the first time we went to MO, which was about three months ago.  Actually, the reason I never showed these photos on my blog during T time was because

it appears I failed to show a drink, although in looking over the images, there are coffee mugs in two photos.    Scott had pork chops and eggs and I had two eggs and a waffle.  We both had water to drink, since we had coffee in the car.  

This time we decided to try a buffet, and when we did,

I found two cardinals

in the strip mall the buffet was in.

This is where my camera quit working, and I did everything I could to get it to work again.   Scott tried to fix it, but couldn't, so I started eating.  All of a sudden, I noticed the camera was on, so I quickly took a few shots

to make sure it was working properly.  Sigh of relief!!!!!!!   You can see both Scott and I chose water, and this time I have photos to prove it.

This is the vestibule of the restaurant.

Next, we were off to Missouri Southern, my undergrad alma mater.   Since I don't really anticipate visiting Webb City (or Joplin, MO, where Missouri Southern is) anytime soon again, I took lots of photos of the University.  You will probably get bored by this, but I always loved this campus because all the building are created in the same way: using brick and Carthage (a town just east of Webb City) limestone/marble.  The company still operates today.

According to their website, at one time they were:

the largest gray marble quarry in the world. In fact, our bluish grey tinted marble can still be found in Missouri's Capital building as well as in many of the federal buildings across this country.

Also, according to their site, their company:

no longer produces marble; however, we still have a large inventory of un-cut and cut stone. This is great for counter tops, flagging, sculpting, and landscaping. In fact we have numerous customers coming from all over the United States that use our marble in sculpting.

I wonder what Missouri Southern will use now that their limestone/marble is no longer available for their buildings.

Looks like they are celebrating this event because there were signs everywhere.   About that time, the heavens opened and rain poured down.

My next stop was at the office where I would get my signature notarized.

Even their building had a cardinal on it.

We returned to the house one last time, where I intended to take photos.  However, Scott got the vehicle stuck in the muddy soil in my back yard, so I gave up on that idea once he was unstuck.   And of course it was still raining buckets, too.  We decided to leave quickly before anything really bad happened.
 
On the way out of town, Scott turned north instead of south, and we ended up going past the high school.

I'm glad we did, because I got this shot as we were passing this banner.

A really out of focus shot, but I simply had to save it.

I also took this as we passed another strip mall.  I cropped out most of the extra junk in the photo.  Although I saw many more cardinals, including one that read "You Are Entering Cardinal Country," I didn't have my camera handy.

For those of you who may not be aware, I decorated my main floor bathroom with birds, mostly cardinals.  If you want to see what it looked like at Christmas 2012, go here.  It never changes much.

I got tired of trying to get my cardinals to stay in place in the windows, so have moved them to the window ledges.  The photos from 2012 show them all still stuck to the windows.

These cardinals don't look angry,

like the ones in Webb City.

My apologies for such a long post today, but as I wrote on my calender, this is my Webb City swan song.  Now it's your turn to share a drink related post.  Your post may include photos, a place you visited, movies, postcards, books, teabags, sketches, mixed media, drawings, paintings, tags, scrapbooking, or other art that is digital, hybrid, or traditional, as long as it in some way relates back to a drink, any drink.  Please share your direct link below and Bleubeard and I, along with the rest of the T gang will be by to visit.