Home

For the majority of my life, I have called Columbus home. Sure my time here has been peppered with little moves to Florida, Mississippi, Michigan, Kentucky and Georgia...but I always come back home to Columbus. I realized the other day that I've seldom actually seen our city. We drive through it a lot...usually on our way somewhere else, but I couldn't remember the last time I parked the car and just took a walk through downtown. So yesterday I did just that! Around lunch time I packed up my camera, a few lenses and memory cards and went on safari! I looked for things downtown that I had never noticed before, and was I ever surprised by what I didn't know!

These rows of pinwheels were on display in the front lawn of COSI

Just a few blocks away..

On a bumper of a car parked at North Bank Park...

For this set, I wanted to get a perspective on the city that was more than just "looking up". When I parked in a garage next to the Leveque tower, I found the perspective I was looking for...

I fell in love with the juxtaposition of the old against the new here...

A Columbus landmark...

Again, I just adore these old buildings downtown. Years ago, the people that built this building probably thought it was pretty big... wonder what they would think if they could see the skyscrapers of today...

It looked like one building was literally coming out of another...

One of the things I was amazed I had never known about our city was the war memorial. On the Statehouse lawn there are two walls with inscriptions of letters written home by soldiers and sailors from various wars... Some of them very nearly brought a tear to my eye...

But this one made me laugh a little...

"Why yes, I do shoot Canon..."

Statues in front of the Statehouse. The one on the right is William McKinley, but I wasn't able to find out who the two on the left were...

As I was headed back to my car, I spotted a man sitting on the Statehouse steps in a Union Soldiers uniform. That didn't quite go with the 21st century I thought we were in, so I asked him what it was all about. Turns out he was taking part in a sort of Civil War re-enactment surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln. 145 years ago yesterday, President Abraham Lincoln's body was lying in state right here in our Statehouse. The entire statehouse was set up exactly as it had been on that day...complete with Mary Todd veiled in black wandering around the casket (a little creepy...but cool)!

Some views from the Old Post Office which I believe is now a Law Firm. I can remember going to the Ohio Theater and being terrified of this building! Now, I'm able to marvel at it's beauty...

I loved the "stair stepped" effect of this shot... along with the browns and blues...

Paul, one of "Lincoln's Guards"...

The rotunda inside the Statehouse... I still couldn't get over the fact that after spending essentially my entire life here I had never set foot inside the place!

McKinley looking out on progress...

Another fun view from a mirrored vestibule on Broad St. looking back at the Statehouse...

Fire escape on the side of the LeVeque Tower...

So this is my backyard, and all of these places have been here just waiting to be discovered. No doubt there are more, but this was a really fun start!

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