Murals of Hamilton

Thursday
We had a great day today, making the most of the beautiful weather. First, we drove up to Hamilton, which calls itself the city of sculpture, but besides its sculpture, it also has numerous beautiful murals. Hamilton is also the city where I worked as a librarian in their public library, when we first came to the States in 1979. The city has certainly transformed itself over the years. It is also the home of Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park which has featured in my blips several times. The top left mural is actually part of a longer mural, entitled “Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, a well known author and illustrator of childrens books, and was a native of Hamilton. The entire mural depicts scenes from three of his books, Blueberries for Sal, Make way for Ducklings and Homer Price. The scene I chose for my blip is representing his book Blueberries for Sal. The top right mural, my favourite I think, and again not shown quite in its entirety, is called Incrementum, and depicts Hebe, the Greek Goddess of Spring, as a central figure, paying tribute to the statue in front of the mural. There’s a lot of other symbolism in it which I won’t go into. The thumbnail photo is The Delicate Balance of Progress designed by Annie Hamel, a Quebecois artist. The fourth, entitled Hey Caddy-O, is on the side of a building which has a history as a Cadillac dealership, and also draws attention to the automotive manufacturing history of Hamilton. These were just a few of the murals we saw - I’m sure I will feature more at a future date. From there we headed southwest to Miami Whitewater Forest, a Hamilton County Park. We had taken my kayak along, but Roger had been wanting to have a go at paddle boarding, and they rent them there. So there I was in my kayak, ready to take some photos of him falling in (!), but I was disappointed, as he took to it quite quickly, and wobbled a couple of times, but never fell in! Photos in extra. I was pleased to find that many of the American lotus flowers were out, whereas when we went to Cowan Lake with Jen about ten days ago, theirs weren’t out yet.
Step count: 6,864