A Mish Mash From Last Week

What's this? Did we step into the wrong blog? This is a bit of the Hartford skyline, as seen from the Connecticut State Capitol Building

This is a really busy time for my family for a number of reasons, so I'm off my normal schedule of things until next week. Last week, we had to go into West Hartford and Hartford, so we gave my mother a quick drive-through tour of some of the city. The city pictures were taken from the car window. I'm never one to pass up a nature-y thing, whether I'm in the country or the city.

We were actually in a parking lot of a shopping center when I took these pictures of the pink dogwood trees.
. This is a statue of Lafayette. He came to America to volunteer in the Revolutionary War. In the early 1900s, the sculpture of Lafayette was made by Paul Wayland Bartlett, a sculptor from New Haven, CT.
. This is the Colt Firearms dome. The Colt Dome has been a Hartford landmark since it was built in 1855. Here is a bit of nature. Check out the vines all over this house!

This is the Mark Twain House. Home of Mark Twain - Samuel Clemens. Sam and Livy Clemens were married in 1870 and moved to Hartford in 1871. Twain wrote:
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"To us, our house had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see us with; and approvals and solicitudes and deep sympathies; it was of us, and we were in its confidence and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction."

Right next door is where Harriet Beecher Stowe lived.
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut. (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center). Living right next door, she was friends with the Clemens family. This is our State Capitol building. It is right in the city and it overlooks a 41 acre park. (Bushnell Park.) The Connecticut State Capitol first opened for the General Assembly in January, 1879. (A bit of a lean on this picture from shooting it out the car window and I didn't have time to fix it.)
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This picture is very large, so if you click on it, you can see some of the detail on it.

Connecticut State Capitol Tours Gallery 1 Gallery 2

. Right near the capitol is the Soldiers and Sailers Arch. The monument is made of brownstone from Portland, Connecticut . If you're you are familiar with Larry over at the Brownstone Birding Blog, this is where the name Brownstone came from. Brownstone is quarried in the town where he lives. The arch was dedicated on September 17, 1886, which is the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. It was erected to honor the Hartford citizens who served in the Civil War. It was the first permanent war memorial constructed in the U.S.

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Okay, are you bored enough yet? ;-) A few nature pix thrown in now...
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These pansies were at my mother's place
. And the trees outside her door are in full bloom

There is a little retention pond there and these ducks were swimming around.

So, I snapped a few pictures

And then I went home. Hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of my "non-nature" world.

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Thank you for all the comments you left for me. I left the house very early on Saturday morning and didn't get home until very late, so I wasn't able to reply. Sunday is another hugely busy day here, but Monday, we get back to nature again and I can catch up with your blogs! (Or with any luck, maybe I can visit blogs this afternoon!) Have a great day!