Photo: Parasailing - A Photo I Wish I Took - Darn The Traffic!
Driving home during rush hour tonight I had the pleasure of watching two parasailors slowly loop their way round, and round high up over Springfield, Illinois. I was driving south on Macarthur Blvd. with other traffic fast, and furious I didn't dare attempt any photographs.
The parasails were at several thousand feet when I first spotted them, and could be seen all the way from Outerpark, and Macarthur. They looked like little purple birds at that point.
By the time I reached the Intersection of Wabash, and Macarthur just one of the two parasailors was still airborn, the other having landed in a field.
It was a rare sight, for Springfield, Illinois. To watch these two airborn acrobats doing their sky loops was not only dangerous for them, but somewhat dangerous for all the rush hour drivers. I could tell that other drivers were also taken with the novelty.
The parasailors were using a very large tract of farmland on the south side of town. I guess that would be a relatively safe place to practice this sport. In coming years, as Macarthur is pushed farther south the entire area south of town will be prime for residential, and commericial development.
Every morning as I drive down Wabash headed toward the Stanton overpass I can't help but think how that rich black soil, literally some of the best agricultural land on the face of the earth, will one day host residential, and commerical development.
It could successfully be argued that using that land for those purposes is an incredible waste of resources, however it makes more sense to develop that land, which is closer to Springfield than it is to push even farther away from Springfield's center.
But for now it's just a wide open space - a safe area for parasailing.
PhotoSource: www.pbase.com
2 comments:
There is a club in Taylorville that does skydiving. We used to live by the airport there. It was neat to see them, at least a half dozen or more, coming down out of the sky. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons we would stop and watch them land. But to see them over Springfield, that has never occured with me!
Hot air ballons fly over Pontiac in the summer, but not parasailors. It had to be cold up there over Springfield.
One of these days Illinois will be developed into one big metropolis. But being the prophet, you already know that.
Post a Comment