I was still lurking when I saw the original post and I know it's after the fact, but here was my take on the first picture, the tower...
At first I thought: perspective, looking up, who looks up?, tourists, what kind of tourists?, mid-western Americans, why?, because I grew up in the midwest and have a certain fondness for them (I know the connection doesn't make sense, but that's the way my mind works...),etc. And a story was brewing...
Then I went to go vacuum and I kept thinking about it and my mind did this:
“Oh honey, just look at that! Isn’t it just so…” She pauses, searching for just the right word, the word she’ll use to describe the tower when next at lunch with the girls. “It’s majestic,” she pronounces. “Majestic,” she repeats, pleased with her choice.
“Don’t you think so, Stan?”
“Hmmm?” He glances up from the pages of his dog-eared and Post-It-noted guidebook, his constant evening companion during the six weeks leading up to the trip.
“Oh yes…yes it’s great, hon. We’re doing the Arch today, too. Are you sure you want to go to the top? That’s looking like a pretty long line over there.”
This time it’s Gracie’s turn to say “Hmmm?” as she stands there, eyes to the sky, absorbing every detail.
“The top. Did you still want to go to the top?”
“Oh well…what do you think?”
“Well, if we’re going to do it, we’d better hustle over there now. It looks like the line is moving, but we’ll be cutting it close to get over to the Arch and then to” he stops to consult his book (section 4, Post-It note number 5), “La Belle Mer” (4 stars, 3 dollar signs). “And I know how much you’ve been wanting some good scallops.”
“Oh sure, honey, if you think we should go now we could just-“
“No, no, we can do it, but let’s get in that line now.”
They walk over and queue up for a ride to the top. Indeed, it does move quickly and in the elevator Stan consults his book again looking ahead to tomorrow’s schedule, silently congratulating himself for keeping them on track. This is, after all, a dream vacation, and they are going to see everything.
As he flips through pages, Gracie stares out over the ever-smaller cityscape, breathes in deeply and thinks, “Majestic.”