Over the (flooded) river and through the woods: to the Ozarks we go (again)!

We had such a great time in the eastern Missouri Ozarks a couple weeks ago that we convinced my sister and her fiance, Richard, to meet us to spend one day of their visit over there before coming to Carbondale.  They would fly into St. Louis and we would drive over to meet them.  The question was "how?".  The Chester bridge was still closed, and so we would go through Cape Girardeau.  We planned to head out some time Friday evening.  Luckily, I noticed an alert that morning warning us that routes 3 and 146 would be closing at 7pm, so we got into high gear to get down there before that.  We made it to McClure around 6:15pm and sat for about 45 minutes.  I think it was just after 7 when we got to drive through and we saw them close the road behind us.  

I had wanted to do some long-exposures of the flooding, but realized quickly that it wasn't situationally appropriate to stop and set up a tripod on the side of the highway and that we should keep moving through the one lane that was still open.  I still got some shots while hanging out of the window, trying to focus some of the photos on a very minimalistic style.  I have used the wonders of Photoshop to alter some of those low-horizon shots into backgrounds for future Powerpoint slides for my talks on wetland flooding, which was a nice bonus (altered versions not pictured here).

After we got through the flooded road, we pulled over in East Cape to capture a few shots of the bridge.  It was right about now that I realized that I had forgotten the tripod at home (again) :o

I realized that there was almost zero traffic on the bridge now, and that one side was closed for construction.  We parked on the Missouri side and ventured out onto the bridge to take some photos that I wouldn't normally dare to take with cars whizzing by.

I didn't find a good reference picture to compare this next shot of Cape Girardeau to, but I will put it into perspective by telling you that there is usually a strip several lanes wide on the river side of this wall where cars park and people stroll.  Even crazier is that we took this picture after the river had dropped several feet!

"Walk like a model with the hair blowing in the wind".  "Do it one more time".  "Last time, I promise".  This was the best shot out of three walks of the runway :)

Cityscapes in downtown Cape

My muse at her wits end about having the camera in her face again.

As we made our way to Fredricktown, after dinner, I kept rubbernecking, looking at all of the fireflies in the fields.  I finally made the wise call to stop on the side of the road before I drove off of it.  This was the only shot that I got with the camera balanced and shimmed on the truck bed.  Right after the shutter went off, I noticed someone making a u-turn and coming back to check on us.  Gotta love small town America!  I decided that we probably shouldn't trigger any more false alarms and get moving.  This shot did trigger something else for me though... 

...a realization that the sky had cleared and the stars were out in full force.  When we planned this visit, I had ruled out astrophotography because the moon was past half full.  What I had neglected was the moonrise time.  I checked Photopills and realized that we had about 2 hours until moonrise. If I dropped Laura off at the hotel and hustled, I could get to another destination that I wanted to shoot the Milky Way from.

I did just that.  The road to Marble Creek winded way more than I had expected.  Between that and the numerous critters -- several raccoons, opossums, and deer -- it was an adventurous drive.  I had never been to Marble Creek before, but knew that I wanted to try to shoot southward from somewhere near the main bridge.  I figured that I would either walk down to the creek and shoot from there as I normally do, or shoot from the Highway E bridge.  It was an easy decision once I arrived: the bridge was 50+ feet above the creek and the banks were steep on either side.  Without enough time to find a route down, I would be shooting from the bridge.  That was also beneficial because I had on flip flops and shorts, and had no headlamp or tripod.  

I very carefully balanced the camera on the railing.  I was thinking of last August's Milky Way mishap the entire time, and moved very slowly and deliberately, always putting a hand in front of the camera to stop it while I adjusted it or pushed buttons.  The added L-bracket on the camera came in handy because it gave a good, flat edge for the camera to rest on.  Otherwise, the strap-attachment points would have been a real nuisance.  Unfortunately, I couldn't use my remote release because it sticks out the same side as the L-bracket.  I did, however, tie it to the camera as a leash in case the camera fell.  I also used a pouch full of filters as a shim to get the angle that I wanted.  In hindsight, I likely should have gotten some rope from the truck and used something less pricey as the shim.  Luckily, I didn't learn that lesson the hard way. 

 

I was able to get enough shots of the Milky Way for one stacked shot.  This photo is the result of ten stacked shots.

And then the stars started to fade and clouds rolled in, meaning that Milky Way shooting was over.  I was going to pack it in, but noticed the warm light on the clouds over the valley and spent another hour on the bridge.  The following photos were taken between midnight and 1am.  Amazingly, not a single car drove over the bridge in the two hours that I was there and I didn't encounter a single mosquito!  Then I headed to the hotel and warmed my cold feet on Laura in bed.

Katie called in the morning to tell us that they were socked in by a severe thunderstorm and wouldn't make it down from Festus that morning.  We finally met up with them at 1pm to watch a movie because that thunderstorm moved down over Fredricktown.  After lunch and the movie, I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to show them much in the remaining daylight, but we managed to do all the things.  We hiked at Elephant Rocks and Millstream Gardens, and then stopped at the Castor River Shut-ins for a swim before another great meal at The Depot.