Ozarks getaway: water by day and by night

We decided to take a weekend for adventures, stargazing, and to take pictures of Laura in the wild.  Our first stop was a 40-minute hike into the Shawnee woods near Kinkaid Lake to a waterfall that we had found this spring while hiking.  We chose that waterfall because we knew it would likely not have any traffic.  We spent several hours at the waterfall, me behind the camera and Laura striking poses under the cascade in little to nothing.  Some of those pictures were edited later and can be found in this future post.  The outcome was incredible though and it was up there for the best I've ever seen Laura look.

(addendum: Trail 390B to the waterfall is about 1.6 miles from Buttermilk Hill Road with several hill crossings.  It's a slightly shorter hike from John Lee Road, but that road was washed out when we went.  Coming from Buttermilk, the trail crosses several other little rain-fed brooks along the way.  They were a mere trickle on this trip, but had some flow back when we went in March.  Back in March, we bushwhacked down to 390A and back around that way to the car, but it was several miles longer and the brush has grown in by now.  I could imaging a loop up to the lake-shore trail 390A, but it would include some bushwhacking.)

We were so carried away with the photo session that it wasn't until I couldn't keep up moving the reflector in the patch of sun that we realized that it was getting late.  We hiked back and made it out before dark.  Stopped at Sonic after making it over the Chester bridge, which closed due to flooding two days later.  We checked in to the hotel, swapped out camera gear, loaded up sleeping gear for Laura, and then headed to...

...Silver Mines and Tiemann Shut-ins.  I had obtained a special-use permit so that we could be in the area after hours.  We hiked in from Silver Mines on a narrow foot trail that paralleled the St. Francis River.  Got to a spot that I had picked out on the satellite maps and the Milky Way tracking app PhotoPills and then bushwhacked down the slope to the water.  The river was way larger than I had anticipated, and the gaps between the rocks were deeper than my waders.  I spent about an hour trying to get out onto the rocks in the middle and finally found a route that was less likely to result in swimming.  I got set up and took the following shot:

Around 2:30am, we headed back up the trail to near the car to another rocky area that faced slightly more westward, and I took the following two shots, while Laura napped on the shore.  I was trying to take some more, but the sky in the photos kept coming out bright blue.  After five or ten minutes, my tired brain finally realized that was because it was "blue hour", the beginnings of dawn.  Time to head back to the hotel for a long nap.

After a long sleep and some late breakfast at the Huddle House, we headed to Castor River Shut-ins at Amidon C. A.  The water was great for a swim.  The shut-ins was smaller than Johnson's Shut-ins that we visited last year, but was far less crowded.  After enjoying the water for a while, I got my phone out and used PhotoPills to plan out MW shots for that night.  It was very helpful to have daylight to plan the shots out in advance.  Unfortunately, clouds moved in that night and we didn't get to use them.  To be honest, a normal night of sleep was probably for the best anyway. 

Instead of prepping for another campout on the river, we went to dinner at the The Depot Cafe in Fredricksburg.  (Laura here reporting on food.) . The building is an old railroad depot and is beautiful and had a nice patio that we sat on privately.  Fast food was making us crave some healthier options.  The food here was incredible and everything was homemade, including the salad dressings (we had dill ranch and thousand island).  Other than the dressings, Laura's Hungarian mushroom cream soup and salmon salad were the stars of the meal.  The salmon was grilled perfectly and on top of the freshest ingredients.  It really hit the spot.  We did splurge on something not-so-healthy that was worth every bite though-- peanut butter chocolate pie!

On the last day, we enjoyed the brunch buffet at Thee Abbey Kitchen at Arcadia Academy, a cool old building with great food and custard.  Laura was so excited to devour their cinnamon roll french toast with fresh strawberries on top!  Neither of us had room for custard this time.

Then we headed to Elephant Rocks, which is highlighted in this other post, and on to a different portion of Tiemann Shut-ins at Millstream Gardens C.A. on our way home.  

It was definitely different than Castor River, with rapids large enough that folks were running it with whitewater kayaks.  Much of it wasn't "swimming water", but we found a nice eddy behind some rocks and did some swimming before the drive back home.

After hiking out of the shut-ins, we started our drive home and decided to stop for more good food in Fredericktown, Missouri on our way.  We had a great meal at The Pig Barbeque for $9!  The barbeque pork and burnt ends in the sandwiches was tender and not greasy, but not dry either.  Overall it was very good and the atmosphere was wonderful!  The Pig has been there since 1948 and they were playing Neil Sedaka and other classic songs.  It felt like we were transported back in time.  Then, we walked over and got custard at Scoops Frozen Custard, right across the street.  The sundaes were great, but so big we could not finish them.  

Then, we continued towards home, driving through Cape Girardeau and gawking at all of the flooding on the Illinois side.

Here's the post about Elephant Rocks.  It has so many pictures of Laura if you're into that!