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I’m working on another post in response to a Nathan Lyons essay that will hopefully be done in the next week or so, but I’m still sorting my thoughts. This one is a break from the philosophical musings to share some recent pictures.
Last month I went on a trip to Missouri with my mother to watch the eclipse and visit her hometown near the Arkansas border. She is one of the few people who could tolerate going on such a trip with me, as I like to move very slowly and shoot lots of photos.
Here is a recap with mostly phone photos, but some camera shots sprinkled in as well.
This is a house in St Louis that I believe my great grandparents lived in. Or my mom’s aunt and uncle. It’s a place where she would visit her cousins in the big city, either way.
We drove south and found a spot 150 feet away from the center of the path of totality for the eclipse. All of the towns along the path had events, but there are lots of backroads and secluded places in the Ozarks, so we drove around and found a fire station in the forest near Poplar Bluff where we watched with about twenty other people.
Then we stopped in Van Buren where some of my family is from. These were my great-great-grandparents, who became ill and died three days apart.
The following day we visited my grandparents’ grave in West Plains.
Cemeteries that have been around since the 19th century are very unique places.
There are few things I like better than long drives on empty roads. We had lots of time for conversation. I love hearing about Mom’s childhood, and about all the research she has been doing for decades in an effort to trace our family and to try to learn each individual’s story. We also discovered a lot of good music thanks to a Spotify shuffle based on a Nanci Griffith cover of a Townes Van Zandt song.
This is Alley Spring. I had never visited before, but Mom used to hang out here growing up. It was the middle of the week and drizzling so we were able to enjoy it without a crowd.
I also spent a lot of time on Zillow. I imagined an alternate reality in which I sold my house and used some of the equity to buy a house with cash to start a family in a safe and quaint suburban neighborhood of a small town, payed off my master’s degree, and used the rest of the money to start my own sustainability consulting firm. But that’s not the kind of dream you pursue alone. Besides, some Bill Owens wannabe might expose my lack of sophistication.
We visited a multigenerational favorite spot. Mom used to hang out here growing up, and when my big sister and I would visit Grandma as kids, they would bring us here.
There is a spring adjacent to the river with ice cold water. We would jump in and try to swim across as fast as we could without freezing while my parents waited with towels on the other side.
It began to rain but I asked Mom to suspend her motherly instincts and shoot this photo of me standing on a slippery rock above the river.
Luckily we were prepared with fancy golf umbrellas!
Every drive through the Ozarks is a beautiful drive.
This is Hodgson Water Mill, which I wrote about a bit in my first post, “Photographic Framing of Life.” This is a special place for me because a photo I shot here as a kid ended up becoming a key that unlocked my belief that I could be a “real” photographer someday.
This is one of the many reasons why you want a Pelican case.
Grandma's house was right up the hill next to that water tank on the right. When we visited we used to buy old coins and other little souvenirs at this antique store in the town square. The building was originally constructed in 1888, and then rebuilt in 1914 after a fire. It’s an icon of not only West Plains, MO, but also of my childhood. Unfortunately the store that I know it for is closing.
I had read on Twitter that the solar eclipse would certainly cause a catastrophic earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Since everything on Twitter is true, and because Mom and I are daredevils, we made the natural decision to drive down to Arkansas and go 250 feet underground into the Blanchard Springs Caverns.
I’m a sucker for plants growing on top of rocks.
This reservoir holds some of the water that flows from the spring. Maybe it was because seeing a total solar eclipse was a check off my bucket list, maybe it was because we were visiting grave sites and attractions from the past, but after staring silently at this scene long enough, I had one of those thoughts about death that seem profound in their simplicity. The type of revelation about something right in front of you that usually only happens with the help of drugs. Once I figure it out I’ll make a post to explain it—consider it in the ever growing queue.
Once when I was a kid, my big sister, my mom, my grandma and I came to visit the cavern. Without GPS or cell phones we ended up getting lost on the way back. We knew we were lost because we somehow kept passing the same natural markers in the terrain, although we were pretty sure we weren’t making any turns so it seemed odd. I remember Mom laughing in exasperation, Grandma laughing in amusement, my sister not laughing one bit, and I was too young to think we could actually be in any kind of danger, I just liked driving through the woods. Anyway, this time we brought a map just in case.
We stopped at the original Steak & Shake location in Springfield, MO.
Grandma was once employee of the month at the hospital where she worked.
I got to see my cousins who I almost never get to see, and we played a regional card game that I almost never get to play. They beat us by an embarrassing score.
Then we headed back to St. Louis to catch our flight home, but first we stopped to continue our daredevil theatrics and rode tiny ancient capsules dangling inside the hollow legs of a swaying 630 foot tall structure that was hand built 61 years ago with rudimentary tools by men smoking cigarettes in the rain.
Until this season, Paul Goldschmidt and Zack Greinke (two of my favorite players) were both playing in Missouri, but at different parks.
Overall rating: A top-three trip of my adult life.
