Having Fun With A New Lens

No particular reason for these photos other than to play with my new telephoto lens. I need to get comfortable with it before we start taking serious vacation photos in Peru later this month. The lens is a Canon 70-200mm L IS USM zoom lens. The "IS" is for image stabilization, the "L" is for low dispersion glass, and the "USM" is for Ultra Sonic Motor (focusing). The lens has all kinds of switches on it for various settings so I have to know what I am doing so I don't mess up a good photo opportunity. All the photos were taken in our back yard from our deck. We have lots of deer and other wildlife parade through each day.

Missouri River Towns - February 2011

We finally had good enough weather and free time in our schedule to get out and roam around. We had threatened to tour some of the small Missouri River towns last year and last Saturday, we made good on the threat. We drove nearly 300 miles during our tour in a big loop that started with Booneville and ended in Rocheport. The trip was a great cure for our "cabin fever".

As I said, we started in Boonville which is just north of I-70 and about 90 miles from home. Boonville is the county seat for Cooper County and has a population of about 9,000. One of the landmark buildings in Boonville, is the Hotel Frederick.

Across the street from the hotel and overlooking the river, is the War Memorial monument.

The Australian's don't have anything on the Boonviller's as far as building wall murals go.

It has been a long time since you could buy a Coke for 5 cents.

Most of the downtown buildings have been nicely restored.

Pretty fancy awning.

The Zuzak Building is the local art gallery. A number of local and national artists have their works for sale here. I was impressed by the quality of the art.

It was too early in the morning to enjoy the Lucky Lady.

We did have lunch at the Stein House.

We were the first customers for lunch so we got to talk to the waitress for a while about the town. She was very friendly and even offered to make phone calls for us to see which of the attractions were open on Saturday. I had the Colossal Burger Special and it was great! It wasn't just a hamburger. It was an Angus burger stuffed with cheeses and spices and it came with hand cut fries and coleslaw. Sigrid had an equally good Reuben sandwich. We got lucky with our food again.

Sigrid had to take this photo because we were so happy with the spring-like weather.

A beautiful church that traces it's roots back to 1821.

The local theatre. We will have to go back and catch one of the shows.

No relation as far as I know.

The jeep was parked outside a small museum.

Lots of nice old buildings well preserved.

The Cooper County Courthouse.

The lobby of the Frederick Hotel. Sigrid was scouting the Cafe for a future girls day out trip.

Missouri River bridge with a liftable middle section to allow boats to pass under the railroad tracks on the bridge.

The old rail depot building. The MKT (Katy - Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad) went threw town years ago when it was still in business. The old right-of-way has been turned into a hiking-biking trail over 200 miles long. The Chamber of Commerce now occupies the depot.

We got a little out in the "boonies" (now it occurs to me what the origin of this term is) on a dirt road looking for the Boonslick State Park and historical site. We found that it was closed for winter, but got lucky with this fun photo.

We passed through what was left of old Franklin, the city that the first trip down the Santa Fe Trail originated from. Floods on the Missouri River destroyed the town and all the residents moved up the bluffs to New Franklin. Our next stop was Glasgow.....another city with great old buildings that have been restored to serve tourism and new local business'. Close to 1,200 people call Glasgow home.

German's always have to have coffee and dessert about 3:00pm each day, so we stopped in at the bakery.

My cinnamon roll looked and tasted fantastic.

Sigrid will now be able to continue the trip.

We went through a number of smaller towns after Glasgow. I had high hopes for Steinmetz, but we must have blinked when we passed through. We did stop in Fayette, the Howard County seat. About 2,700 live in Fayette. The court house is below.

Somehow, I managed to get the Missouri River photos that Sigrid took in Glasgow sandwiched between the Fayette town photos. It is late and too much work to move them around. The river has a different look in winter. Sigrid took some very nice photos and captured the beauty and power of the river.

Now we are back in the town square in Fayette, MO.

This tire cover says it all about our winter adventure on the Missouri River.