Micro-Trip Sunday

Busy Sunday! It was yard work, and then it was a micro-trip.

Recent Yard Work

The yard’s been a fright all summer. I got behind this spring on account of my busted ankle. (And spring is a bad time to get behind.) Then we had all that rain and bad weather. (I’d like to propose a new word just for the spring of 2011: tornadoiest.)

Then it got too darn hot! And who wants to do anything outside in hundred-degree heat? Might as well ask me to do yard work in two or three feet of snow!

So with the somewhat cooler weather we’ve been getting, I’ve started banging away at the yard again. It’s sheer biomass out there—the weeds, plus all the stuff that simply needs trimming on a regular basis. I would love it if one day Jeff City had curbside pickup of yard waste, like Columbia has, but I guess that would be too much like socialism or something, so it won’t “fly” here.




Anyway, I finally got around to weeding and dressing up a few of our flowerbeds. Mulch hides a multitude of sins. This year I discovered a brand new weed: black nightshade. We had (and probably still have) it in abundance in a flowerbed along the back of our house. Durn stuff snaps off easily right at ground level—I’m sure a lot will resprout.

After reading about the plant, I’m going to tentatively blame the catbirds for its presence in our yard—apparently black nightshade produces juicy, black, edible berries. And you know how catbirds love them berries. For a while this spring, the catbirds were building a nest in the mock orange right near that flowerbed.

Ah well. Just like catbirds love them berries, we love them catbirds.

We’ll find a way to deal with the black nightshades, mulberry seedlings, wintercreeper sprouts, poison ivy starts, and all the other catbird-distributed berries that take root in our yard.


The Micro-Trip

I like that term, don’t you? I made it up just now—though I suspect others have used it, too. It’s something shorter than a “staycation,” even shorter than a “day trip.” It’s more than a single-destination trip; it’s a miniature tour, an adventure that starts at Point A and leads to several more points, including a few surprises, before returning home.

What got us out of the house, after we’d cleaned up from the work outside, was the summer picnic at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in St. Thomas, a little burg south of Jefferson City.

One of the things we like to do at church picnics is step inside the church and look around. It’s really cool to see how different congregations (and denominations, and religions) have decorated their holy spaces.






St. Thomas has a really nifty old pipe organ up in the choir loft. I think it’s being repaired or renovated, as there were pipes lying on the floor next to it. (I hope all goes okay with that process!)




I’ve blogged about the St. Thomas summer picnic before, but here’s a refresher: Fried chicken and roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, fresh tomatoes, sauerkraut with potatoes in it, applesauce, homemade bread, and a dessert, chosen by you off the opulently enticing dessert table.

At St. Thomas, the dessert table is actually organized by dessert type: Slices of peach pie, strawberry pie, blackberry pie, rhubarb pie, pumpkin pie, coconut cream pie, lemon meringue pie, cake, cookies, etc. It’s even labeled. I don’t know of any other of the church suppers in the area that are that careful. Usually, the desserts are spread out on tables willy-nilly, in glorious disarray, and you might have to guess about what kind of pie to choose.

Anyway: St. Thomas! Good fried chicken. Long wait. We had tickets #1770 and 1771, I think, and about the time we got in the door, we saw people with tickets 2120 or something. And this was still three hours or so before the end of the serving period.

Quilt auction. Cake walk. Country store (bake sale, homemade preserves, fresh produce). Stuff for the kids to do, including pony rides. The beer wagon. Country music. And much more. I’ve told you about these local church suppers before.

Sue’s been using an old twin-lens reflex camera—you know, the kind that uses film—and developing her own black and white negatives. (She can scan negatives herself, so she doesn’t need an enlarger or whatever.) So we walked around the town of St. Thomas, where she found lots of fun “textures” to photograph.




Also, St. Thomas has one of the post offices that, according to recent announcements by the U.S. Postal Service, will probably soon be closed. We had to get a few pictures of it. They don’t build ’em like this anymore.




Back on the road, and we drove through the town of Meta, whose big industry is the making of pet foods; formerly, it was a hub for charcoal manufacture.






Meta is a town that reminds me of Eureka Springs, sort of; it’s hilly and decorated with some truly nifty old houses. Unfortunately, Meta hasn’t experienced much of a renaissance, and many of the old homes are quite dilapidated.

We drove on, cruising through the “wide spot on the road” known as Babbtown, and stopping next at Koeltztown. You generally hear it pronounced “kelts-town.”




By far the most prominent building in Koeltztown is the St. Boniface Catholic Church, which in 2008 celebrated its 150th anniversary; the congregation dates to 1858, though the current building apparently went up in 1877.

It’s a lovely church, adorned with remarkable paintings, including the Stations of the Cross on both sides of the sanctuary.




Perhaps more remarkable is the large, elaborate, handmade stone grotto or shrine outside the church. A plaque on it reads: “Donated by Henry J. Lueckenhoff, in memory of Joseph and Anna Lueckenhoff.” It’s really something to see.




The stones were carefully chosen and placed. At certain places, whoever built this (Henry J.?) attached particularly intriguing or beautiful specimens—big chunks of crystals, or rocks with prehistoric mud cracks, and more.




It’s kind of like a geology field trip, just looking at it.

And of course, after a morning of yard work, I couldn’t help but look at it and think, “Hey, maybe I could make a planter like this. We sure have lots of rocks I could use . . .”




From there, we drove back home, stopping briefly at Westphalia, which I guess will have to have a whole separate post.

All in all, a satisfying day—good yard work accomplishment, good country food, and a relaxing drive. And we needed it.

Impromptu Miller County Tour

Sue and I had a late lunch on this dreary, drizzly day, and on a complete whim decided not to head straight home from the fast-food establishment we had patronized. (Well? We had a coupon, okay?)

So we tooled down Highway 54 south, toward the Lake. Oops, I mean west, toward the Lake. From the Jefferson City perspective, it’s nonsense that Highway 54, which heads north and south through town, is officially an east/west route, and Highway 63, which heads north one direction and east the other direction, is a north/south route. But anyway.

We drove “west” on 54, through Brazito and past Etterville and got as far as the Eldon exits, but instead of visiting the land of Lloyd Belt Automotive—Where You’re Always a Good Deal Better!—we turned east onto Missouri 52 and drove to Tuscumbia.

Tuscumbia made national headlines a year ago when President Obama signed the federal economic recovery bill, because its crumbling, historic bridge over the Osage River was one of the first projects in the nation to result from the bill. The idea is to create new jobs for people while also improving the infrastructure: They are building a new bridge alongside the old one.

It’s truly sad that the old bridge is slated for demolition, because it is indeed a breathtaking structure. . . . But at this point, “breathtaking” takes on a new meaning when you stop to look at its state of dilapidation. I mean, it’s bad enough that it’s one of those old bridges that seem uncomfortably narrow by today’s standards. But worse than that, it’s crumbling down.

Soon after ground was broken for the new bridge in February of last year, we visited the bridge and were amazed to watch pieces of concrete fall off as traffic rumbled over it. We wandered around, exploring beneath the structure, but we felt safer if we stood to the side of it. The ground under the bridge is littered with chunks of concrete and iron. It is literally falling apart.

Yes, it is sad that the powers that be are planning to destroy the historic old bridge, which is eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. You’d think it could be saved as a pedestrian footbridge, a curiosity and a monument to the engineering feats of the past, offering exciting views of the beautiful Osage below.

Right there at the heart of Miller County, whose total population is about 24,000 in 600 square miles, Tuscumbia, the county seat, could really use a nifty tourist attraction like the funky old 1930 cantilever through truss bridge.

But if funding was unavailable to keep it in repair over the last number of decades, there certainly won’t be money for such fixes once the new bridge is open. And it doesn’t look like Miller County itself has the buckaroos to pay for its preservation, plus the creation of an adjoining park, and so on.

I was driving, so I wasn’t able to look at the bridge much. Like I say, it’s narrow, and there were little piles of concrete debris along the edges where the bridge is disintegrating. I kept my eyes on the road! On this informative page is a YouTube showing the experience, heading northward (though we were driving south). You’ll see the bridge is also inclined.

The link above also includes a Google “street views” of the bridge. If you position the view so that you’re looking at the part over the north bank of the river, you can clearly see the bare iron support rods exposed as the concrete has crumbled away. Yikes!

And as we continued our drive through Miller County, we noticed that its roads must not be a very high priority for MoDOT in general. Pothole after pothole, some blackened with little lumps of asphalt, amid a patchwork of different road surfaces. And I kept grumbling, “Nice place to put a road!”

So, from on the south side of Tuscumbia, we turned left at the Red Oak Inn, thus staying on Highway 52 (Highways 52 and 17 merge to cross the river), and followed an impressive ridge paralleling the Osage. This is the kind of road that sports car lovers and motorcyclists crave: curves and hills, long steep grades. Creek-bottom lows and ridgeline highs.

We continued into the town of St. Elizabeth. The town itself has about nine square blocks and the community is home to a population of about three hundred (they have about a hundred more folks than the county seat, Tuscumbia). We drove through St. Elizabeth at about ten till five, and cars were parked all around the Catholic church: Time for mass.

We were exploring St. Elizabeth’s nine square blocks, and driving past St. Elizabeth R-IV school, when we heard the church bells ring: Five o’clock; mass is starting!

Here is a fun fact: The Catholic church at St. Elizabeth, Missouri, is the St. Lawrence Parish. Don’t that beat all?

We kept on Highway 52, east, and crossed over Big Tavern Creek. After that we drove on Highway 133 to Meta (home of Diamond Pet Foods), then proceeded north on Route B. This gave us a quick taste of the northwest corner of Maries County and the southwest corner of Osage County, then another very brief corner of Miller again.

Back in Cole County, we drove through the community of St. Thomas (where the parish name indeed matches the name of the burg), paused a while at the MDC Osage River access there (all right, it was a potty break, okay?), and enjoyed the view of the river beneath the highway bridge, where an old ferry used to be.

. . . And from there we drove home, via Wardsville, which is increasingly now a Haystack Acres, Pastureville, Hayseed Estates, a rather homogenous modern suburb of Jeff. Blair-Oaks-Falcons-ville.

I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures to share with you, but alas. It was an impromptu trip; we only left the house to grab a burger. Plus, it was gray and drizzly, anyway, and don’t worry: We’ll go back when it’s better weather and take good pictures then.