It was Richard C.'s last full day visiting from Massachusetts, and I wanted him to see the best of Missouri.
We loaded up cameras and drove the 75 miles south from High Ridge to Elephant Rocks State Park.
It was a crisp windy day, but the sky was pure blue.

These rocks are not boulders that rolled here... they are at the TOP of the mountain, hard red granite that eroded in place over more than a billion years since the magma was pushed up from the depths of the Earth.

At the end of the series you can see the 40 foot deep quarry lake. Mainly in the 1800's rock was cut here and transported north to build much of the City of St. Louis, 100 miles away.

I carried two cameras, an Argus C4 with ASA 200 film and a Pentax K110 D digital with 18 - 55mm lens. The film is off to Kansas for developing, I should see those photos end of next week.
The ones here are all from the Pentax digital. Camera body's auto focus is not working correctly, and so these are all manually focused and hand held.

Colors and contrast were tricky to adjust and match with what our eyes could see.

I have been to Elephant Rocks several times in the past, and have paintings I have done of the site going back more than 30 years. This was my first new visit in a long time.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged.
All images are ©2019 E.J.Kowalski.
Thanks! Ed