2013 Road Trip - Monroe County, Illinois

When I planned my recent road trip, one of the first things I hoped to do was scout out some farmland in Monroe County, Illinois. No, I wasn't rethinking the idea of retirement and planning to become a gentleman farmer; I wanted to see the area to which my Anglin ancestors, starting with Samuel, moved from Barbour County, West Virginia after the murder of Jonas Grimes in 1825. I don't know what I expected to find that might be different from farmland elsewhere, but it was a strong enough draw that I included it in my itinerary.

Then geography and my pre-planning began to shift the focus of this stop. St. Louis happened to be almost exactly halfway between Dallas, Texas and Malvern, Ohio (and, coincidentally, just across the river from Monroe County). Leaving from Angela's house, I could stop the first night on the outskirts of St. Louis and cross the river early in the morning, make my brief exploration, and be on my way. As it turned out, I awoke at four, left my lodging at five, crossed the Mississippi at 5:30, and found myself in a Valmeyer convenience store chatting about genealogy with a couple locals over coffee and pastries. They suggested, and I agreed, that I would have better luck finding my way around after the sun came up.

Sunrise. That's about the time I realized that what I was looking for was pictures, and the genealogy more or less evaporated. The aerial shot above is, of course, from Google Earth and shows most of Monroe County. The Anglin and the Erwin farms in the area were scattered between the Valmeyer and Maeystown. I found myself in the predawn light driving slowly south along the Levee Road with the river out of sight on my right and the floodplain on my left.

When I drove into Valmeyer earlier, a sign welcomed me to "the Illinois Ozarks". It was definitely up-and-down, heavily forested, and could have been in Arkansas, or Missouri, or North Carolina for that matter. Out on the Levee Road I can look back to the north and see where these "Ozarks" ended, right there at Valmeyer. Everything was so flat everywhere else, the locals could be forgiven for their mild pretension.

Farther south the floodplain is still flat, the local hills standing off as if afraid of the Mississippi behind me. But the sun was about to do its quotidian trick, so I had to pull over and change cameras before the show started.

It wasn't vastly different, but I liked how the sun lit up the wisps of ground fog to give some depth to the picture.

More detail arrived minute by minute as the sun started its climb. By this time, genealogy was completely out the window and I was just looking for things of interest to shoot as the light changed.

Having taken several shots of the floodplain from the Levee Road, I crossed the plain in search of Maeystown, somewhere in the hills beyond. It didn't take long to find since the first road sign I saw told me I was on Maeystown Road. (Dumb luck, or GPS?) To the average traveler, I would venture to say there is nothing in Maeystown that would be of any interest. But, to a photographer, the dilapidated state of these once proud buildings was not at all without interest. The original of the picture boasted only a nice composition, with one too many power lines and a blown out sky. I thought early yesterday afternoon that I'd have to settle for the sunrise shots, but I wanted to play with Maeystown's general store in Photoshop for a while before I made my decision. I got rid of the extra power line to start, then I started playing with different filters and came up with one that suggested a pen and ink drawing. That worked out very well and I started getting excited about this shot's prospects. My flash had fired when I took the picture, so the stop sign and the Main Street sign stood out as they were designed to. But that didn't exactly work for the picture I had in mind, so I had to subdue them. And finally, the lighting clearly indicated dawn, so I went back to one of the floodplain pictures and borrowed the sky. I was thrilled with the result. Post-processing saved the day once more!

Did I mention that I enjoy working with my photographs on the computer at least as much as I do taking them in the first place?