On The Road In Missouri

Before I bring up any of today's stories, I must first finish my travelogue from yesterday.  I left Illinois and crossed the Mississippi into Missouri and the city of Louisiana, which shares its name with another state and the former French territory which included all of the above.  My route took me pretty close to the birthplace of Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, which I visited two years ago.  (See this blog's archives for June 2019.)  Instead of making a repeat visit there, I went a bit farther west to the Union Covered Bridge, now a Missouri state historical site.  To reach the place, I went about 5 miles west of Paris, Missouri and turned left from U.S. highway 24 onto a road named C and drove about 3 miles southward.  Here is the bridge as seen from its eastern end.

I walked through the bridge and took a shot of its west end.

The bridge spans the Elk Fork Salt River, which generally flows west to east, but in one of its many meanders, flows southward at this point.  Immediately south of the bridge is this ford, which can be walked or driven across.  Unfortunately, I did not wear my sandals, so I couldn't do the former without getting my shoes wet, and I wasn't crazy enough to try the latter with the Bigfootmobile.

From the west side of the ford, I wandered out far enough to get this shot of the bridge.

Back on the east side, I again wandered a bit along the river to get this shot.

After seing enough of Union Bridge, I got back on the road again and drove to the small city of Rocheport, through which the Katy Trail passes.  Hiking to the west end of the city brings you to an old railroad tunnel, but first you must cross a bridge over Moniteau Creek.

Here's a shot from closer to the tunnel's east end.

The afternoon sun shone on the tunnel's west end, including a vine dangling from above.

As I walked back toward where I had parked, I stopped on the aforementioned bridge to get a shot of Moniteau Creek, looking southward and downstream.  That might be the Missouri in the distance.

According to KOMU, the Rocheport tunnel was closed for some time during 2019.  For more about the tunnel, go to Rome of the West.