Each time I drive through Coffman, Missouri to visit Crown Valley Winery, Chaumette Winery, or Charleville Winery, I pass a small white frame church that sits on a humble little Ste. Genevieve County hill. There’s not been a time that I’ve driven past this church that I haven’t noted [...]]]>

Stained Glass Cross, photo by MilliGFunk Photography

Each time I drive through Coffman, Missouri to visit Crown Valley Winery, Chaumette Winery, or Charleville Winery, I pass a small white frame church that sits on a humble little Ste. Genevieve County hill. There’s not been a time that I’ve driven past this church that I haven’t noted its eerie demeanor; it’s a seemingly lonely building overlooking a really lovely landscape. The church’s grounds are kept immaculate, and it appears to be an active church, with masses held at 10 a.m. each Sunday and at 7 p.m. on holidays.

I’ve always wanted to photograph the church, but I’d never had my camera with me on a day when I had the time to stop and take pictures. A few weeks ago, I was alone with my camera in tow, batteries fully charged. As the day came to a close, I found myself parked in the church driveway snapping photos.

I hope I’ve captured this church the way that I see it; as ghostly, chaste, and disconnected. A building from another time, whose place has changed dramatically in the years since Coffman became “Crown Country”. This perspective is in no way a criticism – to the contrary, I think this old church is a beautiful symbol of simpler, purer times.

For more posts about Missouri churches or for more writing about Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, use the search bar to the left.

St. Catherine of Alexandria Catholic Church, photo by MilliGFunk Photography

Yellow Glass, photo by MilliGFunk Photography

Somewhere on the Lower East Side of Manhattan sits – for lack of a better description – a bicycle in a sweater. I wonder if someone knitted the bike at home and then brought it outside [...]]]> When it comes to public art and bicycles, New York City and small town Missouri seem to have a shared interest.

Somewhere on the Lower East Side of Manhattan sits – for lack of a better description – a bicycle in a sweater. I wonder if someone knitted the bike at home and then brought it outside to display it on the street, or if its sweater was knitted separately and attached to the already-locked-to-the-sign bike? Either way, this bike is full out hipster-fresh ugly.

photo by David Factor

My friend Factor emailed me this photo last week after my post about the beautiful, classic Schwinn I found for sale in small town Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and the public art bicycles I blogged about last February, also found in Ste. Genevieve.

So my question for you is if you had to have one of these bikes living on your block, which would you prefer; the Ste. Genevieve bikes or the Lower East Side sweater bike?

This classic Schwinn was for sale, helmet included, for around $125 in downtown Ste. Genevieve, Missouri during the town’s annual Jour de Fete celebration.

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More bike-related posts:

St. Joe State Park Bicycle Trail

Tour de Missouri

Tour de Missouri Art Bikes

Castlewood State Park – [...]]]>

Bicycle, photo by MilliGFunk Photography

This classic Schwinn was for sale, helmet included, for around $125 in downtown Ste. Genevieve, Missouri during the town’s annual Jour de Fete celebration.

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More bike-related posts:

St. Joe State Park Bicycle Trail

Tour de Missouri

Tour de Missouri Art Bikes

Castlewood State Park – Mountain Biking

Most of the produce sold at the market is grown by farmer who [...]]]> Deep in the heart of nowhereville, Missouri (otherwise known as Coffman), lies an area that it’s owners refer to as “Crown Country”. As I was exploring Crown Country on Saturday afternoon, I discovered that Crown Valley Winery has its own farmers market as well.

Most of the produce sold at the market is grown by farmer who runs the market, though she’s expressed interest throughout our conversation in having other local growers sell their products in the Crown Valley Farmers Market.

The market is mostly indoors, and sells produce, baked goods, peanuts, jams, butters and jellies. Some of the more interesting jams and butters included pumpkin butter and jalapeno jelly.  I use the market as an opportunity to experiment with taking and processing raw image digital photos. Here are some of the shots I captured.

Photo Rights: MilliGFunk Photography

photo rights: MilliGFunk Photography

Photo Rights: MilliGFunk Photography

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Crown Valley Winery is located at 23589 State Route WW in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. The Crown Valley Farmers Market is roughly a mile down highway WW past the winery, and is open Monday through Saturday from 9 am-3 pm. In the fall when their corn maze and hayrides are being offered, the market is open seven days each week.

We spent significant vacation time driving. We drove to, up and around Mount Rainier. We continued on to Leavenworth. We drove from there to Snohomish and then on to the far western side of the Olympic Peninsula. We drove nearly 900 miles last week, and most of our driving was [...]]]>

Driving through Mount Rainier National Forest

We spent significant vacation time driving. We drove to, up and around Mount Rainier. We continued on to Leavenworth. We drove from there to Snohomish and then on to the far western side of the Olympic Peninsula. We drove nearly 900 miles last week, and most of our driving was done in rural Washington State.

Each small town we drove through en route to Mount Rainier, Leavenworth, and the Olympic Peninsula was dotted with small metal buildings with signs reading “Drive-Thru Espresso” or “Espresso to Go”.

The trusty Subaru.

I wrote a post last year about an espresso shack in Farmington, Missouri. I thought the shack was a novelty until I traveled to Washington State. There were coffee shacks in every town along our drives.

Most towns had more coffee shacks than St. Louis neighborhoods have coffee shops. Many of the towns we drove through were no-stoplight towns filled with dilapidated homes and dimly lit mobile home parks. Money seemed like a scant resource in these communities, and yet many of the same towns had two espresso shacks.

An espresso shack sat in the parking lot of nearly every strip mall, convenience store and gas station we drove past. We made a game out of who could spot the espresso shack first, and we laughed at the ridiculous names assigned to some of the shacks.

If you’re wondering what an espresso shack looks like, your imagination is probably serving you well. Espresso shacks are small metal buildings similar to storage sheds – storage sheds with drive-thru windows.

I decided that it would be un-Washingtonian of me not to buy at least one latte from a Washington State drive-through espresso shack, so I set my standard high. I waited until I found the classiest, most upscale looking espresso shack I could find, and I pulled our little blue Subaru into its drive-thru for my very first Washington State Espresso to Go.

The coffee itself was nowhere near as interesting as the espresso shacks along our drives were. It was a good, albeit weak latte in a plain paper cup with a lid, and it helped give me the kick I needed to drive into Port Angeles for dinner that night. It’s not the coffee that I’ll remember from Seattle – it’s the drive-thru espresso shacks themselves.

A phone call woke me up too early on this warm Missouri Saturday morning. When the call ended, I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I found my way to my laptop and logged into twitter to pose the question, ”What’s your favorite thing about Saturdays?”

Because most of the responses I [...]]]>

Bauhaus Kaffee - Farmington, MO. Photo by smalltowngirl

A phone call woke me up too early on this warm Missouri Saturday morning. When the call ended, I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I found my way to my laptop and logged into twitter to pose the question, ”What’s your favorite thing about Saturdays?”

Because most of the responses I received can be summarized in four words: sleep, breakfast, family and coffee, Saturday morning seems like a fitting time of the week to entertain you with my Seattle coffee tales; the summation of my coffee- and espresso-drinking experiences in Seattle.

I could tell you about the fancy leaf the barista made in the frothy cap of my skinny latte in Queen Anne or about how Seattlites turn their espresso-macchiato-noses up at Starbucks, and then secretly dash in – when they think no one’s looking – to buy the green queen’s sugary coffee drinks.

Sure, I could tell you about how the list of coffee shops my friends recommended far exceeded the list of “things to do in Seattle” lists provided by the same friends, or I could tell you about ceramic cups and grungy baristas in elbow-to-elbow little cafes situated between boutiques and parking garages.

But honestly, aren’t those the coffee stories in every big American city these days?

What set Seattle’s coffee scene apart wasn’t anything in Seattle – it was the effect the Seattle coffee scene has had on the tiny towns outside of Seattle…(to be continued tomorrow.)

On the day we drove through the park, cloud cover blocked the view of the mountains, but that didn’t stop us from getting [...]]]> Olympic National Park is on the Olympic Peninsula west of Seattle in Washington State. This national park is home to Mount Olympus, and was one of the stops along my vacation route last week.

On the day we drove through the park, cloud cover blocked the view of the mountains, but that didn’t stop us from getting an unforgettable view of nature.

Just as I was wondering what I’d possibly get a photo of with the mountains covered in cloud, this is the shot that Mother Nature handed me.

As I drove into the small, hilly town of Desoto Missouri for their Saturday farmers market in June, I noticed an immaculately-renovated historic Texaco filling station.

The pump at the station indicates that gas is just $0.42 per gallon.

Later that day in 2010, in another small Missouri town, gas was $2.49 per gallon.

I was never very good [...]]]>

As I drove into the small, hilly town of Desoto Missouri for their Saturday farmers market in June, I noticed an immaculately-renovated historic Texaco filling station.

The pump at the station indicates that gas is just $0.42 per gallon.

Later that day in 2010, in another small Missouri town, gas was $2.49 per gallon.

I was never very good at studying history as a student, but suddenly history has become much more attractive.

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Desoto, Missouri is located in Jefferson County, roughly 45 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri. The town’s population is just over 6,000, and a railroad depot built in the mid-1800s helped the town get its start, while a train car repair facility later established in Desoto further strengthened the community. Union Pacific Railroad still operates a train repair shop in Desoto.

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For more on the Desoto Farmers Market, check out these posts:

Lettuce & Cookies

Hammond Farms

Also in Desoto, Missouri:

Washington State Park Petroglyphs

My post a few days ago mentioned that you’d have to revisit my site to learn what my vacation destination was. Today I’m posting on A Small Town Girl’s Guide from a Bavarian mountain town called Leavenworth, Washington, roughly two hours east of Seattle. I’ll be rock climbing and [...]]]>

Mountain Goat beside the sidewalk in Leavenworth

My post a few days ago mentioned that you’d have to revisit my site to learn what my vacation destination was. Today I’m posting on A Small Town Girl’s Guide from a Bavarian mountain town called Leavenworth, Washington, roughly two hours east of Seattle. I’ll be rock climbing and camping for the next two days, and I’m beyond excited.

We’ve decided that if anyone asks us if we have experience climbing, our answers will be, “Oh, definitely. I Googled it.” or “Sure, I mean I read ‘How to Rock Climb!’” on the flight to Seattle. We’ll either frighten people or make fast friends with them. Either way, it should be fun.

Yesterday we visited Mount Rainier National Park. Our drive through it was fairly quick, so we didn’t do any hiking our tours in the park. Instead, we enjoyed driving our Subaru Outback rental car and the scenic mountain roads. So far, this vacation has been amazing.

It feels better than I can put into words to be in a different place, with my mind on completely different things that it’s on day-to-day in my small town Missouri life.

Since it’s time to head out on our climbing trip, it’s possible that the next time you read a post from me, it’s a post recounting my experiences in Leavenworth ER.

Until then…