Photo Hunt------ Rocks

Photo Hunt has arrived again with this weeks theme of Rock/Rocks.

I live in a small riverfront town built into a hillside made of what else-----ROCKS. My town is located in a county that has more quarries than I have fingers to count . What does a quarry mine? Why rocks, of course. My county is located in a state where most of its well known attractions all have to do with rocks. So it would stand to reason that I would have a few rock photos in my archives.

The tough decision was trying to decide whether to write about the kinds of rocks (everything from limestone and granite to dolomite) found here, one of the famous rocks like Elephant Rock, a collection of rocks, or which historic place built of rocks I should feature in this post. My final list included dozens of caves and caverns, half a dozen state parks, and the entire Ozark Mountain range. Plus historic homes, hotels and public buildings all made from locally quarried rocks.

The list included Grand Gulf, Johnson's Shut-Ins, Meramec Caverns, the state capital building, the old Crescent Hotel and many more. Then, because we have so many rocks and something has to be done with them to get them out of the way of progress, almost everything imaginable is made out of them. Many of the houses are made of stone. Some of the oldest streets are still made of cobblestones. The yards are all decorated with everything from river pebbles to giant boulders. The Missouri river runs through town and its banks are lined with rock. Countless creeks and streams meander through the area. All full of more rocks. The highway department has been cutting through the limestone bluffs here for the last year so they can widen the only highway that comes into our town. That leaves piles of rocks everywhere.

Since the town is built into the side of a hill (or is it a mountain) we have rock walls used as fencing and retaining walls made of boulders. Hugh expanses of limestone walls can be found in, near or surrounding almost every construction site in town. Every church has a shrine or grotto made of stone as do many homes. Mailbox posts are set in piles of rocks, foundations of buildings and basements are made of rock. If you can think of it, someone here has done it.

To complicate matters even more, it seems that everywhere we travel, we end up coming home with lots of photo's of us or some member of the family taken on, near or surrounded by rocks. In a town overrun with rocks I still manage to haul home piles of souvenir rocks that adorn everything from the yard to the furniture. The choice was just too hard to make.

So, I ended up just giving you a sampling of just a few of them sorted into three collages. One of us with rocks. One of the local rock formations, and one made up of shots that I just like. I did leave out the buildings because that would have taken forever to edit down.

So for all the rock hounds out there, this weeks theme is for you.

To join in the fun or just enjoy all of this weeks shots visithttp://tnchick.com/





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