Shaw Nature Reserve...

...last Wednesday, I headed down to Gray Summit to visit my friend Katie. I stayed the night with her and we saw the big town of Labadie and then watched a movie at her place. Then on Thursday morning, we got up and she took me to her work to show me around the place. She works at Shaw Nature Reserve which is part of the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Katie definitely knows her stuff and filled my brain with lots of new information. Here are just a couple shots I snagged from the morning:

We also headed down to the Meremac River where she teaches river ecology. Katie told me about river glass which is basically when glass, a bottle or something along those lines, gets tossed into the river and then gets smoothed over and makes some cool designs as it rides down the river. Here is a piece that she found:Here is Katie on the gravel bar. I must say she's a much better picture taker than Matt, no arguing, I just said, Smile! and rather than fight me, she turned and flashed her pearly whites.I picked up a rock to skip it and it sunk, I picked up another rock to skip and it sunk. I looked at Katie and said, "You know we can't leave here until I skip a rock, right?" She laughed and said she was just about to ask that. Lucky for both of us since it was eleventy billion degrees, I skipped the next one so we were okay go to back. Of course, we'd have gotten back to the cart faster if either of us had paid attention to where we were going-oops!

Hopefully, we'll be able to find a weekend soon that Matt and I can go visit her and her husband soon for a fun filled outdoor adventure weekend! Thanks for having me Katie.