Missouri in Spring (pics + video)

Derek and I just returned home after visiting my parent’s in Missouri, and it exceeded my expectations. I could not believe how green and b-e-a-utiful it is this time of year. And the fireflies! Oh, don’t get me started on the fireflies! I absolutely loved the trip and can’t wait to move there someday. Here are the best pictures and videos I captured with some stories sprinkled in!

Now, whoever does the marketing for Colorado is one sly fox. I always thought based on all the promotional footage and what not that you see of Colorado that it is a green oasis in the summer and a snowy wonderland in the winter. NOPE. Colorado is ‘green’ and ‘vibrant’ for about a month if there is good rainfall. For anyone who hasn’t lived in a place with snow, the snow is pretty for a few hours. After that its a brown slush or icy death trap. Anyways, what I’m getting at is that the person who made Colorado seem like the green and wonderful place it is advertised as being is a liar.

After being in Missouri a few times now, I can say with conviction that it is what Colorado is portrayed as. It is beautiful and bright green for several months out of the year. This green is beyond words, it is by far the most vibrant and sunshiney green I have ever seen and it is EVERYWHERE! I love it. Also, it snows! It is fantastic and comparable to Colorado, but Missouri doesn’t have that one week out of the year you are trapped in your house due to snow, because God knows I can do without that. So, for the record, Missouri is better than Colorado in my opinion (and since it’s my blog, bleh 😛).

So for a quick and beautiful recap, here is a video I put together of some of my favorite nature shots from the trip.

Below are some pics Derek and I took on a trail that was near my parent’s house. It was a short walk and this is just a glimpse of how gorgeous this place was going to be during the trip.

Below is my first attempt at capturing fireflies (lightning bugs) on camera. It was a hard process and I only had one picture turn out, but hey, its something!

The shot above pales in comparison to what we actually saw (isn’t it so weird/frustrating that cameras can’t just pick up exactly what we see??). This was a field near the trail that is shown in the video and collage above. The entire field and surrounding trees were lit up like Christmas lights. It was my first time seeing fireflies and I was not let down. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Now, anyone who is familiar with low light and quick moving photography will know how time-consuming a process like this can be. A brief summary of the process: you have to let the lens stay open for a long while (5-15 seconds) to absorb all the light it can and to capture multiple firefly lights, then you need to take several pictures (10-30) in the same spot to stack on top of each other to get a complete, firefly-filled image. It took about 2 and a half hours before I finally decided that I would make whatever I captured work. We started at about 8pm, and towards the end I found myself going deeper and deeper into the surrounding trees to get good pictures. The trail goes back into the trees, and I kept seeing more and more bug butts flashing from back there. Derek follows me and after about 10 minutes I hear a lot of rustling. I ignore it figuring it was little critters coming out for the night. We hear what I believe was a growl. Suddenly I get a very uneasy feeling, grab my camera and book it out of there. As we calmly power walk out of the area, we hear something follow us in the trees next to the trail. So this above image was pretty dangerous to capture. I’m an ‘extreme photographer’ now, so, y’know, my resume is building.

I hope you enjoyed the post! If you would like to see what we ate, and other things we were up to in Missouri, check out my Instagram @MollyKamper.

For more video content, check out my Beautiful Colorado Drive and Hike Video.

We also just released a new podcast a few days ago, so please go check that out and show it some love. It is a laidback story sharing podcast and we will be trying to do them weekly!

 

 

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