Sunny, downtown Macon

A heavily repainted wall on a sunny December afternoon in Macon, Missouri.

Geyserite Soap...Leak's Gloves

I have kept this image in hiding since I took it back in 1999.  I was driving from Columbia to Duluth, Minnesota.  Foolishly, I thought it would be an easy day trip, so on the way up I casually stopped here and there to photograph various things.  I pulled into Queen City, Missouri and couldn't escape the lure of this painted sign.  I ended up arriving in Duluth around 2 a.m.  It was a much longer day than I had anticipated.

Purdin Mercantile Company

I took a day off work and drove 125 miles to reach this building.  I remember first seeing it during a photography trip in 2010, and I have been enchanted by the prospect of coming back to photograph it ever since then.  The painted signs, advertising groceries, hardware, furnishings, clothing, shoes, and other miscellaneous goods, still stand in strong, easily-legible relief against the brick front of the building, preserved by the fact that the front of the building faces north and is therefore perpetually in shadow.  Purdin, Missouri is north of Linneus, a misspelled attribution to the notable botanist and father of binomial nomenclature Carl Linnaeus.  Linneus is north of Laclede, and Laclede is just north of Highway 36.  And yes, I'd like to go back and photograph this structure again.