St. Louis Photographed | Lone Elk Park

“We should go to Lone Elk Park this weekend.” I said this to my mom as we were exiting off I-44 to 141. It is, after all, just 2 miles from our house. It’s practically our backyard. This amazes me. I mean, I can be in the hustle and bustle less than a mile from my house. And, a few miles the other way, I can see this:

And, completely free. While driving my car through. Isn’t that crazy?

I’ve been known to give St. Louis a hard time. After we drove through Lone Elk Park, I told my mom that I really want to start “seeing” St. Louis for the cool stuff that we can go to and photograph, for next to nothing. There really is a lot of great things about this city.

Plus, I need more photographs for the Missouri wall we have in the dining room.

Later on, mom showed me this location that is new to me for possible photoshoots. And, we encountered these guys as we were walking:

For a minute there…it was a stand-off. I mean, I literally stopped. They would even approach us closer. I kept thinking, OMG, how embarrassing would it be if the newspaper headlines stated, “women charged by angry deer.” ACK! Eventually they ran back into the woods. But, that was close.

Mind you – all these were shot with my 70-200mm lens…so I wasn’t “that far” away from these animals. Amazing.