Monday was my last SCASA Tech Leader’s Roundtable for the year. I had attended the last one via teleconference, and it didn’t go so well. So this time I decided to make the trip down to Columbia. Like most of the educational meetings I attend, the opportunity to interact with my peers is often more rewarding than the actual meeting content. That proved to be the case here, too.
Even though the afternoon threatened rain, I decided to take a couple of short side trips on the way home. The first was to the Wheeland Community, just NW of Little Mountain. I had downloaded a photo from Panoramio of an interesting school structure, and decided to try to find it using the Garmin Nuvi’s photo navigation capabilities. The system worked like a charm, and soon I was at the old Wheeland School, now a community building.
I particularly liked the old bell tower, even though it leans to the left a bit. That’s OK. So do I.
From Wheeland I crossed the interstate and decided to tackle a couple of lookout towers. I followed Highway 121 to 176 and the town of Whitmire. Just outside of town, standing at the intersection of two major roads, is the Whitmire Lookout Tower.
The tower is so close to the road that I actually missed it the first time I drove past. It looks like it’s in good condition. I may have to revisit this spot sometime and see if the tower is accessible.
The next tower in my GPS was the Sedalia Tower, near Rose Hill. It was sort of on the path toward home, so I decided to add it to the list. Unfortunately, the tower is no longer standing, but the road that bears its name is still there.
My route home took me through the community of Cross Anchor. I stopped in Della’s quick-shop for a Pepsi, and discovered an old classic country store with just about anything and everything the local community would need. There was a tinge of old to everything. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought my camera in. I will definitely have to do that next time I’m through this area.
Next door to Della’s was the old post office. At least, I’m assuming it’s the old post office. The architecture is similar to the old bank buildings I’ve seen in Waterloo, Calhoun Falls, and Lowndsville. It looks like the original facade has been altered to accommodate a garage door.
By this time it was getting late, I was losing light, and bad weather seemed to be on its way. This was just a momentary diversion, but I want to come back and look at these places a bit more.