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Cellpic Sunday—Missouri’s Four‑lane Ozark Drive

Autumn hillside above the highway

October 2025.
Scenic US‑65, Missouri.

On our way home to Fargo from Branson last October, I expected the usual four‑lane dash north—the kind of divided highway where the scenery fades into the background and the miles simply tick by. Instead, US‑65 surprised me. Through this stretch of the Missouri Ozarks, the road cuts through limestone ridges and rolls along forested hillsides just beginning to show their fall color. Even from the back seat of the Suburban with only my cellphone at hand, the rolling views were too good to ignore. What I thought would be a routine travel day turned into a scenic ride worth sharing.

Southbound lanes against the ridge
Southbound lanes against the ridge

From Branson north to the junction with I‑44 in Springfield, US‑65 threads its way through the heart of the Missouri Ozarks. The highway follows the natural rise and fall of the ridges rather than flattening the terrain into a featureless corridor. Where construction cut directly into the hillsides, it left behind broad limestone faces that reveal the layers beneath the forest, opening up sweeping views across the changing wooded valleys.

A lone bird over the Ozarks
A lone bird over the Ozarks

The rolling hills opened into wide vistas, giving us a great view of the Ozarks on an otherwise routine drive north. This is the spirit of Cellpic Sunday—small discoveries, found along the way, that deserve a second look.

About the Photos: I didn’t know how long the scenic views would last, so I reached for the Samsung S25 Ultra to capture a few colorful “snaps” of the highway. These three were my choices for sharing the beauty of the Ozark Mountains. Technically, I encountered a bit of a challenge with motion. I typically aim for at least 1/1000 sec when shooting from a moving vehicle to “freeze” the immediate surroundings. Somehow, I had the camera set to 1/500 sec—plenty fast for the distant mountains, but not quite enough to stop the blur of the grass and limestone just a few feet from the Suburban.

To fix this, I used Adobe Photoshop’s Remove Tool to eliminate the highway cables and stanchions, even though they were designed to be visually unobtrusive. Adobe Lightroom Classic handled the cropping, and I turned to Luminar Neo’s Supersharp AI. By masking only the lower portion of the frame (the area most affected by the vehicle’s speed), I was able to use the Motion Blur option to sharpen the roadside cut and grass without affecting the naturally sharp distant ridges. The images are shared in 2K HD, along with their metadata, in my Flickr gallery here.

I invite fellow bloggers to join in by creating their own Cellpic Sunday posts. There’s no set theme. The first rule: your photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or other mobile device. The second rule: link your challenge response to this post or drop a comment here with your link so others can find it. And remember, despite the name, there’s no penalty for sharing on a day other than Sunday.

John Steiner.

27 comments

  4. I love autumn colors and the look of the landscape in that season. Wonderful captures of special moments, John. The bird over the landscape is a powerful symbol of freedom, I feel.

    Thank you for the great details on your journey and your processing.

    Reply

  12. Somehow, the experience of driving (riding) along roads that are cut through rock always leaves me wondersruck. Those sheer rockfaces are eternally amazing and beautiful. Great post – photos and narrative – thank you John. pp

    Reply

  16. The 1/500 vs 1/1000 confession is very relatable — every one of my best from-the-car shots is a happy accident and every deliberate one has a smeared foreground. Nice reminder that a divided four-lane doesn’t automatically mean boring; US-65 through those limestone cuts sounds like a genuinely good drive rather than just miles to get through. Backseat phone photography is basically our whole family travel archive at this point.

    Reply

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