C.M. Russell

Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), artist, conservationist, author, and much more, lived in Great Falls most of his life. He is such an important Montanan that his statue represents the state in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capital building. His house and studio are preserved in GF and a great museum has been built on the same city block. We went there Friday afternoon.

Russell did Western art, mostly cowboys and Indians. You can find prints on the internet. Here are some shots I took in the museum, which houses a lot of his art. A little reflection on some from overhead lights, but not too bad, I think. I imagine most of you loyal readers are familiar with Russell, but if not, you can get some idea of the detail and themes he put in his paintings.

The buttes in these first two pictures are inspired by a butte south of GF that appears in many of his paintings.

And, that's gotta be the Missouri River in this picture.

He even illustrated letters to his friends:

He did sculptures also.

Here's Russell at work in his studio.

So, next time you're in Great Falls, Montana, be sure and see the C. M. Russell Museum. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Fort Benton

Fort Benton, about 40 miles NE of Great Falls, is called the Birthplace of Montana. This was the terminus for steamboats that came up the Missouri from St. Louis -- a shallow rock ledge prevented further travel upstream. Its heyday as the "world's innermost port" lasted for 30 years until the coming of the railroads. Here's a signboard with historic pictures.

Now, Fort Benton is a charming little riverfront town. Their Summer Celebration is regarded as one of Montana's best festivals, the paper said, so that made it irresistible to us -- better than that educational stuff going on at the Lewis and Clark Center.

Fort Benton's got Old West storefronts, a nicely preserved hotel, and some of the best-located park benches I've ever seen. All that plus Boy Scout barbecue beef - piled higher than you usually see - and fresh donuts, arts and crafts. We had a fine time.

That hat lady seems to be every place I go.

The old bridge across the river, foresightedly preserved, now has a couple of picnic tables and park benches. I think I could spend some quality hours out there.

Just after we saw this sign saying we were on what once was the "bloodiest block in the West" we heard loud, angry voices. Road rage -- two drivers frankly pointing out each other's mistakes. Good thing they weren't packing iron. That came later, with blanks.

There's trouble brewin', but this is the first time I've seen a shootout that included a motorized skunk. Wait, I think that's what one driver called the other.

The riverfront park also features a very nice Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea (that's how they spell her name in Montana), and child statue.

The scene depicted is called Decision Point. The Corps came to the junction of two rivers of similar size. Which branch to take? (This was before Yogi Berra came along and said that when you come to a fork in the road, take it.) The Mandan Indians in ND had told them about the junction with the Yellowstone River and they had told them about waterfalls on the upper Missouri, but this junction had not been discussed (or was lost in translation). They explored both rivers a ways, but that was not decisive. L&C picked the left fork and that turned out to be right - er, correct. Soon after they advanced that direction the scouting party out in front thought they saw smoke, but when they investigated they found it was mist from the Falls.

The right hand river at Decision Point was named the Marias River after Lewis's lady friend, Maria. (Another Montana River was named the Judith by Clark.) We crossed that river and it's now Marias Creek. There are upstream dams and lakes and farming that have greatly limited its flow. Also, they say the Missouri, with multiple upstream dams, is now only flowing at about 1/3 the level that L&C saw.

One last Fort Benton scene: the stately county courthouse.

One of the nicest part of our trip to Fort Benton was the road we took -- the road less traveled. The main highway to Fort Benton from GF is the road we came into town on -- lots of construction and loose gravel. On the map we saw a state highway that worked its way to FB south of the river. This was really a beautiful drive: rolling hills and scenic valleys, bright green prairie and wheat fields, big blue sky. Here's a collection of wheat elevators along the way.

This country is known as the Missouri Breaks. It's very similar to the Dakota hills along the Missouri in those states. Here's an aerial website picture.

So that was our Fort Benton trip. Lots of fun.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Lewis and Clark - 2

We drove out to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center Friday morning. The Center is a dramatic building, as you can see from this picture from their website.

The Center had a series of lectures going on through the day and we attended two of them, then caught the opening ceremonies, including a black-powder muzzle-loader salute.

We didn't spend much time on the exhibits since we had seen a similar set of displays in North Dakota. They are more extensive here, though, so if you can only see one Interpretive Center, choose this one. And, if you have a Golden Age passport, this one is free; the ND version was privately owned so even senior citizens pay.

The big deal about the Great Falls on the Missouri was that the Corps of Discovery had to drag their massive floating-log canoes out of the river and portage them and their supplies a distance of 18 miles around the series of falls in this area. The Center has a life-size depiction of that task.

I think I might have looked at those falls and the steep banks along the river and decided to go back to St. Louis about this time (June of 1805). But, this was a military expedition and there were no deserters. Of course, trying to make your way back to St. Louis alone wouldn't have been easy, either.

The first talk, titled The Intellectual Traveler, was by a Center staff member. The intellect referred to was that of Thomas Jefferson. He never traveled west but read and thought a lot about it and what it would mean to our young country, all of which led to sponsoring L&C. One symbol the speaker mentioned: on our nickel, Jefferson is looking to the west (or to the left, if you want to put a political spin on it). Anyhow, by Jefferson's direction, this was to be a scientific expedition, with a lot of emphasis on identifying and classifying the flora and fauna of the west. This was at a time when some thought mastodons might still roam out there.

This got me to thinking about the contrast between the planning and success of the L&C expedition versus the Burke and Wills expedition in Australia, which I learned about in conjunction with my visits to Australia. They aimed to be the first white men to traverse Australia from south coast to north coast. They were ill-prepared - e.g., one thing they packed was a Chinese gong - and their departure was a circus. They eventually managed the crossing but it was a tragedy - everybody died. (I mentioned earlier that there were no deaths on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I brought this up while chatting with one of the Center's guides. He corrected me and said one person died of an appendix attack, which could have happened in the comfort of home.)

The expedition was also charged with mapping the west. Here's the map they produced.

The Thomas Jefferson role in all this would come back, in a personal way, to me later. Stay tuned.

The second talk, by an enthusiastic Center volunteer, was called the Race Across America. This was about John Colter, a member of the expedition. On the return trip he asked to be given an early release from his military commitment in order to join some trappers heading west. Lewis and Clark granted that request. The race in question happened a few years later. Colter and a trapper companion were captured by the Blackfeet Indians. Colter's companion was killed. Colter was made sport of: he was stripped naked and told to start running. He looked back and saw that he was being pursued by naked Blackfeet. Somehow he managed to outrun and escaped his pursuers and lived to tell his tale.

Some people question Colter's report. Our speaker said Blackfeet lore is that he was spanked by the tribe's women and chased away to embarrass him. "And don't come back!" At any rate, he lived long enough to retire from trapping and take up farming in Missouri. While in the west he may have been the first white man to travel into what is now Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons.

More Lewis and Clark stuff in postings to come.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Great Falls

It's only about 100 miles from Havre to Great Falls so, even with quite a few construction delays and driving slow speed over loose gravel, we got to GF in early afternoon. Along the way we pulled off at this river overlook. A couple of highway workers were hanging out there, waiting for their next assignment. We agreed that this was quite the view.

Found our way to the KOA. Our plan was to spend three nights here; that got extended to four because of all the things we found to do, as you'll find out.

At the KOA the satellite TV saga continued. This is an old park, built in the 70s in one corner of a wheat field. It's designed to fit the campers and trailers of that time. Over the years the owner added lots of trees and shrubs and big decorative rocks with holes excavated for flowers. A pictorial history of the park says there are miles of drip lines. So, it was not designed for big rigs and all the trimmings makes it even tighter. And hard to get a satellite connection. We tried several parking positions in our assigned site -- forward and back -- but couldn't connect. The site next to us had dead branches in what we thought was the line to the satellite, instead of a leafed-out tree, so we moved to it. Same result: forward and back, no connection. Oh, well. We were able to get two fuzzy channels through the antenna and digital converter and we did get a lot of reading done.

Flash forward to Sunday. We needed to back up about 10 feet in order to dump our holding tanks. (Don't know why I didn't park within range to begin with, but I was tired of messing with it.) I'm pretty sure I had tried unsuccessfully on Thursday to get a satellite connection from about that location, but on Sunday I thought, Why not try again? Nothing. A little bit later, though, Susie turned on the dish and this time (finally!) we got a connection. I knew we'd be glad we went to church.

Back to Friday. I took an early morning walk around the park. Here's a shot of the adjoining wheat field and beyond, through the trees.

Also, came across this vehicle belonging to a tent camper:

It was called a Chew-ba-ru. The car is covered with dentures, denture molds, toothbrushes, and empty toothpaste tubes. The horns I don't understand. Here's a close-up: sunrise glow on the dentures.

I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for why this person did all this, but when we got back to camp later in the day, he or she was already gone. No doubt soon to appear at a mall near you.

We came across one of those surprise gems that add spice to travel. Gives you a smile. For 19 years a husband and wife duo, calling themselves The Rivertown Rounders, have been entertaining nightly (!) each summer at this KOA. He plays banjo, guitar, and fiddle, and tells jokes. She plays guitar and fiddle and groans or shakes her head at his jokes. They both sing. It's not polished, but it's pure fun and entertainment. As he (Richard) says, they do: country songs, bluegrass songs, gospel songs, Cajun songs, train songs, cowboy songs, dead cowboy songs, dying cowboy songs, Irish songs, sad songs, happy songs, ... . This picture is from the KOA website.

Mostly they do requests and it becomes a sing-along. He, Richard, knows an awful lot of songs and who recorded them and when. Just in case, he has a couple of boxes of 3x5 cards serve to jog their memories. One lady asked for All the Love of a Girl. He scratched his head, Oh, yeah, that was a Johnny Horton song, 1959 or 60. We haven't sung it since then. He dug through his files, pulled out a card with the lyrics and they did a great job on the song. Later I googled and found this YouTube video. Check it out.

The show takes place in a covered, outdoor Kamper Kitchen. The three nights we caught their show there were usually only 8-12 people in the audience. Must be a real labor of love, I doubt if they do it for the money. (Richard says he was turned on to the banjo by the movie, Deliverance (1972). Left home with a dollar in his pocket to make a living playing the banjo. Still has 65 cents change from that dollar.)

A sampling of jokes (I took notes on a napkin so I could share them with you):

Richard says he's the son of a preacher, but his father has never met his wife. His father told him, Don't you ever bring one of those loose, honky-tonk women home.

His fourth grade teacher said, You'll never amount to anything. You're a procrastinator. He said, Just you wait! That led to the usual string of procrastination groaners.

And, the obligatory banjo jokes:

What's the difference between a banjo and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle? You can tune a Harley.

What's the difference between a banjo player and a U.S. savings bond? The savings bond eventually matures and makes some money. (She, Diane, told this one.)

Terrorists took over the Great Falls courthouse and took a bunch of lawyers hostage. The terrorists said, If you don't meet our demands, we're going to release one every hour until you do.

One night there was an Irish gentleman in the audience. The man would go to his camper every once in a while and return with a drink, then when his glass was empty, he'd go get another one, several times, until he was getting pretty inebriated. He asked his wife: Do lemons have feet? What! she said. Do lemons have feet? Of course not, you crazy drunk, she said. Oh, he said. I think I just squeezed the canary into my whiskey.

The three nights we heard the Rounders, only one or two jokes or one-liners were repeated.

In Friday's newspaper we got lots of information on things to do. Primarily, it happened, serendipitously, not because of careful planning on our part, that this weekend was the annual Lewis and Clark Festival.

Friday we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and the C. M. Russell Gallery. Saturday we went to nearby Fort Benton's annual Summer Celebration and Saturday night I went to a dramatization about whether Meriwether Lewis committed suicide (the conventional story at the time) or was murdered (as today's conspiracy theorists claim). Sunday was church and then I (with a group of 30) took a two-hour float trip on the Missouri with a guide who told us Lewis and Clark stories along the way. I'll blog these events separately. Be patient. Stay tuned.

Here's a picture of one of the falls that gave this town its name. There are hydroelectric dams all along the way now, so you don't get the full effect of what it was like 200 years ago. Still pretty impressive, though.


Cheers,

Susie and Rob

South Dakota Flashback: Terry Redlin

Our tour of the C. M. Russell Museum in Great Falls (to be reported soon) reminded me that we failed to report our SD visit to the Redlin Art Center in Watertown. Ever since Jeff and Valerie moved to SD about four years ago, they've been telling us we've got to go see the Redlin Art Center. So, we did on our trek from Pipestone, MN to Aberdeen. Mentally, I composed a report, but in the excitement of Aberdeen I forgot to transfer these thoughts to the blogosphere.



As a teenager, Terry Redlin lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. The state provided compensation in such instances and Redlin used his to attend art school in Minneapolis. He spent several years as a commercial artist, then moved back to Watertown and started full-time pursuit of his own art interests. His art is generally nostalgic rural and small-town scenes, often nature-oriented. Lots of rural scenes, often with birds streaking across them (he has won multiple competitions done by Ducks Unlimited for the art displayed on duck stamps), typically illuminated with light from various sources: sunrise, sunset, campfire, streetlight.






There's one particularly poignant series of paintings, all of one house in a small town and a series of events: a wedding, the birth of a baby son; son graduates, son joins the army; two military officers come to the house to inform the parents of the death of their son. Redlin's brother-in-law, with whom he was very close, died in Viet Nam and that experience was expressed in this series.






Here are some examples from a website where you can buy prints (no photos in the Art Center).

You may be familiar with Redlin's art. For several years he had the title of Most Popular American Artist, as determined by surveys conducted by U.S. Art magazine.


Some years ago, Redlin's son asked him what he did with his original canvasses. He said he eventually sold them. The son, Charles, said Why don't you keep them? We'll build an Art Center and display them there. This will be your gift to Watertown. So, it was done -- well-designed and built (Charles is an architect). There will not be a need to add more gallery space because Redlin recently retired from painting.


Besides the Redlin art, there's an auditorium in the Center that features artifacts pertaining to ice cream: scoops, milk shake machines, posters, magazine covers, ... . Fun looking at these collections. Redlin's father-in-law ran an ice cream factory in Watertown.


(I just googled ice cream museum and came up with Ford's Ice Cream Museum in Newton, Mississippi. Also, an ice cream museum in Le Mars, Iowa. And more. Add one to your bucket list.)


So, we're glad we finally did the Redlin Center. If you're ever driving through Watertown, SD on I-29, stop and take a look.

Cheers,


Susie and Rob

Confluence and Concerns

Wed, 6/24/09

Heading West. Had two planned side trips today. First, not far west and north of Watford City, just barely still in ND, is the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. (Always wanted to use the word, confluence.) One of the educational signs at the site said this is one of the few, and maybe the only, place in the country where two major rivers “conflue” and there’s not a settlement there. (Just thinking about it, I think the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers also qualifies. The Rio Grande and the Pecos - small towns. Others? An exercise for the reader.)

Here's an aerial view of the confluence: Yellowstone on the left, Missouri on the right.

My bankside shot:

I shot a short video that conveys the power of these rivers flowing by -- like a very large snake slithering through the brush. The file is apparently too large to upload into blogger. You would have enjoyed it.

Speaking of enjoyment, Susie got the first thrill at the site of the confluence. Periodically, she swears off Cokes, but that is a periodic thing because periodically she decides that she's just got to have one. I've been instructed to stop her, unless she says, Not this time! Cokes were hard to find in Minnesota and they've been hard to find in restaurants across the Dakotas because Pepsi products are all that is sold. This day, we were in a period of "I've got to find a Coke." That led to this scene adjacent to the parking lot at the Confluence Center:

Back in the frontier days, Yellowstone-Missouri confluence was a rendezvous for trappers, traders, and tribes - no Coca-Cola, or Pepsi; maybe their equivalents.

Leaving the Confluence we made our first mistake of the day – there would be more (he said ominously). Map showed a road arcing NW to join US 2, our main route for the day. Didn’t look at the road symbol carefully enough and it turned out that this would be 16 miles of gravel and washboard. After a couple of slow miles debating about whether to unhook and turn around (the road was wide enough to jockey Tuzi through an up and back U-turn) we came across a spot where there was a dirt track running between the road and a RR and there were access points about 200 yards apart. The track (that we would drive on, not the RR one) was dry and smooth, so we took the opportunity and turned around and got back to US 2 by angling back to the NE.


Some time later, Susie says, There’s something wrong with one of our blinds. The pleats won’t stay pleated and I can’t raise the blind. She had noticed the blind flapping, a result of us not closing the window when we left the campground this morning. ‘Twas a windy day and at some point the angle got just right for the wind to abuse the blind. Closer inspection showed that a couple of strings that hold the blind together and enable it to be raised and lowered had broken. These are double-layer blinds and from having a string break once before I knew it was not something that could be fixed by tying a couple of Boy Scout knots (though neither of us was a Boy Scout). But, it is still pretty functional, so we'll live with it. Just a minor irritation. More to come. Dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum (think Jaws, not lack of intelligence).

Next stop: the Fort Peck Dam. This dam on the Missouri was built in the 1930s - a stimulus project for your grandparents. I was introduced to the project through a book, Bucking the Sun, by Ivan Doig, a Montana author. As I recall, it's one of those rip-roaring, dysfunctional family, historical novels. I thought it was one of our book club selections, but I don't find it listed; two other Doig books are, one of them well down our list. But, that's got nothing to do with Fort Peck.

Anyhow, it's a really big dam. (Which reminds me that in my youth in Manhattan, KS, a dam planned near there was denounced by opponents as Big Dam Foolishness. It did get built.) Here's an aerial view from the web:

Here's what it looks like when you drive across the dam behind a bug-streaked windshield.

Look, Ma! No hands!

In early evening we get to our destination of Havre (pronounced as in I don't want 'er, you can have 'er, she's too ... ). It's been our longest day, 416 miles, a lot of it pretty barren - the green prairies of ND have given way to browner and scrubbier country, not quite redeemable by the Big Sky. I've asked Susie to call the Good Sam-listed RV park in Havre to see if they have space available. Neither of us realize that there are two Good Sam parks there - they're on different pages in our TL Guide. The one Susie talked to said we've got one spot, but it's a little muddy. Once we figure out which park we talked to we decide we'll check the other park first -- it's on the way. We have the address, the intersection is identified, the GPS has the address, the highway runs right by it. But, we don't see it on first pass. We circle back through narrow residential streets with overhanging-trees, but still don't see it. One potential problem is that Havre, like several other towns we've seen up here, has numbered streets running N-S, numbered Avenues running E-W. Or, maybe the other way. Also, you can have, say, two First Streets - First Street N and First Street S, running east and west. Got it? We give up on door number one and drive on past town about four miles to the other park. It's pretty ugly. I'd have to back in from a difficult angle, squeeze between a tree and a mud puddle and rock over ruts left by the previous occupant. Nice lady at the park says maybe you want to try somewhere else.

So, we call park number one and get clear directions to it. It was at the intersection we thought, but the dominant signs are for a casino and you can't see RVs from the road. So, we didn't see it when we looked at it. Back to town. We find the casino/RV park. The park has an unusual layout. "Pull-thrus" are essentially parallel parking slots alongside a curb. The water and electric outlets are on the opposite side they usually are -- opposite from the connections on RVs. But, power cord and water hose will reach, so it works OK. Kind of makes sense after you get used to it.

We try a couple of the slots (parking, not casino). There are trees on our south side, blocking satellite access, which is impotant to me tonight because I'm wanting to watch the Texas/LSU baseball championship game, which has already started. No dice. Can't find an alignment. I think it's particularly difficult up here because the broadcasting satellite is at very low angle. No cable option, either, as we've generally found up north in small towns. Susie brightly and correctly suggests that maybe the casino would be showing the game. Another plan B. So, we hook up the water and electricity and I head over to check on the game - bartender helpfully turns on the game for me. I watch the half-inning in which LSU gets a big lead, then head back to Tuzi and Susie.

Now, here's the scene that keeps replaying in my mind. I look up the driveway that circles the RV park and I see Susie standing there in the driveway, holding what appears to be a basement compartment door and peering into that compartment which is where the water and sewer connections are. She seems composed, but perplexed. I walk up, not dash, and have given myself enough time to think how I should frame a question. So, I say, What happened? Not, WHAT DID YOU DO?

Susie had been inside Tuzi and a neighbor knocked and said Did you know there's water running out of your coach? Well, no. Susie shuts off the park's spigot, then goes around to the aforementioned basement compartment, because water is still running, and opens the door. Somehow it falls off its hinge. She managed to catch the door, it's heavy, so it didn't bang on to her toes or the pavement.

What happened was that there are two valve positions for the hose running into Tuzi. One is to fill the storage tank; one is for city water connection directly to our faucets, etc. Normally, while traveling I set the valve in the latter position. That morning, leaving Watford City, I hadn't (just like neither one of us checked that the windows were closed). If the hose connection had been on the usual driver-side, just as soon as I connected and turned on the water I would have heard the water flowing into the tank and I would have switched the valve to the city water position. This time, on the opposite side, I turned on the water, didn't hear and didn't check, and headed for the casino TV. Thus, the on-board water tank soon overflowed. Thankfully, the Tuzi plumbing is designed so that the overflow drains to the pavement; it doesn't flood the coach interior or basement.

Anyhow, with some help from fellow campers, we straightened out bent portions of the door hanger - it's not really a hinge - and got it back on and it seems to work OK. Had a little paint damage from a corner of the falling door gouging the side of Tuzi, but pretty minor.

Tomorrow we're off to Great Falls for the weekend.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

TR NP

From the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center we traveled west, paralleling the MO, to the ND Badlands and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I didn't know there was a TR NP. Did you?

TR, the park brochure tells us, remarked "I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota." Roosevelt first came to ND on a hunting trip in 1883, became interested in the cattle business and became a partner in one ranch. A year later he bought his own ranch. Seeing the damage done to the land and wildlife habitat by overgrazing motivated his advocacy of conservation. He became president in 1901 and established 18 national monuments, 51 wildlife refuges, and five national parks.

The TR NP was established in 1978. This Wikipedia website has a good, concise history of the park. This excerpt adds the personal dimension to the story:

In 1884, after the death of his wife and mother (on the same day), Roosevelt traveled to his North Dakota ranch to rebuild his life and to recover from the tragedy. The badlands were a catharsis for him and although he returned east several times, for most of two years he ranched in the area and noted his experiences in pieces published in eastern newspapers and magazines. Returning east and back into politics, Roosevelt would forever associate himself with the vanishing frontier and the life of the western cowboy and rancher.

I’ve got several books about scenic drives, and one of them raved about this one: the 14 mile cul de sac to the Little Missouri Oxbow overlook in the North Unit of the park. So, that's what got this stop included on our carefully researched travel plan.

The drive has hills, river, buffaloes, and badlands. We also found road construction, thanks to stimulus money, a sign said. Shovels at work on a shovel-ready project - we saw two guys actually using shovels. We had a couple of 15 minute waits while large semi-trailer dump trucks carried out damaged pavement and delivered new roadbed material. At one of these stops we met a flagman (holding a STOP/SLOW sign, not a flag) who had come across the state from Fargo to work on this project. Susie befriended him and learned his life story by offering him sunscreen. Too late, he said.

Here are a few pix.

Some professional pictures at this link.


We enjoyed the grass and sky vistas in the high, uneroded areas of the TR NP as well as the canyons and eroded features of the badlands. The side trip, even with the construction delays, was worth it.

From the TR NP it was a short drive north to the White Buffalo campground, in Watford City, ND. This was our most primitive campground, yet. Here are the picnic table and chairs provided at our site.

Then, there was this example of campground art:

Side story: when I first called to see if they had an RV site available (a question that must have shocked the owner) I punched in the wrong area code, 702 instead of 701, and got a pizza joint in Las Vegas. That made for a short, confusing conversation.

We’re at the extreme west of the Central Time Zone, as well as being just a few miles south of Canada, just a couple of days after the summer solstice, so the sun goes down very late. Still good daylight at 10:00pm. It’s funny, for a time today, miles southeast of here, we were in the Mountain Time Zone. Guess people in those counties didn't want 10:00pm daylight.

Tomorrow Montana.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Lewis and Clark - 1

Tuesday, 6/23. From Bismarck we drove north to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. These large metal sculptures are Lewis, Clark, and Sakakawea (currently or locally preferred spelling? I learned it as Sacagawea)


The Lewis and Clark story is such a momentous one, and fairly well known since we just passed the bicentennial of their 1804-1806 expedition, that I won't try to condense or reference; google to your heart's delight.


More large metal (and fiberglass) sculptures. Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam ...

L&C and their "Corps of Discovery" spent the winter, Nov 1804-April 1805, near the site of the Center, at what is called Fort Mandan (named for a local tribe). This is where Sakakawea , one of two Indian wives of the fur trader, Charbonneau, joined the Corps of Discovery. She and her husband were guides and interpreters. Most amazing statistic of the L&C expedition is that there was not one death among the 33 'permanent' members of the party.

The exact site of the Fort is not known, but thought likely to be under the current riverbed a few miles downstream. A replica has been built near the Interpretive Center (aka museum?) based on the party's (b)logs, notes, and sketches. Just to the right of the entrance, there was a nice young guide to tell you the Fort Mandan story.

More Lewis and Clark stuff to come. We'll be in Great Falls, MT this weekend for the L&C Festival.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

If It's Not One Dakota, It's Another

Monday, 6/22. Headed west from Aberdeen and crossed the Missouri River at Mobridge. Here’s the obligatory bridge picture. Shall we call this trip the bridges and barns tour?

PLAYLIST. Before I go any further, let me say a word about the music that plays when you open this blog. If you're tired of hearing Coal Miner's Daughter, you can either click the double bars below Loretta's picture to stop the music, or you can arrow down to pick another song.

Playlist is a website where you can build your own playlists, all for FREE. Just search the site's archives and add selections to your list(s). Then, whenever you want to hear your favorite music while you're on the computer, just open your list and click it on. I put a shortcut on my desktop to make it handy.

From Mobridge we went north along the west bank of the MO, passing through the Standing Rock Indian Reservation that spreads over both SD and ND. In ND, the beautiful grassy hills you drive through are called the Porcupine Hills. Unfortunately, this total stretch of about 100 miles of two-lane highway, with no shoulders, has no rest areas or scenic overlooks or pull-outs suitable for a car, much less a tuzigoot. Fortunately, though, no traffic, so at a spot where I could see that no one was behind me for a long distance, I stopped in the road and got this quicky picture from the driver's seat. We're not in Montana yet, but this is certainly big sky country.

Just before we got to Bismarck we passed Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. We came back later and got this shot of the hills behind the Fort site - a good representation of the whole trip through the Porcupine Hills.

We found our campground in mid-afternoon then did a little sightseeing, starting with the State Capitol building – not your usual domed and columned structure. We entered a hallway that featured the North Dakota Hall of Fame -- such folks as Lawrence Welk, Roger Maris, Angie Dickinson, Peggy Lee, Warren Christopher, Eric Sevareid, … .

Drove back to Fort Abraham Lincoln to check that out. Custer left here in May, 1876, on his fateful last campaign. We'll visit the Little Big Horn Battlefield in a couple of weeks. Here's a reproduction of General Custer's house at the fort.

On the bridge front, from the web, here's a postcard of the old Memorial Bridge in Bismarck.

That bridge has been replaced. In this video you can see one section being blown up, after which you see the new span, located quite near the demolished bridge. I got this picture of the new bridge.

While driving, I got to thinking: Do we really need two Dakotas? (or two Carolinas or two Virginias; or for that matter, what about Delaware? – could just as well be a county in Maryland. And don't even mention Rhode Island See where an idle mind can lead you!). Thought there might be an interesting story there, but everything I googled up was pretty mundane. A little bit of controversy about where they put the dividing line, but it just seemed to be a given that two states would be created from Dakota Territory (after portions that are now largely Montana and Wyoming were split off). The two states achieved statehood on the same day in a single ceremony; the president (randomly, I'm sure) mixed up the order of the signing documents. For alphabetical reasons ND is the 39th state, SD the 40th. (Any historians out there with illuminating information?)

Thinking about this weighty issue brought to mind Ron Thomason, the lead singer and comedian of the Dry Branch Fire Squad. He says the folks who settled West Virginia were not very creative. When they thought about what they should name their state, they knew Virginia was taken, so they scratched their heads and came up with West Virginia. When they found a river winding through the WV mountains, it was new to them so they named it the New River.

Well, enough history and geography, for today.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

One More Farm Day

Sunday, the plan was to take Jeff and Valerie’s boat to one of the nearby lakes for some cruising. A steady rain in the morning changed our plans. Instead we took a 2-3 hr. drive through the countryside. Still saw lots of water, though. They’ve had a lot of spring rain, resulting in floods so there’s a lot of standing water and numerous closed roads.

A main attraction on our tour was the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge. An awful lot of waterfowl migrate through South Dakota. Highlight at Sand Lake was a 108 ft. tall lookout tower. I climbed it -- 132 steps. Here's a picture looking up.

And here's a picture looking down. That's Susie between the tower and Jeff's pick-up.

This land is very flat in this part of the state, so water doesn’t drain; it just stands and slowly seeps away, but not quickly enough to offset successive rains.

Also, this is primarily corn-growing land, but there are many fewer farms (houses and barns) per acre than you see in IL and IA. The population density in SD is 10 people per square mile, compared to 15 in NM, which we think is pretty sparsely populated. Iowa has 15 people per square mile.

Valerie (whose job as a juvenile justice system officer requires a lot of travel around this part of the state) had seen a sign out in the country for the Granary Rural Cultural Center so we checked that out. Sign said open every day, but all that was open was the sculpture garden and the 'Dakota Walk' that winds through it. A couple of buildings housing an art gallery and a gift shop weren't. Only Valerie and I were up for Rural Culture. We kind of got the idea of the Center from what we could see, but the above website defines it:

The Granary is strongly dedicated to nurture the creative abilities and artistic expression of youth. We aim to generate an active constituency to celebrate the work of local artists, make fine art a part of community life, and advocate strong Fine Arts programs in high school education.

Here's a piece of sculpture. What do you think it means?

The jumbled up columns, it was explained, represent people not working together, different agendas, etc. The lined-up upright columns represent people working together to make something useful and pleasing to the eye.

A case in point, cited in a plaque at the Center, was the battle in the 70s and 80s over the Oahe Irrigation Project. A grassroots group of unlikely allies fought off a big government project that would have caused a major disruption of the state's water and land systems (one part of the plan was to channelize the James River near Aberdeen to provide better drainage). You can read about it the above Oahe website.

One other piece of sculpture celebrated RFD.

I think this earnest fellow was a little upset because the Sears catalog was late.

Jeff also braked for barns, at my request. Some choice examples.

Topped off the day with more walleye. Good food all the time. Had a great time with Jeff and Valerie. We're leaving tomorrow, Monday, for points north and west. Stay tuned.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Farm Days

Friday, June 19. Life on the farm.




Here are Jeff and Valerie with their miniature horses. They've got eight of them.

With a chick-chick here, and a baa-baa there, and a neigh-neigh here, and arf-arf there, ... . They've also got chickens, goats, dogs, and a cat.

And, here's a shot of the farm that Jeff took earlier in the spring, I believe. They have 18 acres. Nice sheds and barns for the livestock and toys. But, the winters .... !#@$$@%

I played farmhand for an afternoon, driving the John Deere and mowing one of the pastures.

Before all this, though, we went to town to visit Jeff's Shop-Ko store, and to do our Wal-Mart (pardon the expression, Jeff) sort of provisioning at Shop-Ko. Then it was lunch downtown, not far from the county courthouse.

Saturday morning we we to Aberdeen's Arts in the Park arts and craft show. Susie went for high art: a plaque saying "I laughed so hard that tears ran down my legs." We all had deep-fried cheese curd -- very tasty.


Incidentally, folks from Aberdeen are known as Aberdonians.


The afternoon got even more gastronomic. Jeff deep-fried walleye for the first appetizer. Next were incredibly hot chile poppers prepared in Jeff and Valerie's smoker. The main-course ribs and pheasant were in the smoker all afternoon.


Final act was a gorgeous sunset.






Cheers,



Susie and Rob

SPAM!

We camped Tuesday night at a KOA between Austin and Albert Lea, in SE Minnesota, setting up during a light to moderate rain.

The campground information sheet listed things to see and do in the area, one of which was to visit the SPAM Museum in Austin. I've seen that museum listed on unusual museums to see lists, so we decided to check it out Wednesday morning. It's great! Colorful, informative, and free samples, too. And FREE admission. Guaranteed to give you several smiles. This website provides traveler reviews. Here's a Warhol tribute I found on the internet.

As you can see, the spam we're talking about is canned meat, not junk e-mail (and why did that come to be called 'spam?' Case of slander?). Some call it the mystery meat, but one thing you learn is that there is no mystery about the meat content. It's all pork, "primarily" pork shoulder meat (oh, but what about secondary pork parts?). Then, there's sugar, salt, and other spices. The ground-up ingredients are put in the cans, sealed, then cooked for 2.5 hrs., and shipped.

The production volume is awesome, especially to those of us who identify SPAM with our youth and rarely consume it now: 7.8 million hogs were converted into SPAM in 2000. Two production plants can produce 44,000 cans per hour. Three cans per second are consumed in the United States. The state with the highest SPAM-use per capita is Hawaii. Korea is a major foreign consumer.

SPAM was invented in 1937 by the Hormel folks in Austin, MN. It gained fame for its ubiquitousness in WWII. You can watch film of soldiers talking about SPAM two or three times per day. A grainy newsreel, SPAM Goes to War, tells you that SPAM went to Europe before the troops -- as a major ingredient of the Lend Lease program in which the U.S. sent food and aid to Europe prior to our entry into the war. "From Oklahoma to Okinawa, SPAM was there," intones the narrator. Makes you want to salute.

My SPAM memory of more recent vintage is a float trip down the Grand Canyon that Roy Sooter and I made in the early 70s. Our outfitter served SPAM once a day, every day. Either fried for breakfast or in sandwiches for lunch. Backpack trips that I went on back in that era also generally included a can of SPAM.

Other museum highlights: The SPAM-ettes quartet singing, Mr. SPAM-man, bring me some food, ... .

George Burns and Gracie Allen were sponsored by SPAM.

Bet you're getting hungry for a can of SPAM right now.

The museum features a short, entertaining movie and lots of colorful, informative displays.

There were quite a few people in the museum on a Wednesday morning, including a red-hat ladies group.

So, if you're ever in the Austin, MN vicinity, go see the SPAM museum.

Right across from the museum is Johnny's Main Event restaurant, featuring a SPAM-A-RAMA. menu. Had to go there, of course. I had SPAM and eggs; Susie had pancakes, just a bite of my SPAM.

Then it was back to Lake KOA. We checked out and headed west.

Ended up in Pipestone, MN, for the night. Nice campground, 30 miles or so off the beaten paths of interstate highways. Here's the evening's sunset.

Later that evening, Susie said, Did you hear the news. One or more tornadoes just hit Austin, Minnesota. Earlier in the evening the TV had shown Pipestone to be in a tornado watch area. The campground flyer said that in case of bad weather, drive to a downtown store with a basement. To be ready, I went out and disconnected the PT. The night went by quietly.

Thursday morning early it's raining lightly. Susie says, the TV says this area is in a severe weather warning area all day. The map shows, though, that across the border west and to the north in South Dakota, no problem. So, we hustle away. So far, our timing has been good (lucky).

Now, late afternoon, we're on Jeff and Valerie's farm, southeast of Aberdeen, and the TV is saying, severe thunderstorms approaching Aberdeen. Gotta stop watching local TV! An hour or so later, here's the approaching storm.

Earlier, while fleeing Pipestone, going north toward Lake Benton, all of a sudden we were in a region of glacial hills -- green, rolling, very scenic. Didn't stop for a picture, but found a good approximation later on the internet:

Also, west of Lake Benton is a large collection of electricity-producing windmills -- 600 plus windmills, I find out later, and more being built -- we saw a couple of trucks hauling those big blades. Lake Benton proudly calls itself the "Original Wind Power Capital of the Midwest."

Meanwhile, back on the farm, we only got brief period of wind and rain as the thunderstorm line moved over us.

We'll be here through the weekend.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Cassville Ferry

Tuesday. We decided to make our last Mississippi crossing a big-un -- a toll ferry departing from Cassville, WI. The ferry's website said it could take semis and RVs. Trusting the Garmin GPS (which for some reason has lost his/her voices), we worked our way north from Mount Carroll into Wisconsin (noting, as we passed through, that Galena, IL looks like a town you might want to spend some time in). However, when Garmin started us down a road with a CAUTION - Bridge Out 10 miles ahead sign, it was oh-oh. Very fortunately, just after I turned there was an industrial building with a parking lot and two driveways that enabled us first, to pull in and consult the map, and second, to decide where next, and third, to change course.

Decided we could return to the highway we had been on, continue a few miles further north, then come back to the SW to reach the ferry via Hwy. 81. We found the 81 turn-off and wound our way through a mid-size town, then encountered another Bridge Out sign. Oh, no. But there were also signs indicating there was a Hwy. 81 West Detour route that would presumably get you around the missing bridge. According to the map, Hwy 81 would dead-end at the Ferry, so I figured they wouldn't be directing people on to Hwy. 81 West Detour if you couldn't take it all the way to the end. So, with undaunted courage, we dutifully followed the Detour signs. Seemed to take forever, lots of hills and curves winding among classic Wisconsin dairy farms, but, finally, there it was: Cassville itself, right on the river bank, and signs directing the way to the ferry.

When we pulled up to the waiting area, no one else was there, but we could see the ferry chugging up the river. Instructions said if the ferry is not here, turn on a light attached to the little toll house and the ferry will come and get you. We get the impression that the ferry is not a major connecting route between Wisconsin and Iowa. I turned on the light and sure enough, the ferry returned.

The ferry docked and discharged its eastbound passengers.

Hmm, how long is this trip going to be?

Some history: The first governor of Wisconsin came from Cassville and the town was once a competitor to become the state capital. In more recent times the town had pushed to have a bridge to Iowa constructed, but when that failed to happen, they refurbished the ferry.

Now, it's our time to cross. By this time one other car had arrived. I talked to the ferry attendant (if I can call him that) and found that I would need to disconnect the PT, so I did. He laid out some large planks that would get me onto the ferry without scraping Tuzi's rear end on the ramp and carefully guided me on first. Then came Susie and the PT and then the other car. It was occupied by a friendly retired couple from Iowa, just out exploring the country.

The Iowa terminus was about a mile upstream. This power plant is on the Wisconsin side. It's powered by coal from Wyoming and Montana. Trains (and I remember seeing these in Wyoming) bring the coal to Dubuque and it is then off-loaded onto barges and shipped up here.

You can barely see the coal pile to the left of the power plant. Our guide told us that it would get considerably larger as the plant stockpiled coal for winter, when the river would be iced up. He also told us about another plant on the river which is powered by burning RR ties. So that's what they do with old ties.

For you techies, here's a picture showing how the ferry reverses directions: the boat that propels the ferry is attached to the car platform by an arm and the boat just pivots around.

On the Iowa side, the route away from the river is a narrow dirt road twisting between corn fields for about a mile until you reach pavement again. We suspect that the ferry is more a tourist thing than a business or farm-to-market enterprise. Our guide was a retired guy, essentially doing this as a hobby and an excuse to spend time on the river. Said the company can't hire anybody, even students during the summer. Too much weekend work, he said.

A few more miles up the road we pulled off on an overlook for a last view and fond farewell to the Mighty Mississippi. There are houses on that island out there.

I programmed Clear Lake, IA into the GPS and let Garmin tell us how to get there. Oops, we're told to turn off Hwy. 13 and when we do we're greeted by a sign saying a bridge ahead has 5 ton limit. That'll never do. We pull into a (fortuitously located) Dollar General parking lot and ask a store clerk whether we should proceed. Turns out that the bridge is on a side road, so we can proceed.

As the afternoon goes on, it starts to rain. We had planned to stay in an Iowa state park, but that's looking less attractive. We decide to head for a KOA near Albert Lea, Minnesota -- our fourth state of the day! It rains pretty heavily the last hour of our trek. Been a pretty long day - about 300 miles and various delays and complications. Susie asks if the Cassville Ferry was worth it. I say Yes.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Carroll County Barns

Sunday evening and Monday morning I drove the country roads around here in search of barns. Here's a sampling.

Thought the John Deere trailers at either side set this one off nicely.

I espied an oblong barn that was in pretty bad shape, but not far away I saw its sturdier twin. Had to drive about a quarter-mile off the road along the edge of a corn field to get the picture, but this barn's architecture seems pretty unusual.


Most of the 'impressive' barns I saw, in size and style, were showing neglect. Guess they served their purpose so fresh paint and lumber are not being expended on their behalf. Pity. Kind of like retired statisticians. Need to get some of those historic preservationists interested in barns! Get some "bale-out" money and fix them up. I'd volunteer to swing a paintbrush.

Which reminds me of a story I meant to tell you about Butler, MO. I mentioned I painted the Cross family barn to impress Judy's father. I had to pass muster by both of her parents. When Judy said I planned to be a statistician, her mother replied, with a frown, "Well, you know what I think about statistics." No respect. We don't get no respect.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

Mount Carroll

Quiet day at the Timber Lake Campground today, Monday. All the weekenders left yesterday and the seasonal group also is mostly gone, back to work in Chicago, Dubuque, or wherever. When Matt and family lived in Grand Rapids we often parked at a campground on the outskirts of town. There were quite a few locals who packed the kids, pets, tents, and campers and spent the weekend at essentially their neighborhood campground. Swimming, campfires, etc., just like a real vacation but without the driving hassle. Nobody ever said, "Are we there yet?"

We picked Kaci up at noon and drove into Mount Carroll for lunch (about five miles from Timber Lake). Had a nice visit - she's really enjoying the summer, even though there's NOTHING HERE - in Mount Carroll, pop. 1800. Thirty miles to a Target or Wal-Mart; more seriously, one hour to a hospital. She was up until 2:00 am after yesterday's show, tearing down the Grease set and putting up the set for the next show -- pretty complicated set, I guess. She's on the wardrobe team this week, which means she and others were driving to nearby towns with thrift shops this afternoon in search of appropriate costumes for upcoming shows. That's show biz -- one day you're a star; the next you're doing wardrobe.

After we took Kaci back to Timber Lake we returned to spend some quality time in Mount Carroll. Doing the Chamber of Commerce's bidding, "Come experience Mount Carroll's historic grace, scenic beauty and country charm."

On the south side of town there is a very nice college campus -- red brick buildings, green lawns, lots of trees -- the prototypical small midwest college, at least that's what it appears to be. Turns out that Shimer College was founded here in 1853. It was one of the smallest liberal arts college, enrollment 150, and one with a Great Books curriculum. But, it moved away 30 years ago. Here's the Wikipedia short history:

Shimer was founded in 1853 in Mount Carroll, Illinois, by Frances Wood Shimer and Cinderella Gregory as a non-denominational all girls seminary. In the early 1960s, Shimer gained national attention with a Time magazine article about the school highlighting its reputation as a counterculture mecca. The article cited a survey by the Harvard Educational Review that ranked Shimer as among the top eleven small liberal arts colleges in the United States, along with Carleton College, Reed College, and Swarthmore College. Mounting debts and bankruptcy forced the college to leave its Mount Carroll campus and move to the northern Chicago suburb of Waukegan, Illinois in the winter of 1978-79.

On January 19, 2006, amid controversy, the Board of Trustees announced that it had accepted an invitation to move Shimer College to the Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago. The move was completed August 10, 2006.

I don't know what happened, but I can't imagine this being a counterculture center for very long.

For the last 29 years the campus has been the site of the Campbell Center for historic preservation studies, which sounds interesting. Their clientele is mid-career professionals in the business of collections care and historic preservation. Many campus buildings appeared to us to be not in use, but the campus is neat and well-maintained and must be successfully filling a need.

The town has several brick streets and many elegant houses on leafy lots. Here's a shot of downtown. Brick-making was a key industry in the town's founding.

And here's a Civil War monument on the courthouse square.

I'm sorry, though, the courthouse doesn't compare well with those we've shown you earlier, so no picture. It looks like three buildings stuck together that don't quite match.

After our sightseeing turn we found a tea shoppe and had some very good pie and cobbler, each a dollar and a quarter! What a deal.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Grease!

Susie here.

When I was a star struck girl in college and singing in a couple of musicals, I dreamed of performing on Broadway some day. Well, I soon became a college graduate who fulfilled every girl’s (in the 50’s) dream and received her Mrs. degree and married the man of my dreams. Thus, began the development of the Manny and Susie Hinkle family tree. The grandchildren came along and filled in the family tree. Each family brought great pride and provided wonderful memories for us. Each grandchild developed his/her own special talent, which brings us to the memorable experiences we had yesterday at Timber Lake Resort.

Our granddaughter, Kaci Hinkle, (who has chosen Kaci Scott as her stage name) is employed by this resort for the summer. She was “Sandy” in the musical “Grease” that has had a 10 day run in the theatre at this resort. All these college students who have come from all over the United States were so outstanding and the sold out audiences have been enchanted. As we watched, clapped and, yes, shed a tear or two, we were so proud of Kaci as well as each cast member.

Kaci is not only blessed with a wonderful talent and amazing singing voice, but she is blessed with a family who adores her and has supported her throughout high school and college as she as set her sights on her musical career. None have been more supportive than her parents, Suzy and Matt, who have provided help with high school productions, provided emotional support and, yes, mucho dollars for her singing and dancing lessons and her college education at Baldwin Wallace Music Conservatory in Berea, Ohio, (suburb of Cleveland). Her parents, maternal grandparents and brother came from New Mexico and Texas for her “Grease” performance, as did we. This is such a wonderful opportunity for Kaci as she is majoring in musical theatre and, yes, hopes to perform on Broadway after graduation in two years. We will return in July to watch her performance in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”.

As I have watched these gifted performers I realize that God has a plan for each of us. He saved me from absolute rejection and embarrassment if I ever thought that I had any semblance of talent needed to be on Broadway. But—isn’t that what life is about—receiving the God-given talent that is ours and going with it? My talent was obviously not on the stage, but is it O.K. if I dream a little as I watch my beautiful granddaughter fulfill the dream for both of us? We know that God is watching over our Kaci and will direct her in the right path to pursue her dream.

Now, Rob. I'm ba-a-a-ck:

We got to Timber Lake late Sunday morning, got set up, then found Kaci for a short visit.

The Sunday matinee was the last show of the run. Most of you probably know the Grease plot, but just in case:

Good girl Sandy and greaser Danny fell in love over the summer. But when they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance?

Lots of teen-age emotions and fun music and dancing.

The movie starred Olivia Newton-John as Sandy and John Travolta as Danny.

Here, the Timber Lake Danny and Sandy sign autographs.

And here is Timber Lake itself.

The campground is on one side of this little lake. The theatre on the other side.

Getting here was interesting. We trusted Garmin GPS all the way. We drove through lots of gorgeous corn and dairy country like this, no hints of timber or lakes, the road dwindling in size and apparent traffic, no signs giving any indication that we were in a theatre district.

Then, we came to a wooded intersection and there it was! A real oasis. The campground has about 200 camping spots, well-shaded and separated. There are lots of seasonal sites for people who come year after year and stay all summer, plus sites for short-term RVers like us. We'll be here two nights, then start heading west and north.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Mississippi Bridges

Saturday, we decide to wind our way from Hannibal, MO to Davenport, IA, by crossing the Mississippi at each bridge along the way. Sort of like lacing up a shoe. Because typically there are not places to pull over for a photo opportunity, Susie is the photographer today, shooting on the fly. So, here we go. Bridges are identified by the larger town on either end.


1. Hannibal, MO. (Update. In summarizing our Mark Twain activities yesterday I forgot to say that we stayed at the Mark Twain Campground adjacent to the Mark Twain Cave.)



You can see that it's another cloudy day. No rain, though, and temperatures still cool, low 70s at the max. Also, they managed to make this bridge's superstructure look squat rather than soaring.

2. Quincy, IL. Now, here's soaring.







3. Keokuk, IA. The adjacent RR bridge, which you can barely see, is more interesting than the highway bridge.



4. Fort Mason, IA



A bit of a story here. As you approach this bridge a sign says, Limit 8 tons; No semis. We're considerably over 8 tons. Fortunately, there's a large graveled area at the side of the road, so we pull off, turn around, and stop. As I'm studying the map and deciding where-now, a man in a pick-up who has been parked in this area drives alongside. He says, Do you need to cross here? We say, Not really; besides, we weigh more than 8 tons. He says, You can do it. I just saw two Greyhounds go across. They do it all the time. So, we decide to do it. (Who you gonna believe at a time like this?)



It becomes clear that the bridge is plenty sturdy (you wouldn't be reading this if it wasn't). BUT, there are two little zigzag areas that require a long vehicle, like a semi or a big RV, to go out of their lane in order to make the Z without scraping the side. We get extremely lucky and in both cases there is no oncoming traffic. Whew!


5. Burlington, IA


As you can see, this picture is taken as we are heading down an off-ramp. I was headed for an Iowa Visitor's Center and possibly lunch. The Visitor's Center was advertized as Major, or Full-Service, or some such characterization to let you know it's pretty special. We're going to be crossing IA next week, so this looks like a good time for brochure harvesting.


This exit is right down town and as I follow the VC signs, I soon make a left turn toward the river front. Oops. Should have looked before committing myself to the turn. The street is blocked about a half-block down. Burlington is preparing for their riverboat festival this coming week, so there are barricades all along the river front. The only way to get out of this dead-end is to unhitch the PT (oh, the shame of it all) and execute a turn-around -- there is room for that.


I have abandoned thought of the Visitor's Center or lunch and just want to escape, but as we're preparing to re-hitch, a guy comes out of a restaurant and says you can park where you are if you'd like, for a while, and go to the Visitor's Center. We opt to go to the restaurant for lunch. That provided a welcome opportunity to relax. After lunch, I get this picture of the graceful Burlington bridge. Iowa brochures will have to wait. Of course, with the internet, brochures are not such an essential research tool any more.




After Burlington, the route up the Illinois side of the river is the one I'm most concerned about. The roads are shaded on the map to indicate they are paved, but they're pretty dim, apparently county roads, not red or blue highways. But they do have little green dots indicating they are scenic roads, so I figure they might be tourist-friendly. These roads turn out just fine, and the route is marked by Great River Road signs, so it's easy to follow. (I hadn't tried to program the GPS, either from bridge to bridge or for the whole itinerary. We're roughing it.)


6. Muscatine, IA

We cross for the last time at Muscatine and then it's just a short drive to Davenport where we find a very nice RV park for the night. Only trouble is we're in trees and can't get satellite TV; there's no cable; and I can't get the TV antenna/digital converter connection to work like it did at home. So, a quiet evening for reading and blogging.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Mark Twain Today!

This (June 12) was Mark Twain day, starting with the museum and boyhood home, then a cruise on the Mark Twain Riverboat, a hike to the Mark Twain memorial lighthouse, then a one-man show, Mark Twain Himself, topped off with dinner at the Mark Twain Dinette.

I'll spare you Twain's bio or a literary retrospective, under the assumption that everybody basically knows his story and his work. Google away if you'd like. For the sake of the Last Thursday Book Club and in memory of the late Don Benoist, who picked at least two Twain books for us to read, I give you this quote:

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."

Put that on the LTBC website, Mike.

Some pictures:

Boyhood home and Tom Sawyer's picket fence.

Oh, look! A riverboat.

Two bridges just north of Hannibal. The first is the US36 highway bridge, completed in 2003, I believe our guide said. Behind that is a RR bridge. It has a section that elevates to let boat traffic through. Boat traffic has the right of way over rail traffic.

While we were on the river a "towboat" pushing 15 barges down the river came by. The total length of boat and barges was about a quarter mile. Our guide told us that to transport the same volume of material by "legally-spaced" 18-wheelers would take a caravan 35 miles long. Don't you just love statistics. Cost of river barge shipping is about half of that of truck shipping, where barge shipping is possible.

All this got me to thinking about what I found to be a fascinating book by John McPhee that I read a couple of years ago. Title was "Uncommon Carriers," and it's about the heavy shipping industry: trains, trucks, and boats. McPhee traveled with them all and had some interesting stories to tell.

Here's a statue of Tom and Huck.

Up on the hill behind the statue is a lighthouse, built in 1935 as a memorial to Twain on the 100th anniversary of his birth. (Incidentally, Twain (Clemens) was born and died (1910) in years in which Halley's Comet came by.) I plodded up the 226 steps to get there and was rewarded with this view.

I don't know if it was the climb, or the ice cream afterwards, or the Mark Twain Himself show itself, but I kept nearly falling asleep during the show. Susie had to keep jabbing me. Since there were only about a dozen of us in a small theatre, I knew Mark had his eye on me. Oh, well. I remember seeing Hal Holbrook himself do Mark Twain Tonight in Tonkawa, OK when I was in high school, and that was really something.

Back on the road tomorrow. Plan to criss-cross a half-dozen Mississippi bridges from here to Davenport, Iowa.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Day 3 Butler or Bust

Wednesday, we leave Eldorado and continue across Kansas, headed for Butler, MO, just across the line. Another comfortable, unseasonably cool day. No forecast of severe weather. We're headed en route for Fort Scott, KS, where I think our friends, Ken and Elsie Ray, from Abilene, hail from (probably shouldn't say 'hail' lest you think I mean weather). We call them and find out that they really come from a bit north, from family farms near Mound City and Blue Mound. We alter our route to go through these burgs. Real nice grass- and farmlands along the way.

Here's the majestic county courthouse in Mound City. We call the Rays again while parked on the adjacent street. There's a bandstand on a corner of the courthouse square and I imagine young(er) Elsie and Ken spooning on the courthouse lawn while listening to Sousa marches. We ask if they ever did that. Nope (they say - maybe not Sousa?), but they did get their marriage license at this courthouse. They went to HS in Blue Mound, which we just drove through/by, but they went to the bigger town of Mound City for shopping and entertainment. We had trouble keeping our Mounds straight or we would have checked out Blue Mound, too.

Here's the downtown opera house.

Anyhow, it's fun to see where our friends are from - we've done it before. Gives you a connection with their roots. Now we know what makes them like that! Just kidding.

Our route from Butler is to cross MO to Hannibal, then go north to Mount Carroll, IL, then NW to Aberdeen, SD, then follow the MO River through ND and into Montana. We'll spend some time in Idaho, then work our way home. If anybody has suggestions for must-sees along the way, including home towns, just let us know.

In early afternoon we arrive at Jan and Aubrey's farm west of Butler. (Jan, Judy's sister, is the wife, Aubrey is the husband. Aubrey bemoans his parents giving him a girl's name - a la Johnny Cash's Boy Named Sue. Says he was worried about what the neighbors might think when they put up a mailbox saying Jan and Aubrey live here. I note that Jan can be a boy's name, so all permutations and combinations are possible. Not that it matters, of course.)

Jan and Aubrey always have projects going and over the last two years they've transformed a badly neglected and abused house into something that's charming and comfortable. For example, they showed us pictures showing the outside of the house to be black with mold. Some Clorox and power spraying and re-sealing recovered the siding.

This place is on 15 acres. About 4 miles away they have another 170 acres that they bought a few years ago and where they have spent a lot of time cleaning up and shaping up - the farm, not themselves. It's got a creek running through it, a nice pond, and is a prime location for hunting deer and wild turkeys.

Here's the pasture adjacent to the Tatros' house - similar to the pasture between their house and the road, but this morning view got my attention.

Of course, Judy and I and the boys made many trips to Butler over the years, so there was a lot of nostalgia for me in returning. I used to take my bicycle when I was doing a lot of riding and I'd ride the streets and county roads around there. Aubrey drove us on a tour of the town and the farms - down several memory lanes.

Butler is the birthplace (1907) of Robert Heinlein, a noted science fiction author (actually called "the dean of science fiction writers"). I've never been much on sci-fi and have not read any of Heinlein, that I recall, but to fill that void I recently picked one of his books for an upcoming reading by my esteemed book club. We followed signs pointing to the Heinlein birthplace, but ran into a dead end. None of the houses down that street were denoted as Heinlein's. How soon they forget.

Another important Butler fact is that it was the first town west of the Mississippi to get electric power, even before St. Louis.

Butler has another majestic county courthouse (Bates Co., Mo), recently emerged from an extensive restoration.


The original statues had been lost to lightning and neglect long ago. I like that touch of color near the top, too.

On their first farm, Aubrey has built several deer stands, one tucked back in the woods here.

Here's the barn on the old Cross family place (where Judy and Jan grew up - probably 10 miles from where Jan and Aubrey live now). I painted that sucker one time to show Judy's dad what a go-getter I was.

We searched for a couple of old high-arching bridges that I remembered from years past, but they have been replaced by cement slabs. Next morning, though, Aubrey took me down to see this long-abandoned old bridge he had discovered near his farm.

It's just about to disappear.

Here's the lane leading out from the Tatro house to the road. Really gives the place a welcoming feeling.

From Butler, on Thursday, we worked our way north, skirting the KC metro area, then picked up US 24 across MO. For a ways it follows the MO River and the Lewis and Clark Trail. A preview for us. We'll be back on the L&C Trail in Dakota Territory and Montana.

Got to Hannibal in late afternoon, found an RV park, had dinner on Main Street, and drove around town a while. Steep hills and old, massive houses and commercial buildings. We'll spend Friday steeping ourselves in Mark Twainiana, then leave Saturday.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Sneak Prevue

Our destination this weekend is the Timber Lake Playhouse near Mt. Carroll, IL, where granddaughter Kaci is starring in Grease! Here's a review. They liked it! Kaci Hinkle's stage name is Kaci Scott.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Day 2 - We ARE in Kansas!

The times I've driven across SW Kansas over the years have left one main impression: Hwy 54 and the adjacent RR track are like the strings in a necklace. The beads, or baubles, on this necklace are the wheat elevators. You pass one, and its accompanying town, and there in the distance is another one, and after that another one, and another ... . How long can this last? you think. Finally, you come to the big knot - Wichita!

Hwy. 54 is big in Susie's history -- 'twas the route her family took on summer trips back home to Indiana.

I had one destination in mind along this stretch: Greensburg. Two years ago it was nearly wiped out by a tornado -- it was in all the papers. Video here. And here's a picture a few days after the tornado, from the Wikipedia website:

But, resolutely, the good citizens are rebuilding. Better, stronger, greener! is their motto. Also, son, Jeff, tells me, they're incorporating state-of-the-art tornado-resistant architecture, too.

And none too soon: As I'm writing this Susie is watching the 10 o'clock news. A tornado touched down tonight 4 miles from Greensburg. Wonder what was going through the townspeople's minds. When we were in town the noon siren went off and we nervously checked the clouds.

Prior to this, Greensburg was known to me as the site of the world's largest hand-dug well. So, I wanted to see the town and the well again.

First pass through town, looking mostly at tornado-cleared lots, boarded up buildings, temp buildings, and newly built residences and businesses, we didn't see the sign for the well. On east side of town, went into the John Deere dealership and got directions. The sign was blown away and has not been replaced yet. The well is at the base of the water tower. It's a new water tower, though, 'cause the tornado got the old one. This picture shows the storm-demolished water tank and somewhere under the debris is the World's Largest Hand-Dug Well.

Here's tornado sculpture at the well today.

And, here's looking down into the well.

Some well statistics: 109 ft. deep. 32 ft. diameter. Well, well, well, you say. Susie asks why they built one that big. I, smart-aleckly say, What else was there to do in Greensburg in 1887?

Real estate is cheap in Greensburg.

Build here. Basement free.

The county courthouse was damaged, not demolished, and is being refurbished.

Somewhere along the way today, Susie espied a cornfield. Starting to feel midwesternly.

Got to Eldorado, KS, for the night. Butler, MO tomorrow!

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Day 1 Not much happened

Day 1. Got everything loaded and the house all closed up Monday morning and departed bright and early at 11:15. Got to Guymon, OK - 329 miles - for the night. Comfortably cool and cloudy weather, for June, all the way.


US 54, which angles NE from Tucumcari to Wichita (and on east), is a variable experience. Some pretty poor pavement; some pretty good, such as 4-lanes from TX state line to Guymon, and future promise - construction west of Wichita. The TX/OK portions are wide open land, some would say featureless, but that's one type of feature - but there is a lot of it.


I got to wondering how come there is an Oklahoma panhandle -- something a boy from OK should know and maybe did once upon a time. It looks like it would have made geographical (and graphical) sense to attach that land to Texas. Well, here's a summary of that history:


The "Missouri Compromise" established the current north boundary of TX when TX was created. To the east of the TX panhandle was Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. To the north was "Unorganized Territory." When Kansas was carved out of the Unorganized Territory, its southern boundary was to be the TX boundary extended eastward. But, that would have taken too much of the Cherokee Nation and given it to KS. So, the KS southern border was moved northward 34 miles in 1854.


The OK panhandle became no man's land - you couldn't buy it if you wanted it. It was "seasonal home to nomadic American Indians of the High Plains and was controlled by Comanche bands and allied groups from 1850 to 1875." Settlers did move in and finally, in 1890 it was included in the newly created Oklahoma Territory, ultimately the state of OK. Haven't found any mention of whether TX , or KS, or NM (why not?) made a pitch for this 34 by 167 mile strip. Maybe they drew straws and OK lost (HA!).


Found this picture on the internet (flickr.net):

The caption read: for miles and miles and miles through the oklahoma panhandle, the highway doesn't turn... and the only signs you see periodically are these signs for "cemetery".

Our campground book didn't list any RV parks in Guymon, but a roadside sign advertized one. We found it, a serve yourself park - pick a spot, put your money in an envelope and drop it in the container. Had several eating establishments within walking distance; we picked Mexican and had some good tacos - beef (S), fish(R). Turned out, also, that campground was close enough to hear the trains whistling and rumbling through town on a nearby track. Ah, the sound of the road.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

On The Road Again - Updated

Dear Family and Friends:

When last we left you, I was planning to fly to Vancouver for a conference while Susie went to Las Vegas to be with Heidi through and after her nose surgery. The last part worked, but I didn't make it to Vancouver.

An embarrassing tale: In early planning for Tuzigoot trip to Vancouver I laid out our passports where I would be sure to get them in -- not forget them. Well, got home from our May flying trip and I can't find the passports. Can't find them in my office and I know I didn't take them out. Could I have knocked them into the trash can? By the time we both give up looking, it's nearly too late to get replacements, unless we go the high-priced express route. Went to the post office and the lady there told me that as long as I return before June 1, I can enter and exit Canada using my birth certificate. So, that would work and I carefully packed that with my papers. We flew to Vegas on Monday (5/25). Tuesday I go to the airport. Nyet! Turns out you can drive or walk in to Canada using a birth cert., but you can't fly there. So, I stayed a couple more days in Vegas. That was good, 'cause I was there to drive Heidi to and from the hospital. Attending the conference would have been nice, but I wasn't on the program, so not a tragedy. Then I came home to start prepping Tuzigoot for the trip.

We've had a gorgeous spring here in Cedar Crest. Maybe it happens every year, but we've been away traveling or teaching several recent springs, so I didn't remember the sensation. Lots of wild flowers (for this part of the country - it ain't easy being a wild flower here), green grass, new growth on the trees, mild days, invigorating mornings, mountain showers. Here are a few pix:

We also have some semi-wild flowers, maybe I should call them feral. They were planted by the previous owners and have survived the neglect we've given them. When we're home I occasionally dump a bucket of shower pre-water (collected while waiting for the shower water to get hot) on them, but, hey, can't cover many flowers and shrubs with only one bucket a week.

There's daisies:

and we have a couple of real nice columbines in the yard:

and some of these:

We're headed first for Butler, MO, where Judy's sister, Jan, and husband Aubrey, live on a farm not far from the Cross family farm where Judy, Jan, and third sister, Mary, grew up. You can take the girl off the farm, but ... (Jan and Aubrey just recently moved back to Butler). Then it's on to Mt. Carroll, IL where granddaughter, Kaci, is playing the female lead in Grease! in summer theatre. We'll get there for the Sunday matinee.

From there it's on to SD, ND, MT, ID then work our way home from there. We have a a visit to Glacier NP planned, but pretty loose other than that. Want to take our time, sit a while in one spot, see the sights, not drive to another campground every day. If anybody has any must-see recommendations for that part of the good ole US of A, we'd love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Updated: June 8, 4:30 am. FOUND OUR PASSPORTS! Tucked away in briefcase I use to carry papers and books when we travel. Mighta known.