Road Trip through the Ozarks

Christian County, Kentucky, to Hickory County, Missouri

Recently, I took a few days off from the usual humdrum and made a fast trip west to visit my family. I drove to Wheatland, Missouri, and picked up my sister; then she rode along with me to Kingman County, Kansas, where we spent several days visiting with my brother and sister-in-law. Then I took my sister home again, and came back home myself. The entire trip was about 1500 miles.

Here are some of the sights from the first day, as I traveled from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to southwest Missouri.

 This gas station in Wickliffe, Kentucky, is a familiar landmark just before the long approach through the swamps to the Ohio River bridge.

There was no traffic on the bridge over the Mississippi River, so I drove slowly, put my camera out the window, and blindly took some pictures. Most of them were out of focus and wildly tilted (not surprising,) but this one isn't too bad. The trees are growing on the extreme southern tip of Illinois. The Ohio River is on the far side of the trees and the Mississippi River is in the foreground. The two rivers come together in front of the trees and continue as the Mississippi to the ocean.

 

Much of the land in the Missouri Bootheel was cypress swampland until the 1890s. It was considered a great engineering accomplishment when nearly all the trees were cut and the swamps were drained and converted to farmland. Today, it's a very productive agricultural area, but a rich and complex ecosystem has been lost forever.

Most of the hay harvest this year in southern Missouri and southern Kansas was put into big round bales like these. We did see a few big square bales in Kansas. We speculated that they could be packed closer on a truck than round bales and that they would be more stable during transport.

In a gas station, I saw this stuffed bobcat and bird (I think it's a quail.) I don't think they'd win any taxidermy prizes, but they certainly were attention-grabbing, especially for little children.

The other end of this shop in Van Buren, Missouri, was more modern and less cluttered, but I really liked the look of this end. Van Buren always has something interesting to see. I took a few minutes off to drive around town and look at the Current River.

My next stop was at Winona, where I pulled into a gas station to study the map and plot a route across the Ozarks. I had finished my map reading and I was waiting at the stop sign to get back on Highway 60, when a woman in a Ford Explorer rear-ended my car. She was apologetic, but she didn't explain to me why she did it. My car didn't appear to be damaged, but I got her insurance information anyway. "Just in case," I told her.

I pointed my camera at the road as I went down some of the big hills. Here are two pictures that turned out all right. I'm thankful for Highway 60 which is all four-lane these days, but I always enjoy the point in the journey when I turn northward on a two-lane and head across the Ozarks toward Wheatland. I've seen some great scenery from the two-lanes in the Ozarks.

I usually go through Lebanon, but I decided to take some blacktop county roads (about 50 miles of them) and go through Buffalo instead. (This information is for those who really know their southern Missouri geography.) That's how I happened to pass through Conway, and by the way, it was the first town I'd seen in quite a while.

I finally arrived at my sister's house a little before sunset. When I opened the trunk of my car, I couldn't close it again. Once opened, the two parts of the trunk latch were misaligned and impossible to connect. So I called the woman's insurance company and made a claim that night.  (Lesson: Always get the insurance info, even if the car does not appear dented at first glance!)

For the rest of the trip, I had to fasten the trunk with a bungee-cord. We put most of our gear in the back seat because it was more convenient. When I got home again, I took the car to the body shop for an estimate, and the guys there bent it back enough to close it properly. Now, I'm just waiting for the appointment in about a week to get it fixed for good.

Time Travel: Kansas to California, 1896

"I am stuck on California and have got it bad."

A letter to the editor of the Narka News (Narka, Kansas)

Los Angeles, Cal., Jan 1 1896
ED, NEWS:

When I left Narka, [Kansas,] I promised to write to our neighbors but as we had so many -- and true friends-- I thought best to write one to you, giving a little outline of my trip, and if you will publish it, it will do for them all.

Denver and Rio Grande Railroad map, 1891
Image from Wikimedia

As we left Narka on election day, we stopped in Belleville twenty minutes, met Daisy and Grandma Short; had a pleasant chat with them, bade them good-bye, and knew nothing more until morning when we arrived at Pueblo. Here we made close connections, taking the Denver and Rio Grande for Ogden.

Along this road, the scenery is very beautiful. You would have to look up twice to see the top of the peaks while close to the track was a beautiful stream of water running very swiftly over rocks and pebbles, making it seem like old New York State.

Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway

A beautiful Appalachian highway remembered

On our way home from a visit to Washington D.C. in 2007, we spent an afternoon on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Blue Ridge Parkway starts at Afton, Virginia and ends in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, near Waynesville, North Carolina. We drove the northernmost 55 miles of the Parkway, from Afton to Buena Vista, in Virginia.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about someone asking me, "What's the most beautiful place you've ever seen?" The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the places I remembered when I thought about my answer to that question. The scenery is far more beautiful than my photos suggest. You really should look at some of the lovely photos of the Blue Ridge Parkway on Flikr.

We drove slowly and stopped many times to enjoy the spectacular views. It was early April, and the weather was chilly. Patches of snow lay here and there. The trees didn't have their leaves yet. It was very quiet up there, and we rarely saw another car. Sometimes we looked into the distance and saw the farms and highways and towns of the Shenandoah Valley far below us. They seemed very far away and unreal, as if we were catching a glimpse of the modern world from some point in the distant past.

We turned off the Blue Ridge Parkway when we reached the road to Buena Vista, I was surprised that the descent into the valley was so steep. Signs along the road advised truckers how far it was to the next runaway truck ramp. (If a truck's brakes fail while coming down the mountainside, the driver can plow it into a long bed of deep gravel to stop it.)

From there, this story continues downhill, so to speak. I had caught a bad cold in Washington D.C., and during our afternoon on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I had started running a fever. I was eager to pull in for the night, so we stopped at the first motel we saw in Buena Vista. It was the worst motel we've ever stayed in (in the U.S., anyway,) but I felt too sick to look any farther. The one redeeming feature of the place was the cheap price.

I asked for more pillows because the ones on the bed were so flat. The motel manager grudgingly produced one more pillow, and it was just as flat as the rest of them. The room was very chilly, and the heater didn't seem to work. The bathroom had no ventilating fan, so when we showered, clouds of steam filled the room and dampened our blankets.

During the night, I woke up and realized that I was even sicker. I could hardly breathe or swallow. I ached all over, and my chest hurt when I coughed. I remember thinking that I had to get out of that horrible room, before I died there.

I took this photo of the Blue Ridge as we left the motel early the next morning. I was still very sick. I know that when we came through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, we drove up to the overlook where I took a few pictures. For the rest of the trip home, I have neither memories nor photographs.

When we finally arrived home, I left the unpacking to Dennis and Isaac. I came into the house and fell in bed, and I slept for the next several days in a feverish stupor. After I finally recovered, I realized that someone should have taken me to the doctor!

I know that my little tale about the Blue Ridge Parkway ends strangely, but that's how it is sometimes with true stories.

A Citizen's Visit to the Smithsonian

Country folk in the nation's capital

Dennis and me. If this were a video, you'd see
us shivering and hear our teeth chattering!

I've been looking through some photos tonight of a trip we really enjoyed. In 2007, Dennis, Isaac, and I went to Washington D.C. during Isaac's Easter break from school. Via the internet, I found a reasonably-priced hotel located just a block from the Iwo Jima monument in Arlington National Cemetery and just across the river from many famous monuments and buildings.

The Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery

The Virginia Suites worked out great for us. Our studio apartment was spacious and clean. It had a small, completely furnished kitchen and dining area, so I brought a few easy-to-cook things with us, and we ate in the room at night.  We enjoyed the generous continental breakfast that was served downstairs each morning, and then we walked a few blocks to the subway and rode a short distance to the Mall area. We carried snacks to eat at lunchtime. ("Poor folks have poor ways," my mother-in-law often said, in praise of frugality.)

Early April gave us a little surprise. Snow fell during our first night in DC. The next morning, the grass and all the parked cars had a crusty, white coat.

And speaking of coats -- we wished we had brought heavier ones! The wind blew hard, and the temperatures were in the 40s most of the time we were there. We wore extra layers of clothing but we still shivered in the wind chill. The cherry trees were blooming, but the combination of the late freeze, the snow, and the gusty winds frazzled them a little. The tourists looked frazzled too, huddled inside their coats as the wind hurried them along. I'm sure we looked much the same.

Highway 2, Sandhill Scenic Byway

One answer to an impossible question

Someone asked me today, "What's the most beautiful place you've ever seen?" I had a hard time answering that question, because I've been very fortunate. I've seen many beautiful places, and it's impossible for me to rate them.

One of the places that came to mind was the National Scenic Byway section of  Highway 2 from Grand Island, Nebraska, to Alliance, Nebraska. Charles Kuralt, longtime news reporter and host of the CBS television program, "On the Road", listed Highway 2 among the top ten most beautiful highways in the United States. I love what Kuralt said about it (italics added by me!)

From the first time I ever drove along it, I’ve been in love with Highway 2. It’s not so much that there’s a special something to see along Nebraska’s Highway 2. There’s a special nothing to see. From Grand Island to Alliance, Highway 2 takes you through the Nebraska Sandhills, the largest area of sand dunes in the western hemisphere. Writers inevitably use a metaphor of the sea to describe the hundreds of thousands of acres of grass – and hundreds of thousands of acres of sky. Like the sea the emptiness of the Sandhills gives the travelers a strange sense of comfort, there’s a feeling that as long as these two things are in order, the earth and the sky, all the rest can be forgotten until tomorrow. Highway 2 is not just another highway that goes somewhere, Highway 2 is somewhere.

"The emptiness of the Sandhills...the earth and the sky"
Photo by leish76

Life has taken me many places since my childhood in the Sandhills. In 2000, I visited Nebraska for the first time in about 15 years. I brought my children with me, and during our adventure, we drove part of the Highway 2 Scenic Byway. That was the first of several summer trips I made to the Sandhills with them.

When I came back from that first trip, I wrote a long account of our odyssey. After re-reading it tonight, I realized that the Sandhills will always feel like home to me, and no place on earth is more beautiful to the soul than home.  Here's a quote from myself about my first sighting of the Sandhills on that trip:

What a thrill it was to see the Sandhills again after so many years. I lectured the kids on the details of the landscape -- windmills, sand-capped hills, blowouts, lowland meadows, cattle herds, soapweeds, cow trails, ranch signs! My young Kentuckians listened with some interest to my dissertation, and they were impressed by the striking sparsity of trees, the big blue sky, and the immense and endless hills.

I doubt if I'll get back to Nebraska again with both kids. They've grown up, and they have their own responsibilities that tie them down. But I'm glad that I had the opportunity to show them the beautiful Nebraska Sandhills.  I'm glad that we drove part of the Highway 2 Scenic Byway, and I hope I'll get a chance to travel that road again, one of these days.

Related:

• A railroad runs alongside Highway 2 east of Alliance for many miles. The extra-long coal trains are the topic of dozens of YouTube videos. See http://youtu.be/Naj56kWmrSg for a Sandhill view of one of the empty trains, heading back to the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
• The photo albums associated with the Nebraska Sandhills page on Facebook are wonderful. Flikr has some nice Sandhill photos too. 

Grass as far as the eye can see. The Sandhills prairie is
the largest area of natural grassland left in the United States.

Ozark Ghost Town

Somewhere between Mountain Grove and Lebanon

Over the last twenty years, I've made around forty trips through the Ozarks of southern Missouri, either going to or coming home from my sister's house. She lives about fifty miles north of Springfield, Missouri, and I live in Kentucky.

On my trip up there last summer, I took a route I'd never traveled before and probably won't travel again. I turned north on Highway 95 at Mountain Grove, Missouri, thinking I'd see Dove Mountain which is just east of 95, according to the road map. But the hills were so big that I couldn't see the mountain. Or maybe one of them was the mountain? I couldn't tell.

Then I learned that a bridge was out on my planned route, so I took a long detour down some county blacktops. These roads followed every curve of the old wagon trails they were built upon, all the way to the top of every ridge and all the way to the bottom of every valley. Some of the scenery was beautiful, but I couldn't take pictures. If I had stopped in the road, someone might have come around a curve and hit me.

This little Ozark ghost town dates back to a time before
blacktop roads. Farm folks came here to buy things
they couldn't make and to hear the news of the world.
Everything changed after the Depression and WWII.

At an intersection somewhere along the way, where the blacktop road made a right-angle turn, I saw this little ghost town and pulled over to get a photo.

The main road that runs by this village was blacktopped sometime, but the street in front of these stores never saw that improvement. Maybe the brick building in the center was the last business to close.

I didn't explore. I saw vehicles at a house (the metal roof at far left in the photo), and I didn't want anyone to think I was snooping around. I drove on through the hills and valleys, and finally I came to a somewhat wider and straighter state highway that led to Lebanon, and eventually, I arrived at my sister's house in Hickory County.

The scenic route and the detour made my trip a little longer and slower, but I always enjoy backroads and the curiosities along them.

Wet and Dry

Flood and drought in the heartland

Mississippi River near Cairo, Illinois Bridge over the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois

The last week of July, I drove to southwestern Missouri to get together with my brother and sister at my sister's house. It was great to see them, and I also enjoyed the road trip.

I crossed the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. It was obvious that the fields along the approaches to the bridge were planted very late due to the spring floods. On the Missouri side of the Mississippi River, I saw more evidence of flooded fields and late crops. Farms in the area were flooded last spring when the Corps of Engineers broke a levee on the Mississippi to ease the flooding in Cairo.

Most of the fields had young, broad-leafed plants growing in them. First, I thought that the little plants were probably soybeans. Then I wondered if they might be cotton, because southeast Missouri grows quite a bit of cotton. There are short-season cottons that will mature before frost, even when planted late. Whatever the crop, I'm glad some farmers in the river bottoms may get a harvest this year, despite all.
.

Hay trucks on Highway 60

NOAA image

As I drove west on Highway 60, I followed two trucks loaded with big hay bales for miles. They were probably going somewhere in the drought-stricken plains farther west, where people don't have enough grass to feed their livestock. If only their pastures could have some of the water that flooded the fields along the Mississippi this spring!

It was very dry north of Springfield, Missouri, where Charlotte (my sister) lives. My brother Dwight, who has a ranch southwest of Wichita, Kansas, says it is terribly dry there, too. He usually rents a couple of pastures to another fellow every summer, but when last winter and spring were so dry, he decided to sacrifice the extra income and keep all his summer pasture for his own cattle. He hasn't had to buy any hay yet.

Near Charlotte's house on the night that I arrived, a farmer was mowing the dried-up, stunted, mostly-dead corn plants in his field. A couple days later, he baled the stalks for cattle feed. The drought-stressed cornstalks may be high in nitrates, so the farmer will need to have the cornstalks tested so he doesn't accidentally poison his cattle. The cows won't think that cornstalk "hay" is very good, but they'll eat it if they're hungry enough. 

This longhorn cow still has grass in her pasture near Charlotte's house. It has become hay on the stem, but that's much better than no grass at all!

Droughts and floods are problems for all of us, not just for farmers. These disruptions impact grocery store prices, affecting everyone who buys food. Please, pray for rain for those farmers and ranchers who need it -- and sunshine for those who don't need rain!

Deals by the Pound!

Goodwill Outlet Store in Indianapolis

Keely and I made a fast trip to Indianapolis last week to pick up a car we bought for Isaac on eBay. (If you keep up with the ongoing drama here, you know that our son Isaac wrecked his car in June.) The "new" vehicle is a 2001 Toyota Corolla. It seems to be a pretty good little car, and we hope it will serve him well.

We drove up after work and spent the night in Indianapolis. The next morning, we had a few hours to kill before we could pick up the car, so we decided to visit a Goodwill Outlet Store that we had spotted in the area.

The outlet store occupies one end of a huge warehouse. Goodwill trailers were parked in a line along the wall. When we got out of the car, we saw a sign that made our bargain-loving hearts go thumpity-thump:  "Deals by the Pound!"

Inside, we learned the prices:
$.69/lb. for clothing, housewares, books,  toys, DVDs, and CDs
$.49/lb. for glass
$.99/lb. for paired shoes

(I suppose if you wanted unpaired shoes, they would be $.69/lb!)

The store was a very large room with a very high ceiling. Several dozen shoppers were digging through a jumble of merchandise that was piled in long rows of bins. The bins -- or maybe they should be called tables -- were made of blue plastic, and they were about 4 feet wide, 8 feet long, and 18 inches deep.

Several rows of tables contained heaps of housewares and toys. Tables in another area had piles of  mostly clothing. Against the back wall, I found several tables of  books and magazines. Furniture was arranged in long rows in one corner of the room. I don't think I saw any piece of furniture that was priced over $25, and many items were $10 or less.

As we shopped, Goodwill employees were bringing out new furniture, rolling out new bins, and removing old bins to the back to be refilled. When I saw the process, I understood another sign on the wall: "Please do not shop from rolling bins!" A fellow shopper told us that they change the bins every 2 hours, and for best pickings, you need to be there at changing time.

I didn't have enough patience to dig through the clothing, but Keely found several pairs of work pants for Taurus and some cute toddler outfits for her friend's little girl. I investigated the book bins and was horrified at the way they were tossed in and scrambled around. I rescued a couple of old geography books, a cookbook, a Richard Scarry book of nursery rhymes, a biography of Will Rogers for Dennis, and several others.

We chatted with the lady behind us as we waited to weigh our merchandise at the cash register. She was about 40 years old, and she had a stack of neatly folded clothing in her cart. She said that she lives an hour away, but she likes to come to the outlet every week on her day off. She looks for clothing for her entire family, and she always checks them carefully for stains and other damage before she buys them. She described herself as "addicted."

At the checkout, we pushed our cart onto the scales. We didn't have to sort out any glass or shoes to be weighted separately. Our pile of $.69/lb merchandise, plus the tax, came to about $30. Our heaviest items were the books and a little wooden stepladder. We also had a couple of big wicker baskets, a metal tray, the cloth items that Keely found, some video games -- and more.

The Goodwill Outlet is not for sissies. It's hard-core junk shopping! It would be a good idea to wear gloves or bring hand sanitizer. But I'm sure amazing treasures are found there every day. As we left, a man saw me fiddling with my camera and said, "You found that in here, didn't you?!"  I'm not sure he believed me when I said, "No."


 On the web:
Goodwill Outlet Stores in Indianapolis. (We visited the one on Shadeland Ave.)
Goodwill Outlet Store in Nashville (One of these days!)
Ms Cheap Visits the Goodwill Outlet (Visit the Nashville store via You-Tube.)

Seen in Cleveland, Ohio

On the shores of Lake Erie

Outside the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. 

Peace and love, Isaac!

No photography is permitted in the Rock Hall.
This photo of the gift shop was a
backward look as we left the building.

Cleveland claims credit for naming 

"Rock 'n' Roll" and for holding

the first rock concert ever.

A U.S. Coast Guard vessel,

docked on the Erie shore.

This World War II submarine is a

National Historic Landmark. It's open

for tour during the warmer months.

Some of Cleveland's big buildings

Apparently, St. Patrick's Day is well-celebrated 

in Cleveland. The GPS helped us bypass the streets 

that were closed for the parade, so we didn't
get lost or cause any major traffic jams!

Trip to the Cincinnati Airport

Photos from the Florence (KY) area

Springhill Suites lobby

Panera Bread

Knitpiks classroom

Florence Mall fountain

Two-story carousel

When Isaac went to Germany a few weeks ago, his group departed from the Cincinnati airport. We drove up there a day early and spent the night in a hotel near the airport (actually in Florence, KY). I wanted to be sure I wasn't in a traffic jam somewhere at the time Isaac needed to be at the airport.

The hotel (Springhill Suites by Marriott)had an interesting marine/modern decor. We enjoyed our night there, and I'm happy to recommend it, if you should ever travel in that area.

Keely had researched some places in the general area that she wanted to visit. First we had lunch at Panera Bread, a restaurant that we don't have in Hopkinsville.  Then we went to (surprise!) a yarn store called Knitwits. The store is located in a small house, and like every yarn store I've ever been in, it was photogenic.

From there, we went to the Florence Mall and wandered around for a couple of hours. The huge fountain is one of the mall's centerpiece works of art, but the 2-story carousel was cool, too.

The mall didn't have a bookstore, but a big Barnes and Noble was located nearby. We spent a while there, and then went to a Half Price Bookstore that we had spotted earlier. In hindsight, we all agreed that we should have gone to the Half-Price first! That was a great store! (Isaac tells me that when I pick him up, we are going there again. I am supposed to bring a box of books that he sorted out for the next garage sale. He's going to see if he can sell any of them at the Half Price store.)

By then, it was getting late. We were near the hotel, so we went back briefly and I took my antibiotic. Then we ate supper at IHOP, went back to the hotel, and called it a night.

The next morning, I was surprised that I had slept so well. We got dressed, ate breakfast, packed up, and headed for the airport where Isaac met his study-abroad group and flew away. Keely and I made a small but interesting side trip on our way home. I'll post those photos another day.

This little trip was precious to me, because my kids are no longer children. Keely is 24 and Isaac is 21. I don't know if I'll ever get them both loaded into the car and hauled off for an adventure again. It brought back happy memories of the many times I packed them into the car and we headed out to Kansas and Missouri to visit the grandparents. I like to think those road trips gave them a bit of an itch to see new sights and visit new places.

Keely and Isaac