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.

October in Christian County, Kentucky

Fall pictures

I pulled off "The Boulevard" (Ft. Campbell Blvd. in Hopkinsville) to take this picture of the spectacular colors in the sky. Just a few moments later, the sun went behind a cloud, and the brilliance was gone.

I'm not sure whose horses these are, but I don't think a Mennonite owns them. They're too flashy in color, and besides, I don't think a Mennonite would turn his horses loose in the woods. They'd be too hard to catch if he needed to go somewhere.

I took this photo early in October. Since then, autumn colors have deepened, and many of the leaves have fallen. The maples in our yard have lost nearly all their leaves. The oaks tend to hold their leaves longer.

These fall wildflowers are growing along the "Town Fork" of Little River (as it was called in earlier times) in Hopkinsville. The lavender flowers are little wild asters. I saw the red berries along the banks of Little River, too. If you know what sort of berries they are, please tell me in the comments. I think there's honeysuckle in that tangled mass of vegetation -- it is so terribly invasive, once it gets started.

Keely has been sewing Halloween costumes. I went with her to WalMart one afternoon to help pick out fabric. We didn't see anything there that suited her. A few days later, she came out here, and we looked through my stash and found some pieces she thought would work. I am pretty sure I'll never get all the fabric in my stash sewed, so I like to share it with Keely every now and then.

On the Sundays that I work, I often see buggies going through Hopkinsville at about the same time that I'm heading home myself.  Darkness arrives earlier now, so I wish the families in the buggies would head home a little earlier. I am careful when I see their four flashing taillights, but I fear that other drivers are not.

I think this is a Mennonite buggy, as it has a triangular slow-moving-vehicle sign. The Amish don't like the triangular orange sign -- they recently agreed with the State of Kentucky that they will outline their buggies in silver reflective tape instead. I am not sure if the local Amish use battery-powered headlights or not.

And finally, just a reminder that the holiday season has already begun. I don't remember ever seeing a blue Christmas tree before, but I'm surprised I haven't. The citizens of Kentucky really support the UK teams.

Mother's Day Rainbow and More

May in Christian County, KY

I saw this beautiful, full rainbow on Mother's Day about

6:30 pm. On the left side, a double rainbow is slightly visible.

The farm buildings here (and those in the rainbow photo)

are Mennonite-built. Their distinctive, consistent

building style is easy to recognize, once you know it.

This crow was perched on one of the big lights in the

mall parking lot in Hopkinsville. If this photo had

sound effects, you'd quickly turn down the volume.

 He was very noisy! When he saw me paying
 attention to him, he flew over to the highest point

of the mall's roofline and sat there -- still cawing!

Sweet peas in a cemetery fence row, and

overhead, branches and cones of Virginia pine.

I took this photo of our neighbor's field in early May.

Now, many wheatfields are nearly ready for harvest.

We are happy for recent rains because we've had a dry.

spring. But heavy storms right now could lay the wheat

plants down, making harvest difficult and reducing yield.

Most of our wild roses are pink, but this one is very white.

There might be a very slight hint of pink in the buds.

"O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green..."

--Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – 1632))

Early Fall in Christian County, KY

Seen around the county during the last month

A nearly-dry stream bed in late September.

Now, the water is probably full of fallen leaves.

A full barn of tobacco, curing
in the fresh country air.

Dad and kids, headed home
from the produce auction

The northern part of Christian County has dozens

(or hundreds?) of small fields like this one, where the

ground is flat enough to farm between hills and streams.
This is corn, drying in the field before harvest.

The shorter flowers are members of the aster family,

and the taller ones are ironweed, as I recall.

Last spring, these were wheatfields.

Now, they're beanfields (soybeans). 

This complex west of Hopkinsville

has about a dozen tobacco barns in it.

The smoke can get heavy when
the barns are being fired.

A horseless carriage, so to speak

Late afternoon sunshine on a 

field of ripening soybeans

The sun is setting much earlier now. 

I saw this gorgeous sunset on my

way home from work one night.

Keely and I went to an interesting moving 

sale at this house in Hopkinsville. 

The seller had lots of cool, collectible stuff.

At the Farmers Market in 

downtown Hopkinsville

Butterflies and Coneflowers

Summer sights

As I was photographing these butterflies, they were completely oblivious to my presence. The only thing on their minds was checking each flower for nectar. I really enjoyed seeing them!

Around Christian County, KY

Scenes of early summer

Wheat is ripening. Some fields were harvested last week.
This wheatfield is across the road from our house, and
the wheat seems to be a particularly tall variety. Our
neighbor will harvest both straw and grain.

Native daylilies are blooming in the road ditches.

Starbucks Coffee in Hopkinsville is hosting half a dozen 

bird nests, built into the big letters on the side of the building.

I suppose these cavities are the best substitute for holes in a cliff 

that the birds could find. Hurry, Mama! Baby's hungry!

Odds and Ends (1)

Photos from the "To be posted" folder

Keely and I had fun shopping at Burkes Outlet and the Mighty Dollar in Russellville (KY), about a week ago. At Burkes, I successfully resisted buying a chicken. I like chicken knickknacks, but I am determined not to start a collection.

Burkes and the Mighty Dollar are in the same strip mall, next to the Russellville WalMart. They're the sort of stores that have an unpredictable, interesting and inexpensive inventory.

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Our landscape was colored with brown for several months due to the long drought this area suffered last summer. Now, around Christian County, winter wheat is greening many fields. I enjoy seeing the bright new growth!


This photo was taken at the intersection of Pilot Rock Road and Robinson Lane in Christian County, looking southeast toward Fairview.  

We've had a couple of nice rains and in fact, rain is falling at this very moment. It's been quite a wet and windy evening, but it's still 50 degrees. Tomorrow the temperatures will fall, and tomorrow night will be below freezing. Although our weather has been mostly mild so far, we did have some snow on Thanksgiving night.

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Two summers ago, I saw this pretty little clump of flowers in Land Between the Lakes near the Egner Ferry Bridge. It was growing a hundred feet from the lakeshore in a gravel-filled wash. The debris in the background suggests a high-water episode in the past.

You never know where you'll find a flower. If the soil is right for them to flourish, they bloom despite their humble surroundings.

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This photo is a year or two old, too. I came out to the kitchen one summer morning to make coffee, and found this large moth. Dennis had seen him resting on a white towel and put a glass jar over him so I could see him too.  That's a penny beside him. After I took the photo, I slid a piece of paper under him and carried him outside. I never did get to see him open his wings and fly.

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This is one of the interesting homes on South Main Street in Hopkinsville. This style is (I think) Mission Revival -- at least, the roofline and arched windows certainly are. (I'm not sure about the front porch!) Mission Revival was especially popular for the first few decades of the 1900s.

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This is another home on South Main Street in Hopkinsville. The photo is a little out of perspective because I tried to straighten it using a stretch-grid in Paintshop Pro.

After my treatment, the photo looks like it was taken from the air, instead of from the ground. I'm not sure that the chimneys and the front roof peak are that tall in real life, either.

Despite those flaws, if the porch railings were straight, the photo would probably look OK. I couldn't seem to get them in line without grossly stretching something else.

Nonetheless, it's a pretty house. The two-story gingerbread porch and the red front door give it personality. Without them, it would be a big, plain box.

(To be continued another day. More such photos wait.)