Baby Snakes in the Star Trek Pod

We made the most of our day in St. Louis, driving first to the famous upside down parabola thing. Its official name is the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and its common name is the Gateway Arch. By visiting here, we have been to the beginning (near the arch) and the farthest reaches (the Oregon coast) of the expedition led by Lewis and Clark. They toiled, half starved. We drove, with a fridge and air conditioning. Thank you, Lewis and Clark.

From the outside the arch is a fitting memorial with its clean lines making a simple and elegant form that dominates the downtown skyline. The skin is made of welded stainless steel plates and reflects the sky. It’s lovely.


Downtown St. Louis as seen from a very small window

Once inside, the arch reveals its nutty modernist origins. The tram cars that take you to the top look like they were escape pods from the original Star Trek. Since the arch was completed in 1965, this may very well be true. The tram costs money to take to the top and once there you enjoy a view of 100 other people’s rear ends as they cram in front of the miniscule windows that look out on the Mississippi and downtown St. Louis. We stayed but a few minutes.


A typical view in the observation deck

When we queued up to our tram, a man in his fifties stormed his way ahead of us to get there first. He then peppered the young man directing people with the basic questions about the arch: How tall? 630 feet. When done? 1965. Anybody die while building it? No. Then he struck up a conversation with us while we tried to watch a little movie that provided these very same facts. Once he learned we were traveling around the country for the year he said, “You must be millionaires!” Not quite. Then he handed Elise a five dollar bill and told her to remember him, Tom. Okay. At the top he stormed his way to a window, interrupting family photos and bumping tiptoeing children along the way. We’ll never forget you, Tom.


A view inside a tram pod and pod people boarding

If you dislike heights and small spaces and want to torment yourself, go on up. If you believe humans are closely related to cattle and you would like to exercise your herd instincts, please, go on up. If you don’t like paying to be shoe-horned in small spaces with strangers, don’t bother. Enjoy it from the outside and check out the museum underneath it.


Thomas Jefferson’s peace medal

The museum has a lot of neat stuff on Lewis and Clark as well as the settling of the West and the unsettling, as it were, of the many native tribes. There is a big display on peace medals. These are handsome, giant coins made with the graven image of the president at the time and some peace-inducing image or phrase. Lewis and Clark handed them out like Halloween candy. In exchange for receiving these fine medals (as well as any number of deadly European diseases free of charge), the native tribes would no doubt peaceably vacate their lands for the sake of settlers until all they had was a dusty few acres in Oklahoma or a desolate stretch of Arizona where they could, one day, build a casino. If I were them, I’d make my slot machine tokens look like peace medals.

Once away from the herds, we drove to a tasty joint featured in our Road Food book called Crown Candy Kitchen: the oldest soda fountain in St. Louis. It serves delicious malts and shakes as well as sandwiches and chili, among other things. We waited for a table to clear, sat down, and ordered our lunch. Danine had a BLT with one and a half inches of piled bacon. The thickest BLT we have ever seen. We all had shakes: Danine, banana with nuts topped with whipped cream and fresh nutmeg; Elise, chocolate; me, butterscotch malt. Mmmm. We were full almost to the point of being incapacitated. But we soldiered on to Forest Park.


I wanted to get picture of these fish, but the hippo ruined it.

Forest Park is a huge city park with many great sites, museums and the zoo. Much of this stuff is free — just like home at the Smithsonian! We hit the zoo where we spent our afternoon and early evening. It’s pretty nice. It seems well kept, but is older. This means the buildings are elegant and lovely, but the animal habitats, for the most part, are just a little cramped.


Grizzlies dealing with the summer heat


No one could tell us what happened to this king penguin’s head.

We enjoyed the bushdogs and giant anteater, the hyena, the bat-eared foxes and the freaky-cool wild hog. We had a nice chat with the young woman on hand to answer questions about the Asian elephants. She was happy to hear about our trip, having considered doing something like it with her family. We hope we inspired her to take the plunge!



At one point we were walking along a transitional path, from one enclosure to the next, when a prominently toothed man in a tennis ball yellow tank top and with a thorny tattoo circling his right bicep said, “Them snakes er hatching!” His kids were popping around a big fake log like hounds at a rabbit hole. On one side of the log was a knot hole covered with plexiglass. Inside you could see several oblong snake eggs and a couple of slender green snakes emerging. Something wasn’t right to me though. That’s when Danine said, “They’re fake.” Indeed. We didn’t have the heart to tell the excited family. It was the highlight of their day.


Free hugs! Who’s ready?

On no less than three occasions during our visit, we heard people compare the animals they were viewing with Disney’s Lion King. Their sole knowledge of lions and hyenas comes from this animated movie. I find this disturbing. Almost as disturbing was the kid who reached over the glass and poked a penguin in full view of her mother. Should the penguins have signs on them that say don’t touch? Apparently they should.


The black mamba is a handsome snake, behind glass.

We saw many more cool things like barking sea lions, a lady vehemently shouting at the sea lions to Fight! Fight! Fight!, the incredibly deadly black mamba, a python that could swallow Elise and not show it, spooky legless lizards, a hairless chimpanzee, and an orangutan with a face the size of a Michelin light truck tire. I love the zoo.



Vicky, our GPS, sent us home by a more scenic route and we gladly took it. With the sun low in the sky, we drove a curving country road through glowing, green fields dotted with coal black cows and across a one lane bridge spanning the muddy, quiet Meramec River. Tonight we’ll sleep in this quiet woodsy state park before the long drive to Indianapolis tomorrow.


Is the Mississippi River high? Yes. This statue only waves his hat in times of distress.

 

Blow Ye Winds

While we were grabbing some lunch at Subway in Independence, Missouri today the sky fell. I had left the windows of the truck and the roof vents of the trailer all cracked to release some of the hot, humid air that has been saturating the area since Sunday. As we watched the rain fall in oblique sheets across the parking lot and the trees sway, we hoped the vents would still be attached when we got home.


Inner courtyard and grave of the Trumans

The beginning of the day started well. We drove to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence. It was nice to get a good overview of Truman’s life, his rise to prominence, and his presidency. The mural surrounding the doorway from the lobby is impressive and reminded us of the murals we saw in Fair Park, in Dallas.



When we returned to the Airstream all was well. Roof vents were attached and nothing was soggy. Here’s what I’ve learned. In the West the landscape is larger than life, the mountains, canyons, trees. In the Midwest the weather is larger than life, probably because you can see it for such a long distance and clouds have such room to grow and billow. Even after months of traveling, I’m still used to the modest proportions of landscapes and weather (‘cept for ‘canes) in the East.

We have planned our next few days. First we’ll stay at a state park near St. Louis and spend a day going downtown there. Then we are heading to Indianapolis for two nights where we plan to check out Conner Prairie. This is on our way to Jackson Center, OH, which will be our stop for next Sunday and Monday. What is in Jackson Center? Nothing but the Airstream factory where Shackleton was made. We’re going to get it checked out and maybe take the tour before our final leg home.

 

Gaps in the Map

I looked at our Google map this morning and chuckled. There are lots of stops in Utah and Colorado and then a large gap as we blasted our way across Kansas. Then there are two stops right on top of each other as we visited Matt and Marina and now Ruth and Curtis. It’s becoming clear that there are places we are not going to be able to see this time around, so expect to see more gaps in the map as we get closer to home.

We had a wonderful time visiting with Ruth, Curtis and Lesily, their daughter, last night. The only problem is that we all stayed up too late and are paying the price for it today. We decided to stay an extra day here and explore Independence, Missouri. We have stolen Lesily from her daycare and she is playing hooky with us today. Tonight we’ll all convene for dinner again in the air-conditioned house (it’s hot here!) for more yummy food and laughter.

 

From Kansas City, KS to Kansas City, MO

All good things must come to an end and so today we leave one good thing and head to another. The real world has intervened here in Olathe. Matt went to work this morning, Amelia has a piano lesson later today and Bobby went to get an oil change for the Titan.

After lunch, we are heading to my friend Ruth’s house. She lives just outside of Kansas City, MO now having moved from Blacksburg, VA this winter and is one of a select few that we have been able to visit twice on this trip.


Matt and Will work on the world’s tallest Tinkertoy rocket.

We have had a great time visiting Matt, Marina, Amelia and Will. They were fun to be with and were exceptional hosts. Bobby and I even got to go out by ourselves yesterday afternoon! It’s another great family connection we were able to make because of our travels and we’re grateful.


Elise and Amelia watched two different versions of Annie this weekend and here they are singing their hearts out to “It’s A Hard Knock Life” while cleaning. Poor little orphans.

 

Grease Burgers from On High

One of the chief problems of the Kansas City area is that there are too many family friendly things to do and places to see and you have to somehow narrow it down. We managed to make a day of it despite this difficulty.



After an easy drive into town, we parked and walked over to the mall where a puppet show was being perpetrated for free and in full view of a hundred or so kids. We watched, we laughed, we enjoyed the serendipity of coming upon this performance by chance. Our goal was lunch at Fritz’s. This is a burger joint in the mall. The food is good in that average, fast food, greasy way. The gimmick for this place is clumsily brilliant. Above the tables near the ceiling runs a track that circles the whole restaurant. On this track travel little trains. Beneath the trains hang trays on which bins containing orders are placed. As the train chugs around the restaurant everyone watches hoping it’s their order. If it is, a little bar whacks the bin off of the train’s tray and onto a metal platform that lowers the bin to your table. No server takes your order either. You have a phone at your booth and you pick it up and place your order — as best you can over the din of the trains and people around you. The place was completely packed.




That’s our food descending from on high.

Once we were stuffed with grease, we walked over to Science City in Union Station. This is a fun children’s museum of sorts with lots to do and explore. We started by watching a cool 3D Imax movie called Wild Ocean about the massive shoals of sardines the move into the coastal waters off of South Africa and provide a bonanza of food for birds, dolphins, seals, sharks, and people.



Somehow the kids still had energy in the afternoon, so Matt, Danine and I took them to the pool while Marina made a great salad and steamed artichokes for dinner. We ate and the kids played more. They are going to bed now, and you would think they’d drop right off, but they’re unstoppable.

We are liking Kansas City and the weather we’ve been having. To be fair, we enjoyed our second day of driving through Kansas. The eastern half of the state was green and rolling with trees lining the creeks and washes. Matt and Marina really like it here and it’s easy to see why.

 

Fishing and Fireworks

Elise and her second cousins Amelia and Will

There’s really no reason for us to move on from Kansas. Matt and Marina are taking good care of us. The trailer fits in the driveway, mostly. We are being well fed. The kids keep pretty busy. Weather’s nice.



It was a particularly nice Fourth of July. We got up and ate Marina’s made-from-scratch pancakes — delicious. Then we geared up and drove about five minutes away to a really cool park. It’s called Deanna Rose and is named for a police officer killed in the line of duty who had a special affection for kids. The park is free to enter, but some activities such as pony rides, schoolhouse crafts, and feeding the animals cost a very little bit. There are numerous animals, including a bald eagle, two bobcats, a red tail hawk, a great horned owl, and all of the barnyard animals you can think of. There is a reconstruction of a one-room schoolhouse, a barn, and Native American lodge. You can feed baby goats a little bottle of milk, but you must be brave and not easily pushed over.


Matt scares the living wits out of Will, Elise, and Amelia


Will discusses the finer points of quantum theory with a skeptical audience.

The girls went for the pony ride, but Matt and Will bought a small bucket of worms and took a bamboo pole over to the pond in the hopes of catching some blue gill. This is nominally called fishing. In actuality, you are feeding the fish. They know this too. As you wrap a worm on your hook the blue gill look up from just beneath the surface. Once you swing your line over the water, they sink out of view, preparing for their next move. You plop the worm in the water. The bob dips. You pull out your line. The worm is gone and you have done your part to feed the fish. Actually the boys caught four: two small and two big. Not bad!




The big one

After a full morning at the park we went home for lunch. Marina made rubens — delicious. We then took the kids to the pool and chatted while they played. When we got home we ate hamburgers for dinner — delicious. Then we sat on the patio and chatted while the kids played. Are you sensing a pattern?

The neighbor a couple doors down had 250 pounds of illegal fireworks, which he lit off in the street and we gladly watched and cheered. It was a pleasant day.


This hot air balloon drifted right over the neighbors’ houses.

 

Have You Seen My Daughter?

We got to Matthew and Marina’s house close to 3:30 this afternoon and I haven’t seen Elise since. It’s 10:00 at night. I think she’s in bed, because I hear girlish shrieks from one of the bedrooms upstairs. Not sure how much sleep she’ll be gettin’ tonight.

Matthew and Marina have two kids — Amelia, age 8 and Will, age 4. The three have been getting along great. Already Bobby and I have taken showers and I am just finishing up my fourth load of laundry. Family is awesome.

Matthew and Marina are wonderful hosts. We were treated to made-in-front-of-our-eyes fresh salsa when we arrived and dinner was one of our favorite meals, grilled chicken and vegetables — tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant and peppers. We’re never leaving.

The biggest bonus of all is that we have been given a beautiful guest room in which to sleep. That works out really well, too, since I washed our sheets tonight but haven’t put them back on the beds in the trailer!

We’re here through the weekend. I promise to post some pictures tomorrow so that you can actually see what Kansas looks like.

 

Descending

Where not in Kansas anymore. Metaphorically speaking. We are in Kansas literally. Although when we say literally we really mean actually, which is funny since literally actually means having to do with letters or words. English is a nutty language.

Almost as soon as we turned East from Denver the landscape flattened and stretched and turned brown. There’s a lot of Colorado that’s flat — the whole Eastern third of the state. When we entered Kansas on I-70, we passed just north of the highest point in Kansas. Mount Sunflower sits on the border with Colorado at a lofty 4,039 feet.

We also passed the very creatively named town of Kanorado. Can you guess the two states it is named for? Now I’m ready to look for similar border towns all over the country. Where’s New Mexizona or Alassippi or New Jerk? How ’bout Massenecticut or Connectichusetts?

 

Coyotes

Perhaps because I’m an unemployed freeloader, I find that I like the less appreciated, more aggravating and entertaining animals. As I’ve said before, I really enjoy crows, ravens, blue jays, Stellar’s jays, grey jays, and, now, magpies and Clark’s nutcrackers. In addition to this selection of birds, and bolstered by the ranger talk we heard on Monday night, I also like coyotes.

Coyotes are ordinary. Their latin name, canis latrans, means barking dog. They aren’t as big or as handsome and intimidating as wolves. They often look bedraggled. They eat anything.

The coyote is one of the most universal images in Native American iconography and folklore. Even before European settlers came to North America coyotes were considered tricksters, fools, thieves, and undying. Why undying? I’ll get to that.

Coyotes shared the continent with wolves who are three to four times larger. Wolves hate coyotes and will kill them just to kill them. Wolves are specialist hunters and, being bigger and meaner, got first pick of what to eat. They chose deer, elk, bison, moose — the big game. Coyotes are generalists, which is a fancy way to say they’ll eat whatever comes along. Although they mostly prefer rabbits and mice.

When settlers arrived and began pushing West, hunting and farming, they killed all of the wolves and coyotes they could. They also killed the big game for themselves. The wolf was doubly decimated. He was being killed and his food supply was being taken from him. He was also a more prominent target. Meanwhile the coyotes scraped together their regular meals and tried to stay out of trouble.

Wolves never bounced back and are only now increasing their numbers with a lot of human intervention. Coyotes are thriving in 49 states and if they learn to purchase airline tickets, or take up distance swimming, they’ll be in all 50. Why? They eat anything. They don’t waste energy. They’re really smart.

Coyotes will take turns chasing the same deer, tag-team style, to tire it out. They actually have some weird alliance with badgers. They’ll show a badger to the front of the den of some hapless burrowing animal like the prairie dog. The badger, smelling a meal, will dig dig dig! The coyote will go around to the back door and wait for the poor critters to head his way. Easy pickin’s. Coyotes can dig into a bank up to twenty feet (!), but getting the badger to do it saves energy. It’s not clear what the badger gets out of this deal.

Are you a sheep or goat farmer? Get a good dog who sticks with the flock and keeps an eye out for coyotes. You best get a female. Apparently, there are accounts of coyote pairs who will work together to grab a sheep or two. The female is able to send all the right messages to the male dog guarding the flock, causing him to ignore the flock and follow her. She leads him far away and her other half gets dinner.

Now for the coyote secret weapon. When a pack is stressed, because they are being hunted aggressively or losing members for some other reason, the females will often have much larger litters — instead of 5-7 pups, maybe even twice that. Females may even go into estrus one or two extra times in a year. This means you can’t get rid of coyotes. You can only encourage a whole lot more!

So, they are excellent survivors and that’s impressive. Plus they are at worst a nuisance for farmers of livestock and people with ultra-lightweight, hand-portable dogs. Mostly they’re just trying to get by.

Unfortunately, they do eat magpies.

 

Rocky Mountain Meadows

Today’s hike was our favorite and longest so far, 6.2 miles. We decided to stay an extra day, so this hike was unexpected and had we not stayed we’d never have gone.



The first part was the hardest and even then, it wasn’t that bad. No switchbacks like Walter’s Wiggles in Zion or the Lost Mine Trail in Big Bend. We gradually ascended 540 feet over two and a half miles to get to Cub Lake.


Cub Lake. The brown/red trees you see on the hills are pines killed by a bark beetle infestation.

From Cub Lake we descended 295 vertical feet over a mile to The Pool and then the remaining 245 feet we descended over 1.7 miles. It’s probably the flattest hike we’ve taken this year and one of the most enjoyable.


Marmot Rock. Do you see all three?

I won’t try and describe the hike. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.


Working on the Junior Ranger packet next to Big Thompson River.




A Colorado Blue Columbine, Colorado’s state flower, and a Paintbrush of some kind, perhaps a Giant Red or Wyoming.


A hard-working flower and some coating on the maple leaves we can’t figure out.




Two Field Crescents (maybe, hard to tell) and a Two-Tailed Swallowtail who wouldn’t stop long enough for me to get a clear picture of him!

We are heading into Kansas today. We leave a state with 54 mountains over 14,000 feet tall to a state whose highest point is 4,039 feet. Once we get down the mountain from Estes Park, it’s gonna be flat, flat, flat. We are spending Fourth of July weekend with Bobby’s cousin Matthew and his family. We will take advantage of their kindness, courtesy park in front of their house and use their laundry and showers with impunity (insert evil laugh here!).


Quaking aspen.

I sent an email out today to all who expressed an interest in joining us in Shenandoah on July 27. If you want to come and did not get the email, leave a comment on the blog or email us so I can send you the information.