Times of our lives

 

In 1966, in the first third of our lives, Judy and I arrived in Clarksville, Tennessee, just south of Ft Campbell, with everything we owned in a 1959 Plymouth station wagon.  We were just starting out.

 

Here we are, over forty years later, grandparents, in the third third, driving through Clarksville, Tennessee, with everything we own in our RV.

 

It’s a different time.

 

 

Leaving St Louis

We’re headed warmer. Through the Southern Illinois rolling deciduous forests. Across the great Ohio River into Kentucky with its tobacco fields going yellow, Past Ft Campbell. Past the Swine and Dine Barbeque Restaurant. To Tennessee with rivers winding through it. It doesn’t seem to matter where you are, or what direction you go in Tennessee; you cross the Cumberland River.

We’re in Montgomery Bell State Park outside Nashville for the night.

Elevation 385 feet.

6,800 trip miles.

The kindness of strangers

There is a reason why we’re in a casino RV park in East St Louis. It’s because on April 25, 1870, a European immigrant, missing the familiar birds of his homeland, released twelve Eurasian Tree Sparrows into Lafayette Park. The sparrow never expanded its range much, but the population survives. This area is still the only place in North America a person can see a Eurasian Tree Sparrow. They look kind of like house sparrows, but the top of their head is rufous instead of gray, and they have white cheek patches with a spot in the middle.

We were kind of heading this way anyway, so we routed ourselves through St Louis. Saturday afternoon, we went to Horseshoe Lake State Park, east of St Louis in Illinois, a place known to have them. We had a very nice birdwalk, saw lot of birds, even saw wood ducks, but no sparrow. We drove to the Southwest part of St Louis to the “Dogtown” neighborhood at dusk. No luck.
Saturday night, reading everything I could find on the internet about locating Eurasian Tree Sparrows, I came across a name and phone number of a guy who knows about them. I called him. He shared several locations we might find the sparrow, then volunteered that if we wanted to make sure we got it, we could just come to his house and look in his yard. They live right there in his neighborhood. That sounded promising! Then he went on to say that since these are birds, he couldn’t guarantee that we’d actually see one, but that anyone coming to his yard to find one had never missed yet. Beyond promising!

A Sunday morning drive back through St Louis to Webster Groves. Flawless directions to his house (His directions had nothing to do with us missing a turn and driving back and forth across the Mississippi River three times.) Within ten minutes of our arrival we had our bird. Several of them. First the fleeting look, just enough to make the call, then the satisfying looks. Poses for pictures. We got to stay and watch them for as long as we wanted. Bird number 511.

Thank you Bill Rowe, for being kind to strangers. (We didn’t meet Bill in person. He was off on his own birding trip by the time we got to his house, so, by his invitation, we wandered his yard and neighborhood unescorted.)

Saturday

 

Missouri.  Rolling hills.  Hardwood forests, with a touch of fall, sandwiched between Kansas City and St Louis, punctuated by Columbia and a few other towns.  The Missouri River to the Mississippi.  Stopped for the night in East St Louis.

 

Altitude: 650 feet.

6,500 miles.

 

 

I have a question

What is this fruit on the ground in Missouri?

It looks fake.

Friday

Another windy day driving. No bad weather other than that though. Primarily a tailwind, which makes for good mileage. 250 miles into this tank, the fuel screen shows a remaining range of 700 miles.

With the current technology, we get live traffic and construction reports integrated into our navigation software. That helped getting past Kansas City.

Stopped for the night in Higginsville, MO.

Elevation: 817 feet.

6,290 miles.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107013362562471418011.00046ff7cac9ae98ff560&ll=40.513799,-107.402344&spn=30.0185,78.662109&z=4

Thursday

Watched the weather channel. Dangerous weather ahead. We decided to stay here an extra day. Don’t mind a little wind and rain. Don’t want to mess with Midwest hail and tornadoes.

Took a walk. Stumbled across a long-abandoned nature trail.

There were several old shelters like this. Made out of heavy timbers. Maybe railroad ties.

Also stumbled across an interesting plant. Looks vaguely familiar. Nice buds. Didn’t look tended. Probably just another relic from an earlier enterprise.