October 30, 2006

October 30, 2006

Fortunately for our slumber, the trains last night stopped blowing their horns near midnight and didn’t restart till 9:30 this morning. By that time we were up and ready to depart.

Even though Aimee picked the campground, it turns out to be only a couple miles from the Civil War Battle site, Wilson Creek. Because of its proximity Aimee lets me stop for a quick look. Missouri, a slave state, was divided in sentiment. I had always thought that the border slave states of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland had voluntarily stayed in the Union. Actually the Federal government helped them make that decision. When we were in Baltimore, we learned that Lincoln had put the Maryland Legislature in jail at Fort McHenry so they couldn’t vote for secession. In Missouri, pro-slavery forces lead by the governor setup a government in exile and voted to secede from the Union. The pro-Union forces then were able to run the Missouri government without opposition. Early in the war, southwestern Confederate forces linked up and began marching north to retake Missouri. An outnumbered Union force, lead by Nathaniel Lyon, was tasked to disrupt their operation, until reinforcements could be gathered. He attacked the Confederate forces southwest of Springfield in August 1861. Although the Union forces ultimately retreated they were successful in delaying the Confederate advance.

Aimee lets me watch the park movie and the battle light show but we pass on the five-mile driving tour of the park. Unlike at other battlefields we have visited, Nathaniel Lyon was an experienced Union commander and did a great job conducting this battle. Unfortunately for the Union cause, he died during the course of the engagement.

From Springfield, I was hoping to make a stop in Branson for a music show but the weatherman is forecasting the return of a cold front so we punt and continue our journey to warmer climes. We get back on I44 heading towards Tulsa, OK. The RV is relatively easy to drive unless the wind is blowing and today it is a sideways gale force. I am struggling to keep the RV on the highway. So much for a relaxing drive. All I can think about is how we need to harness this relentless energy with windmills in these prairie states.

Needing a break in the middle of the drive, we stop at the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, OK. Neither Aimee nor I knew much about Will Rogers beforehand. The museum is a memorial to his life. Rogers was born here in 1879 and started his career doing rope tricks in traveling Wild West shows. He graduated to performing in vaudeville shows on Broadway, then countless movies in Hollywood. He became noted and beloved by this country for his “common man” humorist role when he added a radio show and a weekly newspaper column. An inveterate traveler, he died prematurely in 1935 in a bush plane crash in Alaska.

After this interesting stop we continue our journey west and stay the evening in Oklahoma City. The whole journey thru Oklahoma I was expecting to see desolate prairie like Kansas. Instead so far Oklahoma has been a pretty, gently rolling, heavily forested countryside with almost no farms to be seen.