June 29, 2021

June 29, 2021

From Fredericksburg, VA we drove a half hour north in DC rush-hour traffic. Our first stop was Prince William Forest Park. This is another of FDR’s Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps parks that became a national park. I am guessing because it abuts the FBI and Marine Corps Quantico facilities. Contrary to the website, we found the Visitor Center closed. Aimee and I decided to do the Crossing Trail. This trail intersects with the historic Telegraph Road. This was the main north-south road. George Washington marched his army on it on the way to Yorktown. We missed the cutoff and ended up doing a longer hike than we planned. Even though it is still early we are sweating when we finish.

Just down the road is the National Museum of the Marine Corps. We decided to pop in to enjoy the air-conditioning. Instead we find a fantastic museum and end up staying two hours. I had to breeze through the majority of it. It covers the Marine experience and every war/action they participated in. Each is done well with artifacts and dioramas. Part of the Korean War section is refrigerated to reinforce the coldness of the war environment. My favorite part was the early history. Marines started out as the sailors who used guns.

I was astonished to learn how many military actions we have been involved with around the world. For example, the Korean War of 1950 was not our first; we invaded Korea also in 1871! We had lunch on site at the Tun Tavern. It is named after the colonial inn where the first Marines were recruited.

We left Quantico continuing north. Just south of DC, we exited at Mount Vernon, where George Washington had his plantation estate. After entering this large complex we go directly to the main house for our timed guided tour. It is a very large house that is kept in the 1799 time-frame, the year of his death. Like Robert E. Lee’s Arlington House, it is framed in wood that is painted to look like cut stone. We sat on wooden chairs on the back porch for a while to cool down and enjoy the beautiful view of the Potomac and Piscataway Park on the opposite bank.

We then visit the dozens of out buildings devoted to different needs and crafts of a large slave plantation/city. This includes, laundry, weaving, shoemaker, garden, stable, smokehouse, ice-house, greenhouse, slave quarters, overseer’s house, blacksmith, kitchen, and storehouses. It is incredible. No wonder these ‘rich’ plantation owners were always on the verge of bankruptcy. It would have been cheaper and less complicated to have employed hired help. Slavery was not the most economical choice.

After visiting the tomb of George and Martha Washington, we ducked in the air-conditioned museum. It is quite extensive and well-done. It reinforces how lucky our country was to have George as general and first president of our new country. There is even a whole section on George’s teeth.

On the way to our nearby hotel, we stopped at Washington's industrial size Grist Mill and Distillery. We walked around it; unfortunately it is only open for tours on the weekend.

June 28, 2021

June 28, 2021

From our Fredericksburg, VA hotel we drove across town to the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. This park consists of four separate battlefields. The Visitor Center exhibits are cordoned off (for no good reason) so they have an information booth setup outside. A very knowledgeable and delightful ranger volunteers to give us the rundown of the history and strategy of the Fredericksburg battlefield and an intro to the other three. I would love to pack him in the car and take him with me on our tour.

After continued frustration with the lack of action out of General McClellan, Lincoln finally fired him in late 1862. His replacement, Ambrose Burnside, took action leading the Army of the Potomac south to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Rappahannock River here lay in his way. With much difficulty and delay he got the army across using pontoon bridges. Robert E Lee was waiting behind defensive positions on the heights. Incredibly Burnside sent wave after wave of soldiers against fortified positions to be mowed down. After losing lots of men, Burnside retreated back across the river. We walked along a short section of this walled sunken road where many were lost. We left the rest of the battlefield for later this afternoon.

We drove northwest ten miles to the Chancellorsville Battlefield Visitor Center where we got an overview from a young ranger. Burnside was replaced by Joe Hooker. Hooker had a grand plan of crossing the Rappahannock here and flanking Lee’s army. In Lee’s most daring move of the War, he split his forces in two, sending Stonewall Jackson on a long end run at night around Hooker through dense forest to surprise the right flank. Hooker could have taken advantage of the army split, but timidity and lack of situational awareness prevented that move. In the end Hooker got cold feet and also retreated across the river. Despite the victory, Lee suffered a major loss with the death of his trusted right hand, Stonewall Jackson (by friendly fire). We drove the auto tour of the battlefield.

Our next stop is at the Wilderness Battlefield. There are no Visitor Centers for the last two battlefields so we bought the auto tours. Finally Lincoln appoints the Western Theater hero, US Grant, as Commander of the Army. Grant has different ideas of how to pursue the war. In 1864, he personally leads the army towards Richmond. Lee surprises Grant here in an area called the Wilderness. It held an iron furnace that cleared the old growth open forest leaving a dense thicket of young trees, hedges, and vines. Grant fights Lee to a stalemate.

Instead of retreating back and regrouping for six months, Grant races south that night to the next battlefield of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Lee has to follow quickly to prevent Grant from having an open road to Richmond. At Spotsylvania, Lee hurriedly digs defensive trenches and the next two weeks is some of the most vicious fighting of the entire war. The most famous section is a trench corner called the Bloody Angle.

We do the driving tours of both battlefields. This four battlefield combination is the largest and bloodiest in the world. One hundred thousand Americans were lost here.

Returning to Fredericksburg, we had lunch and stopped in the old historical town center at James Monroe’s old law office. It has been turned into a museum of his life with lots of cool artifact donations from the Monroe family. Monroe came of age at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. He crossed the Delaware River with Washington. After the war, he was a representative, senator, ambassador, and our fifth president. To his credit, he ran unopposed for his second term; something only matched by George Washington. His administration earned the moniker of 'Era of Good Feelings'. Interestingly Monroe died on July 4th, five years to the day after John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

From downtown Fredericksburg, we went just across the Rappahannock River to Chatham Manor sitting on a bluff above the river. This beautiful plantation estate has a nice large manicured garden. During the Battle of Fredericksburg in late 1862, it served as army headquarters and hospital. From this position Burnside’s artillery pummeled Fredericksburg so his engineers could finish constructing the pontoon bridge. A replica bridge section sits on the grounds.

We spent the night again in Fredericksburg, VA.

June 27, 2021

June 27, 2021

From BWI airport we drove south down the east side of Washington DC passing several federal facilities, like Fort Meade and NSA. There are also a string of National Park-managed green spaces. The first is Greenbelt Park. The entrance is under construction so we don’t go in very far.

Our next stop is Fort Foote Park on the east shore of the Potomac River. This is one of dozens of small forts that were built at the beginning of the Civil War to protect Washington from attack by the Confederates.

A few miles down river is the granddaddy of the protective emplacements, Fort Washington Park. The original fort guarding this water approach to Washington was built in 1824 in response to the British burning the White House in the War of 1812. It is a substantial fortress with dozens of gun emplacements and even a drawbridge entrance. We give ourselves the guided tour of this bluff top guardian.

A little further down the Potomac is Piscataway Park. We missed the main entrance; instead reaching Farmington Landing, a popular fishing spot on the river. Backtracking we made our way to the main entrance and National Colonial Farm. This green space was preserved to  protect the view from George Washington’s Mount Vernon that sits directly across the river. We walked out to the pier to get our glimpse of George’s home.

We also walked around National Colonial Farm which is trying to duplicate what a subsistence farm in that era would have looked like. They also grow many heirloom vegetables to preserve their seed stock.

A half hour drive south takes us to Thomas Stone National Historic Site. This park consists of the family home of Thomas Stone and his descendents, a very prominent Maryland family. The patriarch, Thomas Stone, signed the Declaration of Independence. That was a heavy decision for a wealthy family. If we had lost the war for freedom, (as was likely), all the signers would have been hanged as traitors and their property seized. The Visitor Center is closed so we walked around the main house reading storyboards.

We crossed the Potomac into Virginia on a long high toll bridge, or at least it was supposed to be. We have yet to pay any toll in the normally fee-hungry East Coast. We are guessing they shut down the manual cash collection because of the pandemic. At least there are some small benefits. Fifteen minutes later we arrive at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. This is the ancestral home of the Washington family. George was born here in 1732 but grew up elsewhere before eventually inheriting Mount Vernon.

As we pull in, we are amused to see a one tenth scale Washington Monument greeting us. Unfortunately the birth home was destroyed by fire long ago. A recreated memorial home was built in 1931. We got a guided ranger tour of this house. We learned the Washington men gained wealth and prominence the old fashioned way; they consistently married well above their status. Afterwards we walked out to see the Potomac view enjoyed by his family.

The heat and humidity is wearing on us so we quit early and drive west to Fredericksburg, VA and find a hotel. We have a delicious Thai Curry for dinner.

June 26, 2021

June 26, 2021

As I was loading our luggage into the car, I felt a stab of pain in my back. Ouch! I think all this driving and sitting in beds has caught up to me. I am now walking like an old man. And we are a long way from home!

From the panhandle of Maryland we continued east on I-70. Outside Frederick, we exited and made our way through rolling farmland and then uphill to Catoctin Mountain Park. The NPS website said the Visitor Center was closed but we found it open. You can always count on the government to be disorganized. During the depression, the US bought this marginally productive land and put Civilian Conservation Corps laborers to work making a demonstration park. Similar sites eventually became state parks. FDR liked coming here to relax. His presidential retreat (Camp David) needed a buffer, so this one became a National Park Site instead.

The park is a very popular hiking destination for Easterners. Since I am walking in pain, we chose a short historical hike called the Blue Blazes Whiskey Still trail. It follows a very buggy but scenic stream to the location of an infamous bootleg distillery that revenuers discovered during Prohibition.

Back in the car we popped north across the border to Gettysburg, PA stopping at Eisenhower National Historic Site. After retiring from the military, Ike bought this farm adjacent to the Gettysburg battlefield. During WW1 he commanded a tank training operation here and fell in love with the area. Ike's main house is still closed due to the pandemic. We tried to do the Cellphone Tour advertised on storyboards and the Internet but it didn’t work. Once again our disorganized government decided to unplug the phone because they are implementing a smart phone app instead. We walked around the farm, looked in his garage, and talked to a ranger very knowledgeable about Eisenhower. I liked the putting green this avid golfer built outside the main house.

We returned south and outside Frederick, MD found the Monocacy National Battlefield. The government paid park rangers haven’t opened the Visitor Center yet. Fortunately there were plenty of volunteer rangers available in the parking lot to get us oriented. Near the end of the Civil War, General  Grant deployed into battle most of the troops defending Washington. Robert E. Lee, sensing an opportunity, tried to take advantage. He sent Jubal Early and a small army up the Shenandoah Valley, across the Potomac to try and capture DC. Some hastily gathered troops met the advancing Confederate Army here. They lost the battle but delayed Jubal Early long enough to strengthen DC defenses and save the city. Losing Washington would have been a disaster for Lincoln’s reelection effort.

We spent a couple hours doing the driving tour of the battlefield. The union troops initially delayed the Confederate advance by blocking the two bridges across the Monocacy River. After that the battle went back and forth between two nice farm houses. The unlucky residents hid in the cellars while both armies shelled the buildings above.

We still have a few hours left, so we drove east to Baltimore to visit Hampton National Historic Site. Hampton is the site of a vast antebellum plantation. At one time this estate had an astounding 25,000 acres. The owner got rich running an iron works and built a manor house and gardens that would rival some European royal residences. We walked around the main house and then viewed the ornamental gardens. The family was obviously rich as we saw an orangery and an ice house, two very expensive rural luxuries.

We then drove downhill to view the servants and slave quarters. I am astonished to see such a large slave plantation in the North. I always thought that was a southern phenomenon. We forget that Maryland was a slave state. It was only by force that Lincoln kept Maryland in the Union. Slavery kept the South from developing economically. Free people work harder, more productively and with ingenuity. If only Democrats would learn this lesson.

We finished the day driving to the south side of Baltimore and spending the night near the BWI airport. We find a nearby restaurant that serves a great crabcake dinner. It was delicious and the size of a softball!

June 25, 2021

June 25, 2021

We spent the morning travelling south across western Pennsylvania, skirting Pittsburgh. After almost three hours we arrived at Fallingwater, easily Frank Lloyd Wright’s most iconic house. He designed it in the late 1930’s for a wealthy Pittsburgh family looking for a summer home in the mountains to escape the urban steel mill pollution.

The house interior just recently opened again after the Pandemic. We signed up for a tour weeks ago. In pre-Covid times the wait list could be a year in the summer. The site is crowded but still a fourth of normal attendance. We are feeling blessed. We were able to move up our tour by an hour; plus the weather is dry and delightful.

The house is constructed of locally quarried limestone in combination with rounded concrete forms. Our group of six starts with a visit to the family room. It is a great room with lots of windows and a polished stone floor. Like all Wright homes, the design is organic with lots of built-ins. We then moved into the kitchen. It looks dated but was probably ultra-modern in its age.

The bedrooms are not on the tour right now because of Covid. Instead we walked outside and uphill to the garage and guest/servants quarters. We finished by walking away from the home for the classic Fallingwater view. The family wanted the house built near a waterfall they played in. They got their wish. The home cantilevers over the stream. Beautiful!

A few miles south of Fallingwater, we made a brief stop at an overlook of Ohiopyle State Park. Here the Youghiogheny River flows over a series of waterfalls as it makes a tight U-bend. This is also where the Great Allegheny Passage ‘rail to trail’ passes over the river.

We then continued an hour southwest to Friendship Hill National Historic Site. This is a large farm and house perched on a cliff above the Mongahela River. It was the home of Albert Gallatin, a Swiss immigrant who got into politics by being a moderating voice during the Whiskey Rebellion. He rose to become Secretary of the Treasury for thirteen years under Thomas Jefferson. He financed the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark’s exploration of it.

Friendship Hill was built in 1789 but was expanded greatly over the years. We gave ourselves the tour of the sprawling three story, spartanly furnished home. We then walked out to a gazebo that has a great view of the Mongahela River far below.

We left heading south to Morgantown, WV where we caught the freeway east along the Maryland panhandle. We stopped in Cumberland, MD only to learn all the hotels are booked. Apparently city folk (like the Fallingwater owners) enjoy coming to the mountains on the weekend. We keep moving, finally finding a hotel in Hancock, MD only to discover our accommodations have lost power. Our luck has run out.

Before having dinner, we check out the C&O Canal and the Potomac River that both pass right by downtown Hancock. This is the narrowest part of Maryland. Less than two miles wide!

June 24, 2021

June 24, 2021

From Erie, PA we drove northeast along Lake Erie to its terminus in Buffalo, NY. The freeway dropped us downtown and we soon passed the 96-ft tall William McKinley Monument. This obelisk was built in 1907 to honor our 25th president who was assassinated here in 1901 while he was attending the Pan-American Exposition.

We finished our drive several blocks away at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. The park was added in the 1960’s as a way to preserve this historic home. It just happened to have had some history worth remembering. This is where McKinley’s VP took the oath of office. Despite the obscurity, I had to reserve a tour spot several days in advance. The private association that runs the site does a good job with the story they tell. It begins with the excitement surrounding the Exposition, followed by the assassination by a disgruntled anarchist. It then moves into Teddy’s view of the concerns roiling the country and his philosophy in addressing them.

From Buffalo, we returned to Pennsylvania and then headed south. The rural rolling countryside reminded me of southern Missouri. After an hour we arrived in Titusville and the start of the Oil Region National Heritage Area. Our first stop is at the Drake Museum in Oil Creek State Park. It was here in 1859 that Edwin Drake successfully drilled the first commercial oil well. This set off a series of boom towns throughout the area. That history is long gone and now Oil Creek is a beautiful river valley with only snippets of that oil legacy remaining. One example is Petroleum Center, another former boomtown with a line of storyboards replacing storefronts. I think I can smell a faint odor of petroleum.

Northwest Pennsylvania was long noted as a spot where oil seeped out of the ground. Once it was recognized that 'rock oil' could be refined into kerosene and replace expensive whale oil for lighting, entrepreneurs began to dig, and then drill. The oil was first floated down Oil Creek, then a rail line was laid, followed by pipelines. Pennsylvania was the world’s largest oil producer until 1891.

We followed Oil Creek south to its confluence with the Allegheny River in Oil City. We stopped for the night further downriver in Franklin, PA. It is just what Aimee likes. An historic small town full of old Victorian mansions and little shops. We had pizza and beer on the main drag. Aimee showed me the earrings she bought to remember our time in Buffalo, NY.

 

June 23, 2021

June 23, 2021

From Maumee, OH we drove across the Maumee River to Perrysburg, OH to visit Fort Meigs Historic Site. Meigs was built for protection by General W H Harrison after the loss at River Raisin. It was sited on the opposite bank from the British Fort Miamis. After Commodore Perry won his Lake Erie naval victory, Harrison used this fort as a base to pursue the retreating British forces into Canada. The fort was reconstructed in the 1960’s.

From Perrysburg we drove an hour east to Port Clinton on Lake Erie. This is Walleye capital of the world. In my prior life I took customers on fishing trips out of this harbor. It is here I landed the trophy Walleye that graces my office wall at home. After parking we find the area swarming with Mayflies. Apparently they all hatched yesterday and are now dying en masse. They are harmless but gross as their dead bodies cover every surface.

We buy tickets for the Jet Express ferry that carries us the fifteen miles to Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island. On a narrow isthmus sits the 352-ft tall Perry’s Victory & International Peace Memorial. After landing we walk to the Visitor Center and peruse the nice exhibits and watch the park film. The British controlled Canada and transportation on the Great Lakes. To defeat the British in the War of 1812, the US needed to neutralize that supply advantage. Building warships and recruiting seamen in the wilderness was difficult. Oliver Hazard Perry got the assignment and built a fleet in record time. He then anchored his flotilla here in Put-in-Bay cutting off British supply lines.

With their food supply diminishing, the British fleet attacked. Fortune and good planning prevailed and Perry captured the entire enemy fleet. The movie did a good job describing a sea battle. Being bombarded with cannon shells and flying debris with nowhere to escape must have been horrifying.

With the British army now in retreat, Harrison pursued them into Canada, defeating the British and their Indian allies at the Battle of the Thames. The Indian leader Tecumseh was also killed in the action.

We walked around the massive memorial built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of this crucial naval victory. We finished with a nice Lake Perch lunch at a harbor side restaurant. After a little window shopping we took the return ferry and drove east to Cleveland.

In a Cleveland suburb we made a brief stop at David Berger National Memorial. Berger was an American weightlifter who emigrated to Israel. He was one of eleven athletes killed during the 1972 Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists.

We finished by driving to Erie, PA. This is where Oliver Hazard Perry constructed his ships before the battle.

June 22, 2021

June 22, 2021

From Dayton, OH we drove southeast to the nearby town of Wilberforce, home to two historically black colleges, Wilberforce and Central State. It is also the site of Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument. Designated by Obama proclamation in 2013, it commemorates Charles Young, the first successful black West Point graduate and military officer. This park recently reopened so we received a private tour. The ranger reviewed Young’s life and onerous rise to Colonel in the Army. The site is also dedicated to the post Civil War black army units. They were given the nickname of Buffalo Soldiers. One of their early duties was guarding and developing the early National Parks. Young was the first superintendent at Sequoia, one of my favorites.

Afterwards we drove north past Toledo, OH to Monroe, MI straddling the River Raisin that flows into Lake Erie. The river was named after the grape vines planted by early French settlers. We are here to visit River Raisin National Battlefield Park. In the early days of the War of 1812, the small Frenchtown settlement here was the site of a huge defeat of American forces by the British and their Indian allies. The day after the battle the Indians systematically killed prisoners and the wounded. ‘Remember the Raisin’ became a rallying cry for American forces (led by William Henry Harrison) in subsequent battles to secure the Northwest territories.

We watched two park films. One older free one and a newer ticketed one. The original was mostly ‘matter of fact’ while the new version, sadly, was a recently produced ‘woke’ film that tried to minimize and rationalize the slaughter of helpless Americans. A lot of facts were left out. The Indian situation was sad but not unexpected when an advanced civilization meets a hunter-gather one. World history is filled with similar examples.

We returned to the Toledo area to visit Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historic Site. It consists of three sites along the Maumee River that runs through Toledo into Lake Erie. All the rivers that fed into the Great Lakes were sites of early settlements and forts because of their ease of transportation and proximity to the Indian fur trade.

Our first stop, Fort Miamis, is a small green park situated within an upscale neighborhood of riverside mansions. Only the earthwork outlines of the fort remain. After the Revolutionary War the British ceded the rights to the Northwest territory to the US. Unfortunately the lucrative fur trade made them reluctant to leave. The British built this fort in violation of the Treaty of Paris to support and supply the Indian resistance to American expansion.

A few miles away we visited the Fallen Timbers Memorial. Early efforts by the Americans to secure the area were soundly defeated by the British-supplied Indians. George Washington then called on retired General ‘Mad Anthony' Wayne to recruit and train a large force to ensure US sovereignty over the region. Wayne marched north and defeated the Indian Confederacy near Fort Miamis in an area where a stand of storm-felled trees formed a natural defense. As a result the Northwest remained largely peaceful until the War of 1812.

After viewing the large memorial we checked out the battlefield. It was a brisk walk through a nice forest interrupted with a dozen storyboards. A great alternative to our normal daily neighborhood walk. And the temperature is 40 degrees cooler!

We spent the night in Maumee, OH eating at Carrabba's Italian Grill for dinner.

June 19-21, 2021

June 19-21, 2021

We are in St Louis because one of our nephews got married Saturday. I am his favorite uncle so I felt obliged to make the long drive. The wedding was memorable because a huge thunderstorm struck just as we arrived at the reception. The fierce and repeated lightning strikes killed the power to the venue for most of the night. As the bride’s father raised his hand to make his much delayed comments, the lights miraculously came on! A true Moses-like moment! 

We recuperated Sunday at my sister’s house and caught up with family. Since the pandemic is receding and tourist sites are reopening, we are taking the opportunity to do some exploring. We left early Monday morning driving east four hours to Indianapolis. Our first stop is the Canal Walk downtown. This 3-mile section of a defunct early canal has been repurposed as a recreational venue modeled on the famous San Antonio RiverWalk. It looks very appealing lined with upscale residences. 

Alongside the Canal Walk is the USS Indianapolis National Memorial. Aimee and I both read a book about this tragic incident. In 1945, after delivering the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the ship was struck by Japanese torpedoes and sunk. Three hundred sailors were entombed while 900 escaped into the water with only life preservers. They spent the next five days fending off shark attacks and praying for rescue. Only 316 were rescued.

Back at the car, we drove to the nearby Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site. This is the former home of the only Hoosier president. We get a private tour of this large and opulent Victorian mansion. We learn that our 23rd president came from an illustrious family. His great grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence. His grandfather, William Henry, was the first governor of Indiana, a military hero, and our ninth president. (He died after only 31 days in office). His father was a senator, and Benjamin was a Civil War general and elected president in 1888. Grover Cleveland was the president before and after him. Aimee and I both enjoyed the tour. I liked the rich history of his family and there were plenty of personal stories to keep Aimee engaged.

We left Indianapolis driving east to Dayton, OH. There we met up with another nephew who works at Wright Patterson AFB. We had a delicious Texas BBQ meal followed by a large chocolate cake dessert.

 

June 18, 2021

June 18, 2021

Springfield, MO is also known as the Queen City of the Ozarks. We spent the day exploring this very scenic region driving east through the back-country. The southern half of Missouri is a region of heavily forested limestone hills. We passed several sawmills producing hardwood flooring.

After two hours we cross the Current River and arrive at Ozark National Scenic Riverways. In the park Visitor Center we learn that the Jacks Fork and Current River network was the first protected National River in the US. After many of the other Ozark streams had been dammed, public outcry saved these two rivers in 1964. Today they are a popular source of recreation for many people. Aimee and I took a canoe trip here many years ago with my brother’s family. Our vivid memory of the outing was overturning the canoe against a downed tree. Because of the force of the river current we could not dislodge the canoe. Only with the help of several other canoers were we able to slide the canoe and free it. No wonder these streams are in high demand for hydroelectric power.

The majority of the Ozark river flow is spring fed. We drove five miles south to Big Spring, the largest. Big enough to fill Busch Stadium in a day, it is among the largest springs in the US. The outflow is a beautiful blue color because of the dissolved minerals; but we are most impressed with the power of the water surging from underground.

The Ozark Mountains are a Karst limestone wonderland. Vast underground rivers eat channels through the mountains before bursting onto the surface. When these caverns eventually dry they become one of the thousand caves that can be explored in the Ozarks. It is also no wonder sinkholes are common in Missouri.

Aimee and I have gotten interested in earth science because we have been watching a Geology course at home. The Washington University professor teaching it often mentions examples in his Ozarks backyard. From Big Spring we drive north an hour to visit two more geologic oddities. The first is at Elephant Rocks State Park. From the parking lot we take a short scramble atop a huge boulder field where we explore some exposed granite Plutons. The West has many examples (eg Yosemite), but we didn’t expect to find them in the Midwest.

Farther north we hike Hughes Mountain Natural Area to visit the Devil's Honeycomb. It is a short but very hot and sweaty hike to the top of a roadside mountain. The hilltop has an exposed 'bald' rock outcrop. The honeycomb name refers to the hexagonal columnar jointing associated with volcanic outflows that cool slowly underground. They contract into these pencil shaped rods. We have seen many examples formed of black Basalt. This spot is unique, consisting instead of red Rhyolite, made from a thicker gooier high-silica magma.

We then drove east to the Mississippi River to visit Ste. Genevieve National Historic park. This cute historic French town is the oldest city of Upper Louisiana, part of New France. It contains a number of  remarkably preserved early houses. This new National Park site is mostly owned and operated by the Missouri State Park system. We tour one house called Felix Valle House State Historic Site. First founded in the mid 1700’s, Ste. Genevieve grew when the French lost their territories east of the Mississippi (e.g. Kaskaskia) during the French and Indian War. The region was important for food production and mining, especially lead and salt.

We finished the day driving to the St Louis area, another historic town established by the French. St Louis thrived because it was on higher ground and less flood prone than St Genevieve and closer to the mouth of the Missouri River and its gateway to the West.

We met up with one of my sisters for dinner intending to eat in St Louis' famous Italian Hill neighborhood. Apparently the Hill's favorite son Yogi Berra was right when he quipped 'no one goes there nowadays; it's too crowded'. We couldn't get a reservation; so we settled for a suburban offshoot. It was excellent. Aimee and I shared a delicious pasta entrée that the owner's father served at Ronald Reagan's first inauguration.

June 17, 2021

June 17, 2021

We spent the last week in Amarillo, TX visiting Aimee’s mom. Today we set out east toward St Louis making it to Springfield in the southwest corner of Missouri. Springfield is considered the Birthplace of Rt 66. To celebrate that heritage we spent the night at a retro motel decorated with vintage cars and gas pumps. When I was a child my family drove Rt 66 all the way to California, probably passing by this very motel.