Four-State Day

 June 27 - 29, 2013

                                                        

Thursday

Today we drove through four states, our biggest state day yet: starting in Missouri, we then drove across a piece of Illinois, a piece of Indiana, and finally into Kentucky. Lexington, where Jack’s nephew Franklin and his wife Joanne live, is the land of Kentucky bourbon and Kentucky thoroughbreds. As we get closer to the city we see billboards advertising Wild Turkey and Four Roses distilleries. Then we begin to see the rolling bluegrass hills and the classy horse farms and training stables. Some of the horse barns around here look more like southern mansions!

Just a "small" Kentucky horse barn.

It’s great to see Franklin and Joanne again—we always enjoy catching up with their lives and hearing the exploits of their daughters and grandkids. Joanne is an RN who went to nursing school later in life, after their daughters were older, so it’s been interesting to follow her nursing career. Franklin is a very accomplished, retired mining engineer and a train aficionado, with a world-class collection of model trains and train memorabilia. Jack loves talking with him. Always lots to see and talk about!

After supper, Joanne and I go for a long walk by the lake in their neighborhood; I’m hoping to see some birds, but don’t see anything new tonight. I have hopes for some water birds while we’re here, but forgot to bring my binoculars this time. Maybe later…

Friday/Saturday

After breakfast we drive down to nearby Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky, to visit a historical museum and the old capitol building. The most amazing thing is the self-supporting stone staircase in the old capitol, which was built around 1830. The staircase has no mortar or supports; it’s held in place by interlocking stairs and a big keystone at the top. We have a great morning touring around and a tasty lunch in a cute café in the historical section of Frankfort.

The old Kentucky capitol building. Carol, Joanne and Franklin at the rather oversized entrance dooorway

After lunch we visit the Kentucky Horse Park, a big thrill for me, since there are several “celebrity” horses that I’m excited to meet. This is a huge and beautiful park devoted to the horse and particularly racehorses. We take a brief tour of the facility on a horsedrawn trolley and then go to the “Hall of Champions,” where we get up close and personal with some famous horses: Go for Gin (Kentucky Derby winner), Funny Cide, (Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner—came close to being a Triple Crown horse), and—my fave—Cigar, voted Horse of the Decade of the 1990s, had a 16-race winning streak in his heyday, and when he retired was the top money-earning horse of all time. 

 

Cigar - $10,000,000 career winnings and 16 straight stakes wins.

Also, Man o’ War, arguably the most famous racehorse of all time, is buried here (embalmed in a casket). His memorial rivals any human memorial we’ve seen! A fun afternoon of immersion in horse lore…

Man o' War statue and gravesite. His son War Admiral, Triple Crown winner, is also buried near here.

Back home, after dinner Joanne and I take another walk by the lake and this time I succeed in seeing a few new birds for our list, including a great blue heron and a pair of yellow-crowned night herons! We add even more when we visit a charming nature and history park, McConnell Springs, near their house on Saturday morning—this place has a nice bird feeding area and we get to check off quite a few birds that we haven’t seen previously on this trip. I doubt that we’ll make our goal of 100 species, but at least we may crack 90!

During the afternoon, I work on my book project and then we all go out to Red Lobster–I finally get my belated birthday dinner. It’s yummy too!

It’s been a very pleasant visit with Franklin and Joanne. Tomorrow, I'll go to church (early service) with Joanne and then we head for home…

Bird species count: Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture, Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal, greater roadrunner, house finch, common raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer tanager, *prothonotary warbler,  *yellow-breasted chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned  hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove, *canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher, Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow, *cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, American st blog e and all the files uploaded. little wild iris. It'agebrush that we were riding over and through. Lupine looks crow, Anna’s hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay, mallard, common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike, Audubon’s warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged blackbird, redtailed hawk, American dipper, *yellow warbler, tree swallow, osprey, mountain bluebird, peregrine falcon, green-tailed towhee, rufous-sided towhee, common grackle, eastern kingbird, dickcissel, rock pigeon, killdeer, barn swallow, red-bellied woodpecker, green heron, great blue heron, song sparrow, yellow-crowned night heron, mute swan, starling, tufted titmouse, indigo bunting, fox sparrow, downy woodpecker, cedar waxwing, hairy woodpecker

State count: 19 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky] 
           

Odometer count:

Surber, VA: 107,435

Lexington, KY: 116,---

Accommodations avg cost: 84 nts, avg $14.97/night

Back in Mugsville

Jun  24-26, 2013

                                                     

No, we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. We’re in Missouri right now, making our way toward St. Louis from a little town called St. Joseph, as we detoured to visit a couple of more state parks that were supposed to be good birding spots.  No go, although we saw some pretty spots. Must be the wrong time of year—too late for migratory birds and most are already done with their nesting. We’re only adding onesie/twosie’s to our bird count now—most of the birds we’re seeing are already on our list.

One lovely birding spot overlooked the Missouri River where the Lewis and Clark expedition stopped to rest after heat exhaustion due to the hot and muggy weather.

The reference to “Mugsville” in the title of this blog refers to the humidity. Somewhere about the middle of Kansas things went from arid and fairly cool to muggy, hot, and humid—our usual eastern summer weather. A few thunderstorms are around too.

We decided to stop at another Motel 6 in St. Joseph (new Scandinavian décor again) for a night, so I could do a little work on the book, and then for my birthday on Tuesday we planned to have a celebratory lunch at a nearby Red Lobster and then drive on up the road a piece, to Cairo, MO, to see if I could locate the grave of my great-great-grandfather, James Washington Surber.

Well, that was the plan. But then I got hit by a stomach bug Monday evening, so we ended up staying another night at the Motel 6 so I could recover. No Red Lobster—I ate crackers and water, and later on some chicken soup. I felt fine this morning (Wednesday) (plus I did get quite a lot of work done on the book editing project). We resumed our plan, heading for Cairo.

Cairo turned out to be a very tiny town, a village really. A tad bigger than Oriskany, but not much! We found our way there without much difficulty, but finding the Grand Prairie Cemetery was another story. We were looking for County Rd. 1635, but it didn’t appear on our maps, including on the GPS. I stopped at the little Post Office to ask directions. The door was open and a bloodhound was stretched out on the floor, but no human was in evidence. Like the dog, the entire town appeared to be in siesta time. 

The Postmaster of Cairo, Missouri lying down on the job? Carol's image in the door makes it look like she's in there talking to the dog.

I finally spotted one man walking down the empty sidewalk and hailed him. “Can you tell me where the Grand Prairie Cemetery is?” He looked stunned and then replied that, no, he had no idea where any cemetery was around there. Hmm. I had gotten the GPS coordinates for the cemetery off the internet, but couldn’t figure out how to enter them into our new GPS device. Finally Jack took a look and figured it out, and the GPS knew exactly where to find the cemetery once we put the coordinates in. It was near the town but off on a gravel road all by itself.

Entrance to Grand Prairie Cemetery in Cairo, Missouri

Some background on my great-great-grandfather, James Washington Surber: his father, my great-great-great grandfather Jacob Surber, was an early pioneer in this part of Missouri, and James (who was called “Wash” by his friends and family) was born in Missouri, came back to Virginia and farmed and got married to his wife Catherine, and then at some point moved part of his family back to Missouri. In Virginia, he lived near where we now live but not on the farm that my family knows as their homeplace. The facts are a little bit fuzzy. Some of the older folks in the area remember their older family members talking about “Uncle Wash Surber” or “Cousin Wash Surber,” waaaay back there, around Civil War days. His reasons for leaving Virginia and returning to Missouri have been lost to posterity, but it may have had something to do with the fact that one of his brothers, who had stayed in Missouri, had a big farm and was doing well. I found some information about the brother William and his father Jacob in a book published in the late 1800s about people who lived here (Randolph and Macon Counties) at that time, listing Jacob as an original pioneer and his son William as a “well-to-do farmer.”

I found a photo on the internet of James Washington Surber’s gravestone in the Grand Prairie Cemetery; it’s a tall one that should be relatively easy to find (it’s not a huge cemetery). Jack starts on one side of the grassy field and I take the other side, and in a few minutes Jack calls and waves—he had found two Surber gravestones. One, the tall one, is for James Washington and his wife Catherine, 

Carol at headstone of J. W. Surber and his wife. Inscription follows.

and the other is for their son Charles, who died when he was only 30 years old, three years before James W. and Catherine died. 

We took some photos. I thought that James’s father Jacob was buried here too, but that’s apparently not the case (probably buried on one of their farms). The hot sun and humidity had us both sweating profusely, but it felt good to finally find their graves and pay our respects. It’s a peaceful spot.

Stepson Jason called me just as we were pulling into the cemetery, to acknowledge what we call our “interbirthday”—the day between our birthdays. He’s at the airport on his way to Houston to visit his brother Jeff and family and his mom, who also lives there. Our granddaughter Jennifer has the same bday as me, so Jason and Jennifer will be able to celebrate together when he gets there. (June is a BIG birthday month for our family members: my brother Jeff, me, sister-in-law Linda, triplet nieces/nephew Eric, Christin, and Lauren, Jennifer, and Jason. Probably forgot somebody too.)

We plan to stop just this side of St. Louis tonight, and then tomorrow we’ll drive on to Lexington, KY, to visit Jack’s nephew Franklin and his wife Joanne, who we always enjoy spending time with. And from there it’s just a day’s drive to home…

Los Angeles? No, and you can tell because there's rain drops on our windshield. Not all goes according to plan. Traffic suddenly stopped on I-70 about 65 miles from St. Louis. We decide to take the next off ramp and call it a night.

Where we are:

Unplanned stop in Warrenton, Missouri

Bird species count: Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture, Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal, greater roadrunner, house finch, common raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer tanager, *prothonotary warbler,  *yellow-breasted chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned  hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove, *canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher, Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow, *cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, American st blog e and all the files uploaded. little wild iris. It'agebrush that we were riding over and through. Lupine looks crow, Anna’s hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay, mallard, common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike, Audubon’s warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged blackbird, redtailed hawk, American dipper, *yellow warbler, tree swallow, osprey, mountain bluebird, peregrine falcon, green-tailed towhee, rufous-sided towhee, common grackle, eastern kingbird, dickcissel, rock pigeon, killdeer, barn swallow, red-bellied woodpecker

State count: 16 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri]   

Odometer count:

Surber, VA: 107,435

Warrenton, MO: 116,549

Accommodations avg cost: 81 nts, avg $15.45/night

A New State—Kansas

June 22-23, 2013

                                         

Saturday

Our Limon, CO motel is nice and quiet so we stay another day to get some work done. My book projects are piling up—got two more inquiries about editing more books! Yikes! The current book is a 2000 page manuscript on “seeds”—what makes every kind of seed in the world start to germinate or go dormant, etc. Who knew?  Jack works on his book too and we both feel a sense of accomplishment after this quiet day of working. Not much to blog about. We do venture across the road to Oscar’s Bar and Grille for supper and it’s pretty tasty. (I must be in my editorial mode, as I notice that the sign on the road says “Grill and Bar” instead of “Bar and Grille” as the one on the building does.) We watch silly movies on HBO till the wee hours (like George of the Jungle—oh man…).

Sunday

We’re off to Kansas now, and things are REALLY flat here. Also, we see a lot of the little oil well pumps, which DuWayne, our tour guide from the last blog, called “grasshoppers.” A good name for them since they bear a reasonable resemblance. 

 

Thar's black gold in them thar flat plains of Kansas.

Kansas, as we remember from a cross-country trip several years ago, has excellent interstate rest stops. We stop at the first one, which advertises “Free Coffee,” and it’s great. We ask the friendly volunteers manning it for some information on a birding spot that I read about, the Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands/wildlife area, and they come through with brochures, birding lists, and camping recommendations. This is supposed to be one of the top 10 birding spots in the whole world, and we need about 30 more birds on our list to reach 100 before we get home, so we decide to detour about 30 miles out of the way to go there in hopes of getting a good portion of these added to our list.

We get a little bit lost trying to find the visitor’s center and campground, since there’s not much in the way of signage, but we finally get our bearings by combining 3 different documents and maps. I’m juggling papers in the front seat while Jack drives. This place is HUGE—over 40,000 acres of flat grassy wetlands—and we’re apparently the only people in it. We never saw another human during several hours of driving slowly along the gravel roads that crisscross it, trying to spot birds. We never did make it to the visitor’s center, which was probably closed by now any way. It looks like the Midwest drought, and farmers using lots of irrigation water, have negatively affected this place, since spots labeled “Pools” on the maps we have are nothing but mud flats and greenery. There are some little places with actual water, but not many. The bird count is disappointing, since we were hoping to get a bunch of water birds, but there aren’t any, since there are no large bodies of standing water. But we did get a few new birds added to the list (only need 24 now) and it was lots of fun trying to identify the ones we saw. It’s a neat place anyway, a great wildlife preservation area—the largest wetlands preservation area in the country, apparently. But we’ll have to stop at some actual lakes along the way to check off a few more water birds, since I think that’s the only way we’re going to reach 100! (I’ve given up on the painted bunting for now—I think we’d have to go to Florida to find it…)

The Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands/wildlife area. According to maps at the Dinosaur Museum in Colorado, Kansas and all the "plains" states used to be a shallow sea way, way back in time. No wonder it's so flat here.

We drive back to the nearest town of any size, Hoisington, and quickly find a little RV campground in a parking lot behind the community center. It’s apparently run by the city; it has electricity and water hookups and is only $15/night. Nice. 

 

Twilight view of Hoisington, KS from our RV campsite.

It’s a beautiful night with a big orange full or near-full moon that I’m looking at right now. Peaceful out here on the prairie…

 

Full moon over Hoisington from our campsite.

 Where we are now:

Bird species count: Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture, Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal, greater roadrunner, house finch, common raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer tanager, *prothonotary warbler,  *yellow-breasted chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned  hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove, *canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher, Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow, *cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, American st blog e and all the files uploaded. little wild iris. It'agebrush that we were riding over and through. Lupine looks crow, Anna’s hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay, mallard, common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike, Audubon’s warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged blackbird, redtailed hawk, American dipper, *yellow warbler, tree swallow, osprey, mountain bluebird, peregrine falcon, green-tailed towhee, rufous-sided towhee, common grackle, eastern kingbird, dickcissel, rock pigeon, killdeer, barn swallow

State count: 15 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas]  

   

Odometer count:

Surber, VA: 107,435

Hoisington, KS: 115,946

Accommodations avg cost: 77 nts, avg $13.96/night