Weldon Springs - again!

It seems that we are drawn again and again to Weldon Springs. This was my 3rd time there, once in the heat of summer, again in the fall with Eric, and yesterday with John. The 5 mile hike "makes you feel like you've done something" (quoting Eric), and is always enjoyable. The view of the Missouri River is spectacular. Very different in each of the seasons. It seems like the kind of thing you could to do again and again, and it would always be new. We also determined that this must be the place where Meriwether Lewis fell down a cliff and almost died on the 2nd day of the expedition - my gosh, those bluffs just drop off! (You see how John won't go to the edge of the rock he is standing on - I was petrified that Jubilee would run over and that would be the end of her.)

winter, birds and gas

It’s winter here – or it sure feels like winter to us. The temperature hovers in the 30s and 40s, but there is this wind … and we bundle up in hats, scarves and gloves every time we go out. Maybe we’re over-doing it. One of the neighbors was making fun of us the other day.

We keep going back to the North side of the Confluence - the Migratory Bird Sanctuary - where the Missouri River meets the Mississippi River. John says that we must be the only people who keep coming back. There are never very many people there. But there is a road there that goes right to the Confluence. It has been gated 4 and a half miles back, since we have been here. The sign says that it is closed due to flooding. It hasn’t really rained here in a while and I wanted to check one more time to see if it was open, but it wasn’t. We hiked around the marshy wetlands. There were a lot of geese and ducks.

Bird's nest

Meanwhile John's job, building a SO2 (sulphur dioxide) scrubber at the Sioux coal power plant, is ending due to a lack of funds. Something about bonds, and the environmental standard that made it a financially wise thing to do was lifted (by Bush?). We don’t know exactly when the job will end, but we have given our notice to the landlord. The rent is paid through November; we could be heading back to Florida any day.

Gas at our critter gas station was $1.95 a gallon today.

Update: The sign closer so that you can see the price!

Pickle Springs and Ste. Genevieve

On a tip from the St. Louis newspaper, we headed down to a place called Pickle Springs Natural Area – about 50 miles the other side of St. Louis – for a 2 mile autumn hike. This is supposedly the “peak” weekend for fall foliage.

The drive through Southeastern Missouri was glorious. The trees are all in various shades of yellow, orange and red. It is neat to see this change in nature and know that we are all a part of it as well.

There were lots of “Pro-life” signs around this area of the state, and a lot of political signs (mostly Obama, I think.)
[Like Bill Clinton, I am opposed to abortion but I think that it should be safe, legal and extremely rare. Teaching sacredness of life and sexuality goes a lot further to reduce abortions than sending women to back alleys or jails.]

The hike was just as the paper described it: “a gem”, “like a Japanese garden”. Rocks, giant ferns, moss (John has an obsession with moss), and gorgeous fall colors. Even though the hike was “easy”, there was enough up and down to make it feel more than just a walk through a park.

The Whispering Pine Trail is named for the shortleaf pines;
Pickle Springs flows into Pickle Creek, where Jubilee enjoyed a number of swims.
Afterwards we went into Ste. Genevieve, a charming and historic little town on the Mississippi River. Ste. Genevieve was originally a French settlement for fur traders. We didn’t get to the museum, so I’m a little lame on the history. A large Catholic Church dominated the area we saw, with “Vote Pro-Life” signs all around it. (I hope that they know that Pro-life means opposing to the Death Penalty as well as abortion.) Again, the Obama signs predominated.

There is a ferry just outside of Ste. Genevieve that takes you over the Mississippi River to Illinois – 4 minutes to cross the river.

More photos on Flickr.

Eric's visit

Alton, Illinois

Yesterday I took Eric to the airport. After 8 days of coddling and enjoying our 24-year-old son, we reluctantly sent him back into the world to be an adult.

We did lots of fun things while he was here … hiked, rallied, explored, and ate. He was as intrigued with the hard scrabble city of Alton as I am. This is Fast Eddie's Bar, known as the toughest place around. John and I will go back on the motorcycle for some pool someday. (John can run the table.)

The food is cheap, so there must be a lot of drinks being sold ...
Alton was also the site of the last debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas on October 15, 1958 (150 years ago, almost to the day). Douglas was arguing for the states' right to allow slavery, Lincoln the absolute wrongness of owning human beings. Lincoln lost the race for Illinois Senator to Douglas that year, but the debate brought him to the nation's attention, and he became president in 1860.

Weldon Springs has to be the best hike around here. We did the 5.2 mile Clark Trail and had the whole forest to ourselves. Wonderful views of the Missouri River.
Meanwhile, it is starting to get seriously colder around here.

(more photos on the Flickr site).

Confluence Park

We are living on the land between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, just before they join. Each river is about the same distance, maybe 5 miles, away. It seems that we are drawn to the place where the 2 rivers meet – a place called Confluence Park.

In 1721, French explorer, Father Pierre Francois de Charlevoix, wrote of the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much the same breadth, each about half a league: but the Missouri is by for the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waters to the opposite shore without mixing them, afterwards, it gives its color to the Mississippi which it never loses again but carries quite down to the sea ..."

This is flat land, wet land. Many bays and islands, and usually quite a few people fishing. It is also a sanctuary for migrating birds. Birds from as far away as northern Alaska use the Mississippi River as a navigational route to warmer lands.

I can’t wait to see this area later in the autumn. But already things are starting to look different around here. The sky for one thing. And it is cooler. Will it really get cold here??!! I’ve lived in Florida so long I tend to doubt that this season change thing is really going to happen.

So far, every time we have attempted to drive to the actual place where the Missouri meets the Mississippi, the road has been closed due to flooding. Today, though, we were able to drive as far as the locks. We hiked the “2 pecan nature trail” through tall grasses. It is a magical place.

The Piasa and another river (the Illinois)

[Photo taken going South on the Illinois side of Mississippi River, with Sioux Power plant in view.]

In our wanderings up the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, we kept running into the word "piasa" - the Piasa creek, the Piasa Winery.

On the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, north of Alton, there is a river road with limestone bluffs on one side, and the river on the other. High on the bluffs there is a painting of a strange bird-like monster. This is the Piasa Bird (pronounced Pie – a – saw).

Father Jacques Marquette saw images of this monster on the bluff while exploring the Mississippi River in 1673. The bird is called “The Piasa” by the Illini Indians, meaning, the bird that devours men. For centuries, every Indian who passed in his canoe fired an arrow at the figure of the bird. More about the Legend of the Piasa Bird is here.

Yesterday we hiked around the Pere Marquette Illinois State Park, which is where the Illinois River dumps into the Mississippi River. This is just north of Grafton, Ill. – a very cute little river town which is not too far from us if we take the ferry. We decided to do this some day in autumn.

This Illinois River.

The Illinois River runs through Illinois, almost to Lake Michigan, and was important to Native Americans and early French traders.

Missouri River Walks

It has been cool enough this week for Jubilee and I to take long, lone walks along the Missouri River. This morning we met a man, sitting on a stool, drawing with colored pencils. He showed me the many pages in his notebook of the scenes just around us. A fox scampered by. I could tell that he knew how to sit there quietly, noting the simple beauty around.

The walks clear my head of words, and the need to “do” something. (Since in Missouri, I feel like I’ve lost my identity, and I’m waiting to see what will happen if I can be quiet!) And I like to photograph the weeds. (More weeds and other things on Flickr)


This is the Wabash Bridge, a cast iron railroad bridge that was finished in 1871. It was only the 2nd bridge to span the Missouri River. Before the bridge, a ferry carried trains across the river.

Point Jean Baptiste du Sable Park (weed walk)

After finally conceding that I don’t stand a chance against the IRS, I wrote the check and then took off with Jubilee for a weed walk. It is cool today, not even going to get to 80 degrees.

We went to the nearby Point Dusable Park, where I found out that Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was born in Haiti to a slave woman and French pirate (imagine that!). After being educated in France, he came to the western shores of Lake Michigan in the 1770’s and built the first settlement in what is now Chicago – hence, he is known as the Founder of Chicago. There he married a Potowatomi Indian woman and became a high ranking member of the tribe. Point du Sable came to St. Charles the last few years of his life, where he lived with his granddaughter. He is buried in St. Charles and now has this nice park named after him.

Here are some photos - more on the Flickr site.

August A. Busch Conservation Area

We went to the August A. Busch Conservation Area today. Yes, as in Anheuser-Busch - Mrs. Busch made a big contribution in memory of her husband to help the State of Missouri buy the land.

Several thousand acres of pure Missouri land. Fields filled with all kinds of weeds - and, being a weed-lover, I say that with the utmost of appreciation and awe. Most people were fishing the many lakes in the area.

We went for a hike and didn’t see a soul.

We did see several bunker-like buildings built into the land. I have no idea what they were for, but they were everywhere throughout the conservation area. Kind of creepy.

John was very interested in all the fishing lakes, so we'll probably be going back early some morning with fishing poles.

More photos on Flickr.

Post note: I just found out that before Mrs. Busch and Missouri bought the land it belonged to the federal government. In the early 1940's the Army used the land as a TNT munitions plant. So all of those bunkers were used to store TNT. 100 bunkers still exist on the property.