Author: bplindsay

12 April:  On a gorgeous spring day following yesterday’s late afternoon and evening rain, we explored some Mammoth Cave NP hiking trails.  The 7.9 miles of our hike was mostly level through an attractive hardwood forest, where several kinds of wildflowers were in bloom.  Views of the interesting topography, the Green River valley, and distant ridges were unobstructed because the leaves had only just begun to come out.

13 April:  A travel day, from Mammoth Cave in central Kentucky to the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, by way of a bike shop to get Amy’s flat tire replaced.  We ate lunch at an excellent visitor center in the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.  Originally LBL was called Land Between the Rivers, until the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were dammed in 1944 and 1964 to create Kentucky and Barkley lakes.  Arriving at our campground, we found a nice quiet site and took a short walk along the lakeside path before supper.  Crossing a bridge over a small stream, we noticed clusters of baldcypress knees protruding from the stream and near the shoreline of the lake.  We had reached the northernmost limit of these ancient and distinctive trees that are so typical of southeastern swamps.

14 April:  We biked from Vienna to Tunnel Hill and back on the Tunnel Hill State Trail.  This 9.3-mile segment of the over-50-mile-long rail trail has an excellent crushed stone surface and climbs gently through forest and farmland from Vienna to the trail’s namesake tunnel at its highest point.  The tunnel was just long enough to be too dark to see the tunnel walls in the middle even though we could clearly see daylight at both ends (a little spooky!).  Spring wildflowers lined the trail for much of our way and the trail passed by some scenic rocky outcrops.  The original railroad that the trail follows was founded in 1872 by Civil War general Ambrose Burnside.  More recently, the owners of the line had refurbished the tracks in anticipation of a freight contract, but they lost the bid to another rail line and eventually donated ownership to the state of Illinois, which developed the bike trail.

People we met and talked with in campgrounds, on the bike trail, and at visitor centers have most friendly and informative.  In the afternoon we stopped at the wetlands center at the Cache River State Natural Area, where there are excellent historical and ecological displays about the local area.  The southern tip of Illinois has several state champion trees, and at least one national champ.  We went to view the state champion water tupelo gum tree, the state champion cherrybark oak tree, and a couple of very big and old baldcypress trees (the state champion baldcypress is also nearby but not readily accessible up close).  Hiking the Heron Pond Trail, Paul was startled by rustling leaves near his feet and looked down to see a very big water moccasin (a little close for comfort!).  The hike led to a boardwalk deep into a baldcypress swamp, with interpretive signs.  Baldcypress are very long-lived trees, most closely related to sequoias and redwoods, but they are similar to larches in that they drop their needles each fall.  The water in the swamp was very still and carpeted with the tiny leaves of the aquatic plant duckweed, except for a few squiggly traces left by swimming frogs and snakes. 

15 April:  Named for the large Padouca tribe of Native Americans in the prairie and plains region, Paducah, Kentucky, is situated where four historically important rivers meet.  The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers flow into the Ohio River a short way upstream from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.  In 1827 Capt. William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) is said to have purchased a large tract of land there for $5, a bargain compared to the $20 paid for the Newfoundland dog Seaman, who accompanied the 1804-1805 Corps of Discovery expedition to Oregon and back.  After the 50-ft flood in 1937, a flood wall was built along the Paducah waterfront and it now features several excellent large murals depicting important places, people, and events throughout Paducah’s history, accompanied by tablets with engraved descriptions.

Although business stagnated for a while after the interstate highway was put in, Paducah gained renewed prominence since it began hosting the internationally famous American Quilter’s Society week and contest in 1985.  The National Quilt Museum in Paducah, opened in 1991, displays many superb quilts, including several award winners of the annual AQS competition.  The quilt museum was our focus for our day in Paducah, and we were not disappointed.  The museum does not just attract quilters and women—the artistry and craftsmanship of the quilts on display is impressive indeed.  No longer just a time-honored craft, quilting has become the chosen medium for some very creative contemporary artists.

In the evening we met Emily, her son Thad, and fiancée Chris at a very nice local restaurant with a Caribbean theme, and then they showed us the house they are about to move into.  Emily is Lowry’s age and her parents, Dick and Sonia, used to bring her cross-country skiing and hiking with our family before she grew up and moved from Maine into the South.

16 April:  In a corner of the Shawnee National Forest, sandstone has been eroded into very scenic ledges, cliffs, alcoves, and boulders.  This is a popular destination for hikers in this region consisting mainly of very flat farmland.  First we hiked the very short Observation Trail loop, which features a number of fancifully named formations such as Camel Rock, Anvil Rock, and Mushroom Rock.  There were many families enjoying Easter Sunday at this spectacular site.  Then we hiked a somewhat longer loop trail to Indian Point, where we saw very few hikers.  We did get caught in a brief rain shower on the shorter trail, but otherwise the rain held off until after we were done hiking for the afternoon.

17 April:  A travel day, from near the southern tip of Illinois north to just outside of East St. Louis, Illinois, to get close to tomorrow’s destination of Cahokia Mounds.  On the way we stopped at the Public Library in Sparta, where Paul’s great-great-great grandfather John Stitt died, but had no luck in finding any record of his death or where he is buried.  We don’t know whether he lived in Sparta for a while, or was just traveling through when he died.  He was living in Oxford, Ohio, in 1860; died in September 1861 in Sparta, Ill.; and his widow Jane Stitt was living in Monmouth, Ill., with two of their daughters in 1870 and 1880.

18 April:  After we had a fun on-line video session waving back and forth with our granddaughter Corwyn (her newest skill), we spent a few hours at Cahokia Mounds State Historical Site (also designated as a National Historic Site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site).  Cahokia is what archaeologists call the very large city that was here in the Mississippi River floodplain from roughly 950 to 1350, whose occupants built many large earthen mounds.  These people were part of what is called the Mississippian culture, in what is now the southeastern U.S. and farther up the Mississippi valley.  The reason the area was abandoned around 1350 is not known for certain, nor which modern tribes are descended from them.  They relied heavily on agriculture (corn, squash, sunflowers, and other crops), supplemented by hunting and gathering, and also had extensive trade networks with people at least as far away as the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.  Their mounds were built of local earth carried in woven baskets (they did not have the wheel or domestic animals other than dogs).  The largest mounds were truncated (flat-topped) pyramids, and some had small pole and thatch buildings on top.  There was a massive log stockade around the central core of the city.  In its time, Cahokia was as large as or larger than the largest cities of Europe such as London and Paris.  Cahokians had all the attributes we associate with civilization and cities except for a written language.  The film and exhibits at the visitor center are first class, and there are walking trails with interpretive signs throughout the extensive grounds.

19 April:  Last night and tonight we’re camped in the pleasant and very quiet (practically empty) Wild Boar Ridge campground in Mark Twain National Forest.  Beautifully mild and clear weather.  Whippoorwills serenaded us each night and the stars were very bright.  Our hike was an easy three-mile loop starting at Missouri’s highest point, the 1773-foot-high Taum Sauk Mountain in the St. Francois Mountains (the Missouri section of the Ozarks), descending to Mina Sauk Falls, and returning by a different trail.  These are very ancient mountains, with a lot of fine-grained pink granite and iron deposits.  The terrain of this area is rolling hills and ridges.  The woods have a rather sparse and stunted look to them, possibly because of shallow and poor soils, and probably occasional wildfires.  We didn’t notice any old stone walls in the woods—apparently most farming and grazing has stayed in the valleys rather than up on the ridges.  Mina Sauk Falls, where we ate lunch, was a very scenic stretch of cascades, small waterfalls, and pools in a rocky area.  The top of Taum Sauk Mountain is such a broad, flat ridge that it would be very hard to tell where the highest point was if it weren’t for the paved path and granite marker proclaiming the location of the state’s highest point.  Half of our loop hike coincided with the long-distance Ozark Trial.  A variety of wildflowers were blooming along the way.

20 April:  From some of Missouri’s highest elevations we traveled to some of its lowest, along the banks of the Missouri River.  We biked a section of the Katy Trail, a linear state park stretching about 2/3 of the way from St. Louis west across the state on the former rail bed of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas line (the “M-K-T” railway).  This rail trail was championed and made possible through the efforts and generosity of Pat and Ted Jones (he was the founder of the Edward Jones investment company).  There are very good trailhead facilities at frequent intervals, with parking, restrooms, and attractive and informative kiosks.  The section we rode, from Rocheport about seven miles downriver, was nestled against towering cliffs of a long bluff along the north bank of the river.  A historical sign described the Louis and Clark expedition’s journey upriver through this area.  On the way back upriver, the cloudy day turned sunny and we pedaled by a barge motoring against the current (actually a powerful tugboat slowly pushing a raft of eight barges fastened together).  We could appreciate the feat of those early steam boats that traveled all the way up the Missouri as far as the Yellowstone River.  Returning to Rocheport we biked through the only tunnel on the Katy Trail and continued another three miles, along wetlands with many large turtles sunning on logs.  A few miles from Rocheport we stayed overnight at a very pleasant private campground, the grassy and shady Katy Roundhouse campground.

21 April:  On the long drive from central Missouri to central Kansas, we stopped to bike a bit of the Prairie Spirit Trail in eastern Kansas.  This rail trail was not only flat, but ramrod straight for a long distance in the flat farmland.  The weather had turned chilly and threatened rain.  Along the way we stopped to read a couple of signs featuring photos and ecological descriptions of selected mammals and birds of the area (an Eagle Scout project).  Though mostly through farmland, the trail also passed through a wooded area with a stream meandering through it.  There were also several abandoned oval tanks left over from railroad days that made us stop and ponder what they had been used for.  We rode six miles before turning back as it started to sprinkle a little.  The wind really picked up, so that we were glad to be protected by the trees and shrubs forming a windbreak between the trail and the open farmland on both sides.  Fortunately we were back on the road again when the steady rain started between our bike stop and our campground at Lake Wilson State Park.

22 April:  Cold and gray in the morning, but becoming sunny and warm in the afternoon.  We hiked the short but interesting Rock Town loop trail near the north shore of Wilson Lake, which was created by an Army Corps of Engineers dam in the 1960s and is said to be the clearest lake in Kansas.  The trail passes over undulating prairie hills and close to a sandstone outcrop eroded into jagged pillars at the lake’s shoreline.  Several plants were blossoming in shades of pink, purple, white, yellow, and magenta.  Many were on very low plants catching the sunlight before the taller vegetation shades them later in the season.  An occasional row of limestone fence posts serves as a reminder of the limited supply of building lumber available in the prairie.  We noticed some fossilized bivalve shells on one of the posts.  In the afternoon, the family camping in the next site invited us to join them for a barbecue cooked on portable smokers.

23-29 April:  A pause in our travels, to spend nearly a week in Colorado with our daughter Lowry, her husband Kyle, and their daughter Corwyn (our first grandchild).  Corwyn is now eight months old and this is our first in-person visit since she was one month old, so she has blossomed from a newborn into a “real person” developing her own personality.  We went to a Union of Concerned Scientists benefit dinner, the Denver zoo, dinner at Kyle’s family’s home, swimming at the local pool, story time at the local library, and walks around Lowry’s neighborhood.  We had previously seen Corwyn frequently during online video sessions, but being able to interact with her in person has been really special.  She is crawling now, is intent on exploring her world, and has a very captivating smile.

29 Apr-2May:  Leaving our camper in Colorado, we flew to Peru to meet our daughter Abby for three weeks.  (Due to limited luggage space and a busy schedule during this side trip, Paul’s laptop stayed in Colorado, so postings beginning with this one have been delayed for up to a month.)  On the way to Peru, we took a short side trip to visit Marilyn and Bob (Paul’s brother) in Coronado, California.  Living on opposite coasts, we don’t get to see each other very often.  While there, we had a nice telephone chat with their son Mark, who lives in Sonoma and also got to visit with their son Robb and daughter-in-law Rosa when we all went out to brunch at a great restaurant overlooking San Diego Bay.  Other highlights of our visit included strolling among about 400 antique autos on display right around the corner from Bob & Marilyn’s house, a walk along the beach, looking through old family photo albums, going for a run on the bike path down the Silver Strand while 88-year-young Bob biked alongside, and spending a couple of hours at the San Diego maritime museum.  Sailing vessels on display at the museum included the San Salvador, a replica of the first European vessel to reach America’s west coast when Juan Cabrillo explored the coast of California for Spain in 1542-1543; HMS Rose, a replica of the late 18th century English naval frigate featured in the movie Master and Commander; the topsail schooner California, a replica of an 1847 revenue cutter and the official tall ship of the state of California; the America, a replica of the schooner whose 1851 yacht race victory in England inspired the America’s Cup races; and the Star of India, a steel-hulled ship built in 1863 (now rigged as a bark).

3 May:  Abby is in Peru for a couple of months conducting some final bits of her Ph.D. research on international water policy.  She met us at the Lima airport after our overnight flight from L.A. and showed us some sights near the waterfront.  We went on foot and by bus to a cafe perched on the edge of a steep bluff overlooking the bay, where we were introduced to two tropical fruit drinks, lucuma (orange-colored) and guanabana (pale green), both delicious.  Then we walked along Malecon park, an attractive park and pathway for bikes and pedestrians along the top of the bluff, where Abby goes when she wants to do a long run when in Lima.  At dusk we walked to the Barranca district, where there are several old colonial-period villas and we chose a seafood restaurant for supper:  cheviche, chupa, and sole (all very good).