Traveling through Missouri

Leaving Omaha, we headed off across the northern part of Missouri, for Big Lake Campground. This state park was visited by, drum roll, Lewis and Clark, on their return from the Pacific.  It was created when the Missouri was rerouted by dams, but when Lewis and Clark were there, it was part of the river.  The campground today is quite luxurious, with its own store, a motel, a cafe, and a lot of campsites.  It was badly flooded this spring, but has been reworked extensively by the state and is now quite comfortable.

The purpose of our visit was to do some birding at the nearby Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge.  This is a fabulous refuge, one of the best managed that I've seen, providing huge resources for migrating birds.  It routinely hosts more than a million Snow Geese in migration, and there were tens of thousands of birds there when we toured the refuge.  The creek provides water for an enormous network of marshes and bays to in an intricate system of channels and dikes, to provide habitat for the central flyway.  Local folks that I met are justly proud of the refuge and are active in taking care of it and encouraging its use.

We had a couple of good days of birding on the refuge.  There is an auto loop road about ten miles long that travels all around it, and Ivy and I drove that on the first day.   I went back and bicycled the whole route the next day while Ivy did some painting back at the RV park.  Both days were beautiful and sunny, and we saw thousands of birds.  Many were far away and difficult to identify because the refuge is so extensive, but it was a wonderful trip and a lot of fun even if I couldn't be sure of the identification of all the birds that I saw there.

We left Big Lake Campground in the rain, and headed  across the state  to the town of Hannibal, where Mark Twain spent his boyhood and where many of his most famous stories have their roots.  This is still a pretty small city, right on the Mississippi River.  The whole town is totally devoted to the Twain heritage, with tourist attractions and businesses using the Twain name wherever they could.  There was even a Huck Finn Shopping Center next to the WalMart.  All the hype was a little much, and one has to wonder how the curmudgeonly Twain would view it all if he could see it today.

But Ivy and I just dived into the tourism and had fun with it. We took a ride on the riverboat (The Mark Twain or course), visited the museums and the old houses of characters in his stories. It turns out that there really was a Becky Thatcher character, a Huck Finn character, and so forth - all have been identified as the sources of his childhood stories, much modified of course. There was a real cave, located in the campground where we were staying, and the museum gave you a feel for the Twain childhood and the influences that led him to build the classics that he did. But the best part was all the Mark Twain quotes that were plastered all over the museum and everywhere else.  That man sure could write!

While we were there, we took a bike ride along the river, exploring some of the country, and Ivy did some painting on a bluff overlooking the river.  The country was lovely, weather perfect, and we picnicked and did a bit of birdwatching.  I saw my first cardinal there at the Mississippi, which I took as a sign that we are really reaching the Eastern side at last.  There was a local parade, duel of the high school marching bands, and a good quilt exhibit.  All in all, a thorough mid-western experience. 

Next we were off to the city of St Louis. This is a real city, bigger than Omaha, and got us back into freeway traffic in a big way. But the city was quite congenial, in the little that we saw of it, and we had a good time visiting a sampling of its treasures. We took the Metrolink downtown, to take advantage of the rapid transit options - quite nice - and visited Forest Park, a huge space set aside after the World's Fair of 1904. We went to two large museums, constructed for that event, and explored some of the history of the area. At the history museum there was an exhibit on women's history, some of which originated in Puget Sound, so we had a bit of nostalgia there. There was also a section taken from the World's Fair history, with photographs and samples from the exhibits of that time.

 

The Art Museum was very enjoyable.  The star of their show was an artist of the Depression Era who worked in St Louis and was an activist for workers and the poor.  He did a number of WPA murals around the area, and many of his paintings were on display.  His name is Joe Jones, and I had not heard of him, but his work was quite striking and Ivy and I enjoyed the exhibit greatly.

We toured some of the areas downtown, including a sculpture garden and the old courthouse, which has been made into a national monument, much of it devoted to exhibits built around the Dred Scott decision and the role of the city of St. Louis in the history of race relations.  We toured the Arch area down by the river, and visited a wax museum in an area near the waterfront - rather a disappointment.  But the area itself was jumping - it was the weekend and there were bands playing all around and lots of action. 

The next day we visited a nearby park called the Global Bird Sanctuary. They were having an open house/fundraiser and we were able to tour some of their facilities and talk to some of the staff. They started out as a raptor rescue operation, and still keep a lot of emphasis on raptors, but they had a number of exhibits and captured birds and we got some advice on birding the area and followed up with a picnic in a nearby state park.

While we were in St Louis, we took advantage of the movie options.  I have been missing movies greatly, as our trip takes us mostly to small towns and places where choices are limited.  We had seen The Social Network in Hannibal, but we added on two others in St. Louis, one called Catfish, a documentary about the consequences (intended and unintended) of the Facebook world, and another called Nowhere Boy, a treatment of the young pre-Beatles years of John Lennon.  All were excellent films, and satisfied somewhat my film shortage. 

From here, we're off to Kentucky and further East.