November 14: Fairview Heights, Illinois, to Jefferson City, Missouri

I spent most of the day sightseeing in St. Louis. I had seen pictures of the Gateway Arch for years but never thought much about it. Walking up to it, however, was wonderful. There is a park with walking paths surrounding it. The arch itself is much larger than I had realized and it is truly a work of art. Eero Saarinen was an architect, yes; but he was also an artist. I think this huge monument is the largest and most beautiful piece of outdoor sculpture that exists.

But its beauty is in contrast with what you see looking through the arch eastward across the Mississippi River: rusting railroad cars, decrepit grain elevators, industrial trash, rotting timbers, rickety piers in the river. Such a contrast. Of course the land across the river is in Illinois, so Missourians are not able to insist that it be cleaned up.

With the exception of the arch, and the downtown buildings the Missouri side of the Mississippi River is not much better.  There is a huge power plant that hasn't been painted or cleaned in at least 50 years as well as vacant lots with trash, railroad tracks, and other industrial debris.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if some day there was a project to beautify both banks of the Mississippi here?

Under the arch is a Museum of Westward Expansion that contains some very interesting exhibits. I especially enjoyed those related to the Lewis & Clark Expedition. What an adventure!!  Lewis was only 29 years old and Clark in his mid 30s when they followed the Missouri and the Columbia to the Pacific. The museum mixed quotes from the journals of the explorers with huge present day photos of the remote sites they mentioned.

From downtown I went to the St. Louis zoo. On a cool day in November there were very few visitors. Some of the warm weather animals (like the alligators) were not to be seen as they were "on vacation." This zoo does not have a huge diversity of animals, but many of the ones it does have are exhibited wonderfully, the elephants in particular. For me, however, the most fascinating exhibit was the 4 hippopotamuses(i?). Part of their area includes a pool that has a glass side for visitors just like an aquarium. You can watch these huge creatures up close, like 2 feet away, and can see their antics with each other under water. The huge pool also has fish who seem to know instinctively how not to be squashed underfoot of the behemoths.

From the zoo, I headed westward. At the town of Washington, I drove over a bridge to the north side of the Missouri River and then onto a small road (hardly 2 full lanes), Missouri Route 94, that parallels the river near the north bank. I say "near" because the river runs through a flat plain that is all farm fields about 1/2 mile on either side of the river. There are hills beyond those farm fields. In fact, after flat Indiana and Illinois, the roller coaster hills were fun to drive.  For the most part the farm houses have been smartly built 10 or 15 feet up the hill so they would be above floods. There are many small towns  along the way.(population 90, 160, 75, etc.)
There is also a 225 mile footpath/bikepath that is an old railroad bed. See http://www.bikekatytrail.com. There are lots of trailheads along the path, old railroad stations included, and it would make a good long distance walk some day. As a railroad bed along a river there are almost no hills to climb by definition!

The Missouri was running fast and when I got up close I could see huge logs from fallen trees floating their way downstream.

But I began to wonder about how much fun it might be to take a small boat with a cabin (kind of like a British canal houseboat) and go with the flow downstream. I tried to search the internet for places that might rent boats for that purpose, but found none. Such a beautiful river, at least here in mid-Missouri! In the 19th century it was such a thoroughfare for commerce and travel. Not today.

November 15: Jefferson City, Missouri, to Independence, Missouri

Well, I didn't get very far today. Maybe 160 miles. The sun was shining as I left Jefferson City. I traveled US Route 50 west, another one of the old highways and stopped in a couple of the small towns along the way: California and Sedalia. A Union Pacific rail line ran parallel for much of the way. As I neared Kansas City, the sunshine turned to clouds and shortly thereafter to a misty rain.

I planned a stop at the Truman Library and Museum in Independence.I did not plan on how long I would stay there. The museum was not too large and was well laid out. I liked the way it focused on the question of what factors influenced Truman as he made four of the most momentous decisions of his presidency. (1) to recognize Israel as a Jewish State; (2) to drop the atomic bombs; (3) to integrate the US Armed Forces; (4) to fire General Douglas MacArthur. The exhibits encouraged viewers to think about the competing demands and political forces that pressured the president in each situation. And it encouraged different viewpoints. It included quotes from subsequent historians arguing that contrary decisions could have/should have been made. In regard to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the museum has a "guest book" where viewers are encouraged to indicate what they would have done as president.

By the time I came out of the museum, about 3:30, it was raining harder and I decided not to try to see Kansas City. I called it quits for the day. The forecast for the next 3-4 days is for sunshine. I'd rather see Kansas in the sun.

Tomorrow I plan to visit the childhood hometown of Dwight Eisenhower: Abilene, Kansas. I had not really thought before about how Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower shared the experience of growing up on midwestern farms less than 150 miles from each other.

When I last drove across the US (in 1966) many, many farms in the flat plains of the midwest had old farm windmills that pumped their well water. These were still ubiquitous then. No longer. They are gone. Today it surprised me when I actually saw one, rusted and broken but still erect, standing next to a collapsed barn and what appeared to be the remnants of a house. Those windmills had probably been sold to the farmers before rural electrification. Once electricity had made its way to even the most remote hamlets and farms, as long as the windmills still worked, they kept pumping water.  But over time as each needed repair or replacement, the farmers probably opted for electric pumps instead.

As I drove through the small town of California Missouri today, I arrived at a railroad crossing just as the crossing gates descended, the red lights began to flash and the warning bell began to ring. How long has it been since I had experienced that?  Decades.  As the freight train went through, I could see that many of the cars were cattle cars, headed probably to Kansas City.  I think the last cattle car I had seen was on a Lionel miniature train set in the 1950s. Of course they must still be out here somewhere ... how else would we get hamburger and steaks at Shaws or MarketBasket or Hannaford?  But we certainly don't have cattle cars in New Hampshire.  Maybe Peter Burling could add that to his railroad wish list?

November 16: Independence, Missouri, to Great Bend, Kansas

It took a while this morning to get around Kansas City. I didn't want to take a major road right into the city during morning rush hour. So I looped around to the south and then westward and then back northward. That took almost an hour.

East of Wamego, Kansas, on state route 24 I spotted a sign stating that there was a historical marker four miles off the road related to the Oregon Trail. I drove off in search of the marker and found myself going down some dirt roads, eventually leading to another dirt road named "Oregon Trail Road." In fact this dirt road was the Oregon Trail in this area.

The marker was at the Red Vermillion River and related Louis Vieux who had constructed a toll bridge across this river here. He charged $1 for each group crossing his bridge and would sometimes make as much as $300 per day. Vieux was part French, part Potawatomie Indian. He is buried in the graveyard at this site. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a national project to locate, map, and again make public a walkway along this old Oregon Trail all the way from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. I am sure it could be a tourist draw.   

I stopped briefly in Manhattan, Kansas, the home of Kansas State University. After leaving Manhattan, I was trying to follow Kansas Route 18. All of a sudden I found myself 3rd in line at a military checkpoint - the entry to Fort Riley, a big army base. The MP at the gate didn't know where Route 18 was but he told me that if I kept on the main street of the base, I would finally come out the other side near Junction City. I did. In Junction City I drove past the Buffalo Soldier Memorial, put on the brakes, and returned to take a few photos.  Bob Marley's wonderful song memorializes them also :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5FCdx7Dn0o

The black Buffalo Soldiers were stationed at Fort Riley as well as Fort Leavenworth and elsewhere in Kansas to fight the Comanches and other Indian tribes beginning in 1866.

I drove back roads into Abilene, Kansas, the boyhood home of Dwight Eisenhower. There is a museum and library and the boyhood home was preserved after his mother died. All the neighboring houses have been torn down over the years and been replaced by gardens, memorials, and even a chapel. But all the furnishings in the house are the originals. The museum is fine but 3 times as much space is devoted to his leadership in World War II as is devoted to his 8 years as President. I found it interesting that the house is only 100 yards from the railroad line through town and only three blocks from the center of Abilene. It was never a farmhouse. Somehow I had imagined him growing up as a Kansas farm boy. 

From Abilene I headed southwest and ended the day in Great Bend. Along the way I passed a wind farm with huge windmills rotating high above grazing fields. This appears to be perfect country for windfarms.

Grain Elevators in Kansas

As I traveled through Kansas on minor roads, I took photos of the grain elevators in the towns that I went through. Every small town that sits along a railroad track has at least one, sometimes two. Don't ask me what made me take on this little project. I have no idea. But it was an idea that I had before I left New Hampshire.
 The really large white concrete structures an be seen from miles away across the plains. They give you a visual sense of how far it might be to the next gas station. It also occurs to me that they would make a great medium for huge murals if someone would link artists with the farmers' coops that own them.

You can see the photos at the following URL:
 http://picasaweb.google.com/doughallnh/GrainElevatorsInKansas#

November 17: Great Bend, Kansas, to Lamar, Colorado

Today was really wonderful. It was warm with a clear blue sky as I drove across the Kansas prairie. I followed close to or on top of the old Santa Fe Trail the entire day. My first stop was the Santa Fe Trail Museum just outside Larned, Kansas. The museum is put together by the local historical society and is very good. It contains artifacts from the period when the trail was one of the main east-west routes as well as the later period of settlement of Larned. I never knew that most of the merchants along the trail were Mexicans. The border between Spanish Mexico and the American territory was the Arkansas River that flows near Larned. The Spanish would not allow Mexicans to participate in trade or mercantile activities, but after Mexico became independent in 1821 all that changed and the Mexicans in Santa Fe began to engage in trade with the American frontier and eventually handled much of the trade along the trail.


My second stop was the Fort Larned National Historic Site. I was the only visitor during my one hour there. The fort was used by the US military to protect the Santa Fe Trail and its travellers from raids by the plains indians who were upset by the encroachment of the Anglos. The barracks, hospital, commissary, and officers quarters are all open and are furnished much as they would have been in the 1860s. Anyone driving through Kansas ought to make this a stop. It's exhibits of military life along the trail were also good.

I discovered later in the day that the Arkansas River actually was dry as a bone:. no water, only 4-wheeler tracks in the sand.  It must be something of an "arroyo" or "wadi" here, dry except after big rains. Why is there a good Spanish word and a good Arabic word, but no English word for such a seasonal river? If you think about it, the answer will come to you.

The grasslands between Larned and Dodge City are beautiful. I have always enjoyed beautiful mountain scenes and beautiful ocean scenes. I had never thought that a grassland might be just as beautiful. It is, but in its own way. Here is a 360 degree video taken from Pawnee Rock.

There was one place along the road where you could still see some of the wagon tracks made along the Santa Fe Trail. The wagons typically went four abreast in order to avoid following in each other's dust. Thus, there may be as many as eight wagon wheel ruts, although few survive visibly now 150 years later. Here is onewhere there was a historical marker a short walking distance off the road.

Dodge City tries to live off its history as a "wild west' town. The main street with all the fast food restaurants and motels is "Wyatt Earp Boulevard." I wasn't impressed. It did not have a genuine feel. (After getting some gas, I "got out of Dodge," which is, by the way, where that saying comes from.

I drove along US Route 50 through a lot more grassland on my way to the Colorado border and then to Lamar. At one point I did have to veer to avoid tumbleweed heading down the road toward me. At times there was pure grassland, at other times the landscape was filled with sagebrush.

This part of Kansas is cattle country, much of it Black Angus. Along route 50 near Holcomb (the town of the "In Cold Blood" killings described by Truman Capote) I passed a Tyson plant that is said to be the world's largest meat packing plant. Nearby were quite a few cattle yards with thousands of cattle waiting for their turn. Large trains with dozens and dozens of freight and tank cars were pulled up to the plant.

November 18: Lamar, Colorado, to Lakewood, Colorado

Another day that started off cloudy but soon cleared up. My goal for the day was to arrive at my sister's home in Lakewood about 3:00pm or so, but I was undecided whether to head west to Pueblo and then take the interstate north to the Denver area or to first go north on a back country road and then head west to the same destination. I finally decided on the latter.

But first I got off US route 50 and took state route 194 to La Junta. On the way there, I discovered Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. What a find!

This is another fort along the Santa Fe Trail. It was not a military fort but a trading fort. It was built with adobe and was operated from 1833 until 1849. While the original fort was burned and then destroyed by time and weather, archeologists had excavated the base of the original walls in the 1930s. Quite wonderfully, a sick traveler who had been laid up in the fort in the 1840s had undertaken to sketch it with measurements of all of its rooms and walls in his journal.  He thought it so outstanding that he expected to use his sketches as a model for other trading posts in the west. While that never happened, his journal gave all the information to reconstruct the entire fort. That rebuilding was completed in 1976. What exists now is an exact reproduction of the original fort. Here, perhaps about a month's journey along the Santa Fe Trail and 600 miles from its origin in Independence, Missouri, was an outpost where indians, fur trappers, adventurers, and merchants met, lived, and traded. The primary language at the fort was Spanish, but French, English, and three native american languages were also spoken. There was nightly entertainment, shared meals, and even a huge pool table.  I really enjoyed walking through the various rooms of the fort, the kitchen, blacksmith's shop, carpenter's shop, doctor's rooms, and the living quarters of the men who ran the post.
If you want to know more, here is a link:
http://www.nps.gov/beol/index.htm

After leaving Bent's Old Fort, I took state route 71 from Rocky Ford to Limon. This route runs about 90 miles through some beautiful, beautiful grass land. Not as flat as parts of Kansas, there were some small rolling hills that afforded views that must have stretched 20 miles at times. There were some cattle out on the grassland, but not many. There was one cross roads about half way along this route and a house at that crossroads - 1 house, not more.  Isolated, yes, but so very beautiful.

Once in Limon, I took another minor road, Colorado route 86 westward and got my first view of the Rockies. Most of the higher mountains were snow capped and glistened in the sun as I approached them from the east.

As I approached the metropolitan Denver area, I could see a low haze that made it hard to see the base of the Rockies even though the higher elevations were crisp and clear. Urban haze.

I made it to the home of my sister and brother-in-law in Lakewood just about the time I had hoped. I hadn't visited them both here in quite a few years. At my request, my sister played her cello and my brother-in-law played his guitar in a little concert. They have both been taking lessons on their chosen instruments for some time and are quite good. That was a really nice way to end the day.

November 19: Lakewood, Colorado, to Green River, Utah

Today was the first day of the roadtrip where weather played a major role. The forecast for the Rockies west of Denver was for snow from today (Sunday) through Tuesday with accumulations of 1-4 feet. What route to take? I have tried to stay off the interstate system, but after checking road conditions, road webcams, and more forecast information, I decided that going by US route 40 might be difficult. It wanders through northern Colorado for at least 250 miles. So I decided to take the I-70 directly west from Lakewood.

As I reached Dillon, a little before the pass to Vail (10,66 feet), it began to snow. On the road up to the pass I was stuck behind three snowplows and the wet snow was sticking to my windshield. For the first time, I needed the wiper fluid to help clean the mud and melting snow. But it didn't work. When I got to the ski village of Vail I stopped at a gas station to buy some more fluid but discovered that there was plenty in the tank under the hood. The squirting mechanism wasn't working. Ugh. Back on the road. Very soon the sun came out and the snow on the mountains was spectacular! One problem with traveling the interstate, however, is that it isn't so easy to stop and take photos. No driveways to pull into and park, let the traffic pass as you snap a few photos. So I didn't get many.

I continued westward until I reached Grand Junction, Colorado, not too far from the boarder with Utah. I had thought I would stop there for the day. I went into the Barnes & Noble with my laptop, checked the distance remaining to Salt Lake City, and also checked the weather again. What I learned made it seem prudent to push on further today while the weather was still reasonably good, so I re-targeted my stopping place to Green River, Utah. That meant another 100 miles of driving.

The scenery was sometimes visible and beautiful, sometimes hidden in heavy dark rain and snow clouds. I passed through two rather strong and vicious storms with heavy, heavy rain, sleet, and wind gusts that were so strong I needed to hold the steering wheel tightly and continually make adjustments to counter the wind. Quite a few big trailer trucks had pulled over and stopped along the highway as the crosswinds were evidently too strong for them to feel safe.


My fuel indicator light came on. Oooops.  I had not realized that there were no gas stations out here in this deserted part of eastern Utah. A road sign noted that it was 25 miles to Green River.  Hmmmm. How much warning was that indicator giving me? Will I run out of gas before I can get there?  To conserve, I slowed down to 55 (the speed limit is 75) for a while. Then a WalMart truck barrelled past me. I decided to speed up and stay right behind him hoping that I could ride his draft, much as cyclists do in their races. It seemed like that orange indicator light was on for a long time and I kept hoping that I would make it to Green River.  I did. When I filled the tank, it took 14.9 gallons of gas. I think it holds 15.

I'm staying the night at a Super 8 motel here in Green River. This is the 3rd Super 8 that I've stayed at on this trip. All have been quite comfortable, clean, with free wifi, 24 hours of coffee in the lobby, and cost only $60-$65.