The iconic site (and sight) in St. Louis is the Gateway Arch. We saw it about ten miles away, but it didn’t show up in my photo. I’ll substitute a picture taken in 2012 when grandsons David and Nathaniel were with us. John and I went up in it when our daughters were young.
St. Louis Gateway Arch
We left St. Louis
through a sad part of the city, a wasteland of burned out buildings.
That gave way to a halfway area where several houses in a block would
be in shambles. Finally there was the outer suburb with lovely homes
set in manicured lawns. Wouldn’t it be great if the bad parts were
razed and a new city raised up from the ashes? Guess they’d have to
rename it Phoenix.
As we crossed the
Missouri River, John spotted a flood wall holding back the river.
It’s left of center in the photograph, if you can see it through the
bridge.
Railroad cars and buildings on the left are many feet lower than the water.
We ate lunch in a
former KATY train station in Columbia, Missouri. John liked the sign
on the fence of the outdoor eating area. It said, “Please, NO
EXCESSIVE NOISE.” I’m laughing as I write this, because all caps
denotes screaming.
In Kansas City we
drove by Union Station, so named because several rail lines converged
on it. Most of the building is used for educational purposes now,
although the train station is still in use.
Union Station
John had fun driving the route of the trolley line in Kansas City. The city center seemed to be a thriving place with very few empty storefronts.
Kansas City from our car, driving on the trolley route
After getting a
motel room, we drove toward the river and the old city of Paducah,
Kentucky. John probably knew we’d see railroad tracks and the
confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio rivers. His geographic and
choo-choo antennae are always up. He didn’t sense a barrier wall,
and that’s what we found. I took a photo of John standing before the
wall at a mural depicting a steam engine. To the right was the Ohio
River.
A few steps down
was a mural welcoming visitors to the wall depicting Paducah in the
past. There were scenes of Indians, early settlers, historic events,
important people, and cultural buildings. Before each mural was a
brass plaque explaining the scene. What a marvelous history walk it
was!
We found out the
city had three devastating floods. To prevent it happening again,
they erected this barrier wall. The highest flood was 11 feet higher
than the pavement we were standing on. John stood at one of the
gates where a large concrete slab would rise to close the gap.
To our surprise,
the steam engine in the mural was sitting around the curve. It had
an odd collection of cars behind it, making it look like a train.
John said the cars were ones that would have been used in that area,
but not necessarily together.
We walked behind the wall, near the water. Evidently, the river draws people there to stroll, ride bikes, and enjoy the cool breezes. Some drove their cars, watched the water for a while, and drove away. It seemed such an old-fashioned, low-tech pastime. Good for you, Paducans!
What is the last thing you did before going on a road trip? I found myself dusting! Dusting the bathtub!
The day before we left, we were in the car six hours, taking grandson Nathaniel back to Charlotte. These are the before photos – the mirror ritual before Nathaniel left, and before we drove him back to campus.
I was in zombie mode while packing that night, so I got up earlier than necessary to check that I had everything. With the extra time, I got the dust out of the big tub. After hiking, both son John $pencer and Rose like soaking in hot water. I told Rose she was welcome to use my tub, one of those garden tub monstrosities. Daughter Lise is the only one who likes it so far, and that’s why it was last cleaned six months ago. The dusting was overdue.
Our first stop on the trip was in Nashville to have lunch with John’s cousin Harold and wife Susan. We were celebrating the first weekday of Harold’s retirement. Susan retired two years ago and has had her taste of first freedom. Harold does not feel free yet. He had come from his office where he was working on papers. He was an orthodontist and has many things to file and will take all the records to his home. We had a delightful time chatting with them.
I didn’t see grandson David until we were having his birthday brunch. There was plenty of activity leading up to the meal. The day before, grandson Nathaniel meticulously cut out parchment paper to line the cake pans. He poured the batter in, and soon the kitchen smelled like a bakery. We had a whole day to anticipate that cake.
Preparing the birthday cake
We were opening the front door to go walking when Nathaniel appeared in the hall. He is an early riser and walked to the creek with us. His long arms made this selfie easy.
Animals played a part in David’s day, too. The neighbor’s cat joined us for a few minutes, and Nathaniel enjoyed petting her. It was more comfortable for him to sit on the road than to bend over to play with her.
At home, friend Rose had Sadie running all over the yard chasing a Frisbee. Later I was near an open window when the two of them were outside. It was lovely to see the dog race about and hear Rose’s musical laugh.
[I could not find a way to put photos side by side as I used to. I’m using the old editor, but it is behaving badly, too.]
Nathaniel cut potatoes for David’s brunch casserole. The dish featured potatoes, chicken, seasonings and cheese. Yummy!
David, dressed for work, waited to blow out his candle as we sang to him.
He had quite a cake day. At work, the manager brought in cupcakes for his birthday. He took one as he was leaving and ate it in the car. We wondered what was going on when he called and asked that Sadie be restricted when he came home. He loves Sadie, so that seemed strange. He explained that he dropped the cupcake on his lap, and he knew Sadie would be licking him the instant he set foot in the door. He solved the problem a different way. Nathaniel took shorts to the garage, so David changed into them before coming in the house.
The lemon chiffon cake deserved a shot of its own. It was light, fluffy, and lemony delicious.
John drove to Charlotte to pick up grandson Nathaniel, and it was fairly late when they got home. We had a cheese snack when grandson David finished work and chatted for a while before heading to bed. I thought about the mirror ritual, but maybe Nate wouldn’t hang the hall mirror on the upper hook for just a weekend.
The next morning I asked myself, “What am I doing??? I’m rolling out biscuits for a young man who is majoring in baking and pastry? Am I out of my gourd?”
The answer to my question was no. I was doing what I always do. In chatting with neighbor Marla recently, truth came out of my mouth unbidden. I surprised myself when I said, “Cooking for people is the way I show that I love them.”
For the foodies, we had bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and Southern biscuits made with White Lily Flour.
After breakfast, Nathaniel called out, “I didn’t do the mirror!”
David came to the hall, and I had the camera. Nate took the mirror and carefully moved it to the hook where the former owners had a clock. He moved slowly so that I could get a photo.
Egging him on, I told him to smile at himself. That’s why all his teeth are on display. David can see his head in there, but the mirror is useless for the rest of us. Nathaniel will do the ritual in reverse when it is time for him to go. It’s a silly thing, but we enjoy it.
Our outing for the day was going to Connemara, Carl Sandburg’s home for the last 22 years of his life. Grandson David and friend Gerhard paused near the parking lot to read the first informative board.
Near that sign, John chatted with an older man who saw Sandburg occasionally. He and his brother could not drink cow’s milk, so they came regularly to buy goat’s milk. Mrs. Sandburg had a herd of prize goats that supplied their need. The man said when they didn’t see Sandburg, they often heard him singing as he strummed his guitar in the house.
John and I toured the house last year after major maintenance projects were done. Pictures had not been rehung, and the furniture was not all in place. We were happy to see everything now back in order. The docent told us Mrs. Sandburg moved to Asheville after Sandburg died. She wanted to leave a legacy of her husband and sold the house and grounds to the National Park Service. She sold her goats, and she and her daughter packed their clothes, leaving almost everything else behind. The house is basically just as it was when our Poet Laureate died. He had three Pulitzer Prizes, two for poetry and one for his biography of Lincoln.
The Sandburgs had quite different schedules. He wrote into the wee hours of the morning, whereas she was up early to manage her goats. We saw her office, filled with filing cabinets of records for all the goats she had owned. They always had dinner together and exchanged news of their day. The docent made it easy to imagine daily life in the Sandburg household. He met a grandson himself, who recounted the time he dropped a cat down the stairwell to see if it would land on its feet. Both cat and boy survived.
After leaving the house, we went to the barn. We knew the park service searched the records and bought back some of the goats. All of them on the farm are descendants of Mrs. Sandburg’s herd. We enjoyed the house tour and delighted in the goats. Most of my photos were taken in the barn, as we petted the extremely friendly animals. Gerhard, John, and David stood with the red farm buildings. David agreed to pose as a goat. The little goat on the ground near me had surgery a few days before to remove an extra eyelid. There was a sock-like dressing over his head.
We had lunch in an Irish pub in Hendersonville before driving home on the Blue Ridge Parkway. John drove us to Looking Glass Falls, where Gerhard and David walked down the steps near the falls. By enlarging the photo, I can spot David’s maroon shirt on the lower right side of the picture. Gerhard, wearing a white shirt, is next to him.
Looking Glass Falls
To make it easy for your eyes, I’ve included a photo of the two of them with the falls in the background.
We went on to Sunburst Falls, my favorite. Gerhard, David and I got out to see the falls up close. I restrained myself from taking a photo, since I already have so many. I did have one last photo of Gerhard on the spot where he took photos of the mountains at Pisgah Inn.
I love watching shadows move across the mountains.
The rough, twisting road to Cataloochee Valley begins about three miles from our home. The valley is the place to see elk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, if you happen to be there at the right time. We stopped to read information about the area and posed at my favorite lookout point.
One of the buildings left from the abandoned community was the picturesque little chapel. Inside, friend Rose pretended to preach.
Inside one of the old houses, $ struck up a conversation with a family as they stood before a photograph. He found out they represented two branches of the family that had lived in that house. They named all the people in the picture, starting with their great grandfather. Their grandfathers were brothers. It was exciting to meet people whose history was bound up with the house they were standing in.
Rose, a former school teacher, pretended to write on the board in the old schoolhouse. She and I agreed that we would have a hard time concentrating in that room, because we could see a stream outside the window. $ and Rose posed in the opening on the second story of the barn. Rose, wearing her hiking sandals, waded through a stream. This was the same spot John’s sister Barbara waded a year or so ago. If I’d had sandals like Rose, I would have gone in the water, too.
John commented on a ring of stones in the stream, which we had not seen there before. $ explained that Indians used to catch fish by putting stones in running water. The front had smaller stones to let fish in, and larger stones were at the back to hold them in the circle. Rose said she saw fish in that area, holding her hands about five inches apart to show the size of the fish.
We saw groups of people sitting in camp chairs next to their vehicles, waiting to see if the elk would come out of the woods to graze at dusk. We needed to get home, but we were looking for the animals as John drove. Either John or friend Gerhard spotted a small elk near a red truck. John stopped as the rest of us aimed our cameras or phones. The picture with the truck is the way we saw it – not zoomed in. As we watched, a mature animal ambled around the truck. There were three or four young ones that followed her.
Rose got the best shot. Two elk wandered onto the road, and she captured them beautifully. You’d think they were alone, with not a care in the world. The truck was off camera as these two ambled by.
After our first year of living in North Carolina, I thought we occasionally ran a bed and breakfast place. It was wonderful to have many of our closest relatives and friends spend a few days with us. We had two guest rooms, so there was always room for everyone.
Our college
friend, Gerhard, made reservations for our bed and breakfast months
ahead of time. When son John $pencer and friend Rose came at the
same time, we had to work out where people should sleep. The hikers
($, Rose and grandson David) insisted they would all be in the bunk
room that has three beds. At breakfast the next day, they said
everything went smoothly. It was like sleeping at a very nice
hostel. I took a picture of the happy people at breakfast.
Later in the
afternoon we had our Memorial Day lunch. John and $ cooked the
burgers and brats on the grill. By that time David was working, so
it was just the five of us.
We set off for
Cataloochee, the area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
where elk are often spotted. We ended up being much later than
expected. We couldn’t let David know we’d be late getting home,
because our phones had no bars in that remote area. He found the
meats and buns and heated some for his dinner. We joined him to have
leftovers together. It had been an unusual day, but a nice one.
Son John $pencer and Rose drove about 15 minutes to hike in the park close to us. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most popular park in the United States, having 10 million visitors, according to several sources. The Grand Canyon, second in popularity, gets 5 million. I thought $ and Rose were going to the top of Purchase Knob, so I took a photo of it as we came home from our walk. Our house is the tan blob under the tree.
Purchase Knob
As it turned out,
they hiked to the top of Hemphill Bald, which is slightly behind and
to the left of Purchase Knob. It was still exciting to me, though,
because Rose took a photo that shows buildings that we pass on our
morning walk. With his monocular, $ could identify the service
station and the church. With a little imagination, I can see them in
this picture, too.
I asked Rose for
her favorite photo of the day. She had two, and I chose this one.
She has an artist’s eye and composes her photos carefully.
Now if people come to visit us and want to hike, we know where to tell them to go. Note, I am not going with them. The trails are well-marked and will provide great exercise with beautiful views.
Son John $pencer, friend Rose, and grandson David had a great overnight in the mountains. Dog Sadie was carrying her pack without protest.
They took time for
a selfie in the sunshine.
Lush scenery is
common in the Smoky Mountains. This was Rose’s favorite shot of the
view.
They took time to
pose with the view behind them.
It was hard to
pick a favorite of the sunset shots. David took this one.
David has always
enjoyed fires. He lingered with the campfire long after the others
went to bed.
They carried
snacks, pouches of food for dinner, and water. Hiking is thirsty
work, and they drank plenty of water. $ has a filter to destroy
bacteria, so they safely replenished their supply from a stream. It
amused me that they bought pizza on the way home.
I giggled when the
hikers talked about their campsite. It wasn’t easy to find a place
with trees and a flat space. They needed trees for the hammock and
an even area for the tent. $’s back discovered a divot that plagued
him all night. David was pleased with the way his uncle strung up
the hammock for him. It sagged during the night, and David’s arm was
on the ground when he woke up. Guess what they did after they got
home and ate their pizza. They all took a nap!
My name is Suki, my human is a writer, and this is about my world. The world according to Suki The Cat. My humans smell funny, look weird, and I can't understand a thing they say, but they feed me, so hey, what are you gonna do?
Mehrling Muse 