Keokut, Iowa

We arrived in this town about mid-afternoon today.  The owner of the rv park where stopped for the night   strongly encouraged us to drive into Keokut and at least view the large dam there, located on the Mississippi River.  He informed us that one of Keokut's early bridges across the Mississippi has become an observation deck from which we could view the river and watch riverboats going through the locks.

The observation platform was closed today- however John and I, while driving around the town, discovered a hill that offered us a fairly good view of the river and dam.  Construction of the dam and powerhouse began in 1910.  Upon its completion in 1918  it was the largest single capacity powerhouse generating platform in the world.  A local resident informed us that during World War II Hitler planned on targeting the powerhouse as one of 10 areas in the United States to bomb.  Something else interesting which we found out about the dam is that it supplies power for the St.Louis metro area and southeastern Iowa.  It is owned by Ameren of Missouri.

We were impressed by the many old Victorian-style homes in Keokut, many of which are not in good repair.  Pictured above is the Katie John House.  Mary Huskamp Calhoun grew up in this house and wrote about it in her Katie John books.  The house was built in 1872 by Henry Clark who sold medicines to the military hospitals of Keokut during the Civil War.  As a side note here, many wounded Union and Confederate soldiers were brought to Keokut by riverboat to be cared for in the hospitals.  In Keokut is one of the twelve original national cemeteries of our nation.  Another side note here:  Samuel Clemens worked in this town from 1855-1856.  While walking in the historic district we found a marker noting the site of the Orion Clemens Print Shop.  Orin and Samuel printed the first Keokut directory in 1856.

The town is named after Chief Keokut, his remains were placed in the base of the monument pictured above.  He was a Sauk leader who did not oppose the advance of the white man and refused to participate in the Black Hawk War of 1832.   The sculpture of him is located in Rand Park.  While there we took some time to walk through a beautiful flower garden where we found a impressive sculpture of a hummingbird which has a tree trunk as its' base.  It seemed amazing to us that a small town as Keokut (population of about 10,000) has so much rich history as well as interesting attractions.

Last Mornings

Last Monday we moved from Carbondale, Illinois to St.Peters, Missouri.  We needed to wait for our mail, as well as get some repairs done on our rig (one air conditioning unit went out) before driving any further.  A special bonus for having to park near St.Louis was being able to visit with my sister Julia, her husband Cal and their daughter Katie.  We expected very warm weather, however it turned out to be a cooler than normal week.  On Monday morning, before moving from Crab Orchard Lake, I took a walk down to the lake to view the profusion of holly hocks growing there.  On the way through the campground I could not help but notice a tent with its' own cooling unit.  It is a campground oddity to be sure!

The flowers, white holly hocks and others pictured below, blooming by the lake were quite beautiful.  One particular butterfly also was enjoying them.

 

Now it is our last morning here at Lakeside Park in St. Peters, where we have parked many times in the past.  I have encountered several people who have excitedly described the wildlife around the lake which they have seen in the early morning hours, so I decided to ride my bike out at sunrise before we move our home north.  I frightened out of their resting place about two dozen wild turkeys.  They were up and in the air before I could focus my camera on them.  I also saw several deer staring at me as I looked across the lake.  We have seen deer on that island in the past.

After I finished my ride around the two lakes I decided to retrace my steps to take a closer look at some yellow wildflowers which I had seen when starting out on my ride.  As I neared that area a bright yellow bird flew near the water's edge.  It was an  American goldfinch munching on his breakfast of plant seeds.

 

That was my interesting last morning here at Lakeside.  I was also later able to identify a yellow wildflower (partridge pea) which dotted the path along the lakeside.  It was the delicate fern-like leaves of that plant which caught my attention.  The seeds of the flower feed quail.

Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge

We are again parked in Southern Illinois, by Crab  Orchard Lake.  However, our stay here has been brief and we are planning on moving north tomorrow.   We would like to find an area of cooler temperatures, if that is possible.  We have also come to observe that campgrounds may not be the desirable place for us, as we are more apt to have to deal with smokey campfires and flying tiny critters.  RV parks are a bit more to our liking, especially during the summertime.   The humidity was quite high yesterday when we hiked on one of the trails of Crab Orchard Refuge.  John had read that the Rocky Bluff Trail in the park had beautiful scenery with intermittent waterfalls and sandstone cliffs.  The refuge brochure also warned about steep, rocky sections on the trail- I took a walking stick with me, but used it more for swinging it in the air around me to ward off flying insects!  I must say however, it was still a pleasant hike because of the trees along the trail which offered us plenty of shade.

We saw many places along the trail where there could possibly be waterfalls.  The area had a heavy soaking rain the night before, so where were the waterfalls?  We postulated that in the refuge the rain must drain off quickly into Grassy Creek, we probably had to be there during a rainstorm to see the waterfalls.

As we neared the end of the trail our path was overgrown with weeds, which is not a surprise to us anymore as we continue to find parks all over our country not kept up due to lack of funding.  As we crossed a bridge we thought we had come to the end of our hike, as you can see in the picture below.

However, we did find a small open area where we could step around the overgrowth and continue on our way.   Rocky Bluff Trail is supposed to have some of the best scenery in the park, and it was as beautiful as promised with its large rock formations and shady glens. Not a bad place to be on a hot summer day!

Lost River Cave

As I wrote in my last posting, the area of Kentucky where we had our family reunion is dotted with caves and sinkholes.  It is all about karst topography formed from the dissolution of such rocks as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum by water.  The park surrounding Lost River Cave is quite beautiful and serene, with limestone bluffs, blue holes, and a natural spring in the valley forest.  Pictured below is Blue Hole #3- a sign near the site notes that such waterholes are karst windows, a place where underground rivers are exposed on the surfaces.

 

A big attraction in Lost River Cave is a boat tour through the cave.  A number of our family members were able to get on the same tour which was guided by a park ranger.  Before boarding us on a boat she gave us information regarding the Lost River and its history.  Apparently during the Civil War a number of soldiers had fallen into the river never to be seen again.  It was thought that the river was quite deep for that to happen.  Further investigation in later years revealed that a very strong current had swept the men away, and the river was not all that deep.  As the ranger was speaking to us we heard the sound of nuts cascading down, then a large CRACK and a KABOOM as a tree branch fell near where we were standing.  The large branch fell on chairs set up for a wedding.  Fortunately the wedding was to be held later in the day!

We saw the wedding reception hall inside the cave as we boarded our boat.

This area of the cave had been the site of a night club where many big bands played from 1933 to 1960.  The first wedding was held here in 1934.  Our cave tour was quite different than the one we had taken in Mammoth Cave, as there are only few formations here.  Of interest are the fossil markings on the cave ceiling as well as carvings on its' wall by outlaw Jesse James who hid out here.  Union and Confederate soldiers explored the cave and signed their names with smoke-writing in the upper passages.

Lost River Cave is in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  While in that city we also toured Corsair Distillery.  Last Saturday the reunion ended and since then John and I have returned to Southern Illinois.

Mammoth Cave

Our family reunion has come and now is only a wonderful memory.  The majority of our family did attend and the weather cooperated for us.  We all were expecting very hot temperatures, but after the first couple of days of the reunion the temperatures dropped to the mid 80s and we were very comfortable the rest of the week.  Strangely, even the camp fire which we had every evening for our devotional time felt good and took the chill out of the air!  And the setting for our reunion was beautiful, which was the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  On the second day of our reunion most of us had an opportunity to take a tour of Mammoth Cave.  The cave, one of about 200 caves, was discovered in 1816.  It was authorized as a national park in 1926.  Several park caves have been shown to be connected, and the cave system extends well beyond the national park boundary.  Caves and sinkholes, which are also found in other parts of our country, are part of a karst topography in which the landscape is shaped by water. 

The tour which many of us took is called the Domes and Dripstones Tour.   Our guide took us down a 280 step staircase- we climbed down through deep pits and narrow openings into larger passageways.  Beneath Mammoth Cave lies the largest cave system in the world.  The full extent of this water-formed labyrinth is still unknown.  Four hundred miles of it has been surveyed, it is believed that 600 miles of it is still undiscovered.  In the museum, which we took time to look at after our tour, I found a description of the cave as a "big but shallow platter of spaghetti".  The passageways run above and below each other, as pictured below.

At the end of our tour of the cave we passed through a very decorative dripstone area, called the Niagara Formation, which is on the second level.  Five major levels have been identified, and the cave becomes wetter the lower it goes.  Water finds its way into the limestone layers through sinkholes and sinking creeks.  Hidden streams in the cave flow into the Green River.

John and I have toured other caves and are well aware of the white-nose fungal disease which is killing off many of the cave bats in our nation.  It has infested the bats of Mammoth Cave, so to make sure that we do not spread it to other caves we had to walk over a "squishy mat" of soap after leaving the cave.

Falls of the Ohio State Park

Just had to post one final parting shot of the wildflowers which we enjoyed East Harbor State Park.  Besides the coneflowers pictured above we also saw lots of beebalm and chicory.

Last Thursday we were parked near another body of water, the north shore of the Ohio River in Clarksville, Indiana.  And Clarksville is north, or across the river from Lexington, Kentucky.  We have been on Eastern Standard Time, but now we are getting use to Central Standard again.  It has all been confusing, I just try not to dwell on it too seriously.  The falls of the Ohio River are pictured above- they really are not like Niagara Falls as you can see.  They use to be a series of rapids caused by water flowing over ledges of hard limestone.composed of large numbers of fossils.  A dam was built in the 1920s and the flow of water was restricted, now most of the rapids are covered with water.

The Falls of the Ohio River State Park has historical significance.  Pictured above is a statue of Lewis and Clark.  A plaque under their figures notes "When they shook hands the Lewis and Clark expedition began".  The two men met at the home of George Rogers Clark, the older brother of William who founded and licved in Clarksville.  Saturday morning we moved further into Kentucky, near Mammouth Cave National Park, where my family, the Lohrmanns, are having a family reunion.  I think that this year we are having close to about 80 in attendance, it is the largest reunion for us so far!

Put-in-Bay and South Brass Island

One of the reasons that we are parked on Lake Erie is to visit Put-in-Bay and see the Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial.  Yesterday we took our bikes and boarded a ferry which brought us to South Brass Island and the village of Put-in-Bay.  We got around the island fairly easy all day as there are bike paths, and usually when we have to share the road with motorized  vehicles the majority of them are golf carts.  In the background of the picture is the granite column of the memorial which has a copper urn on top.

Flags along the road to the memorial are that of Canada, Great Britain, America, and Ohio.  The memorial also celebrates the peace which we share with Great Britain and Canada.  Between us is the longest undefended border in the world.  At the 1931 dedication of the memorial it was noted that our relationship with Great Britain and Canada should be an inspiration for world peace.

At the visitor's center we learned more about the decisive battle of the War of 1812 which took place  on September 10, 1813.  Winning that battle gave America control of Lake Erie as well as the Northwestern territory.   We watched a movie in the museum which gave all the details of that battle.  It told how Captain Perry left his wooden ship the U.S.Brig Lawrence, after its' sails were shredded with many soldiers killed or wounded, and boarded the U.S.Niagara with his "Don't Give Up The Ship" flag in hand.  It was an important moment in the battle leading up to our victory.  At the end of the day Captain Perry wrote in his famous summary of the day's events: " we have met the enemy and they are ours.."

Put-in-Bay village has the usual tourist shops and restaurants.  After an early supper of fish (of course) we continued our tour of the island on our bikes, and found the "oldest church on the island" (the quotation was taken from the church sign).  I learned later that the church, St.Paul's Episcopal, was built in 1864 and financed partly with the assistance of Jay Cooke.   I wrote of him in my previous posting.

Our last stop of the day, before boarding the ferry for our return trip home, was the South Brass Island Light.  The lighthouse is in a Queen Anne style brick building which has a 60 foot tower attached to the keeper's home.  It is no longer in operation, the lighthouse was closed in 1962 when the U.S. Coast Guard replaced it with an automated light tower.

Sandusky, Ohio

Sunday afternoon we decided to see how close we could get to Cedar Point amusement park and see some of the rides which we have been noticing from across Lake Erie.  We drove on the causeway which took us directly into the park, however we were immediately prevented from going any further because of the presence of a ticket booth.  What a difference from the late 1800s when a ferry transported people over to that island and there were only white sandy beaches, picnic tables and a dancing pavilion!  From Cedar Point we drove to the waterfront of Sandusky for a fish supper.  Perch and walleye are the common fish of Lake Erie, we have hardly missed a day since we have arrived here to partake of a fish meal.  After supper we walked across the street to a park with an interesting statue.  It is of an African American couple with a baby.  The sculpture was created with chains.

The park had interpretive signs regarding the Underground Railroad.  Sandusky was a major stop for run-away slaves on the Underground Railway.  Harriet Beecher Stowe used the city as the gate to freedom for the fugitives in her book Uncle Tom's Cabin.  In this park we also learned that the Union during the Civil War was financed partly by the local banker Jay Cooke.  From the waterfront we drove to downtown Sandusky and Washington Park which features tropical plants and gardens with ornate designs.

Here we found the Boy with a Boot sculpture.  It is a replica of the original one created in 1895, and is the city symbol for Sandusky.

  I tried searching the net for more information on that, found nothing except some fascinating about the street pattern of the city.  It is the only city in the world with the streets overlaid with the symbols of the Freemasons.  While walking around Washington park I also saw a few small lighthouses.

Some towns are decorated with a variety of cows and horses, in Sandusky it is lighthouses.  I found one near Zion Lutheran and then saw an  historical marker across the street from that church at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church.  Notre Dame Head Football Coach Knute Rockne was married in the rectory of that church in 1914.  The priest and Knute's best man had both worked with him at Cedar Point.  We started out thinking that there was not much to see in Sandusky, but instead discovered it to be a fascinating town having beautiful sights as well as an interesting past.  To find out what the town had to offer we just needed to get out of the car and do a bit of walking.

Schedel Arboretum and Garden- Part Two

I do believe my readers know me by now, that I cannot write on any botanical gardens or arboretums in one posting!  And now back to subject of the Dawn Redwoods.  

This grove of “living fossils”, with their shaggy auburn bark, was started in the 1950s.  They were once believed to be extinct, however in 1941 a 1,000 of them were found in remote areas of China.  Scientists from Harvard University sponsored an expedition to collect seeds from the trees and soon the first trees were planted in America.  Another interesting tree is the Bristlecone pine, which John has been looking for since he first read about them.  This species, in its native environs, can live for millennia, and there are specimens over 4,700 years old in existence.  We found one in the Schedel gardens, upon examination of the tiny cones on the tree we discovered they had bristles on their surface.

In my previous posting you may have noticed the thousands of annuals planted along the mansion’s driveway, and also a smaller amount of begonias and other plants around the Los Bailadores Flamenco marble sculpture, pictured above.  The beds of the gardens are planted with nearly 20,000 annuals each year.  To plant and maintain so many meticulously manicured beds of plants looks like a lot of work to me!  Schedel Gardens has a staff of 15-20 full and part-time staff.  They also are helped by nearly 100 volunteers, student interns and master gardeners.

As you may notice from the above last two pictures, art has become an important feature of the gardens.   The sculpture pictured above is called The Sower.  I liked it the best, it gave the impression that the little girl was holding a bouquet of lilies.  As a garden brochure has explained it so well, it is an example of “how art enhances the beauty of the gardens as well as how gardens can enhance the beauty of art”.  In closing, pictured below are the flowers of a rose of Sharon bush, I have not seen one before with blue flowers!

 

Schedel Arboretum and Gardens

For more than 50 years this Victorian Mansion was the home of Marie and Joseph Schedel, it was built in 1888.   The house, located outside of Elmore, Ohio, was occupied by the Schedels from 1930 to 1989.  It sits on a bluff overlooking the Portage River and the property’s two adjacent lakes.  There is a total of 17 acres of land on the estate.  Pictured below is a path winding its way down toward river. In the background of the picture is the Schedel’s summer cottage called the “shack”.

The couple spent most of their time there as the mansion was too much like a museum for them. The Schedels had traveled to more than 100 countries and brought back ideas of nature and art to use in their home and gardens.  They had a special passion for the orient and far eastern cultures, as evidenced in the Japanese section of their gardens.

In the Japanese garden there is a large red Torii, as well as lanterns and pagodas, waterfalls and a small pond.  Here the cremated remains Dr. Schedel and his wife lie under a pagoda.  In the Japanese Garden, as well as throughout the grounds, are twenty different varieties of Japanese maples.  They provide a beautiful splash of color with their reddish colored leaves.  We found a small Japanese maple located in the bonsai shelter of the gardens.  The structure houses a collection of miniaturized pruned trees known as bonsai, the oldest one being 70 years of age.  The practice of expertly shaping the small trees was started in ancient China, but was perfected by the Japanese.  Some of the bonsai are pictured below.  Here we also found a dawn redwood, we had just seen a grove of those trees in another part of the gardens.  More on that tree in my next posting.

On The Shores of Lake Erie

We are back in Ohio, parked in East Harbor State Park.  Too bad we don't fish,  the western basin of Lake Erie has the best fishing of all the Great Lakes combined.  East Harbor Park is situated on a peninsula of land stretching into the waters of Lake Erie.   The history of Lake Erie, as well as all the Great Lakes, goes back to the Pleistocene Ice Age when glaciers came grinding down from the north.  In the area of Ohio massive sheets of ice gouged and scoured the bedrock of the land in East Harbor park (and other areas on the shores of Lake Erie) where there is evidence of  glacial grooves or striations.    

                             

In the first two days we have been here we have hiked Middle Harbor, which is near our campground.  It is a game sanctuary where black-crowned night herons, egrets, great blue herons and other shorebirds find refuge.  We have seen many of those shore birds,feeding in the shallow waters of Lake Erie.  Yesterday, Friday, we drove to the Marblehead Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the Great Lakes.

 

The lighthouse was built in 1821.  Currently it has an LED green light which flashes every 6 seconds and can be seen for 11 nautical miles.  Over the years the lighthouse has used oil, lard, coal and kerosene lamps to incandescent electric and LED light.  We climbed all 72 steps to the top of the lighthouse where we looked over the waters of Lake Erie to the Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Put In  Bay, as well as the keeper’s house which was directly below us.  It was built at the same time as the lighthouse.

From Marblehead we drove to Johnson Island, the site of a Civil War prison camp for Confederate Officers.  The Island in recent years has seen lots of development, and we found only a couple of makers noting the island's historic importance.  The prison’s cemetery, however, is still present on the island, preserved by the Federal government in 1932.   In 1890 206 marble markers replaced the hand carved wooden grave markers, courtesy of the citizens of Georgia.  Reportedly 9,000 men passed through the gates of the prison during the Civil War.  Some resources indicate that more than 300 died while imprisoned on the island.   The cemetery is pictured below, a brass figure of a soldier stands guard over it- he is the “Lookout”.

The cemetery is only a short distance from the shores of Lake Erie

Saginaw County's Castle Museum

Pictured above is the Castle Museum, which we visited when we toured downtown Saginaw two years ago.  And pictured below is also the Castle Museum, constructed by Lego blocks. 

We returned there Wednesday mainly because the Castle Museum currently has an “Inspired by Bricks” exhibition, which is the area’s largest Lego brick architectural display.   It was constructed by Scot Thompson, a registered nurse from Bay City who started working on the display in 2008.  He built with Lego bricks actual structures which are located in Bay City, Saginaw and Midland.  We have seen the landmarks of those three cities and Thompson has done a good job in reconstructing them.  Also located in this exhibit area is a movie running continuously on how the Lego Company started in 1932 from what was once a wooden toy company in Denmark, a very fascinating story!

 When we had visited the museum before it was near closing time two years ago so we just had seen a few displays of Saginaw County’s history on the first floor.   This time we made it to the basement of the building where there is a very large HO scale model train exhibit, The Castle Express.   We saw three trains running, each having about 20-30 cars.  The large layout has over 1000 feet of track.  The volunteer running the train commented to us that the Saginaw Area Module Modelers are very happy to have found a permanent home for their trains in the Castle museum.

 And for members of my family who perhaps may be reading this, I found in the museum a small display pertaining to the Lufkin Rule Company where our mother worked for about 7 years before her marriage to Dad.  The Company first started manufacturing board and log rules for the logging industry in 1869.  During the time my Mother worked there, roughly from 1931-37, the company had diversified into manufacturing an extensive line of measuring devices.    Lufkin Rule closed its’ doors in 1946.