Beautiful Missouri

Bolivar Bound

We headed up out of the Fayetteville Arkansas area and quickly reached Missouri. This state is really very beautiful -- prettier than I imagined. More rolling, lush green hills, lots of trees, and critters everywhere! OK, here's the roadkill report: we still have armadillos, but now we also have possums and even raccoons.

Before I tell you about more critters, let me tell you about a couple of funny or interesting things. When we first got into Missouri, we drove through a town called "Jane." That was odd enough, but then I saw the "Bank of Jane". That just struck me really funny!

Also, I was surprised to see that Missouri allows year-round fireworks stores -- even "superstores".

Anyway, we drove into Bolivar, where my Dad lives. Now the town was named after the South American hero, Simon Bolivar (pronounced "boh'-lee-var"). But this town is pronounced to rhyme with "Oliver". Just an amusing bit of Americana.

Anyway, my Dad has a great place. It's about 63 acres of woods, pasture, ponds, and more critters. Dad wants to clear out the brush and rocks, and make it an actual animal habitat. He's doing everything he can to encourage all kinds of animals to show up on his property.

I saw some of the most beautiful birds there, some that I've never seen before. Here are some of the birds that we saw: goldfinch, dove, bluejay, downy woodpecker, owl, wild turkey, nut hatch, titmouse (yes, it's a bird), hummingbird, red-wing blackbird, cardinal, indigo bunting, and the infamous yellow-bellied sap-sucker (which doesn't have a yellow belly, by the way)! I'm glad my Dad knew the names of all the birds, because it made the stay more interesting.

He has a patio just right off his dining area, and every morning he throws a seed and grain mixture out on the patio. All day we watched all the various birds, as well as red and gray squirrels, come up and eat on the patio. It was just so relaxing -- and entertaining -- to watch these beautiful creatures from so convenient a spot.

One little red squirrel was particularly entertaining -- he was there to stay for a while. He stayed on the patio and ate for over an hour. And so he wouldn't tire himself out, he just layed on the patio on his belly, in the middle of the food, with his legs just sprawled out. It was so funny to watch him.

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Besides sitting around watching the animals ;-) we also played...er, I mean worked, on the burn piles. Dad had cleared out a lot of brush, so we had to keep the burn pile going. I tell you, that will bring out the pyro in anyone. Again it was just relaxing to stand near the fire, with that great wood-burning smell, and keep adding wood.

But there was another burn pile out in the pasture that needed taken care of. It started out about 9-10 feet high, but with leaves and other quick-burning material in the middle, the blaze went up really high and really hot. It was a pyro's dream! ;-)

We also had to bring some logs from the pasture to the log pile, so that required the tractor, which looks like a little minibulldozer -- and I got to drive it! I felt like a real country girl! ;-)

While we were there, there were a couple of good ol' midwestern thunderstorms, with dumping water and really loud claps of thunder. Then they went away as fast as they came. I love thunderstorms like that. Amazingly, though, they didn't make fires completely go out.

Back In The House

Mike and Dad also worked on some home projects, and I worked on some computer projects. My Dad has been interested in genealogy, but he's really worked on it. He has about 2500 names on his list, some back to the 1500's. I love that! I got his list kinda cleaned up a little bit, then I also got a copy of his database. I'm eventually going to add to it all the names I got from my mom from her side of the family, and I'll have a huge database. That was pretty cool. I also got several more copies of some old family pictures that I will add to my collection.

Along with all the pics and info, Dad also had a collection of stuff from my Grandpa Black. My Grandpa was a very interesting and talented guy. Dad had a bunch of poems and songs that my Grandpa wrote, and it was very entertaining going through those. Dad asked me to take the songs to the piano and play them so he could hear them. As I plunked my way through these Christian songs that Grandpa wrote in the 30's, it was very cool to think about what I was doing. We also looked at some of Grandpa's handiwork -- carving, metalworking, etc. Grandpa's been gone for almost 25 years, so it was fun to go through all this stuff.

The Thrill of Throwed Rolls

Finally, I have to tell you about a place we went to eat called Lambert's, in the town of Ozark. They are known for their "throwed rolls" (huh?). They make these awesome freshly baked yeast rolls, and as soon as they're done, a guy comes out and starts throwing them out from clear across the room to whomever puts their hands up (which, of course, I did! -- more than once!!). We ordered our main dish, but both before and during the meal (and after, too), guys bring around big bowls of freshly cooked fried okra, black-eyed peas, fried potatoes, and macaroni & tomatoes. You can have as much of that great southern food as you want -- and this is in addition to the huge main dish (we all had southern fried steak with mashed potatoes and green beans, served in a big skillet).
Do you get the picture?? A huge, delicious, fun southern meal experience!! What could be better (ok, and more fattening) than that??!!

OK, as you can tell, I had a great time in Bolivar. My dad and I had some great talks, he shared some family stories that I hadn't heard before, and we ate some great food!

Quick Jaunt Back To Kansas

We've had a recurring little problem in our fifth wheel that we knew the manufacturer had a fix for, so we decided to just jump over to the big city of Chanute, Kansas (not far from the Missouri border), to get it fixed. As we crossed over into Kansas, we discovered Fort Scott, which was one of a line of forts spread in a north-to-south line across the midwest to separate the states from the Indian Territories. It was later used in the anti- and pro-slavery efforts.
It was very interesting to see the well-preserved quarters, and to see how they lived out on the frontier. This discovery was a nice little piece of serendipity.

We also passed through a little town called "Gas." And yes, they had a "Bank of Gas". What a crack-up!

When we got to the manufacturer in Chanute, we were told that it could take probably five days before they could get to us. After having driven through Chanute very quickly, and seeing what was there (or not!), we were not looking forward to that possibility! Michael thought that was not a good answer, so he asked to speak to the president of the company. They had a nice chat (!), and next thing we knew, he was asking us to get the rig over there as soon as possible. They had it fixed in three hours instead of five days! Well, what do you know??!! That was a huge relief, and we were able to get back on the road.

Goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come...

We both wanted to check out Kansas City, but weren't sure exactly what was there. Frankly, I was expecting an old, industrial, past-its-prime city on flat land. I couldn't have been more wrong! I absolutely LOVE Kansas City! It is an incredible, dynamic, beautiful city with a ton of things to do! There are unique shopping and museum areas, a dynamic downtown, professional baseball and football, and fountains everywhere! They say that the only city with more fountains is Rome, and I believe it. There are some gorgeous fountains that rival anything I ever saw in Rome.

There's also some great food. Monday was our 26th anniversary (!), and I wanted to try some authentic Kansas City barbeque. We went to "Jack Stack's" and the food was incredible! We had the best ribs I've ever had (other than Michael's, of course).

Here's just a random observation -- we saw about 10-12 guys (maybe in their early 20's) in the park on their bikes. They were riding on the grass, and playing frisbee while on the bikes! There were teams, and they were trying to toss it to each other and make it to the "end zone." When they dropped the frisbee, they would ride by and lean over and pick it up. I was so amazed at what they were doing!

More Serendipity

While we were at my Dad's, his wife Lanna was out in California with her parents, so we didn't get to see her. I knew that Dad was picking her up at the Kansas City airport on Tuesday, but we had to be in Chanute on Monday, and we were supposed to be there for a few days, so I figured we wouldn't get to see her. But since we ended up in Kansas City Monday evening, I called Dad to let him know. After he picked up Lanna, we met them for lunch (at the Cheesecake Factory -- yum!!). We then toured around Kansas City, since they had never really seen it either. We spent a few hours together, and had a good time.

Money, Money, Money

Wednesday morning we drove downtown to take a tour of the Federal Reserve Bank (yep, we know how to have a good time on vacation!!). Actually, it was extremely interesting. We saw how they run through all of the checks that are processed in the rather large Kansas City district. This huge machine runs through 60,000 checks in an hour. We also saw them process cash that runs through the banks. There was a room with 3 ladies in it. They were processing just this one big bin of $20's -- and the bin totalled $2.8 million! And that was just part of their work. We had to be careful where we went and what we touched (or not), and we always had to be in sight of the many cameras. When we left, we got to take a souvenir bag of shredded cash which represented $165. I thought about getting out the tape, but nah....

When You Care Enough To Send The Very Best

After the money tour, we went and toured the Visitor Center at the large Hallmark facility (this is their headquarters). They had displays about their history and all the stuff they produce (cards, ornaments, TV shows, etc). They also had a bow-making machine that you got to see operate (amazing!), and you got to take the little souvenir bow with you (actually I made two). One of the interesting parts was that they had a section set up where we could see them running some actual cards through the part of the process that stamps on the gold foil print. We stood there a long time and talked to the guy. Michael is always interested in machinery, so they spent a long time talking about how their process works. It was very interesting. We really hit it off with this guy, so before we left, he went back and got a big basket of bows and let me choose however many and whatever colors I wanted. Bonus!!

An Amazing President

In the afternoon, we headed out to Independence to the Truman Presidential Library. Wow, it was quite impressive! Of course, he took over the presidency when Roosevelt died in 1945, then was elected in 1948 and served through 1952. I certainly knew the various events that happened during that time, but when you look at it all together in this library, it's stunning what he had dumped in his lap! After being in office for 4 months, he made the decision to drop the bomb. And over the next few years, he had to deal with the Korean conflict, sweeping things up in Europe and Asia, the establishment of the State of Israel, rampant economic turmoil at home, McCarthyism, civil rights and lots of other "tough stuff." When he left office, he only had a 30% approval rating. But history has shown that he actually had to make some huge decisions, and did a good job in doing so, even though they weren't necessarily popular at the time. I think this is one Democrat that I could have voted for!
(By the way, that's Truman on the left).

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There are a lot more pics of these things on my photosite, which may be found at http://semitte.photosite.com. Just a hint, if you don't want to look through the entire album again each time, just hit the "previous" button. The pics will be in reverse order, but it should still be ok.

Well, we're heading up through Iowa and on up to Minneapolis. I look forward to seeing what that large city has to offer. I'll be sure to give you an update next time!