We left Columbia in the early, early morning and headed for the foothills of South Carolina and then on into the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. This day was meant for driving, and our first serious stop was in Knoxville.
TENNESSEE
This state’s name might well be an old Indian word for “music.” It’s the home of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley
and the Grand Ole Opry. We swung through
the Smoky Mountains and stopped for lunch in Knoxville. This is the home of the University of
Tennessee and everything around is orange (except this wheat field).
KENTUCKY
The Bluegrass State is simply beautiful – rolling pastures and white fences,
home to some of the world’s finest thoroughbred horses. We missed the Kentucky Derby, but enjoyed the
scenery all the way to Paducah, at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee
Rivers.
ILLINOIS
Driving across southern Illinois, the farms are huge – more corn and soybeans than
most have seen in a day’s time. Three
presidents have claimed this state as their political base – Lincoln, Grant and
Obama. Curiously, the only U.S.
President actually born here was Ronald Reagan.
MISSOURI
On the Mississippi River at St. Louis,
the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, aka the Gateway Arch. The Arch was completed in 1965 as a symbol of
westward expansion.
Near the arch is the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France. Locally known as the old Cathedral, this was
the first (1834) Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River.
IOWA
John Deere is celebrating its 94th year in Waterloo, Iowa – making tractors. No little garden tractors here – these folks
make the BIG stuff. Every tractor is
custom-made, with an order from an individual customer or a dealer. Many customers come to the plant to follow
their tractor through the assembly line; with a $400,000 price tag – you might
want to be sure it was perfect. We
watched parts and pieces come together, get painted, and tested and
retested. Humans share the work with a
variety of robots, which do the heavy lifting, the transport between stations,
and the painting. An absolutely amazing
process.
The Little Brown Church in the Dale is a small Congregational Church
founded in 1855 in Nashua, Iowa. Curiously, the famous song (The Church in the
Wildwood) was written before the church was built – William Pitts was struck by
the beauty of this place and had a vision of a little church in the village. He wrote a song about a church that didn’t
exist. When the church was constructed
several years later, imagine Pitt’s amazement when he returned to the area and
found the church of his dream.
Today, over 50,000 visitors come to the Little Brown Church every year and over
400 weddings are performed annually. Our
visit included lunch prepared by the ladies of the church, a little history
presentation by the pastor, and – of course – a singing of the song - accompanied on the old pump organ by Jane Sexton, one of our talented fellow travelers.
MINNESOTA
The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, is the largest shopping mall in the U.S.: 520 stores, 50 restaurants, and a 7-acre amusement park. Best bet: the huge LEGO store for kids of all ages. Besides an amazing array of LEGO stuff to try or buy, there are 8 larger-than-life models including a 34-foot-tall LEGO robot.
NORTH
DAKOTA
Fargo, North Dakota, is the place to
find the Roger Maris Museum, which honors the hometown hero who shattered Babe
Ruth’s legendary 1927 home run record.
In 1961, playing for the New York Yankees, Roger Maris hit 61 homers in
a single season – a record that would stand for the next 37 years.
Bismarck is the capital of North
Dakota, and its State House is a 19-storey building, the tallest building in
the entire state. This skyscraper on the
prairie is not very exciting, but the grounds are green and beautiful. Among the many monuments is a statue of
Sacajawea, the Shoshone Indian woman who guided the Lewis and Clark expedition
from the Missouri River to the Yellowstone River.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in
the western part of North Dakota, was established as a memorial honoring
Roosevelt’s conservation work and recognizing this landscape’s influence on his
life. The park also is a monument to the
power of water – years of erosion have uncovered layer after layer of
sediments, creating harsh but colorful scenes.
MONTANA
The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument near Bighorn, Montana, commemorates an
historic battle between the U.S. Army and the Native Americans who called this
area home. In June 1876, Lt. Colonel
George Armstrong Custer and the men under his command made their last stand
against several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne Indians, many of whom were fleeing
the restrictions of the reservation.
This battle has come to illustrate a part of what Americans know as
their western heritage: heroism and suffering, victory and defeat, brashness
and humiliation, triumph and tragedy.
The Little Bighorn National Cemetery is the final resting place for
veterans of the Indian wars and conflicts that followed over the years.
The battleground site is surrounded by the Crow Indian Reservation. Wild horses can be spotted, but they are very
shy and difficult to approach. The
battleground today is haunting in its peace and tranquility – markers,
monuments and trails criss-crossing the prairie’s ridges and gullies, as well
as the Little Big Horn River Valley where some 7000 Indians were encamped.
On this knoll, Custer and 41men shot their horses for breastworks and made
their last stand. White markers have
been placed where each man fell. The marker
painted black carries the name of George Custer. The remains of Custer and other officers were
carried back east for burial. The rest
of the troops were buried in a mass grave around the base of the memorial
shaft, which bears the names of soldiers, scouts and civilians who died here.
Scattered across the battlefield, the Army has erected 249 headstone markers to
show where all of Custer’s men fell – silent testament to their leader’s
foolishness.
More recently, the National Park Service has erected red granite markers at
known casualty site of Cheyenne and Lakota warriors.
The city of Billings has a unique
and unusual setting, at the foot of a massive wall of sandstone rimrock
exposed by the Yellowstone River. Even
more important, Billings is the home of Susan Schwidde, our friend from last
year’s African safari. What a treat to
visit with Susan and her menagerie, to meet her friend Donna, to enjoy a
delicious homemade meal, AND to watch the solar eclipse.
Missoula, Montana, is located along
the Clark Fork and Bitteroot Rivers, at the convergence of five mountain
ranges. It’s a beautiful area, and the
city has established an extensive network of walking/biking trails – we enjoyed
our riverside hotel location with easy access to the river and the trail
system.
Missoula
Smokejumpers Base and Aerial Fire Depot is the largest of
seven such bases operated by the U.S. Forest Service. Smoke jumpers are highly skilled firefighters
who parachute into remote areas to battle wildfires.
They fly out wearing protective shuts, helmet and chutes that weigh in at about
100 pounds. On the ground, they carry
chain saws, fuel, food, water – needless to say, these guys and gals are in
great shape. And whatever they are paid, it isn't enough.
The smokejumpers’ program started in 1939 and reached its high point in 1960
with over 200 jumpers at the Missoula base.
Today only 60-65 jumpers are stationed here, in spite of increasing
numbers of wildfires in western states.
Federal budget cuts affect everybody, even the good guys.
Also in Missoula, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation works to conserve
elk habitat across the U.S. and Canada.
Over 4 million acres of protected habitat has allowed elk – and other
wildlife – to prosper and be enjoyed by future generations.
Wallace, Idaho is a quaint and
quirky little town in the panhandle of the state. It is the center of a large lead and silver
mining region and includes several of the world’s largest and deepest silver
mines. Over 1.2 billion ounces of silver
have been mined here – more than anywhere else in the world. The area was first settled in 1864 and many
old buildings have been preserved – in fact, the entire town is on the National
Register of Historic Places. Even with
all that, it may be that the most interesting thing in town is a manhole cover
declaring this place as the Center of the Universe. In the interest of “probabilistic” science,
all are welcome to prove otherwise.
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