Tag: Photography

Yesterday in brief:

• The Nature Conservancy’s Oklahoma Tallgrass Prairie Preserve was as good, if not better, than the NPS-managed Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas. With 39,000 acres the vistas were awe-inspiring, and the 2700 bison were a nice touch.
• The Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge was added to the itinerary because I’m incapable of ignoring green dots on the map. This turned out to be a very good thing – in addition to the hundreds of thousands of birds (a number reported by the refuge that I fully believe), from today onwards I can no longer answer the question “Have you ever seen an armadillo” in the negative.
• The morning’s location is Dodge City (of “Get the hell out of Dodge” fame), followed by a trek towards Vail to see younger Holliday. Another day in Kansas/Oklahoma actually would have been a good thing, but a giant snowstorm heading east from California says otherwise.

The tiniest bit of sun would have made today a great photo day – the tallgrass prairie is really pretty – but unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans. Despite the overcast the day was a good one for hiking, and eight miles of roaming allowed tons of time for reflection. A resolution for 2011 may be to make an effort to do at least one long hike a month, ’cause it’s a mighty good way to sort out what few thoughts my working neurons generate.

After a day on the prairie enjoying the scenery and the company of hawks and eagles, the plan is to do more of the same tomorrow across the border in Oklahoma. It turns out that the Nature Conservancy owns most of the land on which the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve sits, as well as a larger preserve in Oklahoma, so it’s encouraging to see where support for this organization is going.

The great expedition of discovery to Kansas was pushed back a day – instead I spent a chilly and icy morning slipping on the walkways near the Gateway Arch and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, followed by a drive across the rest of the Show Me state. After a mid-morning departure from St. Louis the state’s backroads led to the capital of Jefferson City, so I detoured and explored what turned out to be an amazing Capitol building that was almost completely open to the public – maybe it’s because the state government is on holiday break, but there were no security checks and no one seemed to mind that a slightly hairy, fairly smelly 35 year old was roaming the halls.

The afternoon led on a roundabout tour past the distressingly touristy Lake of the Ozarks – I quit counting after the fifth go-cart course and ten millionth houseboat – and this journal entry is being made from a Starbucks at the state’s western edge, just outside of Kansas City. The plan for the rest of the night and tomorrow includes heading into Kansas to try and find a place to park the Subaru for the evening, followed by a morning visit to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. After that it’s anyone’s guess what other wonders the amazing Sunflower state might have to offer.

It turns out that weekdays in December are a ridiculously good time to visit Mammoth Cave. The Frozen Niagara Tour and the Historic Tour had “participant limits” of 36 and 110 people, respectively, but only five people were on each tour today. According to the ranger who led the first tour, they get 5000 people a day during the summer, and the day after Labor Day that number immediately drops to 300 per day. Today there were perhaps 30 people in the park.

My love of spelunking is well documented, and today continued that proud tradition. I probably would have spent more time underground, but the requirement for visiting Mammoth Cave with a ranger and an imminent winter storm limited the options. That said, the Frozen Niagara Tour (which I remembered from a trip when I was eleven) and the Historical Tour (which I’d never done before) were both awesome – while Carlsbad has bigger rooms and more decoration, Mammoth was carved by underground rivers and as a result has hundreds of miles of passages, some the size of highway tunnels. During the two tours a handful of very creepy cave crickets and cave spiders appeared from the shadows, and a very cute pack rat and tiny bat also made appearances. Some interesting facts:

• Organized tours of the cave began in 1816, making Mammoth Cave one of North America’s oldest tourist attractions.
• Last year the length of surveyed passages was 360 miles. This year it is 392. They expect to be over four hundred miles of explored caves by summer. Mammoth is easily the world’s longest cave system.
• The cave has twenty-eight entrances, seven of which are natural.
• The name of the cave comes from the giant passageways, not the prehistoric elephant.

Tonight I’m in Bloomington to visit Audrey (she’s on a job at the University of Indiana) then, weather permitting, it’s off in the direction of Kansas and Oklahoma for some further exploration.

Last night was spent in a hotel – $40 for a bed, a shower, and the opportunity not to sleep in the back of a car in 18°F temperature was well worth it.

The earlier experience on the Natchez Trace Parkway was so good that I decided to detour 80 miles back to it and traverse the remaining 150 miles. Unfortunately the road was closed due to icy conditions (I assume) thirty miles from its terminus, but until then I enjoyed more birds, deer, turkeys, history, hiking, and life in general. The opportunity to drive across three states without seeing any stop signs, businesses along the road, or anything but forest and farmland is one that I don’t think is available elsewhere in the country, and it was greatly enjoyed.

Tomorrow the plan is for more caving in Mammoth Cave National Park, then it’s up to Bloomington to harass Audrey for an evening. After that Kansas and Oklahoma are on the agenda, although Mother Nature apparently decided that a massive cold front offered insufficient hardship and is now also whipping up snow & ice storms, so hopefully the roads will remain open in the coming days.