A Posting From Grace

Sorry I didn't write before, I just forgot about the blog. Last Monday, we went fishing in Ohio. When we were done, Lucy got into the car and started to eat crackers. When mom was strapping her in, a finch landed on the edge of the car and it was falling so mom tried to catch it, but then (this is the funny part) it landed on Lucy's head! Lucy and I were totally calm but,mom was freaking out and dad was shouting Get the camera!Get the camera! Before dad could take a picture the finch flew away.I love this trip a lot and, I'm doing a lot of fun stuff. Today I'm going to a ghost town and Garden of the Gods in Colorado.

Goodland, Kansas

Due to unexpected car trouble, we ended up spending an extra day in Kansas, in the town of Goodland by its Western border. The western half of Kansas is endless plains; the roadside signs invite travelors to "break their journey" in this town or another. None of them even pretend to draw visitors as a destination in itself. In Goodland, the mechanics at the car repair place drew my husband's attention to this giant-sized copy of Van Gogh's sunflowers (picture above). They told him, with no little amusement, that it was the town's only tourist attraction.

Overall, though, we liked Kansas a lot and and found the people to be very warm and hospitable. Mike says he came away with increased repect for Kansans and has to hand it to them for making a decent life in a pretty harsh environment.

Home, Home On The Range

We visited the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in the Flint Hills of Kansas today. The preserve is owned by a nonprofit trust and managed by the National Park Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Kansas Park Trust. The reason for this funky ownership model is because of local politics: it took years to create this preserve because of community suspicion of federal government ownership of land. (This might also explain its relatively low-key presence: there was no signage along the road to help direct us to the preserve- though it wasn't at all hard to find). We had a fabulous time on our visit: there is a great information center, several trails through the prairie and a free, ranger- guided 90 minute bus tour through the preserve. While the priairie was once the largest of America's seven ecosystems, only 4% remains. If anyone finds themselves anywhere near Kansas, I would strongly recommend a visit to the preserve to see a really interesting piece of our history. Above is a picture of Grace and Lucy with Ranger Ron.

Jefferson City , MO, July 4 Weekend

We had a really nice weekend in Jefferson City. Our cross-country guidebook was pretty dismissive of Jefferson City, writing it off as an oddly slow state capital. This was not our experience at all. There is a compact little downtown, that feels like small town America, but which has all the amenities you might want. The dominant feature is the state capitol building that looks like a mini US Capitol.

There was a terrific weekend-long July 4 celebration around the capitol building, with 3 bandstands, rides and amusements, various displays and a beer garden. And night time fireworks, of course. We had a memorable Independence Day here.

Though we didn't have time to go there, the City is also not too far from the Lake of the Ozarks, a huge lake and big resort area.

We would stay here again if we were ever in the area.

Mound City, Eastern Ohio

We made a visit to Mound City, or the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, outside of Chillicothee, Ohio. The Park encompasses a series of burial mounds which are the remnants of a civilization that flourished in the Eastern part of the US from about 200 bc until its decline around 500. (A second "lost" civilization supplanted them, and lived here for another 1,000 years or so.) This society was really far flung, running up and down the US between the Mississippi to the Appalchians, with mounds found as far South as Louisiana. Artifacts found in the mounds came from as far away as the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf of Mexico. US 50 running though southern Illinois follows an old causeway across the flood plain made by these ancient people. The causeway runs all the way to St Louis, I think.

What was surprising, and a little embarassing, is that until this road trip, we knew nothing at all about this established and widespread society that was here before us. What's not suprising is that most of the mounds around the country have been degraded and destroyed by development. This is too bad, since so little is known about these people to begin with; the destruction of their remaining sites makes it harder to learn more. If you get a chance, visit Chillocthee of some of the other mound-builder sites. Here's the link: http://www.nps.gov/hocu

Above is picture of Grace at the mounds.

West Virginia & Ohio

Appalachia really is Appalachia. The West Virginia/Eastern Ohio section of US 50 was really beautiful, but also seemed pretty isolated and there weren't many amenities along the road. In West Virginia, we stayed in a nice small campground outside of Romney (Middle Ridge Campground); it was really set up for RVs, (we're tent camping) but the owner took pity on us. In Eastern Ohio, we stayed in a terrific cabin in Hope Lake State Park. The cabins were built by CCC work crews during the Depression. When Mike kidded with the ranger that the cabins were built under the first Economic Stimulus package, she told him they have work crews right now funded under the Obama stimulus: they've employed people to do repairs and upgrades to the campground/park.

We've definitely seen the Stimulus money at work all along the route: road work is going on all over the place, and we've heard a few reports on local radio in various places about new projects being funded under the program. We also frequently bump up a little against the impact of the recession: the state campgrounds we've visited are all seriously under-occupied (some almost empty) which staff blame on the recession. In one campground, the man in the next site had lost his job as an airplane mechanic when DHL shut down in Ohio (that story was on Sixty Minutes; it had a really devastating impact on the town where DHL was based). Our camping neighbor's story mostly worked out: he will be starting a new job in Seattle with Boeing later this month. I say "sort of" worked out because his wife and family- his home- is in Ohio, and his job is now on the other side of the country.

Guilford CT, Matt and Heather's Wedding

Our son,Matthew McGrath, married Heather Dudley yesterday. The bride was gorgeous and the ceremony was beautiful. The wedding was held at the Dudley Farm (photo above), a farm museum in Guilford CT.