April 11-14th Oklahoma City to NW Missouri

April 11-14 2012 Oklahoma City to NW Missouri

April 11-12

The last day in Oklahoma  City (Wed) we spent looking for books for Ruth at three book stores (Nope!) and then to the Central Oklahoma University campus where there was a Barnes and Noble and they DID NOT have it either.  

The University Book store includes a
Barnes and Nobles(books)

The entrance to the "U" in Edmond OK
just outside OK City

The day ended with the scheduled last game at home for the Heritage Hill Chargers (Nathan’s team) but die to the heavy downpour of rain the night before the coach said the water soaked the grass on the field to 4 inches . That was too wet to play. (The game was cancelled) So they move into State Tournament in two more weeks. At that last game I did have the privilege of meeting Mrs Barry Sander’s whose son, Barry Jr, plays with Nathan on that tea.

We had dinner that night at my niece’s with a wonderful beef roast on the grill. They       were all tired from a week of baseball on the road, and my sister had to catch a 5:30 plane (ETA)  to Traverse city Mi, so was ready to get some sleep when we left at 8:00 Pm.

The next day  (Thursday) we moved out toward Emporia, Kansas our next stop along the route home. About at the OK/KS border a huge wall cloud appeared and we knew there was rain in it someplace.

The wall cloud outside Topeka,KS

 About the time we moved NE on I-35 out of Wichita, the storm hit hard. The rain was driving and at times the spray from trucks especially, made driving most difficult. This was the first time that we had experienced rain, on this trip,  while driving with the trailer, at least of any duration.  By the time we were about 50 miles from Emporia the rain passed on to the east, so setting up the trailer was in dry air.  We did not see “The Wizard of Oz’s” Dorothy, all the way through Kansas. We did lose a window latch in the storm, but secured that with wire when we stopped for the night. This was the same campground we stopped at on the way back from Alaska. Ruth hankered for Pizza so we did the Pizza Hut trip. It was excellent. Emporia has good steakhouses too.

April 13 (Friday)

Now we had a chance to get our bird count up as the Flint Hills National Wildlife Refuge was here and we headed right for it in the morning. This time the N.W. Refuge HQ. was open. Last year we came on a Saturday and they were closed. It was a good day and one highlight was a FIRST for us. We saw three ...that’s 3... Great Horned Owls on the same day in different places. There was one roosting in the  RV park on a dead tree, one on a road in the NWR that Ruth saw fly by and we stopped and scoped that one. Then a gal in the NWR office told us of one in a cottonwood tree on ”Road 18”, We looked twice there and on the last time going by, we spotted the nest and the owl sitting close by the two young ones.  

The Owl at the nest guarding

Same owl close up at nest site

 the world’s record for women for the highest flight at 14,000 feet (1920’s)world’s record for women for the highest flight at 14,000 feet (1920’s)

Owl at RV Park  was taken at dusk so was very much
a sillohuette.

Among the 42 birds we saw that day were the Yellow Bellied Sapsucker, Eastern Phoebe, Kestrel, and those 3 Great Horned Owls.  Two of the NWR men were cleaning a drain that the beavers had plugged the day before. (They plug it up almost every night) . The NWR is a managed one, in that they move the water from one pond to another periodically to aid the wildlife. Crops are also grown here to feed the birds that come through in migration. (Have to fatten them up!)

April 14 (Saturday) 

As we had very poor reception for the internet at the trailer site, I used the laundry room (By the source of the Wi-Fi) in the evening and sent out some mail in the morning before we left. This portion of the trip will take us off the interstate and on some of the two lane roads that we like so well.  We noticed that these two lane roads are more intimate and closer to homes, barns, telephone lines and fences. All this is good for birding. The clouds threatened but there was no rain all day. This  part of the trip, was a revelation for me to see Kansas and all the woods and streams  and greenery that they have. I had pictured Kansas as very dry and flat, but not here.The NE part of it has a lot of mixed farmland and not so much wheat and corn. 

                                                                                                    At Atchison, KS, we cut across the Missouri river to St. Joseph,where they are constructing a new bridge to replace what has to be the worst surfaced bridge on a major highway in USA.  I wondered why the car behind me staring over the bridge started to slow down, and then I realized why. Here we stopped to eat at a Burger King , which we don’t do often. It was a good change of pace.  Atchison is a town of some 10,000 on the Missouri River and was the eastern hub of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe RR. It is also the birthplace of Amelia Earhardt the famous flyer of the 20’s and 30’s, who had a troubled life (father an alcoholic, unemployed, moved to Chicago), and finally after a first plane ride begged to take lessons. She walked 6 miles from the end of the street car line in San Diego to the airfield each day to do it. She, at one time, held 

The second Owl was in a woods about 75 feet from the road.
Ruth saw it fly by, then light on a tree.

Just before St.Joseph, MO., a 12 mile detour slowed us some and I think that MO 59 detour has the most curves in a row of any road I have been on. It absolutely never had a straight 1/2 mile.  for 12 miles. After St.Joseph it was good road all the way to Eagleville where we stayed just outside of town in a very quiet rural spot. The tornado watches were up in our area but it seemed that Iowa was getting the worst of it further north. 

Two towns near here are Cameron and Bethany, MIssouri. Cameron has the distinction of having some unusual street names , It seems that the city is located on the north and south border of two counties. When they originally named the streets the ones in the southern county were “north and Northeast” and the ones on the southern part of the northern most county were south and southeast.  (Don’t try to find your way around that town without a map!)

The bridge construction onthe Atchison side of the
Missouri River . They NEED a new bridge.

The pastoral view from our trailer at Eagleville, MO

Bethany , the nearest town to Eagleville where we are, is a small town of 3,000 and is the namesake for the Bethany Limestone that has been used in many of the building in the Kansas City area. A large cave here is reputed to be the largest man made cave (limestone quarry) in the world.

Tomorrow we hope to scope out some Recreation areas as there are no NWR in this county. The Prairie Chicken stop that we had planned was cancelled as the man stated that the Prairie Chickens were not to be found in abundance so he closed his blind.