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Travelogue:
Total Solar Eclipse in Missouri, August 2017
By Roger W.
Reini
By day:
August: 18 | 19
| | 21 | 22 | 23
| 24 | 25 |
This is a story of a trip to Missouri to see a total eclipse of
the sun, among other things.
Prologue
For years, I’ve read stories about total eclipses and
expeditions to the various parts of the world to see them.
There were at least two partial eclipses visible in the Houston
area in the late 1970’s, one of which was total, albeit
someplace else. We set up our telescope to view the partial
phases. There was one time when I noticed that the sun and sky
were noticeably darker than they should have been at that time
of day. And in 1994, there was an annular eclipse that went
right over Detroit. I took off that day from work, set up the
telescope for that, and got some pictures of it via the solar
projection screen. I think the sky got perceptibly darker then,
too.
Now here’s something about an eclipse I did not see nor could
have seen, for it took place several years before I was born.
There was a total solar eclipse on June 30, 1954; the whole of
the Copper Country was in the path of totality. My parents came
from there; could they have seen it? I think my mom was in
Detroit at the time and would not have seen it. My dad could
have seen it, since he was finishing a term at Michigan Tech in
June and wasn’t inducted into the Army until December. Maybe my
uncle Richard saw it. Sadly there is no way to ask my dad or
uncle, for they are both deceased. My aunt Marie was 10 at the
time but has no memory of it. I suspect nobody saw it, though;
historical data courtesy of wunderground.com shows that it was
foggy around 6 and 7 AM, which is when it would have been
visible. Also, my dad never mentioned anything to me about
seeing a total eclipse; if he had seen one, I think he would
have said something.
Preparation
I’m not sure when I first learned about this 2017 eclipse; it
may have been in an ad for the Mitsubishi Eclipse, of all
things. But I knew that I wanted to see it. This would be my
easiest opportunity to see a total eclipse. I mentioned it to my
uncle Bill, who wanted to see it too. He mentioned it to his
niece Alice and suggested that her son William might want to see
it.
We decided on traveling to Missouri to see the eclipse.
Initially, I was looking at package trips that went to several
locations: Oregon; the national parks in the west; even one
focusing on the music cities of New Orleans, Memphis and
Nashville. But those were a little pricy for my liking. So we
ended up planning our own excursion. The closest part of the
path of totality to Detroit was in Kentucky and Tennessee, but I
preferred somewhere farther west, away from the humidity of the
Gulf of Mexico, and far less likely to be cloudy. I made some
hotel reservations in Kansas City as a contingency plan, but
that turned out to be the main plan. We would stay in Kansas
City near the airport, which was in the path of totality, but we
would plan to travel to St. Joseph, Missouri, which was right on
the centerline of the eclipse.
Several years ago, I’d obtained a solar filter for my 35 mm
cameras. It screwed into the front of the lens. And in April of
this year, I ordered a pair of 10x50 binoculars and a set of
solar filters that go on the front of the binoculars. The
filters worked well on the binoculars.
In July, we started to step up our preparations. We determined
what we needed and wanted to bring. Did I have everything I
needed? I hoped so. At one point, I couldn’t locate the charger
for the batteries for one of my cameras; I ordered a replacement
from Amazon. I had one chair but decided to get a second one,
for we would need four. I saw that Best Buy was carrying items
for safely viewing the eclipse; one of those items was a kit
containing plastic solar filter glasses and a camera filter. I
already had eclipse glasses, but I thought that a spare camera
filter would be a good idea to have, so I got that kit. Now the
filter was just a card that you put in front of the lens, but as
a spare, it would work. Around the same time, I finally decided
that it was time to invest in a GoPro.
The Trip
Thursday August 17
Today was
the day before our departure for Missouri. I had a full
day of work today, although I wasn’t in the office all
day; I worked from home in the afternoon because I had a
meeting with an engineer from Yazaki, one of the big wire
harness manufacturers, whose main offices were some 3 or 4
miles from my condo. After the day was done, I started to
step up my preparations. I ran my dishwasher without
anything in it, for it is prone to seizing up if it sits
for any length of time. I brought home a popcorn chicken
meal from Sonic and proceeded to watch a replay of the
opening day of a cricket Test match between England and
the West Indies. I’d gotten interested in the sport
shortly after buying an Apple TV device, checking out the
WatchESPN app, and deciding on a whim to see what was
available under cricket.
I checked the settings on my cameras and reviewed how to
adjust them; I would need to do that on Sunday and Monday.
I got my LL Bean canvas bag and filled it with the food
I’d be bringing for the trip and for the event. I
continued packing my suitcase, although I couldn’t finish
packing it today; there would be some things that would
have to be packed tomorrow. By now, it was nighttime, time
to relax a bit. I put on another cricket match; this time,
it was a short-format T20 match in the Caribbean Premier
League. When that had wrapped up, I started reading the
ebook version of a new biography of Thomas Jefferson which
had been recommended by the hosts of The Thomas Jefferson
Hour. Then I turned on the stream for Minnesota Public
Radio’s Classical MPR station and listened to that as I
fell asleep.
Top
Friday August 18
Although I didn’t have to go to work today, I still got up at my
regular time. The steam of Classical MPR was still playing; it
was carrying Music Through The Night, hosted this
evening/morning by Andrea Blain. I did my normal things that I
would do on a Friday morning, up to a point, that point being
that I had to finish packing, which I did.
I went to McDonald’s this morning to bring some breakfast, one
of their breakfast burrito meals; as I ate my meal, I was
watching the BBC World News channel (I do watch or listen to
more international news than most Americans, I’d say). Then I
changed my key ring for one with fewer keys on it. Since we’d be
using my uncle’s minivan for the trip, I didn’t need my car
“key” (actually an electronic key fob); all I needed was my
house key. Then I waited for my uncle to call and say that he
was on his way; as it turned out, my aunt made the call (she was
staying home). It was now time to make sure that I had
everything, but my checks revealed that I was in fact missing
something: one of the tripods didn’t have its mount insert, the
one that attaches to the camera. Without that insert, the tripod
was useless. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find it, so it had
to stay home.
I turned on live coverage of day 2 of the England-West Indies
Test cricket match and watched that until I heard a knock at the
door. It was my uncle Bill. Time to bring out my stuff and load
the minivan. Time to turn off the TV and set the A/C at 78 so
that it would not be ridiculously hot when I got home next week.
We pulled out of the driveway around 9:30; our trip had begun!
Bill said there had been an accident on I-94 west of Ann Arbor,
so to avoid that, we went south to Toledo. There was
construction there, but once we got through there, we had few
difficulties. We headed southwest on US 24 to Fort Wayne. On the
way down, we were listening to Michigan Radio, the largest
public radio service in Michigan — first the BBC World Service
Newshour, then a program called The 1A, dedicated to the First
Amendment. We stopped at a Love’s truck stop just across the
border in Indiana for a restroom break and a lunch break at
McDonald’s. We kept on searching for the public radio stations
en route (this helped reduce any anxiety from not having
satellite radio available) and listened to Here And Now and
Fresh Air.
We made an unplanned stop at Fry’s Electronics in Fishers near
Indianapolis. Bill was looking for an appropriate power supply
to power the VLF radio receiver he would be constructing as part
of the Eclipse Mob propagation experiment for the eclipse. He
didn’t find one but did get some heat shrink tubing. When we
left, I was behind the wheel (I’d actually been driving since a
rest area visit on I-69) and drove us around Indy (the city, not
the speedway) before stopping at another rest area. Here, we
switched roles again, for I now had to make a hotel reservation
for the night. How far could we go? We figured Effingham,
Illinois was a good stopping point, so I made a reservation for
the Days Inn there.
The drive on I-70 through western Illinois was uneventful, and
the drive into Illinois started out that way. As I was checking
something on my iPad, Bill pulled over onto the shoulder. I
wondered why, but then I saw why: a police car was heading by at
high speed with lights flashing, followed by a fire truck. There
had to have been an accident up ahead, we figured. Soon, we were
in a slowdown on the freeway, and then we could see what was
happening: there had been a bad accident on the other side of
the freeway. One semi truck was in the median, the side of its
trailer ripped open. Another semi hauling two trailers had one
of them crushed and ripped open, with debris strewn all over the
roadway. Then came cars that had been badly crushed; there had
to have been very serious injuries, perhaps even fatalities.
Traffic on that side was backed up for miles; further west,
police had closed the freeway and were diverting traffic to the
parallel US 40.
By 5:45 Central time, we were in Effingham. We had a hard time
finding the hotel, but by going around the block and checking
the map on my iPad, we found it. It turned out that the signs on
the hotel buildings were not visible from the roadway. The room
was comfortable enough. For dinner, we walked over to a nearby
Denny’s. I got a spicy dinner skillet that was very good but
proved to be too much food for a Friday night dinner. Then it
was back to the hotel. I read for a while, while Bill worked on
building the receiver. At first, he could not find a capacitor;
without it, the receiver would not operate. We could have found
it at Fry’s, but that was too far away to go back. Fortunately,
we found an electronics store in the St. Louis area. Then Bill
found that capacitor, which had been hidden by another part. But
it turned out that he still needed to go there to get a
different capacitor, which was not included with many of the
receiver kits. He continued to work as I turned in for the
night.
Top
Saturday August 19
I woke up for the day around 6 and started to read for a bit.
Bill’s alarm went off shortly thereafter. One thing I did was to
look for news reports on last night’s accident. I found them: 2
semis and five cars had been involved; one man had been killed;
and another man was under arrest for distracted driving. We went
to the breakfast bar area for our morning meal; I had some
raisin bran, some small buns, some yogurt and some orange juice.
We got underway around 7:55 and filled up the gas tank in the
minivan before proceeding on our way. Gateway Electronics opened
at 9 AM, and we didn’t want to get there too early. Now we were
going to take I-270 around the north side of town, visiting a
Missouri visitor center along the way for tourist literature and
a bathroom break, but as we approached St. Louis, we saw that
westbound I-270 was completely closed. We would have to go
through downtown St. Louis. After stopping at a Pilot truck stop
near Granite City, we continued into Missouri. We actually drove
north of downtown, allowing me to take some pictures of it. As
we drove along I-70 in the city, I thought that some of the
scenery reminded me of Detroit. The similarity was helped by a
sign for Grand Boulevard, which is a major Detroit street
(although it’s normally known as West Grand Boulevard or East
Grand Boulevard).
The Apple Maps program directed us to Gateway Electronics with
little difficulty, although we did have trouble finding it in
the office park where it was located. The store was a standard
electronic parts supply store, something not seen too frequently
these days. Bill found the capacitor he needed, along with a
screwdriver that would be necessary to adjust the receiver. We
also picked up maps of the path of totality in Missouri. Soon,
we were on our way again. And not too long after leaving the St.
Louis area, we were in the path of totality.
Many of the electronic road warning signs had messages about the
eclipse, but by the time we encountered them, it was too late to
take a picture of them. I did get some pictures of them with my
iPhone, although in some instances, most of the sign’s content
was not visible. The signs must have been flickering in a way
that the eye could not see but the camera could.
At one point, I was checking something on my iPad, probably a
map, when I noticed the WiFi icon. That meant it had an Internet
connection, yet I had not turned on my MiFi portable hotspot. I
felt in my pocket for it and pulled it out; it was indeed on.
The power button must have been inadvertently pressed in the
pocket, so I turned it off. But then it immediately came back
on. I turned it off again, but it turned back on. The only way
to stop it was to open it up and remove the battery. Would I
need to get a new MiFi? I didn’t yet know.
By now, it was lunchtime, so we stopped at a Cracker Barrel
restaurant in Columbia. Stopping at Cracker Barrel had been a
tradition for us as we went to the annual Dayton Hamvention; it
looked like we were establishing a similar tradition for
traveling to eclipses. The food was good, as always; it was
comfort food. I had one of their sampler platters: chicken and
dumplings, country ham, and meatloaf, along with mashed
potatoes, corn and fried okra.
We conintued our trip west, listening to some public radio shows
I’d never heard before, Reveal was focusing on the aftermath of
the Charlottesville disturbance, while To The Best Of Our
Knowledge had a story on dark matter. We didn’t get to hear that
whole story, though, as we drove out of range of the station
carrying it. Later, we pulled off to swap drivers, and I got
behind the wheel to take us to the hotel. This was my second
time driving in the Kansas City area; the first time had been in
2008 on the way home from Colorado. My iPhone was giving us
directions and was sitting on the top of the instrument panel.
That may have been a mistake, for when I went to consult it
later, it was displaying an overheating warning. Once it cooled
down, though, it resumed working perfectly.
In the mid-afternoon, we arrived at the Hyatt Place Kansas City
Airport, our home for the next three nights. After checking in,
partially unloading the car and unpacking, we were settled in. I
worked on this travelogue, while Bill set up the table as an
electronics workbench and worked on the very-low-frequency radio
receiver that was part of an eclipse experiment. At one point,
we would have left for the airport to pick up Alice and William
(Bill’s niece and great-nephew, and thus cousins of mine via
marriage), who were flying in from New Hampshire; however, their
plans had changed, and they would be arriving after midnight on
a later flight. So no airport trip for us, but we still needed
to get some supper. We went to a nearby Wendy’s and got salads;
I also got a large chili. Afterwards, we stopped at the
nearby Walmart to get some oil for the minivan, then it was back
to the hotel. I did some reading, while Bill continued to work
on the receiver. When I went to bed, he was still working on it.
Top
Sunday August 20
I heard some thunderstorms during the middle of the night.
Having them today was OK, but not tomorrow, not eclipse day! I
don’t know how long Bill stayed up working on the receiver, but
it must have been pretty late, for he didn’t get up until after
9; I’d already been awake for a couple of hours. Fortunately,
breakfast in the lobby was served until 10, so we were able to
partake of the Hyatt Place’s nice breakfast bar.
While Bill was asleep, among the things I did was check the
weather forecasts for eclipse day, not just for St. Joseph but
for Kansas City and Columbia. The forecasts were looking rather
iffy. We had a paid-for parking pass for Rosecrans Memorial
Airport in St. Joseph, but would we give up on that and go to
another place instead? We wouldn’t make a final decision until
later that night.
For a while, Bill thought that a voltage regulator chip had
burned out in the VLF receiver. A replacement chip might be
available at Micro Center, and we planned to go there later in
the morning. However, it started functioning again, so that trip
was cancelled. Unfortunately, other problems developed, and he
was unable to get the receiver to work properly. Given more
time, perhaps he could have, but there was no more time. He gave
up on the project and decided to concentrate on experiencing the
eclipse.
By now, it was around 11 o’clock. Bill called his niece Alice to
see what she and her son were up to. They had made it into town
overnight and had just gone to a car rental agency downtown to
get a rental car ($100 cheaper than picking it up at the
airport!) and were now eating breakfast at a Waffle House in
town (not the Waffle House by us, up near the airport). We drove
off to meet them there. By the time we arrived, they were nearly
finished with their breakfast. So we had lunch. It had been some
time since I’d eaten at a Waffle House; the closest one to
Detroit is south of Toledo, Ohio. But my lunch was good. William
had grown tremendously since I’d last seen him three years ago;
he was now 14 and was pushing 6 feet in height.
We discussed what we were going to do for today. There were a
few ideas kicked around, but we decided to visit the American
Jazz Museum for our first stop. That happened to be located in a
historic black district in Kansas City on 18th Street and Vine.
It wasn’t too far from the corner of 12th Street and Vine,
immortalized in the Leiber-Stoller song “Kansas City”. The
Wilbert Harrison recording of the song mentions it, but the
Beatles’ version doesn’t. No matter. It took Bill and I a while
to find a good parking spot; we eventually found one a block
behind the museum.
The museum was a good overview of top jazz performers, with
exhibits dedicated to Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Duke
Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. Other exhibits covered various
aspects of music (melody, harmony, percussion, etc.), while
another exhibit showed historic film and video clips. Another
exhibit showed various music playback devices, including the
fanciest 8-track player I had ever seen.
Alice, William and I were waiting in the video viewing area
while Bill was still looking at the other exhibits. William said
that sometimes, he confuses Louis Armstrong with Neil Armstrong.
Ah, youth! I do not know if he was joking or not.
Now when I was making plans for this trip, the jazz museum had
been on my list. Also on my list was the Negro Leagues Baseball
Museum, paying tribute to the baseball leagues that arose when
African Americans were kept out of Major League Baseball. It
turned out that that museum was in the same building as the jazz
museum, so we got to see them both. After seeing the
introductory movie, we caught up with a tour being given by a
museum volunteer, and he did a good job. In the gift shop were
memorabilia of many of the famous Negro League teams, including
hats of the Detroit Stars. I bought one of those hats, which
were very generously sized.
Next, William wanted to visit a model train exhibit at Union
Station, so we drove over there. Union Station was a very nice
facility, and the model train exhibit was a very nice exhibit
with elaborate setups. There were four or five sizes of trains
running on the various tracks, which apparently is unusual. Most
of the attractions at Union Station closed down at 5. We had
thought about eating at a nearby barbecue restaurant near where
Alice had parked, but before Bill and I could reach the parking
garage where our car was, she called us back. There was a very
long line at the restaurant, so we decided to return to our
hotel near the airport. Unfortunately, it took Bill and I 40
minutes to exit the parking deck, thanks to automated payment
kiosks that didn’t work very well. I was concerned that we might
encounter similar gridlock on the way to St. Joseph or wherever
tomorrow.
When we made it back to the hotel, Alice and William were
waiting for us. We decided to walk to the nearby Cracker Barrel
for dinner. This time, I had the meatloaf for dinner, along with
the same side dishes as yesterday, but instead of a Diet Coke, I
had a Diet Dr Pepper. The meal was good. Back at the hotel, we
discussed plans for tomorrow. The forecasts for nearby areas
were still iffy, so we decided to head up to St. Joseph and hope
for the best. William identified a potential back way to the
Rosecrans airport in case there was gridlock on I-29. Then it
was off to bed.
Top
Monday August 21
I had a very hard time getting to sleep. I know I got some
sleep, although I didn’t get much sleep. In some ways, it was
almost like Christmas Eve as a child; there was that similar
sense of anticipation that interfered with sleep. I woke up
around 4:30 but didn’t immediately get out of bed. I heard Bill
filling our cooler with ice from the hotel ice machines. We
turned on the news to catch the weather and traffic reports; the
traffic was good, the weather less so.
With the breakfast bar opening at 5:30, we were able to go down
and have a meal before we left. I went fairly light on the meal,
not wanting to be desperately needing to use the restroom while
stuck in traffic. Afterwards, I went outside for a look at the
sky; there were a few high clouds overhead but heavier clouds to
the north and west.
At 6:45, we left our hotel and drove up to Alice and William’s
hotel to pick them up. We were on our way by 7. If William had
had his druthers, he would have slept in longer. But we adults
wanted to get there as early as possible to avoid tie-ups, so
there we were. The clouds increased as we drove north. We
didn’t encounter any backups until we exited I-229 onto US 36,
the road that would take us to the airport. In order to get to
the airport, we had to actually cross into Kansas and then
re-enter Missouri. In the airport, traffic moved steadily as we
went to our designated parking area.
When we parked, I had to use the restroom. There was a
porta-potty very close to us, so I got in line. It took around
15 minutes for me to be able to go, but once I did, I was able
to help set up. It was 8:40 and partly sunny. We set up the
chairs and put up a tarp that gave us a shaded area in front of
our vehicle. It faced south.
While I was waiting to use the porta-potty, a t-shirt
vendor came by selling souvenir shirts of the eclipse. Bill got
one and asked if I wanted one; I said yes, if they had my size
(they did). So I would have a souvenir of the eclipse in St.
Joseph.
Later on, I took some pictures of the area and went over to the
viewing area on the north side of the levee. There were other
vendors there, as well as several more porta-potties with a much
more quickly moving line. In the distance, I could see several
satellite dishes in the RV camping area; news trucks, I figured,
although they could have been for science teams.
For three hours after our arrival, there wasn’t much to do. I
tested my solar glasses a few times by looking at the sun; they
worked. I did the same with the filters on my binoculars; they
also worked. Then around 11:40, I heard someone give out a whoop
and yell “It’s begun!” Yes, the eclipse had started. A few
minutes later, I could see that a notch had appeared in the
sun’s disk. I took a picture of it. As it turned out, that would
be the only picture I would take of the eclipsed sun, as the
clouds moved in shortly thereafter. For most of the rest of the
next 90 minutes, clouds would obscure the sun. There were
occasional opportunities to see it, but they were few and far
between. I’d brought a telescope, but I didn’t bother to set it
up. The conditions were too unpromising for me, and rain was a
definite threat.
And then the rains came. We got everything underneath the tarp
and then went in the car to wait it out. Some viewers didn’t
want to wait; they started to leave the grounds before totality.
We were going to stick it out until then, though. But we (well,
mainly Bill) did take down the tarp. No need for a sun shade
anymore. For some 20 minutes, we sat in the car with the windows
open; I was getting a bit soaked from the rain, but it would be
too warm if we closed the windows. They would fog up on us.
Five minutes before totality, the rains stopped. It was still
mostly cloudy, but I thought I saw a little bit of clearing. I
observed that it was noticeably darker than it should be at 1 in
the afternoon, even with the heavy cloud cover. Then we heard
some cheering: the clouds had parted enough to allow the sun to
be seen. We got out of the car and got our eclipse glasses. The
clouds provided some natural filtering, which was good because I
couldn’t see anything through the glasses. I got my cameras
ready: my DSLR and a GoPro. I started the GoPro running, and I
started describing what I was seeing.
I looked up, and I saw the thinnest solar crescent I had ever
seen in my life. I had never been this close to an experience of
totality. With the borderline conditions, I made a decision: I
would not attempt to take still pictures of the eclipsed sun.
Instead, I would concentrate on capturing the overall experience
with my GoPro. So I put the DSLR back in the car and kept on
shooting video. I kept up the commentary, and I could hear
occasional comments from Alice and William, who were close by.
Bill was farther away; if he said anything, I could not hear
him.
And then it started getting dark. The combination of the
nearly-eclipsed sun and the clouds made it look like 7 or 8 at
night. And then it got even darker, like 9 at night. And then it
got even darker! Although I couldn’t see it directly, totality
had arrived. Above us, the sky was very dark, just about pitch
black. Where there were holes in the clouds on the horizon, it
was still light, but it was the light of sunset or sunrise. I
pivoted in place, holding the GoPro in front of me, to take in
all of my surroundings. I heard a car horn honking. I’m sure the
temperature dropped, though I couldn’t tell the drop due to the
eclipse from the drop due to the cloud cover. I even decided to
take two pictures of the surroundings with my iPhone.
And then I noticed an increasing cheer coming from the crowd.
What was happening? I looked up, and there it was: the totally
eclipsed sun peeking through a hole in the clouds. It was a
round black hole in the sky, surrounded by a small corona. I
pointed the camera slightly upwards, hoping to catch some of the
view. Since you can’t zoom in with GoPros, I didn’t know how it
would turn out. I hoped something would come out on video. And
then the clouds returned, and it was gone. But it was still
dark; totality was still happening. A little after 1 in the
afternoon, and it was darker than twilight, darker than a real
bad thunderstorm about to descend on you. I could see how spooky
or even terrifying this must have seemed to people unaware that
an eclipse was happening, and even more so if it was cloudy,
like what we were experiencing. The wrath of God? Repent or
else? I could see why they might have thought that. I noticed a
plane flying; its night lights were on, as they should have
been.
And then I noticed it was getting lighter. Yes, indeed, the sky
was getting brighter. And it would continue to get brighter, no
matter how badly we wanted this surreal darkness to remain. It
was no longer night; it was back to late evening conditions. The
clouds prevented us from seeing the diamond ring and Baily’s
Beads effects, but soon, we could see a thin crescent on the
other side of the solar disk. Totality was over. We didn’t get
to see much of it, but we certainly experienced the total solar
eclipse.
We all agreed that we had had a wonderful experience. Sure, it
would have been better had there not been the clouds and rain,
but we did see what we came to see, even if it wasn't for as
long as we would have liked. I had my video, and William had
captured some good shots of the totally eclipsed sun. One person
who had been near us saw William’s photos and asked for copies
of them, giving him his business card.
The partial phases of the eclipse were still taking place, but I
wasn’t paying much attention to them. Instead, I was focusing on
saving the video from the GoPro to the laptop. That way, we
could watch the eclipse video while we were waiting to leave the
airport. And in an 8-minute, 40-second video, I had captured the
key experiences of totality. Furthermore, I did capture that
brief glimpse of the fully eclipsed sun.
As you can imagine, it took some time to leave the airport. But
eventually, we did get on the road back to St. Joseph. Traffic
was good for a while, but it slowed to a crawl where I-229
merged with I-29. And then William checked Google Maps and
noticed a major backup on I-29 heading back to Kansas City. Were
there any back roads we could take to avoid it? Yes, there were!
William with his phone, and I with my iPad, were able to find a
route that would lead back to the hotels that avoided freeways
altogether. Interestingly enough, the route took us through
Dearborn — Dearborn, Missouri, of course. This Dearborn was 200
times smaller than the one in Michigan (in terms of population),
nor did I notice any Arab-owned businesses or any mosques. Soon,
we had reached Ambassador Drive and dropped off Alice and
William at their car. They were going to a different hotel for
tonight but had left their car at the first one. Bill and I
returned to our hotel. There were some downed tree limbs in the
street, so thunderstorms must have passed through the area.
Back at the hotel, I started to identify the pictures I had
taken with my iPhone and downloaded to my laptop. But when I
tried to download the pictures from my DSLR, I found that I
couldn’t. The camera wasn’t being recognized. Did it have
anything to do with my shooting in RAW format? Further
investigation would have to wait until after supper. We met at
On The Border, where I got my usual combination plate (chicken
tortilla soup, a cheese and onion enchilada, and a chicken tinga
enchilada with green chili sauce, along with beans and rice). We
also ordered Guacamole Live, where fresh guacamole was prepared
at our table. That was good. And after a mishap with my meal
where the wrong dishes were brought out, I enjoyed my meal.
After our supper, Alice and William went bowling, while Bill and
I returned to our hotel to watch a NOVA special on today’s
eclipse. Back at the hotel, I tried a different cable to connect
my DSLR to my laptop; it worked, and I retrieved my pictures and
identified them. I uploaded my eclipse video to Facebook; it
took a while for it to be uploaded and processed! As 8 o’clock
approached, I turned on the TV to PBS, and we got ready for the
NOVA special. But at the top of the hour, we didn’t get NOVA.
Instead, it was a special PBS Newshour report: President Trump
was announcing new policies relating to American involvement in
Afghanistan. NOVA didn’t start until a half-hour later. Then the
local broadcast was plagued by technical difficulties, including
rain fade. Also, some 10 minutes into the program, it restarted
from the top. But at 9:30, the program ended, and we’d missed
the last 10 minutes.
Top
Today, we would start our return to the Detroit area, but we
weren’t hurrying back. There were plenty of other things to do
en route.
Even though I didn’t have to get up early, I did. I woke up
around 4:30 and did some stuff on my laptop. My uncle got up
later, some time after 6. We finished most of our packing and
took some of our stuff down to the car, and then we had
breakfast. When we checked out, we didn’t leave town right away.
No, we were going to meet Alice and William at the Kansas City
Zoo, which was in the southern part of town. We had little
trouble getting to the area of the zoo, but thanks to flooding
in that part of town, the routes computed by our mapping
programs couldn’t be followed. I used one of them to direct us
down another street, but we encountered a driver who warned us
to turn around; it had flooded but wasn’t closed. We eventually
found a route that would take us to the zoo, where Alice and
William were waiting for us.
The zoo was also affected by flooding; the African exhibit was
inaccessible, and the trains and trams that went around the zoo
were not running. Still, we got to see well over half of the
zoo. I recall seeing a polar bear, the penguins, sea lions,
meerkats and lemurs, a Sumatran tiger, orangutans, a solitary
elephant, a red kangaroo and a tree kangaroo. I saw some camels
do a stand-up act; they were laying on the ground and stood up.
We had lunch at the zoo; it was OK. By the time we reached the
gift shop, it was nearly 2 PM. Alice and William would be
heading for the airport to return to New Hampshire. We said our
goodbyes, and then we set off for our next destination.
And what was our next destination? We’d be staying in Columbia
for the night, but first, we stopped at a park along the Katy
Trail, a rail-to-trail conversion. In the town of New Franklin,
there was a roadside monument commemorating the Santa Fe
Trail. Bill had seen the monument a few years ago when
biking on the Katy Trail. Six people were honored there, but the
only one whose name I recognized was Kit Carson. Afterwards, we
went into Boonville to stop at the A&W for a root beer
float, and then it was on to Columbia. We were staying at the
Hampton Inn, and it turned out that right next door to it was
the same Cracker Barrel where we’d stopped for lunch on
Saturday. We didn't feel like driving anywhere else, so we
walked over there for another meal. It was a good meal, but
after going there three times in four days, we’d had our fill of
Cracker Barrel.
After dinner, and back in our hotel room, I uploaded my eclipse
video to YouTube, and then I identified the pictures I took
today.
Top
We got up around 6 this morning and took our time getting ready.
There were no urgent time pressures on us today; we didn’t have
to be home until Saturday, although we were targeting to arrive
home by Friday.
After partaking of the Hampton Inn’s breakfast buffet (I had
oatmeal, yogurt, and 2 muffins), we got ready to leave. When I
put my clip-on sunglasses, though, I noticed a bad scratch on
the left side. It must have gotten scratched by one of the
cables in my pocket (I had been carrying USB cables for charing
my iPhone/iPad and for my MiFi, and I also had a cable for
getting the pictures off of my DSLR). They originally came from
Amazon, so before we got out of the parking lot, I had ordered
two more pairs. They were scheduled to arrive Friday. They were
still usable, although the scratch was annoying.
When we got under way, we headed east on I-70 toward St. Louis,
but that wasn't our destination. We were heading near the town
of Bonne Terre and St. Francois State Park, which were south of
St. Louis. My uncle wanted to visit an old family cemetery in
the area, and it was best accessed legally from the park. We got
there by taking I-70 to I-64 to I-270 to I-55 and then US 67. A
couple of hours later, there we were at the park. We went to the
park office to get some information on where exactly the
cemetery was located and how to get there. There was an
access road where we could park and walk in.
We found the access road, parked by the gate, and started
walking in. The road was a slightly paved two-track, which
turned into a one-track, and then it ended. Ahead was a big
expanse of uncleared land. We started walking through it, but
the going got too rough for me. This was not my ancestral
cemetery (Bill was an uncle by marriage), so I decided to turn
back. We both had very good phone coverage, so we could contact
each other if necessary. He pressed on, while I started back.
That access road had been sloping downward, so it was a bit of a
climb returning to the car. When I got there, I opened up the
windows and kept up with e-mail and social media while keeping
occasional watch for Bill. After an our or so, he called; he’d
found the cemetery and had taken several pictures. At the same
time, two park officials drove up. It was Mary and Butch, who
had helped us at the park office and were checking up on us.
They volunteered to drive down the road and pick my uncle up.
That was certainly a timesaver! We thanked them for all of their
assistance, and then we set off.
Our next destination was the old Chain of Rocks Bridge across
the Mississippi River north of St. Louis. This had been part of
old Route 66, but it hadn’t seen motor vehicle traffic in
several years; it was now a hike-bike trail. I had visited here
several years ago, but it was Bill’s first time to see it. We
got caught in a little St. Louis rush hour traffic getting to
the bridge. When we finally got there, I directed Bill to exit
on the Missouri side, for that was where I had parked when
visiting the bridge before. But the parking lot was blocked off.
What had happened? After turning around and finding a spot to
park on the side of the road, we found the answer: parking was
now on the Illinois side. Back into the car we went, and soon we
were crossing the Mississippi on the modern equivalent of the
bridge, then drove down Old Chain of Rocks Road (part of old 66)
to reach the old bridge. I’d never been on this stretch of the
road before; we had to use another one-lane bridge to reach the
Chain of Rocks Bridge.
The Illinois side was in good condition, and we started walking
the bridge. This was a narrow bridge, with two lanes that could
have accommodated Model T’s and Model A’s. The bridge was
notable for having a bend in the middle, something that would
never accommodate 70 mph traffic. There were two benches on the
Missouri side of the bridge; it would have been nice had there
been more bridges elsewhere on the bridge. Still, after some
photo opportunities, we made it to the other side. We were back
in Missouri. While we were there, we saw a group of bike riders
ride the bridge to Illinois; we saw them come back a short time
later. On the way back, we noticed a plaque in memory of two
young women who had been brutally raped on and then thrown from
the bridge back in 1991 (their murderer was executed in 2005).
We soon made it back to the Illinois side. We’d successfully
made the bridge walk in and out. Were we ready to make the
annual Labor Day walk of the Mackinac Bridge? Perhaps not. But
we were ready to find a hotel for the night. Using my apps on my
iPad, I found the Hampton Inn in nearby Edwardsville. There
weren’t any nearby restaurants, so we asked at the front desk
for some recommendations. They gave us a sheet listing the
restaurants in the area. The one that appealed to us was the
Pasta House, where we ended up having a nice dinner there. We
both had spaghetti and soup. I wasn’t able to finish my dinner,
so I had it boxed up to take on the road.
Back at the hotel, I downloaded the pictures I had taken today.
At the same time, we watched a NOVA program on the Voyager space
probes 40 years after their launch. And then it was time for
bed.
Top
Thursday August 24
I had a fairly good sleep overnight, getting up
around 6:30 in the morning. I took a shower, and then my uncle
and I went down to the lobby to have breakfast. Now we could
have pressed hard on our drive and made it home today, but we
wanted to drive historic Route 66 and see the sights that we
could see.
I didn’t note the time that we left the hotel — it was between
8 and 9. We set off through Edwardsville. I had a Route 66
guidebook with me, and I was using that along with the road
signs for the historic route (and occasionally consulting the
iPad) to follow the route. In several places, the old road
paralleled I-55; in other places, we could see remnants of the
pavement for an abandoned section of divided highway. There
was one stretch where we were stopped for several minutes by a
road crew applying oil to one lane of the road, forcing cars
to take turns on the other lane.
As we drove through Litchfield, we stopped for a break at the
Walmart and for a brief pass-through of the Salvation Army
Thrift Store. Bill found a few things, not all of which he was
necessarily looking for, and then we were on our way again.
Our next big stop was in Springfield, where we devoted much of
the afternoon to Abraham Lincoln. We spent a couple of ours at
the Lincoln Presidential Museum, which covered his life: his
early years, his presidency, and his death at the hands of
John Wilkes Booth. I became a member of the museum, at least
for the next year, and I picked up a couple of books from the
gift shop.
When we left the museum, we drove a few miles to the west to
the cemetery that contains Lincoln’s tomb. The tomb was a
magnificent obelisk occupying a prominent place in the
cemetery, as would be expected. The interior of the tomb was
open; in some ways, it reminded me of the San Jacinto
Monument, at least in terms of decor. In the rear of the
chamber were the resting places of Lincoln, his wife, and
three of their sons (Robert was buried at Arlington).
By this time, it was fairly late in the afternoon. We decided
to stay at a Days Inn in Bloomington. Unfortunately, in
following old Route 66, we found ourselves unable to easily
make it to the motel. It was adjacent to a freeway exit, but
we couldn’t easily get on the freeway (not that we really
wanted to, anyway). With difficulty, we found our way to a
Walmart near the motel. That was where we picked up some items
for supper to go along with my leftover spaghetti from last
night. Our hotel room had a microwave; in fact, I selected it
because it had a microwave. The spaghetti was good. Later on,
I downloaded the pictures I had taken today. Then it was time
for bed.
Top
Frday August 25
I woke up around 6 today and did some reading
and checked my e-mail. When my uncle got up, we headed out to
the lobby for breakfast. While eating breakfast, Bill called
up my eclipse video on his iPad (which, several years ago, had
been my iPad) and watched it. CNN was on the TV in the
background; one of the stories was tropical storm Harvey,
which had now become category 2 hurricane Harvey and was
threatening the Texas coast. Little did I know then what
Harvey would soon do to south Texas and then to the greater
Houston area, my hometown region.
We got under way before 8 and picked up Route 66 in town - or
should i say “towns”, for we went through both Bloomington and
Normal. Later, we arrived in Pontiac (Illinois, not Michigan),
where we planned to spend a few minutes seeing the sights
(multiple murals on the downtown buildings), including a Route
66 Museum. We ended up spending closer to two hours there,
seeing not just that museum but a local military museum,
recognizing the servicemen and servicewomen from the area who
had served from World War I to the present day.
We had spent more time in Pontiac than planned, and that would
delay our arrival at home. Still, we continued our drive up
old 66. Once or twice, we passed Amtrak passenger trains
heading south to St. Louis or possibly beyond. There weren’t
too many large towns that we passed through until we reached
Joliet. Here, we left Route 66 and started following the
Lincoln Highway. Well, we were following US 30 more than the
Lincoln Highway. It took quite some time to get across that
southern part of Chicagoland, especially because we were
trying to avoid the night that is I-80/94, but after an hour
or so, we made it.
We decided to head up Highway 49 up to I-94, then take the
freeway up to US 12, then take that across the state to home.
We stopped for gas in Three Oaks, and I drove from there to
Coldwater, where Bill took over for the rest of the trip. We
found a busy roadside cafe called the Somerset Cafe, where we
had dinner. Then we continue up US 12 through Clinton, Saline
and Ypsilanti, and around a half-hour later, we were at my
condo in Westland, unloading my stuff from the car. Bill still
had another hour or so to g, but I was home. Most unpacking
could wait until morning, but set up my laptop and iPad
and turned on the Weather Channel.
Top
THE END
Back to Travels page
© 2017 R.
W. Reini. All rights reserved.
Written by Roger
Reini
RevisedSeptember
2, 2017
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