Middle America
August 23, 2005
A long-overdue hello from east of the Mississippi--talk about a psychological mile marker! School has started, summer is almost over, we're through Missouri, halfway across Illinois, and are preparing to cross the mile-wide Ohio River in a week.
Missouri was an incredibly challenging state. Previously I had the ease of crossing states through sections--chunks of land calculated by a square mile, divided north/south and east/west by roads, very similar to a grid system. I was always able to tell how many miles I had traveled or how far I needed to go by the letter or number of the road I was on. Another road was always just a mile in front of me. The flat open nature of the west and mid-west lends itself to that navigational system, but the hills, trees and rivers of the east cause the roads to wind and twist with the topography of the land.
Missouri isn't technically in the east, nor in the west, it's not part of the north, nor of the south...it's a state full of disparity, in every sense of the word. It was the Compromise State in the Civil War and to this day, it is still full of conflict. East vs. west, wealth vs. poverty, rural vs. urban, cowboys vs. city slickers. It was the first state I've encountered since leaving the east where everyone was in a hurry and the drivers were frightening. It all took me by surprise.
The roads in Missouri are built on berms, with no shoulders, and deep v-ditches full of beer bottles and trash. On some days the lesser of two evils was the broken, razor sharp beverage bottles, and other days it was the disrespectful drivers on roads that snaked their way across the state. My host families and friends were incredibly supportive and helped tremendously in navigating our safe crossing, for which I am extremely grateful.
From Harrisonville, our first stop, Jenny, Chris and their daughter Kate ensured our safe departure, while their friend and ferrier Mike called various families on down the road to host us. Once Jenny and Chris had helped us to route 50 in Holden, T.J. and Jill, our next host family, took over. T.J. is a retired U.S. Marshall with a handlebar moustache and gentle eyes. Eyes that still reveal the pain of losing his son years ago. Jill has a smile and smirk that reveals a mischievous, caring nature and appears to be able to accomplish anything she sets out to do. They make a living at ranching, and I love how they've simplified their lives and are living it on their terms.
After a hearty breakfast the next morning, we headed out. Route 50 was a lot better road, most of the time with shoulders, but it wasn't consistent. At times it was a four lane highway and at other times in the state, it was a narrow two lane lined with guardrails. When we could, we opted to ride the center median that was mowed and trashless.
I arrived in Warrensburg with two horses that needed a break from the heat and Val was sporting a gall that I didn't want to break open. Jerry and Linda offered for us to stay an extra day, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Jerry is an amazing man, with his strength and energy despite living with emphysema. He's in his late 60's, manages the care of the farm with 40 horses and no hired help, and is the grandfather of three-year old triplets that he takes care of five days a week, including making breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. I told him I was amazed at all he accomplishes, and he replied he's disappointed in all that he can't. Regardless, he has more energy, in spite of his disability, than most people my age. I loved sharing his grandkids and meeting his wife, Linda, who shows dogs and is the national chairperson for a dog rescue organization.
The next day, Jill had called Jerry to catch up with me on the road. She had made website banners for my packsaddle and wanted to attach them. After finding out we were staying an extra day in Warrensburg, she came to take me back to her ranch to ride a steer. Yep, a steer. It was quite a ride. Jill had green broke Beau, the steer, and was the only one who had ever ridden him, and only once a year at that. And she wanted me to get on him. Oh yeah, the bull, which had charged the last time she attempted this, was still in the pasture. But I did it. We even have pictures to prove it. Pictures that took an entire afternoon to shoot.
We first took pictures with my camera, unsaddled Beau, drove the Gator back to the barn, and looked at the photos. Frustratingly, my camera was broken and didn't take any of the shots. So now we had to go back out and capture and ride Beau--twice in one day. After saddling up, Jill pulled out her camera, but the batteries were dead. UGH! So she decided to ride Beau back to the barn, while T.J. and I drove the Gator back to the house to get batteries. But, unbelievably, the Gator ran out of gas. After walking back, there were no batteries to be found. Jill arrived on Beau, and left us holding the steer, while she drove into town for an instamatic. When she returned I had the pleasure of riding Beau all the way to the far pasture. Now mind you, Beau loves Jill, and as she was running in front of him to snap pictures, Beau decided to run after Jill with me on him. It's one thing to turn a walking steer, it's another to convince him to stop while running--as T.J. yelled to watch out for the trees and the emerging bull in the pasture. Great fun, though--all without serious mishap. Because the day took so long, Jerry, Linda, T.J., Jill and I decided to go out to eat and drop the photos off at a one-hour photo. The coveted pictures should be up sometime soon on the website.
The next day we left for Sedallia, where Karen and Tom were finishing up separate fencing for Val and Rocky, in the extreme heat. Missouri was blistering hot, suffering from a severe drought. Central Missouri was the worst. What should have been green, leafy and grassy, was brown and lifeless. Farmers with acres of pasture were feeding hay in July. Thankfully, we had a two-day layover with Karen, Tom, and their children Connor and Darby, while I stayed with Tom's mother, Terry. They were just a really nice, down-to-earth, hard-working family genuinely concerned for our welfare, although, I felt bad for their kids as they were breaking out with chicken pox as we left.
Following our extended stay in Sedallia we headed to California , MO, where we met up with yet another good family whose grown daughters were into horses. Tammy and her daughter Dana met us at the high school with a trailer, where a reporter was waiting to interview us. Following the interview, we headed off to Tammy's house for an evening bar-b-que with husbands and Tammy's twin 9-year-old boys that so reminded me of Sam. Tammy's other daughter Leah trailered us back the next morning so we could head on into the Wild Horse Creek Ranch and Wildlife Rescue with Adolph and Ann. Great place.
Again, I admired how Adolph and Ann had simplified their lives to live out their dream of horses and rescue animals. It was there that I met Luke the rescued turkey. His story brings tears to my eyes. Luke was married to his mate for years, who was attacked and killed by a dog. Every day for two years Luke faithfully went to the same spot where she was killed, calling after her. To no avail. Finally the farmer who had Luke realized he needed a new home in order for Luke to move on. Adolph and Ann took him in and introduced him to a new mate, but Luke would have no part of her. Eventually he bonded with humans and was the neatest turkey I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. He loved his head being rubbed. The mottled, rubber-like skin was like a mood ring. It would turn blue when he was content and if a dog approached it would turn bright red. Every night Adolph would gobble for Luke who would get up on the four wheeler to be taken to the barn for night-time shelter away from the coyotes and weasels. Adolph and Ann also had donkeys, mules, goats and a Budweiser Clydesdale all on a beautiful ranch that they worked hard at maintaining, next to acres and acres of conservation land with trails throughout. Despite its neglected roads and disrespectful drivers, Missouri is a pretty state with hilly terrain, green grass and lots of forested areas.
The following morning we headed to Linn where we were supposed to stay with Patty and Cory, but we missed our destination by a whole lot. It's one thing to be traveling along in a car with an odometer measuring miles, but it's another thing to be on a horse measuring distance by time, traveling three miles an hour. We stopped at a little manufacturing facility in Freedom and asked for directions where they told us the road I was looking for was the last road in the County before the Gasconade River, four miles away. My cell phone had sporadic service in Missouri and I wasn't able to confirm the directions, so we headed on out. A man eventually pulled over and said, “Aren't you staying with Cory? He's my son.” Of course we were, but we had overshot our destination by 10.2 miles. No way I was turning back, it would have taken us a half a day to get there. Cory eventually met up with us with his trailer and took us back to his house. Patty, Cory and their six-year-old daughter Caitlyn were great.
By the evening, Patty and I were bringing Rocky and Val in for shelter from a storm. That's where Rocky met his first pot-bellied pig in a stall that set him, literally, into a tailspin, and away he went. It was the first time I had seen Rocky afraid, which set Val off. With the thundering and lightning outside, it took me hours to calm them down. The next morning, I found out how herd bound they had become. Caitlyn wants to be a horse trainer, is terrific with horses, watches every horse show she can and was intrigued, to say the least, by what I was doing. She asked tougher questions than most adults I had met. We agreed that I would teach her a training technique and that she would teach me one. As Caitlyn and I were “training” Rocky on the front lawn, Val had knocked the stall door down, to join us. She was frantic the pot-bellied pig would reappear. So much for our training session.
Caitlyn and Patty trailered us the next morning back to our starting point so we could head onto Lost Valley Lake Resort. A great camping resort ranging from wilderness camping to condos. The resort was kind enough to donate a night's stay in an R.V. and meals, and Val and Rocky had the royal treatment down at the stables with Jessica and her crew. After saddling up in the morning we headed out onto ZZ road, the highway from hell. I felt like I was in the movie “Deliverance.” At one point I thought I heard dueling banjos. I'm not kidding. Twice as I was coming down this deserted highway, people ran from me into their house, and peered at me through curtains. One man passed me in his car, turned around, turned around again, and on the fourth drive by, he slowed to stop as I was down from the horses while they were grazing, and he pulled over. I immediately got on Val and started to head out. He rolled down the window and shouted, “I just wanna talk,” “Can't, it'll scare the horses,” as we trotted off, with him spinning his wheels behind me, thankfully in the other direction. We continued on and came upon a one-lane bridge situated between two large, long hills. I pulled over and waited for the on-coming car to cross, nobody else was around, so Val and I, with Rocky pulling his full packs, proceeded to head on across, as another on-coming car waited for us to cross. Then I heard it, a dually, diesel full cab pick-up truck pulling a 30 foot camping trailer, behind us. “Please, no, no, no…don't, don't come on the bridge.” Sure enough, he pulled along side of us, brushing Rocky's packs as he passed on this narrow one lane bridge. Rocky and Val were troopers, though, and kept right on rolling. I was not a happy camper, and the on-coming car flipped the driver off, cursing him for me. I couldn't believe someone could be that ignorant in trying to save 30 seconds. Unbelievable.
We gratefully met our next hosts Joe and Kathy, with their trailer, at the feed store, 8 miles past Gerald, their hometown. Joe and Kathy were terrific. They had transformed an old, neglected 1800's homestead into such a quaint, comfortable home. Kathy and I had much in common, and her creativity poured from every pore of the house. Kathy is also a terrific western artist and Joe is a talented cowboy poet; they were working on a book with Joe's poetry, illustrated with Kathy's paintings. The next morning, we tried to figure out why my saddle, after 2000 miles had worn a rub spot on Val that was identical in shape to a worn part on my saddle. Joe and Kathy took me to Jerry, a long-time saddle repairman, who made two leather pieces with sheepskin to fit over my billets on either side. Ellen, a local horsewoman, also aided us, by hauling our packs on ahead, washing blankets, and meeting us on the road the following day with much needed water as we headed onto Union in the blistering drought that Missouri was experiencing.
We arrived at Larry and Cathy's tired and hot, but had to do an interview with the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Initially, when Florence, the reporter came out, she didn't think too much about my horses…they had just come in off the trail, and immediately rolled, after I had rinsed them. As she looked at Rocky, she stated that he didn't amount to much. I was offended and replied that she didn't know his story, or his heart. She went off to look at Larry's show horses, while I groomed my horses for photos, I can assure you it was the last thing any of us wanted to be doing at that point. But in the end it was worth it. Florence was won over by Rocky and Val and wrote a terrific article in the Dispatch, and then met us farther on down the trail with her friend, totally enthralled with the journey. That night I never showered until 11, as Larry and Cathy had arranged for the interview, a tour of the local horse rescue—a multi-million dollar facility that was part of St. Louis' Human Society. It was incredible. We then went out to dinner, late. I was filthy and managed to get a brush through my hair, to look semi-presentable. The dinner was great and Larry and Cathy were extremely interesting people who had taken me under their wings, offering to meet me at St. Genevieve with our packs, in a few days ride, as we crossed the Mississippi by ferry. Something I was beginning to fret about. It's just not natural to take a horse on a boat. But it was my only alternative in getting to the other side.
The following day, we headed onto Eureka, staying with John and Carol, and their daughters Jennifer, Jessica and Nicole. We had a great stay, but it was full of mishaps. I had purchased a new state-of-the-art saddle pad, trying to be proactive in these never-ending sores. Something I should never have done. When I arrived at Carol's, one of the first things she mentioned was the 4x4 window at the end of the barn, on the sliding door, that she was worried about a horse hurting himself on. Carol is all about safety, and unfortunately, we blew that away. I had taken Rocky into the barn to try the new saddle pad, when Val flew over to the end of the barn, frantically pacing trying to get into the barn with us. Carol was at the door, while I said I'd take Rocky out to the paddock to work with him, so Val would calm down. I didn't want her charging through that door. Unfortunately, as Rocky and I headed out the one side, Val reared and slammed through the plate glass window at the other. Amazingly, amongst all the shards of glass, she emerged without a scratch. Carol, the girls, and I, spent the next few hours sifting through sand to remove all the shattered glass in the paddock. In spite of that incident, Jennifer and Jessica decided to ride with us through the creek bed to help us along the way the next day. We had to pass under Interstate 44, on a high mound of stone under the overpass, when Jessica's Arabian started to slide down into Val's space, who shot out a leg, kicking Jessica in the shin. Fortunately, after a visit to the ER, Jessica had no broken bones, and only required two stitches. Even so, we did have a really nice stay with them, and I hope they could say the same about us.
Through the accidents, a highlight of my trip was also at Carol's. The night before we left, Carol had arranged a girl's night out with 8 of us. Little did I know, that Linda, my friend, mentor and trip coordinator, had flown out to spend a few days, and surprised me that night in the restaurant. It was so good to see her. We all had such a good time, and laughed so much. Linda was staying with her childhood horse friend Becky in House Springs who was hosting me. The next day Linda met me along the highway to ride the last mile in with me to Sycamore Farms where Becky had made arrangements with the owners to host a pot-luck dinner, where I was to make a presentation to girl scouts and 4-H members. It was a nice evening, but after riding 20 miles in the heat, I fell into bed that night totally exhausted. Linda and I got up early to a breakfast that Becky had made before she flew out to Florida at 6 a.m.
Linda and I spent the day back at Jerry's, the saddlemaker, who once again had to make adjustments to my saddle. With the new pad, Rocky had galled on his side where the pad had rubbed. I was devastated. Linda and Jerry realized that the last man who worked on my saddle had raised the right rear-end enough to pivot the saddle, putting the pressure on the opposite side where Rocky and Val had galled--that's why after 2000 miles in the saddle I was beginning to see galls on their sides. Jerry fixed that error and flanked the skirts with additional foam. He spent hours with us, and his wife made us eggs and okra, which was delicious, and after all he had done, Jerry wouldn't take any money for his services.
Donna our next host from Barnhart trailered us to her home the following day. With galled horses and blood-alley, a stretch of road with no shoulders, no ditch, guardrails, and coal trucks, looming before us, I chose the safe route for my horses and me. Donna and Mike were super. They had a barn with horses down in Bloomsdale, but in Barnhart they lived in a subdivision, where they put up panels in their backyard to contain the horses, so they wouldn't run off into their neighbor's yards. It was a great gesture that worked. The horses were content with all the nicely green mowed grass and beautiful shade trees that the neighborhood afforded. Donna had also taken me down to St. Genevieve to scope out our impending ferry ride; it was suppose to alleviate my fears, but only heightened them. The river was wide. The ferry was small. Two cars wide. Two cars long. The ride was in two days following our stay in Bloomsdale with Karen and Bill.
After coming down a long driveway, with the most cattlegaurds I had encountered since Arizona, and numerous “Trespassers will be Shot” signs, we emerged into a green, green pasture, nestled on a beautiful hill. Karen's place. Karen, Bill and I enjoyed a terrific bar-b-cue under the metal carport, in the middle of a lightning storm that blasted all around us, as the thunder boomed, the lightning cracked, I thoroughly enjoyed homemade cherry wine and settled in without a problem. The next morning we headed off to St. Genevieve and to Tower, Rock, Stone on the Mississippi—the 4 th largest quarry in America, where the horses would be camping out, before heading onto the ferry.
Cathy, my host, who laughed the most of anybody I had met on this trip, met me there, as Ron, the manager of the quarry, helped me to settle the horses into the small paddock situated on top of the gaping acres of canyon cut in by the quarry. Ron offered us a tour of the quarry, the barges, and the towboats that pushed them. It was incredibly fascinating, and I would have much-preferred going over the Mississippi on the multi-million dollar towboat, but that wasn't an option.
Cathy and I arrived back at her house in a beautiful lake setting to Tate's home cooked dinner. After dinner friends Lu & Jim from Elicott City, MD joined us with their granddaughters and then took me on a tour of the most unusual home I had ever been in. It was situated on 500 acres, had a commercial kitchen, full bar, poolroom, spiral staircase, and decorated with the unique creative juices of Jim and Lu, complete with a kiln. It chortled, “Creativity abounds here.” Outside, there was a charming, old stone farmhouse, barns and an old railroad car attached to an historic post office that served as a hunting cabin. The place was too cool. I loved it. After a good night's sleep and breakfast, Cathy and Tate took us back to the quarry for our big day.
A number of host families were meeting us at the ferry to send us off, along with reporters, photographers and TV news stations. No pressure, none at all. All along I had wanted to ride Rocky across the ferry, but first I had to ride 4 miles to the Mississippi and then 18 miles after that to Ellis Grove, IL. Rocky's gall wouldn't allow for that kind of ride, so I opted to ride Val, switching over to Rocky for the ferry crossing. As much as I adore Val, my trailblazer, she would have looked at the river, then the ferry, then the river, and said, “What are you crazy? We're going to drown.” So Rocky made our crossing, and did it valiantly. We had crossed the mighty Mississippi, and home doesn't seem so far away.
God bless,
Linda