jumpingfish

1. Winter Dogs

When I got to the shower house, an old man came out. It was a hot day. He took several small steps toward the pop machine near the door where Coke and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper logos beckoned from brightly lit buttons which he studied carefully, pushing one and then another with no result.

By the time he turned around, I had reached the top of the hill with Izzy on a leash. He looked down at her for a moment and then looked up. 

“Small dog,” he said.

“She is,” I said and hooked her leash to a post.

“Squirrel dog,” he said.

“She is,” I said, not committing myself to acknowledging whether he was commenting on her diminutive appearance or on how he imagined she would spend her days.

“Do you have dogs?” 

“Nine,” he said. “Seven outdoor and two winter dogs. What’s her name?” 

“Izzy,” I said. “And I’m David.” I reached out to shake his hand.

“Danny,” he said, reaching back.

We shook hands, and just then a young man came out of the shower house, turned to the pop machine, and bought a can of Pepsi.

“Here’s a can for you, gramps,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

They turned to walk down the far side of the hill.

“Good to meet you Danny,” I said to the old man.

“Good to meet you David,” he said and slowly followed his grandson back to their campsite.

2. Coal Barge

We were heading back to Eureka Campground after a day of exploring the Land Between the Lakes when we drove over a bridge over a canal. There were some coal barges approaching with a tugboat at the rear churning the water. They were moving slowly toward us.

“Look, coal barges!” I said to Trudy.

“Wow!” she said, our exclamations betraying the fact that a coal barge is a remarkable sight for the two of us.

On the far side of the bridge, we passed a sign: Canal Overlook. I quickly braked and turned left, surprising my passenger who grabbed onto our dear dog so that she might not end up on the floor boards.

We parked near some benches and a set of stairs that led down to the water. Three of the four barges had passed, leaving one more and the tugboat.

A man was sitting on one of the benches. He turned to watch us as we hopped out of the car and rushed over for the barge-passing spectacle.

“We just made it!” I said to him. He smiled.

I took Izzy down to the water to watch the tugboat churn by. Trudy chatted with Donny at the top of the stairs. We waved at the barge. The captain tooted his horn. Izzy sniffed at the water as the waves washed against the rocks.

At the top of the stairs, Donny told Trudy that he sometimes sits there for a while before his shift at a nearby quarry. Trudy talked to him about rocks. I asked about the gas prices. He acknowledged that the prices were high and that they seemed to go up and down for no obvious reason. 

“You remember, don’t you,” he said, “that it was Bill Clinton who did that.” 

We changed the subject, choosing to talk about our travels and his work. Donny was a pleasant man and easy to talk to, yet the conversation somehow converged back to him saying “If something doesn’t happen this election, we’re in big trouble.” We had an idea about what he was referring to. We changed the subject again.

We chatted some more until Donny looked at his watch and said that it was time for him to go to work. We said goodbye.

3. Postscript

In the interest of full disclosure…

• When I told Trudy about the conversation with Danny by the shower house, I confessed to her that he probably said wiener dogs but that it sure sounded like winter at the time. “Yes, David,” he said wiener dogs.
• The man at the top of the canal overlook wasn’t Donny. We didn’t actually learn his name. Excuse my artistic license in choosing an arbitrary but alliterative one.

On one- or two-night trips, it can be a hassle to set up all the regalia. On longer stays, we sometimes go for it.

Parked now for several days on a sandy patch of flat ground behind the cottage at the top of the hill, this has been a longer stay.

1. The Plans

They stayed three nights at the Corps of Engineers Eureka Campground on the north shore of Lake Barkley in Kentucky near the Land Between the Lakes Recreation Area. Their plans after that took them briefly back towards Missouri — something that David with his westward/southward predilections is evidently well suited for. But in the event, the Fair and Industrious Trudy was behind the wheel and David was navigating.

Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois osculate down there, where the Ohio empties into the Mississippi. Their route took them briefly west into the heart of the interstate osculation and then turned north short of Missouri, crossing the Ohio River into Illinois. As Trudy drove, David navigated with an atlas in his lap. Yes, an old-school, paper road atlas which brings the two of them much joy.

2. The Shutdown

Their plans, however, were not to be.

The westbound lanes of Interstate 24 were moving slowly. Break lights extended into the distance. The route displayed on Google Maps got red and redder and then deep crimson. The traffic ground to a halt. Google notified them that the highway would be completely shut down for six hours.

When they discovered this, they were approaching an exit which the Fair and Industrious Trudy eagerly took based on suggestions by her intrepid navigator who had devised an improvised route to the north and east where Kentucky 56 meets Illinois 13 at the next bridge upstream. Forty minutes after they left the campsite, they had returned to Eddyville whence they had earlier departed and began driving the alternate route.

3. The Ferry

From Eddyville to Fredonia to Marion, they wound their way northward on US 641 thru Western Kentucky. 

“Want to take a ferry?” David asked after further investigation of the road atlas.

“Sure!”

“Then turn left here.”

Trudy turned the wheel of the Outback. The Vistibule teardrop dutifully followed.

They drove along a narrow, two-lane road, out of Marion into the countryside thru the green fields and forests of Kentucky in summer. The road was well-paved. It twisted and turned. Then there came a place where the winding stopped and the road sloped to the southern shore of the Ohio River just beyond a flashing red light and a stop sign.

There was a pickup truck waiting under the flashing light. An elderly couple stood by the roadside as their hefty terrier sniffed around in the grass.

“Will the trailer be a problem?” David asked the old man.

“Shouldn’t be.”

Another car pulled up. A dad got out and later the mom and yet later a teenage son. They all gathered under the flashing light and chatted. The sun was warm but not hot. The sky was blue with scattered clouds. On the far shore of the river, a ferry had unloaded a dozen cars and was bringing back another load.

4. The Crossing

In no time at all, the Loni Jo had landed and the southbound vehicles disembarked. A gruff ferry hand waved the northbound vehicles onto the deck, car by car, lining them up in the middle first and then along each side. The ferryboat captain stood at the helm in the cabin.

“Can we get out?” David asked the hand.

“Sure,” he said as he continued directing cars, about a dozen in all.

In no time at all, the Loni Jo had ferried them across the swiftly flowing water of the Ohio River. And after a brief drive up a hill and thru the small town of Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, to which they said they plan to return someday to visit the park, David and Trudy were on their way to their next destination.

Oh… the crossing was free. What a shame that the interstate was shut down.

#silentsunday

On a ridge above the lake, on the ground in the shade beneath the canopy the forest at Lake Wappapello State Park in Missouri, there’s a green nut lying on the ground.

“What kind of nut is that?” it makes you want to ask.

My grandfather would have known. “I don’t know what kind of nut that is,” he might have said, “but it sure looks like it fell from a Hickory Tree.”

(Paraphrasing a joke he once made).