Wanderung 3

Rocky Mountain Ramble

May - July 2003

May 22nd - Finger Lake, Missouri

We needed to continue on the trail of Lewis and Clark, so we packed up and drove across the Mississippi into Missouri. If we had more time, we would have followed the course of the Missouri River which runs west but makes a large bow to the south, but we chose the more direct westerly route of I-70 to save time. Our goal was to reach Finger Lake State Park in time to get a campsite for the Memorial Day weekend, and we figured the earlier in the day we arrived, the better our chances.

We arrived around noon and could not find either a ranger or a campground host, so it took us a while to decode their system of marking the sites. All of the “reservable” sites had signs indicating they were only available for two days, not the entire weekend. Looking carefully at all the sites, we chose what we hoped was a “first-come, first-served site” where we could stay the whole weekend and set up camp. Fortunately when the campground host came around to check on us, it turned out that we had indeed chosen correctly and could pay for four nights. We were lucky because as far as we could see there were only two such sites available, and in fact we later saw the campground was booked for the entire weekend.

Finger Lakes State Park was converted from an old strip mine in the early 1970s. After taking it over, the state built a dam to flood the old mine troughs, which formed a long and narrow lake with several branches. The state also converted much of the hilly land on the west side of the lake into courses for cross-country motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). This turned out to be wildly popular with the off-road set and the park is apparently crowded every weekend during the summer, even when they don’t have scheduled races. We were, in fact, plum lucky to get a campsite on Memorial Day weekend.

We liked the campground and during the night it was completely quiet—no radio or TV blaring, no drinking, no parties. During the day, however, the noise of the motorcycles and ATVs is almost continuous, so this park is not for everyone. Being an old motorcyclist, I rather enjoy the sounds of the machines—I only get disturbed when I hear one that is missing or running badly. The youngster across from us flooded his motorcycle and spent over a half an hour trying to start it—my hands started to twitch to grab a spark plug wrench and dry out the plug so he could get it going.

The local fauna are surprisingly blasé about all the noise and tumult. A tufted titmouse and blue jay both came begging at our table for scraps or crumbs during our meals. On my way to the bathrooms at one end of the campground I repeatedly passed a rabbit that just sat beside the road calmly chewing on grass stems as I walked by. Since the road is also the main access way to the off road trails, at least twenty motorcycles and ATVs had to pass him everyday, but he remained in place. It’s possible, of course, that he was slightly deafened by all the noise and couldn’t hear me come, but maybe he just got used to all the noisy but harmless antics of the crazy humans. Hard to say, but there he was and I expect there he still is.

I was surprisingly fatigued after all the folderol and suspense of getting a campsite, and I just had no energy for doing something that afternoon. Instead we did the old standby, take a nap, which gave us at least enough energy for cooking dinner. Even with the nap, we were still surprisingly tired and this was an early-to-bed day. As we were retiring I heard a bird call “will-whip” and I thought to myself, “That could almost be the cry of a ‘whip-or-will’ except it has the ‘will’ before the ‘whip’ and has skipped the ‘or’ part.” Somewhere in the middle of the night, I awoke to hear the same bird call out the full “whip-or-will” and I was happy to hear I had guessed the right bird. This business of birds ad-libbing on variations of their calls does make it considerably harder on amateur birders like myself, I must say. I mean, who knew that a “whip-or-will” could go ‘will-whip’? Does a bobwhite sometimes call out “white-Bob”? Should I interpret it as a personal comment if he does call out like that? I wish the bird books would include the standard variations of a bird’s call beside the correct and complete call sequence—that would make it easier.

Copyright 2004 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

May 2003
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June 2003
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July 2003
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