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The Outdoor Expo at the Busch Shooting Range in St. Charles County Saturday, July 28, attracted some 1,400 people to test firearms, practice skeet-shooting and casting, and visit booths of various outdoor providers from gun and archery dealers to game farms.
In the photo, seven-year-old Marek Nelson of Union, Mo., aims a 9 mm Beretta pistol under the direction of shooting range volunteer Mike Stassi.
By Emery Styron
River Hills Traveler
Don Collop of the Flying T—E Ranch, Rutledge, Mo., added historic flavor to the Outdoor Expo at Busch Shooting Range on Saturday, July 28.
Collop is a “cousie,” that is a chuckwagon cook, and brought along his 1910 wagon and cooking acoutrements, for the education of the many hunters, anglers, campers and others who attended the event and might want to compare notes on outdoor cooking.
Lonehand.com’s website credits Texas rancher Charlie Goodnight with creation of the prototype chuckwagon in 1866, during the era of the great cattle drives from Western lands to railheads in Kansas. Goodnight rebuilt a Studebaker wagon to carry water, firewood and provisions and cowboys bedrolls. Key features were the hinged lid of the chuck box, that dropped down to provide a work surface, and a canvas hammock suspended beneath the wagon to carry any scarce fuel collected along the way.
Collop’s wagon was manufactured by Peter Shetler in Chicago and first retailed by Roberts Bros. & Green Mercantile in Centralia, Mo. He has it outfitted with typical cowboy cooking gear. He and his wife, Evelyn, enjoy taking the wagon to schools and various events to make presentations on the cowboy way of life. Rounding out the chuckwagon gang are “hoodlums” (that’s what the cousie’s assistants were called) Hershel Linnenbringer and Gary Gooch.
Our family spent the week of July 4 in Washington, D.C., a far remove in miles, but not in influence, from the wet, wild, scenic and historic environs of Traveler Country.
One of our stops, for example was the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, overlooking the Tidal Basin. Touring the site reminded me that it was FDR’s jobs programs that put the craftsmen to work who built the stone entrances, lodges, waterways and other structures that give Missouri State Parks their distinctive, attractive appearance.
We toured the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, next to an ancient red brick building with the familiar green emblem of the U.S. Forest Service out front. If this obsolete structure is the only home of the Forest Service in the nation’s capital, I wonder if the agency has the tools to do its job.
Somewhere near the capital, we saw a statute of General U.S. Grant on horseback. According to biographer Jean Edward Smith, Grant took command of the Union army on August 30, 1861, at Cape Girardeau.
Grant’s footprints, of course, are all over St. Louis, where he even has a car wash named for him. Grant was posted to Jefferson Barracks after graduating from West Point. He met his wife, Julia, in St. Louis, and they built a home called Hardscrabble, which still stands, and lived later on Julia’s home place, White Haven, on Gravois Road. We’re all familiar with Grant’s Farm, where you can tour Grant’s cabin.
When he was president, Grant intervened to help his friend James Eads finish his bridge over the Mississippi River, over the objections of steamboat interests, according to information published by the St.Louis Public Library.
You can’t walk around downtown D.C. without dealing with the National Park Service, which manages the National Mall and many of the monuments. I couldn’t help but think of the Park Service and its stewardship of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.
Congress was in July 4 recess and many Washingtonians had fled to avoid the crush of tourists like us, so we didn’t see many of the elected officials and agency employees whose decisions have so much impact on our daily lives in Traveler Country and beyond.
As I gazed down on the empty House of Representatives chamber from the gallery, I was reminded how interconnected we all are in this representative democracy.
That’s how it is and how it should be.
Emery Styron
River Hills Traveler
A summer goal is to stay in all the state parks with camping facilities in Traveler country as I make my advertising rounds for the publication.
I prefer camping to staying in motels. It save you money and puts you in contact with other people and nature.This summer I’ve camped in Babler, Hawn, St. Joe, Sam Baker, Washington and Meramec State Parks and a National Parks Service Campground at Alley Spring. I’ve met campers, volunteer hosts, various wild animals, birds and insects, and seen some of Missouri’s prettiest scenery.
Each park has its own personality. Babler is an outpost in St. Louis’ western sprawl. Its sky is never dark and rarely quiet, as air traffic from nearby Spirit of St. Louis Airport flies overhead. Babler is frequented by bicyclists from nearby suburbs, who enjoy the steep and scenic hills and miles of roads.
St. Joe is an ATV paradise with some fishing lakes thrown in. Old lead mining wasteland has been used to make a place for people who like to camp and ride their off-road vehicles.
Hawn, Washington and Sam Baker offer more intimate encounters with nature. Pickle Creek meanders through the deep hollow where the Hawn campground is set, with spectacular scenes just steps from your tent site. Baker lays along the St. Francis River and you can make a canoe trip right at the park. Washington offers easy access to the Big River, plus trails, petroglyphs and great scenery.
Meramec, on the nights I was there, was full and loud, with noisy campers and roaring motorcyles. Perhaps that’s because it’s not far off Interstate 44. Camping is along the Meramec River front, handy for swimming, fishing, canoeing, kayaking or tubing. I found the 1.8 mile Deer Hollow Hiking Trail, and enjoyed an early morning uphill workout that came back into the paved park road for an easy walk back to camp.
It’s fun to talk with the volunter camp hosts and the people you meet around you. If you haven’t partaken of Missouri State Parks yet this summer, make plans now to get out there. Maybe I’ll see you in a campground.
Emery Styron
River Hills Traveler
Cross-country bicyclists are a common sight on the steep hills and scenic byways of Traveler Country. Many are heavily loaded with camping gear and supplies. Their itineraries are not for the weak-kneed or faint of heart.
Traveler encountered Charlie and Sue Johnson of Bettendorf, Iowa, taking a break from camping at the Madison Inn in Fredericktown. The couple is on a three-month ride from the Quad Cities in Iowa to Mobile, Ala., then to Owen Sound, Ontario, north of Toronto.
This is their fourth major summer ride. Previous trips took them from Washington to Maine, California to Florida and Oregon to Virginia.
The pair found some of Missouri’s highway signage confusing but the countryside beautiful.
They had overnighted in Lesterville, and came to Fredericktown on Missouri 72, which they planned to take to Cape Girardeau. They found Fredericktown appealing and decided to stay an extra night to take in the rodeo and attend church. Then it was off to Cape in hopes of finding a good bike shop before heading to Mobile.
Jim Anderson of Eminence and I spent a pleasant day last week fishing and floating a stretch of the Jacks Fork River between Bay Creek and Alley Spring.
Jim grew up in Piedmont, earned an ag degree at MU, and worked in agribusiness in Iowa, Kansas and Colorado before buying the Shady Lane Cabins and Motel in Eminence five years ago. He’s a wealth of information about the Current and Jacks Fork.
The night before we fished, we drove out to see some of the wild horse band that roams the Scenic Riverways. As many Traveler readers know, the horses are descended from those turned loose by farmers in the Great Depression of the 1930s and have been the subject of much controversy and publicity over the years.
It was fun to watch the stallion, mares and colts graze and frolic in the dusk. Jim tells me the National Park Service culls the herd to keep the numbers around 40.
So far as the fishing goes, we caught enough to keep things interesting but nothing to brag about. Jim’s an excellent guide and didn’t want me to be skunked. I don’t think he went so far as to put a fish on my hook when I wasn’t looking, but he worked hard to make sure I caught something.
One lesson learned is to be careful about pulling on lures caught in tree limbs. I had one, I think it was a Rooster Tail, come flying back across the river and knock the right lens out of my glasses and cut my cheek. I’m lucky not to have lost an eye. Snipping the line or at least ducking my head would have been the wiser course. Hindsight’s 20/20, even out of one eye.
It was also nice to renew the acquaintance of Shane Van Steenis at Harvey’s
Alley Spring Canoe Rental. Shane hails from Bloomfield, Iowa, near where I worked and lived the past several years. He and Jim both report a good start to the season on the Jacks Fork and Upper Current.
Emery Styron
River Hills Traveler
Two brothers, two nephews and I enjoyed a beautiful afternoon on the Eleven Point River last Thursday. We put in at Whitten and floated to Riverton, with a stop at the lovely Boze Mill Spring.
Water was a little higher than normal for this time of year and a stiff wind blowing upstream made it a little hard to get started. We eventually learned how to travel with the current and found the going easier.
It was the first time in a canoe for young James Styron, who sighted a muskrat, several turtles and herons and a kingfisher.
We enjoyed getting acquainted with Mike and Wendy Jones, friendly proprietors of Hufstedler’s Canoe Rental at Riverton.
More photos from the float trip are on the Photo Gallery section of this site.
Emery Styron
Traveler publisher
The point I was trying to make and many missed is that we HAVE gun control all over the country and it is constitutional. Some of it is quite good, in fact. You can’t call the requirement for hunter education in hunting anything but gun control. And it is certainly a good thing.
We are going to have more gun control legislation as time passes. We’d best be in a position to have some influence in the writing of those laws. We won’t if we splinter over silly things like personal opinion on the appearance of some firearms. Nor if we paint a broad segment of society as being our arch enemies.
One letter writer pegged me in that regard. Indeed, I painted the whole NRA as being radical. That was wrong. I guess it is because the people who snipe at me for having a more “liberal” view always seem to point out that they are NRA members as if they represent the whole organization.
Bob Todd, Traveler editor
Thunderbird Petroglyph, Washington State Park
It’s been an interesting week in Traveler Country.
I camped two nights in Washington State Park on the Big River between De Soto and Potosi and pulled a major camping boner at Babler State Park near Wildwood.
You wouldn’t realize driving down Missouri 21 what a vast, rugged jewel Washington State Park is. It has more than 2,100 acres of high ridges and deep valleys, bordering on the Big River. Native American petroglyphs estimated at 1,000 years old are just five minutes off the highway, along with fishing and swimming access on the river and great hiking trails.
There were only three sets of campers in the campground while I was there, plus the host: what appeared to be a homeless family, a roofer and his dog and a motor coach. There were no racoon problems as in Babler State Park. That may be due to the blare of televisions late into the night.
I moved the popup to Babler on Wednesday so as to attend the quarterly meeting of the Missouri Smallmouth Alliance at Powder Valley Nature Center. It was there I made an error no camper should.
I rolled into the campground about 4:30 p.m., checked in with the host. She said she’d find me and collect the camp fee. I set up the trailer, gulped down a sandwich and headed off to Powder Valley without actually registering my site.
When I got back to the park entrance about 10 p.m., the gates were closed and I had no code to punch into the electronic keypad. I could have contacted the St. Louis County police and asked them to call someone at the campground, but no one in the campground even knew my name since I wasn’t registered.
I rented a cheap motel room in Manchester and went out and registered the next morning. Glad I chose a $9 basic site instead of a $16 electric one since I didn’t even stay overnight.
The moral of the story. Be sure you register before you leave the campground.
Dave Hamilton, a furbearer biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, was featured speaker at the Smallmouth Alliance meeting. He acknowledged that the otter population has exploded since the critters were reintroduced to Missouri 23 years ago and that on some streams and farm ponds, otters have been really hard on the fish population.
We’ll have more about that in a future print issue of Traveler, July or later.
Emery Styron
River Hills Traveler
“How do you login and comment on this darn blog?” some have asked.
Good question, until now. We went into the administration section, checked a couple of boxes and lo and behold, a “Register” option now appears at the right under the Meta heading.
To log in, you must first register. Click on “Register” and you’ll bring up a box asking for your user name and email address. Enter those and click the “Register” button, and you’ll be immediately emailed a temporary password.
Go to your email inbox, retrieve your new password, then come back to Traveler Blog. Click “Login” this time, enter your user name and password. That will bring up a profile, where you can change the password if you like.
At the top of that page, beside “riverhillstraveler.com Blog” is a link that says “View site.” Click on that and you’ll be back at the blog. At the bottom of any entry is a link to submit comments. Once you are logged in, you can fire away.
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Copyright, 2007, Traveler Publishing Co., Piedmont, MO. |
