6,000 Miles and still going strong!

Since the continent is only about 3,000 miles wide, and we’re nowhere near the west coast, you can understand that we are looping around and zigzagging all over.

A major purpose of this trip is to photograph birds. However, Harvey seems to have a bad case of Bird Flew – just as he gets the shot lined up, Gone. His personal nemesis is the kingfisher. The species has put out the word that Harvey is not to get close, no matter where he is. So there are lots of fuzzy shots of birds tantalizingly just beyond range for great pics.

This is not to suggest that there haven’t been lots of interesting birds:

After some time on the Mississippi, we headed back east into Wisconsin visiting more nature preserves. At Seney National Wildlife Reserve (NWR), the loons are more cooperative. Papa and baby put on a wonderful show of affection.

The sandhill cranes are more elusive, so we leave the NWR, only to find a pair grazing alongside the road, almost too close for good photos.

One “biggie” is Necedah NWR. This is where a resident flock of whooping cranes is being developed, aiding in the recovery of the species from near-extinction. Each year chicks are reared from eggs, then led on their first southward migration by an ultra-lite airplane. Once arrived, they join the existing flock of adults who will lead them back north to Necedah. The original for this idea was shown in the film Fly Away Home – highly recommended.

Although we have seen many beautiful and interesting birds, we’re clearly too early for the big migrations. Apparently even the species that usually migrate this early have been delayed – presumably because of warm weather. We may revise our trip plans, and return in a few weeks.

Back at the Mississippi, we had a fine visit with Fran’s nephew Chris and his wife Heather, just outside St. Paul. Who knew you could get great sushi in the heartland?

Off again, along the north shore of Lake Superior. Between Duluth and Canada there is a series of parks showcasing waterfalls where the streams cascade and plunge toward Superior.

Almost every river terminates in a sandbar at the entrance to Lake Superior.

Supposedly the Temperance River is so named because it has “no bar”!

Then we’re off into the great north woods. The Scandinavians settled here in pretty ethnically distinct areas – Norwegians in one county, Swedes and Finns elsewhere. One string of towns each had a sister city in Sweden. And looking at the map, you can imagine why the Finns felt at home – the ratio of lake to dry land is about the same as in Finland (50-50?).

OK. You can write to me c/o Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge, North Dakota. I’m going to build my house on the hill overlooking the lake/river and watch the migrating flocks of white pelicans come and go. The Dept. of the Interior doesn’t know about this, and it may take some persuasion, but I’m sure they can appoint me observer-in-residence or something. Here’s the view from my front porch:

North Dakota has been a surprise. Green rolling hills, lakes and rivers (although severely affected by drought). Not the desolate, depopulated prairie I imagined, but a beautiful landscape dotted with tidy towns and cities.

Southern North Dakota is a different country. Out here on the plains, the vertical scenery is often hidden below the surface. The land drops away abruptly before you, and you enter the Theodore Roosevelt National Park , weaving among rock formations in fantastic shapes and colors. Somehow it adds to the drama, that there is no hint as you approach.

Now we see antelope and coyote along the road.

This starts to feel like “The West”.

This also feels like a new phase of our trip. Starting with the TR park, we are focusing on scenery rather than bird migrations.

I may be the only person who hasn’t seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But I have seen Devils Tower where the saucer landed.

Another surprise landscape – the road plunges down from the from flat plain, and you’re suddenly in The Badlands. “Bad” perhaps for agriculture or towns, but wonderful to see in golden evening light or at sunrise. Although it is carved “below the horizon” like the T.R. park, here the colors are different, the types and shape of rocks different. A truly magical landscape.

Mount Rushmore. It is huge. You can see it for miles. It defines the word “monumental”. But it has been sold – and probably not to the highest bidder – one suspects to the highest donor. You can’t even park nearby without paying the “concessionaire”. We said No Thanks and viewed it adequately from farther away.

As counter-balance to Rushmore, an even larger sculpture of Crazy Horse is being carved on a nearby mountain. I love the idea. From the native perspective, Rushmore was a desecration of the sacred Black Hills. But it was disappointing to find that although they claim to be working on the sculpture every day, no progress on the image is visible from below, compared with photos from several years ago. The foundation that carried on the work after the death of the originator and sculptor has clearly put a lot of money into a visitor center and museum. They claim to also have funded scholarships for Native American youth, and have big plans for a university and medical center. An ambitious project. Also disturbing, however, was the lack of a visibly Indian presence among the staff, at least those on duty that day. Is this a realistic operation, honoring and supporting the native population? It’s hard to tell. And then you have to ask – is this a further desecration?

Ole Man River

We’ve reached the Mississippi! It’s just like the descriptions – wide, braided, full of sandbars, fascinating.

We’ve camped on bluffs 500 feet above the river for the past 2 nights, once on the Wisconsin (east) side, once on the Iowa (west) side. We plan to spend several days along the river, enjoying scenery and looking for birds. Harvey has already taken a few thousand pictures during the trip, and is out in the kayak right now, taking more.

Yesterday we visited the Effigy Mounds national monument and saw large earthworks in the shape of animals, created by ancient Native Americans.  No one knows for sure why peoples scattered over most of what is now the US started to build mounds around  1000 years BCE, or why they stopped  about 1300 CE. So of course we’re having fun with our own theories.  One puzzling thing is that these images are too large to be seen wholly from ground level; only from the air are they fully apparent. My idea is that it was a cult to create images pleasing to the sky gods, and sometime around 1300 they finally got it right, and were all raptured up to their heaven and disappeared!

We’ve seen many waterfalls, starting with Niagara. Michigan’s Tahquamenon Falls is amber-colored from tannin in the water:

We’ve visited nature preserves in New York, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The trumpeter swans put on a show at the Seney NWR in Michigan:

Harvey has kayaked on many lakes and rivers, most notable the day he crossed both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Of course, this was at the Mackinac Straits, so the whole trip was only about 12 miles, still it makes a great story.

We spent a day in Dearborn, Michigan, at the Henry Ford museums. One part is a collection of historical objects, mostly cars, but also the chair President Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated, and the bus where Rosa Parks refused to move to the back and triggered a major phase of the civil rights movement.

The other section is a collection of historical buildings, including Thomas Edison’s original workshops, Ford’s first workshop, and the Wright brothers’ bicycle shop. Our final impression is that the complex mostly honors people (almost all men) who moved society forward by some technological or conceptual innovation.

That’s all for now – will update again when I get a chance.