Exploring fern-covered cliffs and checking out a sculpture garden were the highlights of this week.
Day 71 Coronavirus
“I would like to have pancakes,” Andrew said this morning. I don’t cook much, but I do occasionally make breakfast meals. So I got the skillet out and put the ingredients together and made him some pancakes which he happily ate quite a few of them.
It was supposed to rain in the afternoon so we decided that in the morning we should do some hiking. I had looked at going to a park in the city. It included trails that went along a lake and the cliffs of the Mississippi River.
So we loaded up the car with, snacks, water bottles, and masks. This was not a long trip so we didn’t need to bring everything.
When we were crossing the bridge Andrew said, “The Arch.” He usually looks up from whatever he is doing and notices it when we cross the bridge into St. Louis.
“Let’s go check it out,” David added. I agreed, it would be a more interesting walk then the park. It also should not be to busy at mid-morning.
David found parking pretty easily near the Old Courthouse and we walked towards the Arch. There were a few people here and there but not to bad.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.
Luckily we found some bushes in an area that was all by itself. Normally, I would have had him do this at a restaurant, but it was downtown on Memorial Day during coronavirus and nothing was open.
After that, we walked towards the Arch. We walked under it than through it and headed for the large steps at the other end.
“Let’s head down to the river,” I said.
We headed down the stairs and found that the river was high. Usually, there is a cobblestone parking area, but the river was up to a thin walking area at the top. We walked along the river. Andrew asked to touch the water so I let him.
Then we heard a loud thumping noise. The helicopter was coming in. They do tours from this area. We watched as the helicopter headed to the landing pad on the river. Andrew enjoyed the sight of it coming in right above our heads.
We followed the river to the Lewis and Clark statue “The Captain Returns” that is now by the road. Originally the statue was nearer the water, which constantly went under the water and was used as an impromptu measuring stick of water height. I am glad it is above the water now. The statue includes their canoe and even their dog.
An area that used to be a parking garage is now a flower garden. I miss the easy availability of the parking, but the new park space is nice. I do think they could have kept the parking if they had made the top a park and put the parking below.
I assume the flowers are native and the area had little side paths that you could walk through filling the space with greenery and flowers. Andrew enjoyed doing that with our dog Chewie that we brought with us.
We read some of the historical tablets spaced around the paths. One was on Elijah Parish Lovejoy who printed a newspaper that was against slavery and had a printing press in St. Louis and then Alton and wrote about the horribleness of slavery. He was killed for his actions.
Another talked about Dred Scott, who wanted freedom from slavery, the case went all the way to the Supreme Court and they were still denied freedom.
After reading about them we headed back to the SUV.
David cooked hotdogs and burgers for dinner and we ate it outside hearing the thunder in the distance from a storm.
It didn’t rain much, but it did produce a double rainbow in back.
I put Andrew to sleep tonight and read to him a Spiderman and an Avengers book. I hugged and kissed him good night before he fell asleep.
Day 72 Coronavirus
The morning started with cereal and David played some with Andrew while I plotted our course for another hiking adventure.
I packed PB&J sandwiches, Pringle’s snack packs, trail mix, and some pretzels. We took three water bottles along with some sparkling waters. I made sure to take Chewie’s water dish.
Andrew pointed out that he wanted a new Power Rangers series downloaded for the drive.
Deep Woods Off and suntan lotion were included as we go more into summer.
I plotted the drive, which mostly involved interstate travel until we got to the exit for the state park. Fern Clyffe State Park is closer to the main roads than Kincaid Lake.
After loading everything up I checked the weather once, more a 20 percent chance of rain remained. That was the best we were going to get today since there were higher chances everywhere else included our town.
Andrew put his headphones on and watched his shows. The drive there was uneventful. I considered stopping at a rest stop if he said anything about needing to pee but since he didn’t I kept driving.
I faced some road construction on Interstate 57 heading south, but no backup at least. I exited onto Highway 148 that was a little north of the park. GoogleMaps had sent me this way. I ended up following slow-moving traffic. I drove through the town of Goreville. It has a small downtown and was a clean little town and then drove into the park. I was trying to follow GoogleMaps and made a wrong turn then righted myself and followed two cars into the parking lot, which was pretty full. This was the first section; the second section was not as full at least.
I told Andrew we should use the bathroom first. It was too busy to do this on the trail. There were a lot of families out today with kids who seemed to be running all over the place.
Andrew saw that another trail went through a small creek with concrete stepping-stones. We did that first then headed to the waterfall trail.
Along the trail, there were smaller trails that led to large cliff walls and boulders. I let him lead us around into a boulder field and along the cliffs then I found a trail back to the main one. Since the cliff was on one side of the creek and trail it was easy to get back to the right trail.
The creek that flowed through here was clear and rocky and you crossed it a few times on the trail. Andrew liked all the little waterways.
Finally, we made it to the main waterfall. It is not a large waterfall but did end with a small water hole. I might have gone closer to the falls but the area was swarming with kids. I also didn’t want him to follow the older boys up some huge boulders. There was also a young boy walking up the slippery rock wall in the falls. The mother seemed to have a lot of boys with her and didn’t seem to understand the dangers. We didn’t stay too long, I didn’t want to see a boy hurt.
On our way back I found a small waterfall dripping down and we put out our hands and let it drip on us. You could walk under it some and be in a small rock shelter. We hung out here a bit before heading back.
I wanted to have lunch when we headed back to the car. He saw a father and two older boys head up another trail.
“I want to cross the creek now and head up to the cave,” he said.
I told him we could wait for lunch and we could do that. It was a mile loop trail and thought we could get it done pretty fast.
So we headed up first following this cliff along. The trail has a few rock shelters ending in one that goes way back sort of like a cave. He liked wandering around here. Then he saw these three older boys up above us on a hard to get to boulder.
“Can we do that?” he asked.
“No, Andrew, we have Chewie and I don’t see an easy way to do it,” I said.
He headed in that direction until he saw how hard it was to get up there when the boys started to come down. I am glad he can figure these things out now on his own and doesn’t blindly do it.
The trail circle back down and followed the creek to where we started. I didn’t do this trail last time and glad we took the time to do it.
I opened the hatch and we had lunch. I put Chewie in the back with us. She was wet, but not to dirty.
“I want to do more hiking,” he said after eating his sandwich quickly.
The place was filling up.
“I found another area with a trail that leads to another waterfall, let’s do that,” I said.
He thought that was fine so we headed up.
I drove back through Goreville and out Goreville Road and up and down a huge hill before coming to a gravel road. It looked fine at the start then it got narrower and narrower. I saw one pull off point before coming across a mother with a child on a four-wheeler. As they passed I noticed the road going to more mud and less gravel. I decided to turn back. This must not be the right way to the trailhead or there is a better way from another direction. I decided we could get stuck in the mud. I backed up and used the pull off.
When we came up to the end of the road I looked in my southern Illinois guide for another trail. Then I remembered that the road from the interstate to the park was called Tunnel Hill Road. I used Google maps to find a trailhead for the Tunnel Hill State Trail. This was an old railroad bed now used as a bicycle trail. It was only about 15 minutes away.
“Andrew how about we head to a tunnel instead,” I said.
He thought that was a cool idea so we drove the short drive to it. There was only one other car here so we had the place to ourselves. The walk to the tunnel was a third of a mile. The tunnel was pretty long too. When you got into the middle it felt pretty dark. Andrew found it eerie but liked it.
The rock at the entrance from the front was striated and notched. The rock at the other end was more solid. I wondered if that was done to different methods of cutting the rock.
The trail was a bit muddy when you entered the tunnel, but it was still worth it.
After seeing the tunnel we headed back home. I didn’t stop on the way back either. Two hours seems like a good amount of time when it comes to not having to stop.
I am glad we hurried back when I checked the weather when we got home a storm and come over the area we had left. I noticed the wind coming on stronger when I was on the interstate before entering the St. Louis Metro area. It looked like I just missed a storm.
I was tired when we got back. Andrew still had energy and played some Power Ranger sword fighting with David before dinner. We had burgers, hot dogs, and salad.
Everyone got a bath tonight, even Chewie. It was wet at the trails, which is good in some ways since it means the area was dripping with small waterfalls.
After some cartoons David read to him and then David and I watched The Expanse, a sci-fi show, before heading to bed.
Day 73 Coronavirus
For breakfast, David made Andrew some oatmeal and he also had a pop tart with grape juice.
It was a rainy day with internment showers.
David and Andrew completed a puzzle together while I did some Internet work. It was a new dinosaur puzzle with a T-Rex roaring at you. He did it pretty fast. Andrew had gotten quicker at completing puzzles during all of this.
We played outside. I was a bad guy and he was a Power Ranger and we fight a few battles. Then he wanted to ride his bicycle up and down the drive for a bit.
We did this a few times when I saw a large fish in the lake churning up the water. We rode our bikes down to the lake, which was not a good idea since the grass was wet which made is slippery. He did OK; I slipped some on the grass. David pointed out that this was not a good idea.
Out in the water, the large fish kept surfacing and churning. The koi fish that were introduced in the lake years ago have been dying out. I think this was one of them.
I pointed out a large snake coming up the center of the lake. As we head back up to the house I saw a hawk land on the neighbor’s boat dock railing. It was there for a while before heading off. It is amazing all the wildlife we get on the lake.
Lunch that day was toasted ravioli, a St. Louis delicacy involving breaded and fried ravioli with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and served with marinara sauce. David wanted to have something different so he cooked them in the oven. It was a nice change from our usual sandwiches.
Dinner that night was BBQ. Andrew joined me in going to the local barbecue place and picking up ribs, sausage, nachos and park, corn casserole, fries, and his favorite rice crispy treat.
The barbecue place has gotten much better and doing curbside then the first time that the order took over two hours due to a glitch through the App service they were using. They had it ready in 15 minutes and since I was the only person there in a gray SUV brought it right out when I was there. It probably helped that we ordered early before 4:30 pm even.
I was lucky that there were dry periods, but it was a long day with lots of indoor time, I hoped for a dryer day tomorrow.
Day 74 Coronavirus
I had a bowl of Shredded Wheat and Andrew had some Cinnamon Toast Crunch this morning. David and Andrew played some while I gathered stuff for a bike ride and walk later in the morning. Not a far trip today. I only took some water bottles and a bag of chips. I of course packed the masks and his bike helmet.
He had a treat today. We went to Burger King for his kid’s meal with a Transformers toy. He had shake with that. I bought a double cheeseburger and some jalapeno poppers, I like there’s. When I pulled around they had a made a chocolate shake by mistake so they gave me that one, too. That was nice, but it was overfilled and I had chocolate everywhere on the center console. I had an old shirt nearby so at least I could clean up.
I pulled in the park in Troy, Ill., backward so we could eat facing the park side. Tri-Township Park has a walkway that goes around the different areas of the park, such as the ball field and a hilly area.
We ate first giving Chewie little pieces of our burgers as a treat. He ended up eating half my poppers though.
The park also has a small farm zoo so we headed over there to look over the animals. Not all the animals are out. We did see the alpacas and the goats and some chickens and a donkey. At one point the alpaca came close along the fence so Andrew gained a close look at it.
I take him here on occasion. They only have a few animals and sometimes they are not always out of the barn area. Yet, it is closer to the zoo and only a few miles from our house.
Then I helped him with his helmet and rode his bike while I walked along with Chewier.
“I like going on top of that climbing structure,” he said.
He and I both knew he couldn’t do it today due to the germs.
We headed onto the bridge that crosses the pond. By the lakeshore sat a white and two black swans. Then from the bridge, he looked down to see some fish below hoping for some fish treats from above.
Across the lake, we rode around a bit before heading back across the bridge again.
Then we went back to the animals again before he wanted to head out.
It was still early so we did that next. I wanted to stop to buy a coffee at Dunkin through the drive-thru. He also wanted a donut with sprinkles. We made a quick stop here. We were the only people in the drive-thru since it was around 1 p.m.
Dinner that night included a chicken satay with peanut sauce. It was yummy. Andrew finished up the cheeseburger and the fries from Burger King with an apple. He had eaten more of my poppers then anything else.
The last thing I did was put away the laundry. Andrew now insists on putting away his clothes, too.
Day 75 Coronavirus
Today I was taking Andrew on a hike along the Missouri River across from St. Charles, Mo. Andrew and I had Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal for breakfast.
I only took a few snacks along with water bottles since we were having McDonald’s drive-thru if he was good today.
He took his bike along and of course Chewie.
The drive began through the interstate system of St. Louis on 270 to Earth City Expressway. I maneuvered my way through a corporate industrial park then to St. Charles Rock Road. We parked in the lot for the bike trail along the river across from the city of St. Charles in the city of Bridgeton at the Riverwoods Park and Trail. There were only a few other people here. It was quiet. It was around 10 am so not the busy part of the day.
One path went along the levy and the other one went near the river, and we headed for that one.
It had been raining a lot lately so the blacktop path was muddy in parts since it was right on the river. There were a few signs along the way to learn about the area.
At one time the path we had followed had been used for the first car bridge to St. Charles, the bridge was dismantled in 1997. Before this bridge, there had been a pontoon bridge. I told Andrew we had crossed one still in use in Willemstad Curacao.
Another sign talked about The Montana, a huge steamboat, 282-foot long that had gone down here in 1884 and its remains can sometimes bee seen along the shore when the water level is low such as in 2005.
Through the trees I noticed a barge taking cargo for another and pointed it out to Andrew. For some reason, they were shifting grain from one barge to another and this included the tugboat moving around. It was something for him to watch for a bit.
The path went below the water table about halfway so we had to turn around and head back to the vehicle. We had some water and then headed to McDonald’s.
Andrew wanted a shake with his Happy Meal and for some reason, they charged it as a separate item and I tried to say something but with the mask she did not understand, I decided it wasn’t worth fighting it. This is the problem with drive-thru orders that can easily get mixed up with one person doing the charging and the other person doing the serving.
The St. Charles area had 370 Lakeside Park north of 370 and we checked that area out while we had our McDonald’s in the hatchback.
It was windy today and this allowed the lake area to have a continual breeze even though it was warm out.
After eating our burgers and fries Andrew and I headed out along the paved path here. There was plenty of room to social distance since it was more open and we could go into the field along the lake. We headed towards a giant kite being flown over the lake. It was colorful with red, white, and blue stripes with a long tail flinging about. There were a few kayakers on the lake along with a fishing boat.
On our way back to the SUV I noticed a snake. It wasn’t moving. I pointed it out to him and he took some time to study it for a bit. It looked like a water snake that must have been squished by a car.
Across the road coming in was a rusted metal bird sculpture.
“It looks like a pterodactyl,” Andrew said. I would have to agree with him.
After he did some biking around here he wanted to head on home. The park was getting a bit to busy anyway.
Dinner that night was leftover barbecue.
I read to him a storyline of Star Wars: The Last Jedi done in a Golden book format and book on the Marvel Superhero book Hawkeye. He fell asleep pretty easily after that.
Day 76 Coronavirus
Today I made waffles for breakfast. It was Andrew’s idea. He wanted them. They turned out good, too.
The morning involved getting ready to go to Laumeier Sculpture Park in suburban St. Louis. We knew it would have people, but we could social distance from others since the main area of sculptures was in a large field. The drive took us about an hour.
The main parking area was pretty full but the overflow had not been taken over. We also were able to find parking in the main area since someone had left.
I had read that the restrooms open. I headed up to the restrooms but found them locked. A lady came out of an office and asked her where we could use the restrooms.
“Porta-potties have been placed throughout the park so you can use them,” she said.
That explained what they had meant. Andrew said he didn’t need to go right now so we decided to look for them later.
The first sculpture we came to looks like a cement maker lying down with stripes and diamonds. It was one Andrew wanted to get a closer look at first. As we walked away he slipped running down the hill.
He cried a bit then noticed he was bleeding. I told him it was not that bad. He wanted to leave for a bit before I pointed at a sculpture that looked like an eyeball. That interested him so we headed there.
The sculpture is meant to look like this including the veins of the eye. He looked at it for a bit. I wanted a photo of it with him but other groups were doing a photo.
“That looks like a dog baying at the moon,” I said pointing at a metal sculpture. He didn’t seem to agree and then we walked on.
Then a tree had neon birds up on top with phrases.
“Do you see any words you know,” I asked Andrew. He has been learning a few words through pre-school.
“ I see up and like,” he said. “Can you read what it says?”
I read one to him, “Rise up joyful like a bird.”
Next, we came to a large tire and he ran back and forth through it.
“Look it is huge deer,” I said.
It was a tall deer sculpture that you can stand inside of and he liked that one.
One of the larger sculptures at the park is these tall red beams stacked about. He wandered under them looking up and behind a few of them.
What he liked was a huge smiley face that goes into the ground. You can walk around it on the sides at different levels or stand inside a smile, a nose, or the two eyes.
One sculpture is done with metal and rubber and you can even teeter-totter on them. There was a sign saying not to be rough. Yet, there were two kids giving it a go. We decided not to stop there.
“There’s a sailing ship up ahead,” David said.
We headed to it. It was not a large ship, but a propeller upfront moves the ship around in whatever direction the wind blows.
He found an indention that formed a circle and started running around it over and over and up and down the hill.
“I am in the speed force like the Flash can you pretend to be bad guys,” he said.
So he ran around the circle many times as I tried to catch him playing the bad guy.
Next, we came across a sort of woman enclosed in propellers that took the form of wings.
The last sculpture was one that was a wooden pyramid that you could walkthrough. Although it was sort of muddy.
We headed back to the car and now people were waiting for parking spots. The place was filling up.
Since we were driving back through the city we decided to get chicken from Hodak’s in St. Louis.
We hadn’t ordered from this place in the while. We bought wings, onion rings, quarter chickens, and chicken fried sandwich.
It was really easy to do and when we arrived they had spaces designated for each take out order and we just called and gave them our number.
When we got home we had a late lunch on the deck and relaxed for a bit.
We played with Andrew a while before we had dinner.
Again on the deck, but since we had a late fulfilling lunch we had cheese, sausage, crackers, olives, and some fruit. It was a relaxing way to end the evening.
I read to him tonight a Spiderman and an Ant-Man story before he fell asleep.
We then watched the finale episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race and both felt the winner didn’t deserve it.
Day 77 Coronavirus
This morning I had crumbled pop-tarts. I had packed these along for trips and the package had become crumbs, but I didn’t want to waste them so I made it my breakfast. Andrew had a hard-boiled egg and some Honey Nut Cheerios.
After breakfast, David played Power Rangers using the foam swords we had made him while I helped to get things ready for their trip. I need to write some today and return emails so it was there day together.
I loaded up the Ipad with some shows for Andrew. David made sandwiches. A special treat today was Doritos. I also put in some water bottles, a few toys, pretzels and made sure the masks were in the SUV. I also put his bike and helmet in because he wanted to ride that while David and Chewie walked.
They were heading to Springfield, Il., to walk at Washington Park. The roads in the park are turned to pedestrian use on Mondays. Something we used to do when I worked at the local newspaper there many years ago.
I will miss them today, but I am behind on a lot of projects.
When David came home he said they played in the park and Andrew rode his bike around some. They also had sandwiches in the hatchback along with drinks. I wish I could have gone along, but I finished a lot of work while they were gone.
Dinner that night was leftover fried chicken, coleslaw, and corn on the cob.
Andrew still had energy so we headed on a bike ride. We went up through some hills and then down another. I noticed something flash a light brown through the woods.
“Andrew, look over there,” I said.
“It’s the fox,” he said.
We’ve had one in the neighborhood. Everybody else had seen him and finally, I had. He walked through the woods in the distance in the direction we were going so we followed him a bit before he disappeared.
“Dad, there’s a rabbit over there, he might eat it,” Andrew said.\
“That is a possibility,” I said.
“Poor rabbit,” he said.
Prey and predator can be seen right here in the ‘burbs.
