River Hills Traveler Blog - Trav Talk » Trav Sez He’s Seen It All

“Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar…”

Jo — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:09:01 +0000

There are some stories give you cold shivers when you hear them. You either internally or out loud say “YES!” and then they gnaw around inside your brain until you either have to write it or go insane.

This is one of those stories. I’m not sure if it is really a Traveler story, but it starts out in Missouri, though it doesn’t end here, so I’m going chance it.

It’s no secret by now that I’ve got a thing about steam locomotives. I’m not a real railfan, chasing them across the country, and quoting mechanical running statistics, but if one comes near, you can be almost certain that I’ll be there if humanly possible.

It’s not a rational attraction. I swear I can smell those iron-chattering, heavy-breathing, cinder-spitting steam whistle screaming behemoths if one is anywhere within 50 miles. Twelve years ago while walking cross-campus at Meramec Community College, I heard the low, throaty wail of the restored Frisco 1522 straining mightily up Kirkwood Hill. No one around me paid the slightest attention, but I stood transfixed, almost as if cast back a hundred years in a millisecond. When the whistle sounded the second time, I verbally accosted the nearest stranger. “Did you hear that? “Wow!” They (probably quite rightly) just hurried away to their next class.

It’s all because of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy 4960, a 2-8-2 Mikado road engine, built in August 1923 at the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Although the Burlington, with its famous diesel Zephyrs, was one of the early railroads to abandon steam, the 4960 persisted until it was put into steam excursion tourist service from 1961 to 1966.

The 4960 in steam excursion service. Brother Bill looking out the cab.

My dad was the railroad fan. If it wouldn’t have been for being married, with two small children, he probably would have went to work on a railroad. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, though, you almost had to know someone to get a job on a train, or spend long years on the “extra board” to gain enough seniority to get a full time position. That was not to be. Instead, we had “S” gauge American Flyers in the basement, more Lucius Beebe books than I can count, and Bill and I went on steam excursions instead of to Disneyland.

Dad, Jo, Bill, and Grandma Schaper. Bill got the whole RR suit. I had only a hat.

The two trips we took were to Hannibal and Mexico, Missouri. I don’t remember much of the Hannibal trip. (I’m sure we went up the hill to look at Mark Twain’s house and to get lunch somewhere during the layover.) I do recall the trip to Mexico: no one packed a lunch, and being as that trip was on Sunday, back in the days of strict blue laws, we couldn’t find any place within walking distance of the train station that had food.

Life went on. We grew up. Cross-country steam excursions, for the most part, became a thing of the past, due to changes in the railroad and insurance industries. In 2004, my husband and I planned a December trip to the Grand Canyon, only to discover that my old friend, the 4960, had spent 24 months in rehab from 1993 to 1995 by the Grand Canyon Railway (GCR), and had once again begun hauling tourists in 1996.

As exciting as that discovery was, it was immediately quashed. The GCR, which has several steam locomotives, keep the steam close to Williams, AZ, during December where they served as motive power for the Polar Express, weather permitting. We took the train ride, but the idea of going back someday when the 4960 was available always hung in the back of my mind.

Until 2008. Through the grapevine of consciousness came the news that the GCR had mothballed their steam due to air quality regulations. They’re dirty, they can’t pass EPA regulations, we can’t be polluting the air just to feed some people’s anachronistic whims. I’ve eaten enough cinders to grant that wood or coal burning high iron is indeed dirty, although unlike most car exhaust, most of smoke falls to the earth quickly. The Union Pacific steam locomotives run on oil. The UP 844 always has. I sighed, and moved on.

I wasn’t even thinking about trains one recent night when I stumbled across a photo of the Pennsylvania RR diesel which currently pulls the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Southern tourist excursion based in Jackson, Mo. (AH! the Traveler connection!) It cast my mind back to one day in 1990, when brother Bill, my friend Rich Clark and I drove to Jackson for what was then a steam excursion run to Gordonville. It was perhaps the slowest train ride I’d ever been on…one way to look at it was you could savor every minute. That steam locomotive has been in their shop awaiting an infusion of cash and a rebuild. Jackson is a nice town, but southeast Missouri doesn’t attract anything like the number of tourists of the Grand Canyon.

I got to wondering whatever became of the 4960. There are no scrap heaps for steam locomotives, and the iron is way too valuable not to recycle. Perhaps it had found its way to someplace like St. Louis County’s Museum of Transportation, where it could tell its stationary story to schoolchildren who had never, and were quite unlikely to ever feel the ground shake from hundreds of tons of pounding, hissing steel careening through the night, its boiler glowing with licking fingers of fire glinting off the moonstruck rail as the breathless pistons thrust the connecting rods back and the siderods spun the wheels, and long keening wail startled drivers half asleep at crossing gates waiting for the swift shadowed steam torpedo to barrel into the vanishing inky distance.

I figured the GCR website was as good as any place to begin. I don’t think I’ve been so startled as the first sleepy morning that my dad put his Nickle Plate steam sounds vinyl record on our house-wide sound system, and turned it up in my room oh so slowly until, when I woke up to the chuffing, slipping wheels, the clang of the crossing bucks bell and the dinosaur-like scream of hot steam across the whistleplate.

“It’s Time To Get Fired Up! Steam is back at Grand Canyon Railway.”
“Fueled by waste vegetable oil (WVO), driven by an iron will, powered by ingenuity. We’re taking steam power into the 21st century while preserving our historic trains and the environment through which they run. The Grand Canyon Railway commemorates the anniversary of our rebirth in September with a special round trip run to the Grand Canyon using steam locomotive No. 4960 fueled by recycled vegetable oil. The steam locomotive also makes several eight-mile trips on special days throughout the year with a single class of service in the train’s historic 1923 Harriman cars. The Grand Canyon Railway recently became the first tourist railway in the United States to receive ISO 14001 third-party certification of its environmental management system (EMS) after a two-year process involving complete review, development and implementation of environmental initiatives in all of its operations.”

The 4960 is scheduled to run to the Canyon next week on Valentine’s Day and appropriately enough…on Earth Day.

Photo from Grand Canyon Railway

Animal Valentines: the 10 strangest animal lovers

Jo — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:37:14 +0000

(Missouri State office The Nature Conservancy news release.)
Missouri’s Greater Prairie Chicken and the American Burying Beetle
Made the List, But Both Species Face Threats

So you think you’ve had some strange dates? This Valentine’s Day, The Nature Conservancy compiled the top 10 most bizarre examples of love in the wild.

Photo from outdoorhub.com

“Nature can get pretty wild, especially when love is in the air,” said Todd Sampsell, The Nature Conservancy’s Missouri State Director. “While we may find the mating habits of some of these critters bizarre, they actually may remind you of someone you know.”

Unfortunately, many of these creatures are at risk of disappearing forever because of habitat loss, climate change, and other threats.

“Here in Missouri, the greater prairie chicken faces an uncertain future because of habitat loss and fragmentation,” Sampsell said. “The American burying beetle is also in rapid decline, and is now listed as critically endangered. It has been absent from Missouri prairies for decades, but this year we’re partnering with the Saint Louis Zoo and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring the beetles back to the Show-Me state.”

To make sure these incredible animals survive in the future, The Nature Conservancy is restoring temperate grasslands in northwest and southwest Missouri. These grasslands are the most endangered, least protected land habitat on Earth, and restoring them not only ensures a future for native Missouri grassland species but it also helps protect Missouri’s rural heritage and economy.

“Nature is powerful, but for many animals their future now depends not only on their mating prowess but on what help we give them,” Sampsell said. “If we don’t act now to protect the lands and water these creatures call home, they may not be around for future generations.”

Learn more at www.nature.org/wildlove

Do these wild lovers remind you of anyone?

1) Deep sea angler fish: “Losing yourself in love”
Male anglerfish bite their mates and permanently fuse to their bodies. Over time, the male’s brain, eyes and organs dissolve until he turns into a small lump, releasing sperm whenever the female is ready to lay eggs. Scientists first thought the lumps were fins before discovering they were the males.

2) Prairie Chickens: “Strut Your Stuff”
Male prairie chickens attract females with loud “booming” noises that can be heard miles away. They also perform an elaborate dance — lowering their heads, erecting their neck feathers, inflating orange air sacks, dropping their wings and pointing their tails, all while frantically stamping their feet.

3) American Burying Beetle: “Family Oriented”
American burying beetles not only are monogamous but also raise their children together. Expectant parents bury dead birds or mice and lay eggs nearby. The parents lie on their backs and use their legs like a conveyor belt to move carcasses up to 200 times their own weight. Once hatched, larvae feed on the carcass or the parents rub their wings together to call the larvae and regurgitate meat into their mouths.

4) Freshwater mussels: “The bait and switch”
Male mussels release sperm into the water, which females capture downstream. Larvae hatch inside the females’ shells but must then attach to a fish to grow. To lure fish, mother mussels wave appendages that look like worms, crayfish or other bait. Some emit a smell of rotting flesh to attract scavenger fish. When fish approach, the mussels shoot the larvae onto the fish.

5) Prairie Vole: “Born to be Faithful”
Unlike most rodents, prairie voles are monogamous. Scientists have discovered that prairie vole faithfulness is caused by hormone receptors located in their brain’s reward centers, giving them the sense of pleasure from monogamy.

6) Bower birds: “Bachelor Pads”
Male bowers of Australia and New Guinea build large and elaborate bachelor pads on forest floors, decorated with flowers, leaves, shells and even stolen coins – anything they think will attract a mate. Some paint the walls with chewed berries, others build lawns of moss. Drab males build the flashiest pads to compensate for their dull colors.

7) Lions: “One Track Mind”
When lions mate, the coupling usually lasts only about 20 seconds. But the pair will repeat the act every 20 minutes or so – sometimes up to 40 times a day. This will continue for three to seven days straight, with the male and female neglecting to hunt or eat during the entire time.

Tree crickets: “Smooth talker”
Male crickets bite holes in leafs to amplifier their love songs and attract females. Once they mate, however, male sperm packets don’t fit inside the females’ bodies so a portion hangs out. The ever-ravenous females try to eat the packet before fertilization can occur. To distract her, the male sings and secretes a tasty goo from his back, feeding her until the eggs are fertilized.

9) Day Octopus: “Keep Your Distance”
Female day octopi are known to eat their partners after mating, so the males keep their distance. When a male finds a female, he extends one arm and waves. If she responds, he uses his arm to place a sperm packet under the female’s body covering. The octopi stay at an arm’s length – appearing as though they are holding hands.

10) Little Brown Bats: “Waiting for the Right Time”
Because these bats mate in the autumn — but hibernate during winter – females store sperm for seven months to delay pregnancy until springtime. While bats normally hang upside down, females stand upright to give birth and catch their babies in a membrane between their legs. Newborns cling to their mothers even during nighttime flights as they search for food.

Roadkill Cafe? Yummm!

Jo — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:50:41 +0000

Traveler friend and MDC Twin Pines manager Melanie Carden-Jessen sent along this note about the Roadkill Cafe, to be held February 11th, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Twin Pines Conservation Education Center just off U.S. 60 a few miles east of Winona.

Larry Lindeman, an outdoor skills specialist, will teach people how to prepare, preserve and enjoy roadkill, including deer, squirrel, beaver, rabbit and more. There is no cost for the workshop, which is limited to 20 people.

According to Carden-Jessen, “Featured on the menu will be animals often seen on the road that are actually pretty tasty if prepared properly.”

Call 573-325-1381 to see if there are any spots left (and to see if Lindeman has any good raccoon or possum recipes.)

Now, because it’s that time of year

Jo — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:56:37 +0000

One of Jo’s favorite Da Yooper’s songs: “The Second Week of Deer Camp.”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb9yhhflmvY

Jo was fortunate enough to attend a Yoopers musical event (she hesitates to call it a concert) in 2004 in Marquette, Michigan on the UP. Free music and free beer. It doesn’t get much better than this. (Yes they have a song about free beer, too, but it doesn’t seem to have hit the Internet.) The secret reason she likes Da Yoopers, of course– the UP is world famous for copper and iron mining, and their establishment in Ishpeming, Michigan, is actually a

Enjoy.

First modern-day Missouri deer kill with atlatl

Jo — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:02:01 +0000

St. Louis County hunter becomes first in the state to take deer with atlatl

ST. LOUIS — On opening day of the Missouri November firearms deer season, a Show-Me –State hunter used the most ancient of weapons to bag a deer in modern day St. Louis County.

Photo courtesy Missouri Dept. of Conservation

Luke Boenker, 54, of Maryland Heights, became the first hunter in Missouri to take a deer using an atlatl—a primitive spear-throwing weapon—when he harvested a four-point buck just after 4 p.m. on Nov. 12. He was hunting 30 feet up in a tree stand on private property in the vicinity of Clayton and Clarkson Roads.

“The buck approached to within about 15 yards of the tree I was sitting in,” said Boenker. Boenker grunted to get the deer to pause. He took advantage of the opportunity, letting loose the fatal shot, which made contact with the buck at its back and penetrated the deer’s rib cage. The buck continued for approximately 150 yards more before dropping, Boenker said.

“It was the ultimate feeling,” recalled Boenker of the experience.

The atlatl predates the bow and arrow. It is used to throw a 4-to 6-foot-long, spear-like projectile known as a dart. The atlatl is a wooden shaft approximately a foot-and-a-half long with a socket or knock at the rear to engage the dart.

The dart is placed along the shaft with its back end resting in the socket or knock. The hunter grips the atlatl near its front end and performs a forward throw using the upper arm and wrist. The flipping motion of the atlatl creates angular momentum that propels the dart with greater speed and power than can be achieved with the arm alone. Darts thrown from the weapon can achieve velocities of nearly 100 miles per hour.

Boenker constructed the atlatl himself from Osage-orange wood. He assembled the dart using a 7-foot ash shaft crafted by dart maker Bob Berg of New York and an Ace broad head tip.

The atlatl became a legal method for taking deer in Missouri for the first time last year, during the 2010 firearms deer season. Boenker is the first person known to actually have taken a deer in Missouri with the weapon. The atlatl may be used during all portions of the firearms deer season, with the exception of the muzzleloader portion.

Boenker said that he was relatively new to using the atlatl, having taken it up only three months ago. He was introduced to and mentored in the use of the weapon by his friend and president of the Missouri Atlatl Associate (MAA), Ron Mertz. Boenker is also an MAA member.

Boenker is not new to hunting, however. He’s has been pursuing deer with firearms and bow and arrow since age 16. He said he chose the atlatl because of the unique challenge it presented.

“I’d hunted with bows and guns before,” he said, “But I didn’t even load my guns this year. I wanted to do something different.”

He said he intends to take the tenderloins and back straps of his deer, and have the rest processed into hamburger.

The state’s second deer to be taken by atlatl was killed in northwest Missouri’s Grundy County Nov. 13 by Scott Rorebeck of Trenton. Rorebeck is a member of the MAA as well.

Complete information on Missouri hunting seasons and regulations can be found at the Department of Conservation’s website, www.mdc.mo.gov.

Additional information about the atlatl and related event listings are posted at the World Atlatl Association webpage, www.worldatlatl.org. To learn more about atlatl activities in Missouri, contact MAA president Ron Mertz at devoemertz@sbcglobal.net.

Please let your breakfast settle before viewing this

Jo — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:10:52 +0000

According to a story on Ozarks First.com (out of Springfield, MO) a weird wild animal killing farm animals in the daylight was shot near the town of Strafford, by the farm owner at the end of last week.

What is it?

The animal resembled a chupacabra. A chupacabra, if you don’t know, is a legendary beast, literally “goat sucker” in Spanish. The most likely explanation is a coyote with a parasite disease, but other small furbearing animals (including raccoons) have been identified in other chupacabra killings.

Here’s the link. What do you think? Thanks to Brian Waldrop for bringing this to our attention.

Giant Bat sighted at Traveler Office!!!!!!!

Jo — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:20:51 +0000

Jo was quietly working at the Traveler office this morning when a GIANT BAT flew down and roosted on the eave in front of her desk.

It’s been hanging around ALL MORNING. Even though she’s a caver, a bat with a 10 foot wingspan is something she’s not used to. She did check…it does not appear to have WNS, but is making a LOT of high-pitched whining sounds… almost louder than the traffic noise.

We’d GREATLY appreciate if YOU’D COME BY and take a look at the giant bat today sometime before 5 p.m.
I think it will let you get into the office…we’ve got Trav on the job to defend us right now, but we don’t know…that bat might get aggressive once it notices that there are only two of us in the office.

COME BY…21-B Vance Road…CHECK OUT THE GIANT BAT! and come in (IF YOU DARE!!!!)

Trav defending his territory....

Congrats on the Cardinals’ win!

Jo — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:30:52 +0000

Congrats to the Cardinals, the squirrels and the fans who all believe in miracles.
Trav got this hat from Buschie. He and his friends are sleeping it off in the dumpster right now.

Mounted Rally Squirrels: this no doubt was inevitable

Jo — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:23:37 +0000

(Spoiler alert: this is my commentary. Trav had nothing to do with it. Jo)

I’ve sort of been waiting for this to happen.

Ever since the “Cardinals Go Nuts” crowd adopted Buschy the Rally Squirrel a few weeks ago, I’ve sort of been waiting for this story to surface. Illinois taxidermist Rick Nadeau, who specializes in squirrels, has begun dressing up his offerings in Cardinal red.

(Now, remember, cardinals are critters, too, but maybe we’re just too inured to them as a baseball symbol to remember that they are actually beautiful (and pretty scrappy) birds. Just like ball fans, real cardinals rarely fly alone. Just wait a moment. Another will be along, often the flashy one’s green-gray and more modest mate.)

The original story is here:
http://www.stltoday.com/business/

While I’m usually only vaguely aware of what is happening in the baseball world, the squirrel story is a cute one, just like those mostly friendly rodents. It helps that both baseball fans and squirrels like peanuts.

Photo flagrantly stolen from my friend Aaron Smith on Facebook

I’ve had several Facebook friends with exquisite Photoshop skills, (or good sources of cut and paste) who have been decorating real squirrels for several weeks. I’ve been unsuccessful at ignoring the whole thing:
one positive is that the whole craziness is a bit of lighthearted creativity in a world that is increasingly polarized, and waaay too serious.

I’ve always had an affinity for squirrels, and St. Louis squirrels, at that. As a small child, I lived on the top floor of a two-family flat in South St. Louis. I looked out from my bedroom window at telephone wires, and those telephone wires were often squirrel interstate highways.

We fed the little rascals peanuts from our windowsills. They’d do the death-defying leap from wire to windowsill, just for a couple of nuts, then sit there and eat them. My mom even managed to coax a couple to eat from her hand. I was about age 4, and too scared to do that, but they did seem to be quite intelligent, especially since they had managed to eke out a living in the red brick city.

So the Buschy Squirrel thing seemed inevitable as soon as that gray streak crossed the field. Maybe that’s part of what attracts people about nature. These creatures don’t have jobs, they don’t fight traffic, they don’t carry cellphones, but somehow they seem to survive. When the groundskeepers arrived with the cage, it was just a “wink, wink” moment — there were plenty more where that one came from.

Hope. It’s the little gray thing on four feet with the bushy tail and bright eyes, holding a peanut in its small hands. Whatever happens with the World Series, it’s the rebound into the hope of nature that we’ll remember.

Big fish story from Spain..odd fish pictures, too.

Jo — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:48:53 +0000

Trav says he’s now seen it all.

Really.

A British woman is said to have caught a 215 pound, 8 ft 4 inch freshwater catfish in Spain…she claims she just went to spend more time with her fishing boyfriend. That might just make headlines in an angling magazine under world’s records for the largest fish caught by a British lady. However, the photos accompanying the story makes one wonder if the story (or the fish) is for reel, especially this one:

photo from UK Daily Mail linked below

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045950/Woman-angler-took-fishing-spend-time-boyfriend-smashes-record-catch-215lb-catfish.html

The story says after taking photos they released the fish unharmed.
What do you think? Other than she probably really needed a scrubdown afterward.
Happy Friday!