BOXING IN THE HEARTLAND, Chapter 5:
IN WHICH THERE'S NO ROOM AT THE INNS
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Day 5:  Quincy, IL to Burlington, IA.  Traveling from Quincy, IL into Iowa this afternoon, we were enjoying the cool and overcast day with the temperature hovering around 50°, wondering where we would end the day.  Our plan had been to wander into Iowa and drive toward Minnesota until we were ready to stop for the day.  
  
By mid-afternoon, we reached a location where we needed to make a decision whether to continue due north toward Cedar Rapids or northeasterly in the direction of Davenport.  Since we didn't have strong feelings about either route we decided to just investigate which city had hotels with more positive reviews.
  
Campaigning in Iowa
That's when political reality hit us smack in the face.  We were in Iowa, like all the Republican presidential candidates and their staffs and the media mob that follows them.  Hotels in Cedar Rapids were fully booked.  Same for Iowa City.  Davenport?  No rooms.  Waterloo?  Uh-uh.  With candidates kissing babies and shaking hands all over the state, there was no room at the inn for a couple of apolitical letterboxers.  Finally, we tried Burlington and found a room for the night.  With a shrinking population, this river town must not be high on the priority list for visiting politicians.
  
Negative growth must also be behind the sell-off of historic churches in the town that has billed itself as the "City of Steeples."  We saw at least two large old churches downtown sporting For Sale signs.
  
Church for Sale
The sign for one indicated "For Sale by Owner."  Dial a Prayer to make an offer?  Just a couple of blocks away another older church was under extensive reconstruction.
  
Burlington's Snake Alley vies with Lombard Street in San Francisco for the title of "crookedest" street.  The steep elevation of Heritage Hill, a residential area near downtown, made it all but impossible for pedestrians or horses to travel down the hill to the business district below.  In 1894, three German immigrants designed and constructed a winding street as a shortcut from the residential district to downtown shops.
  
Burlington's Snake Alley
To improve horses' footing as they descended the hill, bricks were laid at an angle. Getting horses back up the alley presented more of a challenge than the designers anticipated, and a loss of control at the top occurred frequently.  For this reason, Snake Alley was made a one-way street, with all traffic heading downhill, and it remains so today.
  
Near Burlington we came across the unique Fort Madison Toll Bridge.  Unlike most of the Mississippi River bridges we have been seeing, the Fort Madison is not a cable-stayed bridge.  Rather it is swing span bridge.  Car traffic travels on the upper deck, while rail traffic occupies the lower deck.
  
Fort Madison Bridge
The bridge is owned by the Burlington Northern railway, and about 100 trains cross it per day.  According to Coast Guard regulations, however, river traffic has the right-of-way over rail and automobile traffic.  Once the moveable span swings open, a typical tow of 15 barges takes about 20 minutes to get through.  
  
DAILY STATS
  • Started in: Quincy, IL
  • Ended in:  Burlington, IA
  • Miles driven:  118
  • States:  3 (IL, MO, IA )
  • Letterboxes:  1 found
  • Gas:  $3.299 (West Quincy, MO)
  • Hotels with no vacancy:  16
  • Width of Mississippi River at Quincy:  0.8 miles
TUESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2011

Downtown Burlington, IA
Quincy Museum, Quincy, IL
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BOXING IN THE HEARTLAND, Chapter 4:
IN WHICH WE FIND A DIFFERENT KIND OF TREASURE

Day 4:  St. Charles, MO to Quincy, IL.   Like its colossal drainage basin, the Mississippi River (pictured above) has an overarching influence on life in the heartland, even for visitors.  This was our experience with the river today.
  
Part 1:  Finding Treasures
  
Our day began in St. Charles with a search for a few letterboxes, one in a downtown park.  Find three quick boxes and head on up the road, we had planned.  But fate has a way of intervening and the river injects its influence as well.
  
As we were walking along the riverside trail, we spied a wallet in the middle of the path.  Not our first experience stumbling upon a lost wallet while letterboxing, we picked it up expecting it to be empty of anything valuable.  We were wrong.  This one was fully intact, complete with driver's license, credit cards, cash, and other typical contents.  Knowing that it wouldn't survive long, we rescued this poor billfold and took it away, after locating the letterbox and stamping in.
  
Returning to the car, we examined the contents to determine how to restore the wallet to its rightful owner.  His driver's license indicated he was 18 years old, and there was even a high school ID card.  Perfect!  We'd deliver the treasure to the local high school office and they could ensure its return.  But, no.  He was a member of the class of 2011, graduated last spring.
  
Finding no "in case of emergency" card with phone numbers, we decided to take the wallet to the house at the address on the driver's license, though we had little hope of finding the boy or his parents at home on a Monday morning at 9:30.  Sure enough, no one answered our knocks and calling at the door.  Nor could we raise any of the neighbors.
  
What does a pair of letterboxers do when they have a treasure they want someone else to find?  Hide it and provide clues to its whereabouts, of course.  The sky was overcast, and rain had been threatening, so we knew our treasure, like a stamp and logbook, needed protection from the elements.  And we just happened to have a plastic letterbox container with us.
  
Hidden treasure
So we secured the wallet in the waterproof container and hid it under some mulch in the front yard of the house.  Then we left a note on the front door letting the owner we had found his wallet and hidden it, asking him to call us and we'd tell him where.
  
Sure enough, some ten hours and 150 miles later, the young man called.  We gave him the "clues" and he found the box while we were on the phone with him.  He was overjoyed to have his wallet returned fully intact and gushed about how we had restored his faith in humankind.  Interestingly, he never asked about the brown camo painted container we just happened to have to hide it in.
  
Part 2:  The Eagles Have Landed
  
Leaving St. Charles an hour later than expected, we drove north on MO-79, a designated scenic route, that meanders up the state near the Mississippi River.  In the small riverside town of Clarksville (pop. 490), we learned that the town is the Middle Mississippi River Valley's notable winter haven for bald eagles due to its proximity to Dam #24, which keeps the water free of ice, enabling the eagles to find fish during the cold weather. 
  
Mississippi River Lock and Dam #24
Each winter the eagles leave their northern breeding grounds and migrate south along the Mississippi River.  Searching for open water and a plentiful food source, many call Clarksville home during the winter months, giving true meaning to the popular Florida term "snow bird."
  
Limestone bluffs near the river bank
Beautiful limestone bluffs near the river offer the eagles a hospitable high point away from the human traffic near the dam.  The town holds an annual Eagle Days festival in late January, but bird watchers can spot our national bird around Clarksville from December to mid-March.
  
Part 3:  Life on the Mississippi
  
With Ken's keen interest in Mark Twain, we couldn't leave Missouri without a visit to Hannibal, Twain's boyhood home.  Although there are certainly those who try to capitalize on the appeal of the author's name, an excellent museum depicts the life of Hannibal's famous native son.
  
Huck Finn house
In addition to the childhood home of Mark Twain, one can visit his father's law office, the home of Becky Thatcher, and Huck Finn's house.  If you're wondering, as we did, how fictional characters could have historic homes, these were actually the residences of Hannibal townsfolk on whom Twain based these characters.
  
Riverview Park, with an impressive statue of the author overlooking the river from a high cliff, was beautiful in its autumn colors as we rushed down a tree-lined trail searching for a couple of letterboxes before the drizzle turned into a downpour.
  
Hannibal's famous native son
And no one's life is more famously intertwined with the Mississippi River than that of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.  It even gave him his famous pen name.
  
DAILY STATS
  • Started in: St. Charles, MO
  • Ended in:  Quincy, IL
  • Miles driven:  170
  • States:  2 (MO, IL)
  • Letterboxes:  6 found, 3 attempted
  • Drivers ignoring stop signs:  71
  • Wallets found:  1
  • Leaf color:  38%
  • Businesses in Hannibal named for Mark Twain:  34
MONDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2011
Last (?) train to Clarksville
Tom and Huck statue, Hannibal
Some of the many Mark Twain businesses, Hannibal
Cloudy skies in Louisiana, Missouri
Louisiana, Missouri
Riverview Park, Hannibal
Clarksville, MO
Historic home of Red Delicious apple developers, Louisiana, MO
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BOXING IN THE HEARTLAND, Chapter 3:
IN WHICH WE LEARN ABOUT BARGE POWER
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Day 3:  Cape Girardeau, MO to St. Charles, MO.   In the 1730s, an adventurous young Frenchman named Jean Baptiste Girardot established a trading post at the site of a rocky bluff on the west bank of the Mississippi River.  This bluff, which projected into the river, was known as "the cape," and soon people began calling the area Cape Girardeau.  Even though Girardot and his trading post remained only a few years, the name stuck.
  
By the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived in 1803, the community which had begun around the post numbered more than 1,000.  The growth of steamboats on the river spurred further expansion, and the Cape, as it is still called today, moved from village to city.  It continued to grow with the arrival of the railroad.  (Pictured above:  Common Pleas Courthouse, completed in 1854)
  
Missouri Wall of Fame on Cape Girardeau flood wall
A treacherous ally, the Mississippi River gave with one hand and took away with the other. Periodic floods destroyed the city the river had helped to build until the Cape took action to keep the river in its channel.  In 1964, the city completed the construction of a 20-foot flood wall to protect the historic downtown from the ravages of the Mississippi's historic floods.  To make these functional structures more attractive, Cape Girardeau has included the floodwalls in its extensive collection of downtown murals depicting historical events.
  
Cape Girardeau riverfront
The Cape's love–hate relationship with the river is commemorated in interpretive signs along the riverfront.  It was there that we learned the massive reach of the Mississippi River system.  Areas from Asheville, NC to Chatauqua, NY, from Cimmaron, NM, to Yellowstone National Park in WY, all lie in the drainage basin of the Mississippi River.  This basin includes all or parts of 32 states and two Canadian provinces, covering 41% of the landmass of the continental United States.
  
From the head of the river in Minnesota to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River flows more than 2,340 miles.  That's the river itself, not including any of its major tributaries.  At Cape Girardeau, the river flows at the rate of one million gallons of water per second.  Though that seems a huge amount, the flow of the Amazon River in South America is ten times greater than the entire Mississippi River system combined.
  
The nearby Trail of Tears State Park afforded an elevated perspective on the river.  The park is located where nine of the 13 Cherokee Indian groups being relocated to Oklahoma crossed the Mississippi River during harsh winter conditions in 1838-39.  Thousands lost their lives on the trail, including dozens on or near the park's grounds. The park visitor center tells the tale of the thousands who died on the forced march, and a memorial in the park pays tribute to all the Cherokee who died on the trail.
  
Whenever we catch a glimpse of the river, we usually observe barge traffic.  Though an important form of transportation for people in the early days of the United States, river travel has largely been replaced by cars and air lines.  For cargo, river transportation is still a very viable, relatively inexpensive method of moving goods.
  
Moving goods on the Mississippi
A single barge usually carries about 1500 tons of cargo, 15 times what a rail car can move and 60 times greater than one trailer truck.  The average tow on the Mississippi has 15 barges, but flotillas can go up to 40 barges, depending on the type of cargo, the river segments being navigated, and the size of the towboat.  The tow pictured here is a little smaller than average with only 11 barges.  Yet it has the capacity to carry as much cargo as a train over two miles long or a line of 660 trucks.
  
The largest bulk items moved on the Mississippi are petroleum products—gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil and lubricating oil, which are shipped upstream from the oil fields of Texas and Louisiana. Coal is shipped upstream from Illinois and western Kentucky.  Downstream barges often carry grains, such as corn, wheat, oats, barley and rye, conveyed to New Orleans for transfer to ocean vessels and shipment around the world.
  
ROAD NOISE
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 Dial It In.  More and more often we are seeing audio tours by cell phone. The Chickamauga military park employed this clever device, as did the city of Cape Girardeau.  We find it to be a brilliant solution— an interactive audio tour that the host museum or cultural institution can change and update easily, it's available 24/7, and  no special equipment is needed.
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Don't Call the Cops.  In Trail of Tears State Park today, we came across a fortyish couple who had run their motorcycle into a ditch rounding a small curve.  They appeared to be trying to figure out how to get the bike back on the road when we arrived on the scene.  Our offer to notify park rangers so they could come help was rejected.  They preferred to leave the rangers out of it and instead wanted us to help wrestle the motorcycle out of the ditch.  Uh, no.  What exactly have you been smoking?
Can We Interest You in a Swamp?  Parked by the side of the road:  an ancient beat-up 10-ft truck painted poorly with camo paint sporting a sign:  "For Sale—Portable Deer Camp."
DAILY STATS
  • Started in: Cape Girardeau, MO
  • Ended in: St. Charles, MO
  • Miles driven:  207 
  • States:  1 (MO)
  • Letterboxes:  9 found, 2 attempted
  • Parks visited:  7
  • Yellow jackets in state park:  23,498
  • Fall leaf color:  27%
  • Students walking around university campus early Sunday morning:  1
  • Students enrolled at SMSU:  11,513
  • Ditched motorcycles:  1
  • Couples taking engagement photos in parks:  3
  • Cows:  962
  • Gas:  $3.199 (Cape Girardeau)
SUNDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2011
Southeastern Missouri State University
Amateur murals on Cape Girardeau flood wall
High water marks from floods
Cape Girardeau flood wall
Stamping in
Sunset in St. Charles
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BOXING IN THE HEARTLAND, Chapter 2:
IN WHICH WE CROSS OVER THE RIVER
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Day 2:  Murfreesboro, TN to Cape Girardeau, MO.  Driving through Paducah, Kentucky today, we came across an impressive sculpture in Noble Park.  Called Wacinton, the hand-carved wooden statue was created from a 56,000-lb. red oak in 1985 to honor the Chickasaw who claimed the lands in Western Kentucky and Tennessee by a Hungarian-born artist.  Peter Wolf Toth immigrated to the U.S. with his parents at an early age, settling in Ohio where he later attended art school.  Beginning in the early 1970s, Toth began creating a series of more than 70 sculptures of Native Americans called the "Trail of the Whispering Giants."
  
Peter Toth
Using only a hammer and chisel, Toth considers himself just another tool in the creation of these works of art to honor people who have faced injustice.  The artist, whose own family was displaced from their Hungarian home in that country's 1956 revolution, feels a kinship with the native peoples who became refugees in their homeland.  
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In the last forty years, Toth has traveled around the country chiseling expressive faces out of local trees.  Ranging in size from 20 to 50 feet tall, examples of these sculptures stand in every state and several Canadian provinces.  Working with cities, parks, chambers of commerce and private individuals, Toth carves his creations in the local communties where they will be exhibited.  Sometimes he accepts assistance with living expenses but he refuses all offers of compensation.
  
Toth drew inspiration from John F. Kennedy's famous statement, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."  His sculptures, he says, are his donation to America.  See Wikipedia for a list of all the statues and their locations.
  
The statues are not meant to represent a particular person nor are they totems.  "I study each of the giant logs until I can visualize the Indian within," he says, "and then I try to intertwine the spirit of the tree with the spirit of the Indian."   The face is meant to be an interpretation and blend of all the Indian cultures in that particular state.
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Wacinton statue and the commemorative stamp
An Illinois letterboxer has taken on the daunting task of creating a letterbox to honor each of these magnificent sculptures.  As faithful representations of the sculptures, the stamps that he carves for the boxes are works of art themselves.  Of course, the letterbox is hidden somewhere near the sculpture, like the one we found today in Paducah.  We look forward to visiting more of these dual works of art.
  
ROAD NOISE
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Occupy the Hinterlands.  The Occupy Wall Street movement has made it to the heartlands.  Today we saw a group of protestors gathered in the Paducah park near the Toth statue.
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Stay Away.  Kentucky makes explicitly clear its prohibitions for traffic on interstate highways.  At each entrance ramp is a sign indicating:  "Prohibited: Pedestrians, Bicycles, Motor Scooters, Metal Treads, Farm Implements, Animals on Foot."
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Bait and Pump.  Upon entering Illinois, we saw a gas station advertising $2.999 per gallon.  As we were screeching to a stop so we could fill up, we noticed that this price was for E-85 (flex fuel with up to 85% ethanol).  The price for regular unleaded was $3.499.  Never mind.
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Behave in Missouri.  What an offer from Missouri!  On a highway sign:  "Hit a worker | $10,000 Fine | Lose Your License"
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Well, maybe some electrical gadgets are okay.  Seen in southern Illinois:  Two Amish women collecting their withdrawal from an ATM and returning to their buggy.

DAILY STATS
  • Miles driven:  300
  • States:  4 (TN, KY, IL, MO)
  • Letterboxes found:  5
  • Cars pulling into Starbucks ahead of us:  8
  • Additional cars that arrived while Ken went in for coffee:  17
  • Kids at soccer games:  3,827
  • Occupy Paducah protestors:  33
  • Rivers crossed:  Cumberland (repeatedly), Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi
  • Barns:  9,371  
SATURDAY, 15 OCTOBER 2011

Coffee tanker??
Monument to Lincoln-Douglas debate in Jonesboro, IL
Occupy Paducah protestors, Noble Park
Stamping in
Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge over Mississippi River
Cape Girardeau, MO
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BOXING IN THE HEARTLAND, Chapter 1:
IN WHICH WE LEARN OF A HEALING REUNION
  SPACE  
Day 1:  Peachtree City, GA to Murfreesboro, TN.  Even though we don't have a big block of time for uninterrupted travel in the near future, we carved out a couple of weeks to continue adding to our list of "states we've 'boxed in."  This journey will take us to America's heartland, as we try to visit and letterbox in eight midwestern states in 14 days.  We are planning a relaxed pace and hope to catch a minor league hockey game or two along the way.

The highlight of our day today was an impulsive stop at the Chickamauga National Military Park in north Georgia near Chattanooga. (Brotherton Cabin in the park pictured above.)  In the fall of 1863, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War was waged there over control of Chattanooga, a key rail center and the gateway to the heart of the Confederacy.
  
In just two days of desperate, often hand-to-hand, combat between 66,000 Confederate forces and 58,000 Union troops, both armies suffered 28% casualties (killed, wounded or missing). Only the Battle of Gettysburg, which lasted three days, resulted in greater casualties.  Though the Confederates won the battle by capitalizing on a gap in the Federal lines, a month later Chattanooga was in the hands of the Union, whose ranks had swelled with 36,000 reinforcements.

In 1889, just 26 years after the battle, veterans from both sides met in a grand reunion at Chicamauga.  The reunion barbecue, attended by more than 12,000, formally launched the effort to preserve and memorialize the Chickamauga battlefield.  Their efforts contributed to the Congressional authorization of four national military parks to be established at Chickamauga/Chattanooga, Gettysburg, Shiloh, and Vicksburg.
  
Unidentified man at Snodgrass Cabin (from NPS web site)
Dedicated in 1895, the Chickamauga/Chattanooga was the first military park in the U.S. and served as the model for most military and historic parks to come.  State governments were invited to fund, design, and construct monuments to their fallen citizens within the park.  By 1910, more than 1,400 memorials had been erected throughout the park.
  
Acorn theme monuments memorializing the 33rd and the 2nd Ohio Infantry units
Monuments honoring the indomitable stand of Union General Thomas's 14th Corps often incorporate a depiction of an acorn.  Thomas's troops repelled repeated Confederate assaults, earning them the reputation of standing like a stately oak in the fiercest storm. The acorn was later adopted as the symbol of the 14th.
  
Unlike other monuments, the Wilder Tower was a privately funded
Wilder Tower
memorial, built through the efforts of the Indiana and Illinois veterans of the Union's Lightning Brigade, who fought under the leadership of Col. John T. Wilder.  A native New Yorker, Wilder was operating a foundry in Indiana when war broke out.  Thwarted by state quotas in his effort to launch an artillery company, he enlisted in an Indiana infantry regiment, where he was soon promoted to lieutenant colonel.
  
A bold and innovative leader, Wilder put his foot soldiers on horseback to increase their mobility and secured a bank loan to arm them with newly devised repeating rifles.  Wilder had created a unit that could move with the speed of cavalry but fight with the power of infantry using weapons far superior to those of most Civil War soldiers on both sides. One of the first units involved in the Battle of Chickamauga and the last to leave the field, Wilder's company was recognized for its swiftness and endurance, revolutionizing military tactics and earning the nickname of the Lighting Brigade.
  
One of the soldiers mortally wounded in the battle was Confederate Brigadier General Benjamin Hardin Helm, the brother-in-law of President Abraham Lincoln.  Helm had been leading his Kentuckians against the Union forces when a bullet pierced his side.  He was carried to the rear and the wound was inspected by a surgeon.  According to accounts of the event, the Confederate leader asked the doctor, “Is there any hope?”  The surgeon replied, “My dear General, there is no hope!”  Helm died that night at age 32.
  
President Lincoln                              Brig. Gen. Hardin
When the war began, the West Point graduate was serving as an officer in the Kentucky militia.  He refused Lincoln's offer of a commission as major in the United States Army and joined the Confederate army instead.  When Lincoln learned that his favorite brother-in-law had been killed at Chickamauga, the President was said to be filled with grief.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
At the 1889 reunion of veterans of the Battle of Chickamauga, General Rosecrans, whose army was so soundly defeated on the hills and fields of Chickamauga: 
"It took great men to win that battle, but it takes greater men still, I will say morally greater, to wipe away all the ill feeling which naturally grows out of such a contest."
ROAD NOISE 
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Great business names we saw in Chattanooga:   Mom and Pop Title Loans.  Big-Hearted Smitty's (used cars).  Carpenters Cowboy Church.
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Gone to the Dogs.  When we checked in at the Hampton Inn at Murfreesboro, a very realistic looking stuffed animal was snoozing in a plush doggie bed at the front desk.  The longer we looked at it, the more we began to believe that this little pug puppy might actually be alive.  Its side was moving ever so slightly up and down as if it were breathing.  But this adorable little guy is indeed a plush toy made by Perfect Petzzz.  Conveniently, he sleeps all the time, his food costs are zero, and he never needs to be walked.  Perfect pet, indeed. 
    The kind of pet we'd like to have in the room next door
DAILY STATS
  • Miles driven:  253
  • Letterboxes found:  3 (all in GA)
  • Civil War monuments seen:  534
  • Trees wearing autumn colors:  12%
  • Leaves falling like rain:  3,165
FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2011
Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center
Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center
Where is that letterbox?
Found one!
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Day 1:  Peachtree City, GA to Murfreesboro, TN
Fields of Suffering   (14 Oct 2011)

Day 2:  Murfreesboro, TN to Cape Girardeau, MO
Whispering Giants   (15 Oct 11)

Day 3:  Cape Girardeau, MO to St. Charles, MO
Bluffing His Way to Fame   (16 Oct 11)

Day 4:  St. Charles, MO to Quincy, IL

Day 5:  Quincy, IL to Burlington, IA
Burlington to the Rescue   (18 Oct 11)

Day 6:  Burlington, IA to Dubuque, IA
A Kernel of Industry   (19 Oct 11)

Day 7:  Dubuque, IA to Rochester, MN
A Dam Good Show   (20 Oct 11)

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Day 8:  Rochester, MN
A Tale of Two Clinics   (21 Oct 11)

Day 9:  Rochester, MN to Madison, WI 
Winona's a Winner   (22 Oct 11)

Day 10:  Madison, WI to Joliet, IL
For Whom the GPS Tolls   (23 Oct 11)

Day 11:  Joliet, IL to Elkhart, IN

Days 12-13:  Elkhart, IN to Beckley, WV 
OH, MI, the Color   (25-26 Oct 11)

Day 14:  Beckley, WV to Greensboro, NC

Days 15-16:  Greensboro to Peachtree City, GA
And the Best…Family   (28-29 Oct 11)
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