THE DOPP FARM IN WISCONSIN

After stops at Herbert Hoover's birthplace, library and museum near Iowa City, Iowa, we continued on to Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin. Across the Mississippi River from here are the Effigy Mounds, a National Monument in Iowa where ancient Native Americans buried their dead and created images of birds and animals out of earth mounds. From Prairie du Chien it is only an hours drive north to the original Dopp family farm where my parents lived when I was born. The farm has been in the family since 1894 and has been designated a Century Farm. Our motor home is parked in front of the barn that I used to play in.

The next day, Steve, Diana, and the boys arrived. They had driven in from Ontario, Canada. The first thing we did was search the road ditches near the farm for wild asparagus. Each spring it reappears in the same places. We found enough for a side dish at dinner.

The next adventure for the grandson's was to explore the hay loft in the barn. Casey, the youngest, immediately had to climb the ladder to the top just like the older boys.

Ryder and Phelan built a giant fort out of bales of straw. It was raining lightly outside so this was an ideal way to spend part of a day.

Casey wanted to help, but couldn't lift the bales.

The "Blue Daisy" is now parked in front of us by the barn. You can check the travels of the "Blue Daisy" on their blog, http://bluedaisyiii.blogspot.com .

When the rain let up, we loaded into the back of the pickup truck for a ride into the woods to look for mushrooms.

Everyone got involved in the search. Morrel mushrooms are found under the drip line of old dead Elm Trees. The search is to look up into the forest canopy and spot a dead elm. Then go under the tree and part the ferns and leaves till you spot the mushrooms.

Usually when you find one, there will be several more growing nearby.

The one Steve is holding is about 2 inches in diameter and 6 inches long. We found about 2 pounds that afternoon and after washing them in salt water to remove any little bugs hidden in the folds, we sliced them into 1/2 inch strips and sautéed them in butter and garlic and had them as appetizers with "Happy Hour".

My brother, John, and his wife, Ann, joined us in our motor home for "Happy Hour" the first evening.

MISSOURI ROADS TO INDEPENDENCE

The Missouri roads in the Ozarks are hilly, crooked, and narrow. I don't think anything has changed since the roads were built, probably in the 1930's. The underlying mountains are solid limestone rock and rather than cut and fill to make a road, they simply finished the surface and followed the hills and valleys.

The newer roads however, are a thing of beauty. They are carved through the limestone and bridges are built over the streams and valleys.

We followed the back roads from Arkansas to Branson, Missouri. Branson was not our favorite city. We had a fairly nice campsite in a city park on the river. The campground hosts were from Eugene, Oregon, so it was fun sharing thoughts about the northwest. We attended one show which we really enjoyed. The Haygoods, 7 brothers and one sister, who sang, danced, and played several instruments each. They've been performing together as a group for 18 years.

From Branson, we headed north to Independence, Missouri, just outside of Kansas City. This is the home of our 31 President, Harry Truman. We knew we had to pass close to Kansas City so we researched to find something we might be interested in seeing there. The Presidential Library and Museum attracted us.

As we approached the Kansas City area, we noticed a sign to Truman's farm home. We left the freeway to see what it was. This is the farm where Truman lived and worked with his parents for 11 years before he entered WWI as an artillery officer. The farm is now a National Historic site and is maintained by the Department of Interior. There was a beautiful paved driveway and parking lot and no signs telling us that we couldn't park there overnight. The site is not manned by park personnel it's just open to the public. So after touring the grounds and noticing that no one seemed to be coming or going, we decided to camp there for the night. So, now we can say that we slept where President Truman slept.

The next morning we continued on to Independence. This church steeple caught our eye as we entered the city. We've never seen anything like it before.

Truman's library and museum are very interesting. There is a mock-up of the oval office which is furnished with the furniture he had while in office. We both came away with a new perspective on a President who made some very unpopular, but correct decisions during a critical time of our history. He was a simple and direct man who believed he should do what was right regardless whether it was popular or not. He was barely reelected for a second term and by the time he left office his popularity had dropped to 30% approval.

When he left office, he returned to Independence and lived a normal life. He had no secret service and would walk to his office and take car trips around the country. On one trip he drove from Independence to Washington D.C., stopping in Philadelphia to make a speech.

The home in Independence was originally owned by his wife, Bess's, parents. It was 15 miles from the farm that Harry's family owned. Until he was able to buy a car, he would take the train every weekend to court Bess.

A TRIP TO THE PAST

In 1951, when I was 11 years old, my Father and Mother, my sister-in-law, Eleanor, and her two daughters, one a new baby, my brother John and myself, loaded into a 1947 Chevrolet and drove from Wisconsin to Mountain Home, Arkansas. My oldest brother, Herman, was working on the Bull Shoals dam project and we were going there as a vacation and to bring Eleanor and the kids to where Herman was working.

In keeping with the spontaneous nature of this current trip, last evening as we were enjoying happy hour, I suggested that as long as we were this far south, I would like to go back to Mountain Home and see how much it had changed. So, we headed cross country on Missouri and Arkansas back roads to satisfy a whim. Driving cross country East to West in the Ozark Mountains is not easy. The roads are narrow, winding, and very much up and down hill. Not much had changed in that regard from 1951. One pleasant surprise along our route was Mammoth Springs, Arkansas. Mammoth Spring flows at an average rate of 9.78 million gallons per hour with a constant water temperature of 58° Fahrenheit. The actual spring cannot be seen at Mammoth Spring because it emerges more than 80 feet below the water level of the spring pool.

We arrived at Mountain Home and for a place to park found an empty parking lot at a shopping center that was totally completed but unoccupied. It was quiet, well lighted, and there were a couple of trucks parked at the other end so we knew we wouldn't be asked to leave.

That evening and the next morning we checked out the downtown square around the County Court House to see if it was as I had remembered. The Court House was the same, the trees around it were bigger, and the buildings were pretty much the same except the businesses in them had changed.

In 1951 we stayed in a small hotel/rooming house that was close to the square. I could not find the old building as I remembered it. In talking to some of the locals, it is possible that the old hotel has been torn down and replaced with newer buildings.

NASHVILLE UPDATE

This is the parking lot we were parked in while waiting for the Grand Ole Opry show on Saturday, May 1. We moved from this lot to another spot not far from here to spend the night. The spot where we spent the night was lower than this. When we woke Sunday morning May 2, there was no flooding in the lot shown or where we were parked, but I knew from the forecasts that the rain would continue and the river was rising. Seeing this confirms our decision to leave when we did even though we had a hard time getting out.

AN UNBELIEVABLE TWO DAYS

We rolled into Nashville, Tennessee, about 2 in the afternoon after driving most of the morning in a pouring rain. This was exactly the duplicate of last Saturday when we were coming through Atalanta, GA. Our GPS took us directly to the parking lot of the Grand Ole Opry which was our goal. We had purchased tickets the night before using the internet. We asked the security guard about parking and he said it was no problem to park there as long as we had tickets to the performance, but that we would have to leave there after the show. Marlene settled down with her book and I went to work on an update of our blog.

All the while we kept one eye on the TV watching the storm develop on a line that went directly over Nashville. I spent part of the afternoon walking through the rain to find the entrance to the theater and to pick up our tickets at will-call. Don't ask me why we decided to attend. Neither of us is a fan of country western music, but this show is a national icon. This is the 85th anniversary year. We thought it would be something we'd never get another chance to do, considering timing, distance, and everything else.

By show time, the rain had let up enough that we could walk the 10 minutes from our rig to the door. This was a huge parking lot full of cars.

The entrance is beautiful. The show was not at all what we expected. First of all the crowd is very casual. People were dressed in everything from suits to jeans and tee shirts. Many wore cowboy hats and boots. Once the show started, people were free and encouraged to take as many pictures as they wanted. We were encouraged to come down front and snap away as long as we didn't block someone else's view. Also, people would come and go from the theater to get beer, mixed drinks, snacks and whatever so there was a lot of activity going on all the time.

The show itself is a live radio broadcast that goes out over AM as well as Sirius Radio. It has always been a live radio broadcast. What that means is that the show was broken into 4 one half hour segments. Each segment had a sponsor and there would be a break in the show for the announcer to read a commercial about every 7 minutes. We would hear each commercial as it was read and during these breaks there was lots of activity on stage while instruments were hooked to amps and performers changed places. We enjoyed the experience if not all the music. What we liked best was the instrument groups playing blue grass.

The rain had stopped by the time the show ended, but started again after we reached the motor home. We moved from the lot to a spot by a vacant real estate office to hunker down for the night. We checked the weather broadcast and found there were tornado watches for the area along with severe thunderstorms and heavy rain. There were several areas of flash flooding in the city and traffic was snarled.

We woke in the morning to a heavy deluge. Inside the motor home it was a roar. I couldn't see out the front. Again, we turned on the weather channel and again there were tornado watches and severe storm warnings. Motorists were encouraged to stay home unless it was absolutely necessary. The storm band was 50 miles wide, centered directly over Nashville and extended several hundred miles from SW to NE. It was moving at 5 mph in an easterly direction. That meant we would be under heavy rain for at least 5 more hours. Already the area had received 6 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. We decided to risk leaving because flooding would only get worse if we stayed. Our route would get us out from under the storm in about an hour.

When we hit the by pass, Briley Pkwy, it was vacant. After about 5 miles a police car was parked cross ways in the lanes and we were directed off the highway onto local streets. I asked the officer if I-24 was open going north and he said 'yes just hang a right at the top and you will join up later".

After cresting the first hill we were confronted by water across the road. This one looked shallow, so we continued. There was not much else we could do.

The next one we encountered was worse. It was deeper, longer, and flowing faster. The car ahead of us made it through, so I figured we'd have no problem.

With about a half mile to go to the interchange to join I-24 we hit the worst spot. At this point a state trooper passed me as I waited to see what happened to the car in front of us.

The trooper made it and so we proceeded. During this stretch we saw one Corvette off the road, submerged over the top with only the tail lights showing. We made it safely to the interstate, offered thanks, and proceeded north.

We left the interstate at Clarksville, and headed west to drive through the "Land Between the Lakes", a National Recreation Area. The rain finally let up and it was here that we began to spot quilt blocks on the side of buildings. This was one of many we saw that were part of the National Civil War Quilt Trail.

The parkway between the lakes was like a low land Blue Ridge Parkway. No traffic and very picturesque.

By mid afternoon the sun was coming through as we crossed the Tennessee River.

Our route took us across the Ohio River, the Mississippi River and into Missouri. We were amazed that in one hour we passed from Tennessee into Kentucky, then into Illinois, and finally Missouri. Without planning it, we ended up at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers where Louis and Clark started their journey.

Tonight we are snuggly settled into a spot in a small RV park near Charleston, Missouri. We have water, 50 amp service, sewer, Verizon and At&t, and it's all for $12 a night. Some days you just get lucky.

CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE, ONE OF OUR FAVORITE CITIES

On a trip that has had many pleasant surprises, one of the nicest cities we have visited is Chattanooga. After leaving the Great Smokey Park we headed south along the Tennessee River to the Harrison Bay State Park just north of the city. We had visitors that evening. A pair of mallards who came right up to our feet during happy hour and begged for the peanuts we were nibbling on. They hung out around our motor home all night and were waiting for more in the morning. We also had some local resident stop to chat. They had been walking their dog in the park. They gave us lots of suggestions as to why we might want to spend a day in their city. We took them up on their suggestions and that evening after dinner we drove up to Point Park overlooking the city. The view from the top of the city lights was wonderful. The next morning we were down town on the waterfront taking in the sites. Here, I'm standing on a glass pedestrian bridge which connects the neighborhood where the aquarium is to the neighborhood where the art museum is located. The bridge crosses the expressway leading into downtown.

From the glass bridge we could see the old truss which has been turned into a pedestrian and bicycle bridge across the Tennessee River. This bridge connects the vibrant downtown to an older community on the west side.

The old bridge is about a half mile long. and makes a wonderful morning walk.

On the other side is a riverfront park where families and kids were enjoying the morning. There is a fountain here which is very similar to the waterfront fountain in Portland. It sprouts and sprays in a whimsical random pattern.

There's also an antique carousel featuring hand carved horses.

On the walk back to the downtown, we got a view of Lookout Mountain where we had been the night before.

We boarded a free shuttle near the aquarium which took us to the "Chattanooga Choo Choo" area. This area has been restored from being an abandoned train station to a convention center with adjoining hotel.

We had lunch in the old terminal building. The lunch was nothing special, but the setting was very pleasant.

Back on the shuttle and back to the business district brought us the surprise of some sidewalk art. This piece had a practical application.

We left Chattanooga that afternoon for a short drive to Scottsboro, Alabama. Lourie and Odel had allerted us to this place on their blog

http://laurieandodel.blogspot.com/ . We couldn't resist the possibility of finding a bargain. We picked up a couple of MP3 players to replace our 5 year old models and some clip on sunglasses along with a few more books to read. Prices were not as low as we had hoped so we passed on getting anything more. What we did get is a nice camp spot in their overflow parking lot. I always speculated that some night we might find a spot in a cemetery. This is about as close as we have come. This cemetery is directly behind the Unclaimed Baggage Center. It's very quiet at night.