Twin Falls, Idaho

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now moving to an every-other-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2025; A Landing A Day blog post number 443.

Dan –  I landed in what I always feel is my long-running USer . . . ID; 47/55; 6/10; 9; 151.0.  Here’s my regional landing map:

 

My closer-in landing map shows that I landed near Jerome, but have selected its larger neighbor, Twin Falls as my titular city (sorry about that, Jerome; no offense intended, and hopefully none taken):

 

I’ve landed in this general vicinity before, and am aware of how engineered the drainage systems are here.  I landed in the “watershed” of PD-4 Ditch; on to the North Side Main Canal (2^nd hit); on to the Snake R (72^nd hit, where it’s my 8^th most common river); to the Columbia (142^nd hit, my 4^th most common river).

 My Google Earth (GE) shot shows a very-much agricultural setting:

 

Here’s a zoomed-in landing map that shows that I pretty much landed right on 100 North Road. 

No chance that Google StreetView would have that little road covered, right?  Wrong:

 

Check out how well my StreetAtlas location agrees with my GE location (just a hair off the side of the road):

 

So, Twin Falls is named after . . . (guess what?) . . . the Twin Falls of the Snake River.  This is a little confusing, because there are three waterfalls near the city of Twin Falls.  Starting at the City and heading east (upstream), we first hit Pillar Falls.  Here’s an oblique GE shot:

 

Moving further upstream is the most-famous Shoshone Falls:

 

Moving further upstream is the what appears to be poorly-named Twin Falls.  I mean, really, it’s only one waterfall, it’s furthest away from the town of Twin Falls and like I said before, it’s one of three local waterfalls on the Snake River.  Well, here ‘tis:

 

It turns out that it all makes sense when one realizes that Twin Falls used to be a “Twin Falls,” with two majestic waterfalls side by side.  But good old mankind, up to its usual tricks, figured they could built a dam, shut one of the falls off, and get some hydroelectric power.  You can see what happened when you check out the above picture (see where the falls to the right used to be?)  This all happened back in the 1930s.  So anyway, the town is named after these erstwhile Twin Falls . . .

I guessed that I landed in potato country, this being southern Idaho and all, and son of a gun, I’m right.  Here’s a shot of the website homepage of Cummins Family Product (the first site that came up when I Googled “Twin Falls Potatoes.”

Click HERE to learn more about their operation.

 I also stumbled on this photo and short article, from KEZJ.com (the website for a Twin Falls radio station):

We’ve just received news of a giant, monster potato heading toward Twin Falls. The potato is reportedly headed down Poleline Road, and looks to be targeting Wal-Mart! EVERYBODY PANIC!

Or get some sour cream and butter.

This is awesome!  The Idaho Potato Commission is celebrating the 75th year of promoting the Idaho Potato, and this year it’s gone big. They’ve created a gigantic Idaho Potato and are sending it on a cross country tour.

The 12,000 pound potato arrives in Twin Falls Wal-Mart today, April 3rd, for a visit between 9 am and 11 am.  So make sure you’re there for a once in a lifetime photo opportunity.

I’m going to close with a series of scenic photos.  I’ll start with a couple of Snake River shots lifted from the City website:

Here comes some Panoramio waterfall shots – beginning with Twin Falls, and working my way downstream.

 Here’s the Twin Falls shot, by Chris Sanfino:

 

Here’s Shoshone Falls,  by Tom Askew:

 

And finally, Pillar Falls, by Mr Hunchback:

 

I’ll close with this Panoramio shot taken less than a mile north of my landing, by Nick Selma:

 

That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

© 2013 A Landing A Day

Liberty, Tennessee

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2024; A Landing A Day blog post number 442.

Dan –  Gee whiz.  I was on a good string of USers (and approaching a Score of 150), but after my double NV OSers, I have landed in . . . TN; 29/28; 6/10; 8; 151.6.   Note that TN was PS (perfectly subscribed at 28/28), but is now OS (oversubscribed at 29/28).  Here’s my regional landing map:

 

Note that I just missed Alabama (a solid USer).  Oh, well.  Here’s my closer-in landing map, showing (as seems to be typical), a bunch of small towns:

 

My Google Earth (GE) shot shows that I landed in what might be called a “holler.”

 

Stepping back and out, here’s an oblique view looking north up the Fox Creek valley (with the town of Prospect in the foreground):

 

 So, Fox Creek discharges in the Elk R (3^rd hit); on to the Tennessee R (37^th hit); on to the Ohio (126^th hit); on to the MM (795^th hit).

 After some Google perusing, I selected Liberty as my titular town.  Prospect was a little closer, but as you can see by the above GE shot, there ain’t much to it.  Anyway, I found a couple of things of interest in Liberty, starting with the Liberty Mule.  From Wiki:

 

The “Allen Bluff Mule” is a painting of a mule on a limestone bluff on U.S. Route 70 in Liberty.  Some residents say a local man named Lavader Woodard painted the mule (thus the “L. Woodard” you can see in the picture), circa 1900.

In 2003, Liberty residents became upset that an expansion of U.S. 70 to a four-lane road could threaten the mule painting. The residents started a letter writing campaign to the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Supporters of the mule also placed signs along the roadway stating “Save the Mule.” Ultimately the road expansion was far enough away from the mule, that it was never in any danger.

Phew.  Close call.  Anyway, I’ll move right along to Big Bob Griffith who played professional Negro League ball (and was born in Liberty).  This, from PitchBlackBaseball.com:

 

Like most pitchers of the 1930s, Big Bob Griffith played in the shadow of the great Satchel Paige, but Griffith was a star in his own right, capable of eye-popping performances.

Griffith grew to six-foot-five, and was well over 200 pounds in his prime, had a blistering fastball, and knew how to throw the devastating (and illegal) emery ball.  He played professional ball from 1934 until 1951.

In 1936, a Negro League All-Star team was formed by manager Candy Jim Taylor to compete in the Denver Post Semipro Tournament. The roster chosen included Griffith and  Satchel Paige as the starting pitchers.

The Negro Leaguers, nicknamed “the Chocolate Whizbangs” by the Denver Post newspaper, made mincemeat of the competition, with Griffith and Paige leading the way. A short synopsis of the action:

Game 1: Griffith 11-0 win, 16 strikeouts
Game 2: Paige 7-2 win
Game 3: Griffith 13-0 win, 3-hitter
Game 4: Paige 12-1 win, 6-hitter
Game 5: Griffith 10-2 win, 5-hitter
Game 6: Paige 7-0 win, 18 strikeouts

Griffith couldn’t get baseball out of his system, and pitched semipro ball into his 50s. He died at age 64 not long after a terrible fall in his home.

Here’s a picture of the All-Star Team:

 

I’ll close with this shot of a bridge over the Elk River (just south of Prospect), by Brent Moore (as posted on flickr at SeeMidTn.com:

 

 That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

 

© 2013 A Landing A Day

Big Smoky Valley, Nevada

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2023; A Landing A Day blog post number 441.

 Dan –  I’ve landed in my 50^th double (two landings a row in the same state); unfortunately, it’s a double-OSer with this landing in . . . NV; 80/73; 6/10; 7; 151.2. 

 I had a couple of water landings (waterings?) before I made it to dry land.  First, I just missed the coast of Washington:

 

Then, I landed way down south in the Gulf of California:

 

In the above shot, you can see a couple of ignored Baja landings along with my posted Yuma AZ landing.  Anyway, When I hit the lower 48, I was a measley 125 miles from my last post (Cherry Creek).  Today’s landing is the one on the left:

 

Moving right along . . . you may remember that two landings ago (Walkermine CA), I mentioned that it marked the first time that my titular town wasn’t on my StreetAtlas map.  Well, I’m doing myself one better – I’m not using a town at all.  Here’s my closer-in landing map, and you will see that it is devoid of features over quite a large area:

 

Note the 56.55 mile line.  You can see a series of mountain peaks to the west, as there are to the west.  So, the line on the map marks the approximate center line of (you guessed it!) a valley.  And the valley is, of course, the Big Smoky Valley.  It’s actually longer than 55 miles, more like 75.

 The valley is big and impressive, of course dominates the regional landscape in the vicinity of my landing, and almost nobody lives there, so I figured what the heck – Big Smoky Valley gets the post title.

My GE shot shows a predictably arid landscape:

 Here’s an oblique GE shot looking northeast:

Drainage is pretty simple.  Here’s a vertical GE shot, showing the central part of the Valley:

 I landed at elevation 6100.  Water at my landing would head west to the center of the valley (elevation 5525).  It would then head south to the middle of the big white patch on the above photo, which is the lowest point in the Valley (elevation 5460).   Once there (if there was enough of it), it would form a temporary lake and then either sink in or (more likely) evaporate . . .

 From ExploringNevada.com, this travelogue describes the drive south to north through the BSV:

Starting from the South, the first dozen miles or so of the drive are rather boring, although the hulking mountains in the background do offer some tantalizing hints of what lays before you. To the left (or the west) when heading north are the Toiyabe Range, a mountain range with a massive vertical rise and which is home to the seldom visited Arc Dome Wilderness Area. And to the east are the Toquima Range, a mountain range that isn’t quite as impressive when visually seen from the road since they sit further back from the highway and have their western flank blocked a bit by foothills.

The Big Smoky Valley defies all the conventional stereotypes of Nevada. The Big Smoky Valley is a big, massive valley that extends for more than 60 miles in length and averages from 5-20 miles in width – depending on where you are within it. The mountains, particularly the Toiyabe Range, rise abruptly off the valley floor and dwarf everything around them, with the taller peaks having a 5000 foot vertical rise (to well over 10,000 in elevation).

Numerous side roads cut off from Highway 376 and head toward the mountains. Most of these roads tend to “start out good” before tapering off to 4×4 type roads as they enter National Forest lands. However, a few of these roads do have National Forest campgrounds on them. These roads are – usually – safe for all types of vehicles (at least until you reach the campground!).

Traffic on this scenic drive is light to non-existent, depending on what time of year you visit the valley.  Most of the local traffic runs between Hadley and Tonopah. Thus, once you get north of Hadley, what little traffic there is often tends to disappear entirely.

 A fellow geologist, “Silver Fox” writes a blog called “Looking for Detachment.”  She wrote about a road trip down the Big Smoky Valley.  Great photos.  Click HERE to check it out.

Now (of course) for some pretty pictures that will give you a feel for the place.  First, this spectacular shot from the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection:

 

Here’s a Wiki shot:

And this, by Tom Schweich (who has webpage on Eastern Mojave Vegetation, Schweich.com).  We’re looking south into the valley:

 

I’ll close with this lovely shot by Warren Willis, posted on NevadaMagazine.com:

 

 That’l do it.

KS

 Greg

© 2013 A Landing A Day

Cherry Creek, Nevada

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2021; A Landing A Day blog post number 439.

Dan –  Well, 150’ll have to wait, as I moved a little more than 300 miles due east of my previous Walkermine CA landing, to land in this OSer . . . NV; 79/73; 7/10; 6; 150.8.  Here’s my regional landing map:

 

My closer-in landing map shows my proximity to the settlement of Cherry Creek, located about miles 5 miles NW of my landing:

 

Remarkably, not only have I remained at the same latitude as my Walkermine landing (39.94 N for Walkermine; 39.84 N for Cherry Creek), I have also moved from one abandoned mining company town to another.  Before discussing the particulars, let me move on to Google Earth (GE):

 

Backing well out, here’s an oblique GE shot looking west:

 

The drainage from my landing flows towards the bottom of the above shot, where Duck Creek is located.  Remarkably, this is my fourth landing in the Duck Creek watershed.  Duck Creek flows into the internally-drained Goshute Lake (5^th time my landing drainage has ended up here).

 The town of Cherry Creek would be just out of the range of the above photo (to the right), although one of the mines served by the town was the Egan Canyon mine, which was located near the gap in the ridge.

 Here’s a GE StreetView shot from near Cherry Creek, looking south towards my landing (about 5 miles away):

 

 Here are excerpts from GhostTowns.com (starting with the boom years):

At its peak in 1882, Cherry Creek had a transient population of 6,000 and about 1800 permanent residents. The town had an amazing 28 saloons. One mine had shipped more than $1 million in bullion. Then the financial crash of 1883 stopped Cherry Creek in its tracks. Mines began to close and Cherry Creek began a rapid decline. A fire in 1888 destroyed a section of the business district. By 1890, the population had dwindled to 350. Another fire occurred 1901 and yet another in 1904. In 1905 Cherry Creek experienced a revival that caused the reopening of a number of mines. This continued through the 1920s, the 1930s, and into the 1940s . . .

Only 28 saloons?  Anyway, this from Wiki, this about the more recent past:

 Since the 1940′s, the community has slowly declined in size, although mine leaseholders have always been active in the district, and occasional mining activity has taken place. Many historic structures, including a museum, an early one-room schoolhouse, and the Cherry Creek Barrel Saloon, still stand among more modern buildings.

From RockyMountainProfiles.com, here’s a shot of one of the many ghost town ruins:

  

Rather than me simply showing more pictures, I must insist that you check out Silver State Ghost Towns.com, which has a little history, but then a great slideshow of Cherry Creek (with really high-quality photos).  Click HERE to see it.

Only about 3 miles from my landing is Egan Canyon (mentioned earlier).  Here’s a Panoramio shot (by Ralph Maughan)  up in the mountains near Egan Canyon:

 I’m going to close with a couple of opposing shots.  First this, from GE Panoramio, by JBrunson, which is a shot from the mountains looking past Cherry Creek (or what remains of Cherry Creek), across Steptoe valley (my landing would be out of the shot to the right):

 

 Reversing the view, I’m going to close with this shot from RockyMountainProfiles.com, looking back across the Steptoe Valley towards Cherry Creek:

 

 

That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

© 2013 A Landing A Day

Walkermine, Plumas County, California

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2021; A Landing A Day blog post number 439.

Dan –  A pretty good string of USers going on (6/7), with this landing in . . . CA; 94/108; 7/10; 5; 150.4.  This was my fourth 2013 CA landing.  Well, I mentioned it last post, and I’ll mention it again.  I’m getting awfully close to breaking through the mythical 150 barrier.  Stay tuned.  Anyway, here’s my regional landing map:

 

My closer-in landing map shows that I landed in the boonies, in the midst of many small (mostly very small) towns.

 

I landed in the watershed of Emigrant Creek; on to Little Grizzly Creek; on to Indian Creek, and then on to two new rivers  (my 1118th and 1119th rivers):   first the East Branch of the North Fork of the Feather River and then on to the North Fork of the Feather River; on to the Feather itself (2nd hit); on to the Sacramento (25th hit).

What you’re seeing right now is a unique ALAD happening.  Never before have I named a post after a location that’s not on a StreetAtlas map.  Well, there’s a first time for everything.  So, where does “Walkermine” come from?  Well, I’ll start with my Google Earth shot, which has no clue about Walkermine.  In fact, it looks like I’ve landed in a pristine mountain wilderness setting:

 

OK, now I’m zooming out a little, and something rather suspicious comes into view:

 

Huh.  A big, Africa-shaped white patch, out here in the wilderness, with some other disturbed areas off to the northeast.  Very peculiar . . .

 Before investigating the white patch, I’ll zoom back and share this oblique GE shot to give you an overall feel for the landscape:

 

If not for “Africa,” it would be lovely!  Zooming in a little, here’s a closer view of Africa, which measures about 3,000 feet “north to south”, which makes it nearly 100 acres in size.

 

And what the heck, let’s zoom way in and see what we can see:

 

Wow.  I don’t have a clue what I’m looking at (well, anyway, I didn’t when I was first perusing GE).

 I then zoomed into to the other disturbed area:

 

Hmmm.  Looks like some old industrial facility of some sort. . .

 My first indication of what might be going on was when I activated Panoramio photos on GE and saw a bunch of photos posted right at the above area.  Several of the photos referenced “Walker Mine.”  The search was on:  the former town of Walkermine was discovered, and my post title was soon selected.

 From CaGenWeb.com:

 George Bemis made his discovery at Walker Mine in 1904.   Initial yields by 1914 were sufficient to warrant construction of a bunkhouse and three cabins for workers. High-grade ore assaying 12 percent copper was struck during October 1915.  A new flotation plant (for ore processing) was completed in 1916.  Electricity arrived in 1917, when a power line was brought from Indian Valley.

That’s enough background –  now make sure you read this part:

During Walker Mine’s most productive years (1920 – 1930), it was operated by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.  The company town of Walkermine was built to support work crews and their families during that period (1,000 workers and 3,000 Walkermine residents).  The town supported a hospital, a movie theater, a school, a library, dining facilities, a store, a tavern, a post office, a service station, a baseball field, and a ski hill.

Occupants of Walkermine lived in 132 company-constructed homes, 4 bunkhouses of three stories each, and 68 private homes.  During its heyday, 75 students attended the school at Walkermine and were taught by just three teachers.  Walkermine officially became a defunct settlement in 1941, when Walker Mine closed permanently.

Wow.  There was a whole town, and now it’s all gone.  A really strange aspect of this town was that in the winter, it was totally isolated because of massive snowfalls typical for the region.  But the mining went on (with ore being shipped out), and supplies were needed.  How did they do this when the roads were impassable?  Read on . . .

A unique feature of the Walker Mine operation was its 9-mile tramway, completed in 1919.  It was built to transport copper ore in 3-foot- by-4-foot buckets from the mine to a railroad siding at Spring Garden.  There, the copper ore was loaded into gondola carts and freighted to Tooele, Utah for smelting.  Also transported by the tram during winter periods were food, freight, mail, and occasionally people.  During winter, the company town was cut off from the outside world, except for the tramway.  The line ran on wooden towers, each from 20 to 60 feet in height.  In winter, when the snow was extraordinarily deep, crews were employed near the summit of Grizzly Ridge to shovel the snow out of the line of travel of the buckets.

Oh my!  Amazing.  Here’s a GE Panoramio shot (by Drafter) of one of the tramway wooden towers:

 

Here’s a GE shot showing the path the tramway took from the mine to Spring Garden:

 

From MiningArtifacts.org, here’s a shot of the old mine & town:

 

From Plumas County WebGen, here’s another old picture:

 

“Drafter” posted a bunch of Panoramio pictures of the mine site now.  Here’s the old mine entrance:

 

Here are the ruins of the ore processing building:

 

Here are some more ruins . . .

 

I couldn’t find any information about the one hundred-acre Africa, except that it’s an old tailings pond,  meaning a pond that used to receive wastes from ore processing.  Such wastes are typically highly acidic (or lowly acidic, from a pH point of view), which is probably why, after all this time, that it’s a blight on the countryside, just sitting there.  One might think that the State of California could cough up a few bucks to clean it up . . .

Moving right along . . . you’ll notice “Davis Lake” on my landing map east of my landing.  I’ll close with thisa shot of a stream, just before it flows into the lake (Panoramio by The Utiman):

 

 

That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

 

 

© 2013 A Landing A Day

Collinston, Louisiana

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2020; A Landing A Day blog post number 438.

 Dan –  I’m back to 5/6 with a landing in this USer . . . LA (first landing here since landing 1830, almost 200 landings ago); 32/34; 6/10; 4; 150.9.  I’m a little superstitious to mention it, but I’m closing in on a Score of 150.  Anyway, here’s my regional landing map:

 

My closer-in map shows that I landed close to the small town (pop 327) of Collinston:

 

Stepping back a little, I’m not too far from the larger town of Bastrop (pop 11,000) and Monroe (pop 49,000).  I always try to stay with the closest town for my post title and post feature, and that’s what I’ve done here.

 

Here’s my Google Earth (GE) shot, showing a straight forward agricultural setting:

 

I just happened to zoom in for a closer look, and I got this corduroy view of the farm field:

 

Here’s a GE StreetView shot looking north towards my landing (just past the trees):

 

I landed in the watershed of the Coulee Ditch; on to Bayou Galion (not big enough to be considered a river); on to the Boeuf R (3^rd hit); on to the Ouachita R (10^th hit); on to the Black R (10^th hit); to the Red (53^rd hit); to the Atchafalaya (60^th hit).  If you were paying attention to my last post (Frederick OK), you’ll know that this was my second Atchafalaya landing in a row, and that the Atchafalaya has moved past the Platte to claim 10^th place on my list of most-common rivers.

 On to Collinston:  It turns out that at the age of two, Lou Brock (notable Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player) moved to Collinston, where he was raised.  He has a great story.

 From the encyclopedia of Arkansas (just because he was born in Arkansas):

Lou Brock was in 1939, in El Dorado, Arkansas. He was the seventh of nine children born to Paralee Brock, who worked as a domestic and a field laborer.  After Brock’s father  left the family when Brock was two years old, Paralee Brock and her children moved to nearby Collinston, Louisiana, where Brock grew up in the poverty and segregation of the Deep South.

After two years of playing baseball for Southern University in Baton Rouge, he was invited to Chicago to try out for the White Sox and the Cubs; both clubs made offers, and he chose the Cubs.

His Cubs career would prove a disappointment. He hit .263 and .258 his first two seasons and was a poor fielder.  He was fast but stole only forty bases combined over the two seasons. During the 1964 season, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The trade was widely considered a steal for the Cubs. They received a pitcher, Ernie Broglio, who had won eighteen games the previous year.  Cardinals first baseman Bill White later said, “If anybody tells you they approved of that trade, they’re lying.”

But Brock’s play in St. Louis quickly changed minds.  In Chicago Brock had been allowed to steal only occasionally, but in St. Louis his manager simply told him, “Go when it seems right to go.” Brock stole thirty-three bases over the rest of the 1964 season while also hitting .348 in the more relaxed atmosphere.  The Cardinals advanced to the World Series, where Brock hit .300, helping the Cardinals beat the Yankees in seven games.

In 1966, he stole seventy-four bases to lead the National League in steals, beginning a streak in which he would lead the league in steals in eight of nine years. He helped St. Louis win the World Series in 1967 by setting a series record with seven stolen bases while batting .414.

The Cardinals returned to the World Series in 1968, and Brock hit .464 while stealing seven bases again, though the team lost in seven games. St. Louis struggled in the following years, and the team became more dependent on Brock’s ability to score runs, encouraging him to steal more often. In 1974, Brock stole 118 bases, setting a major league single-season record.

On August 29, 1977, Brock got his 893rd career stolen base, breaking Ty Cobb’s longstanding record.  He played two more seasons, finishing with 938 career stolen bases. Before retiring he achieved another milestone, becoming only the fourteenth player to reach 3,000 career hits. Brock was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985, the fifteenth player to be elected in his first year of eligibility.

 Here’s a cool action shot that I lifted from TotalProSports.com:

BetterTradesSports.com thinks the trade of Brock for Broglio was the best trade (from the Cardinal’s perspective) of all time.

 Best Trades – Ernie Broglio for Lou Brock

 It is considered the better trade to beat all better trades. In 1964 the St. Louis Cardinals shipped pitcher Ernie Broglio to the Chicago Cubs for Lou Brock.  A lame-armed, starting pitcher for the guy who turned out to be baseball’s all-time stolen base king?  The Cardinals truly made the better trade for the ages.

 The article goes on to discuss Brock’s superlative career, which I’ve already summarized above.  It then discusses the other side of the deal, Ernie Broglio:

Broglio wound up with arm trouble after he landed in Chicago. (Cub fans may see a trend developing here.) In three-plus seasons with the Cubs, Broglio was 7-19 with a 5.40 ERA. He never pitched more than 100 innings with the Cubs, negating any benefit the team may have had in mind while concocting the better trade.  He retired after the 1966 season after failing to live up to the 21-win campaign of his sophomore season in 1960.

 Ernie seems like a cool guy.  He was recently interviewed by William Weinbaum for ESPN, who wrote an article entitled “Buyer Beware.”   I’ve excerpted the last part of his article:

 In fact, Broglio reaped a gratifying benefit from being traded for Brock — a lasting friendship with him. Their most recent get-together was two years ago when Brock, whom Broglio calls a “great individual,” invited him to a benefit in St. Louis for his 70th birthday.

“Ernie is top of the charts,” Brock said. “He is a good man, a man with integrity. We have a good relationship because we laugh, we talk, and people, for whatever reason, are still interested [in the trade].”

Brock and Broglio were in Chicago for a Cubs old-timers game in 1987 and were introduced to the Wrigley Field crowd.  The reaction to the announcement of Broglio’s name, he said, was “probably the only standing ovation boos that any athlete would ever get.”

But for Brock, whose superb career was emblematic of many a missed Cubs opportunity, the fans stood and were “clapping, hooraying and everything else,” Broglio said.

A self-deprecating sense of humor has probably served Broglio well in coming to terms with his unfulfilled pitching promise and his role in the success of others.

“I congratulate all the Hall of Famers,” he said. “Some I played ball with, some I helped put there.”

Click HERE for the entire article, which includes this cool picture of Ernie:

 Enough baseball!!  Anyway, I stumbled on a nature preserve located just north of Collinston known as Kalorama.  From Kalorama.org, about the property:

In the late 1920s Mr. and Mrs. William B. Reily bought a site near Collinston, Louisiana and built a country summer home there.  The Reilys lived in New Orleans where their company that produced Luzianne Coffee was located. They named it Kalorama, a Greek word meaning “beautiful view.”  The Reilys were attracted to the astounding beauty of the site and the tremendous variety of songbirds which remain to this day.

The William B. Reily Foundation purchased the original 38 acres from private owners in 1992 to be developed into a nature preserve.  It was given to the Kalorama Foundation which has operated it since that time.

 Beth Erwin is the curator of the preserve, and is a wonderful photographer.  I have been perusing her photos on the website (by clicking on “Blooming Now” and then on various months of the year.  Here’s a shot of indigo buntings (April):

Also in April is this shot of a pouncing fox:

Here’s a shot of a “beautyberry” from July:

Click HERE to go to photos page (highly recommended).

I’ll close with this shot of  Bayou de Siard (even though it’s 10 miles west of my landing and not part of my watershed), a Panoramio shot by Jim Kolmus:

 

  That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

 

© 2013 A Landing A Day

Frederick, Oklahoma

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2019; A Landing A Day blog post number 437.

Dan –  I was riding a 4/4 into this landing; and when I saw the lat/long, I thought that I had landed in TX, which would have made it AR, IL, IL, TX, TX, all USers (and the first ever back-to-back doubles).  But alas, ‘twas not to be.  Check out my landing map, and you’ll see how close I was:

 

Here’s my closer-in landing map, showing my proximity to both Frederick (pop 4,000) and TX (the Red River is the state boundary):

 

Now, nothing against OK (of course!); it’s just me and my OSer / USer thing . . .

 Anyway, I landed in the watershed of Suttle Creek (nothing too obvious there); on to the Red River of the South (52^nd hit); and on to the river the name of which rolls off one’s tongue, the Atchafalaya (59^th hit, making it tied for 10^th with the Platte).

Here’s my GE shot, showing that I landed in a predictable agricultural setting:

See the north-south road just east of my landing?  Yup, StreetView coverage.  Here’s a shot looking towards (what else?) my landing:

 

It turns out that I couldn’t find much about Frederick, although it is the home of one James D. Ryan, better known as “Buddy.”   Among the general populace in Central Jersey (where I live), it’s pretty much a toss-up about sports loyalties:  some Philly, some NY.  Well, I’m Philly all the way, and Buddy Ryan was a memorable coach of the Philadelphia Eagles back in the late 1980s.  All bluster, all the time.  Some hated him, some loved him.  I kind of forget how I felt (some of both, I suspect, along with a dose of don’t-give-a-damn), but here’s a picture of ol’ Buddy:

 

Moving right along – if you look back up at my closer-in landing map, you can see a large area outlined in green labeled “Hackberry Flats.”  This is a former wetlands area that was drained, and then restored.  From the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (an article by Gillian Klucas):

“President Theodore Roosevelt once strutted through Hackberry Flats in the southwestern corner of Oklahoma, hunting the abundant waterfowl that migrated through the wetland oasis in the early 1900s.  But within a few years of his visit in 1905, the Big Pasture, as the area was known, was drained by the Big Ditch, a massive project that turned that “disease-infested swamp” into fertile, productive farmland.

Nearly a century later, William Crawford dreamt of walking in Teddy’s hunting boots at a restored Hackberry Flats. But in the early 1990s, when the wetland restoration idea began to circulate, it was hard to imagine the arid, 4-square-mile depression just south of Frederick, Oklahoma had ever been a wetland.

But Crawford and others rolled up their sleeves, and today what was once rows of wheat and milo is now the 7,000-acre Hackberry Flat Wildlife Management Area, an important wetland stopover for thousands of shorebirds, wading birds, and waterfowl that migrate along the central flyway from the Gulf Coast to Canada.”

 Very cool story.  I like that part of the argument for draining the wetlands was to get rid of a “disease-infested swamp.”  Here’s a GE Panoramio shot of the “Big Ditch” that was used to drain the original wetlands (now abandoned, of course), by CKolar:

 Also, knowing that Teddy Roosevelt passed right by my landing spot, I figured I should post a photo.  I thought I could find a cool action shot and I did, on History.com:

  

Back to the Flats, from HackberryFlat.org:

 Build it and they will come . . .

To movie goers, this famous phrase inspired a dreamer to create a refuge for the restless ghosts of baseball’s golden age. For those who remember the massive flocks of waterfowl that once winged across the skies of southwest Oklahoma’s Tillman County, it has inspired visionaries to restore one of the state’s most glorious natural treasures.

No wonder Hackberry Flat has been described as one of the most significant wetlands restoration projects ever completed in North America .  And it’s a natural treasure we can all enjoy.

There’s a short You Tube video on the wetlands, produced by Oklahoma Horizon TV.  Click HERE to view it. 

Here’s a GE shot – the Hackberry Flats is (are?) the peculiar-looking gray area southeast of my landing:

A closer-in shot looks even more peculiar, with lots of geometry going on (canals, berms, ponds, whatever).  But, really:  gray wetlands?

 

Anyway, in my Yuma AZ post, I bemoaned the loss of two million acres of wetlands, thanks to the damming of the Colorado River.  Here, we’re talking just 7,000 acres that was lost but hey, the good news is that it has been restored.  

Evidently this area is now a world-class birding destination.  Here’s a wonderful shot of an American Avocet taken at Hackberry by Ken Nanney (as posted on the AudubonDallas.org website):

Click HERE to see more of Ken’s pictures (strongly recommended – great photos)!

I’ll close with some GE Panoramio pictures of the Hackberry Flats, by CKolar (and they most-decidedly don’t look gray):

 First, a canal and pond:

 

Here’s a visitor’s walkway across an area that I assume is more aqueous at wetter times of the year:

 

My final shot, also by Mr. Kolar:

 

  That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

 

© 2013 A Landing A Day

Fort Griffin, Texas

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2016; A Landing A Day blog post number 434.

 Dan –  The USers keep on rollin’ (5/6) as I landed, for the fourth time in the last 21 landings, in . . . TX; 147/177; 6/10; 2; 151.1.  Here’s my regional landing map:

 

My closer-in landing map shows that I landed very close to Fort Griffin (which gets the post title, even though it isn’t really a town), and not too far from Albany:

 

My Google Earth (GE) shot shows a scrubby arid scene (and no StreetView shots anywhere close):

 

I landed in the watershed of Jackson Branch; on to the Clear Fork of the Brazos River (4^th hit); on (of course) to the Brazos (27^th hit).

 About Fort Griffin (from Wiki):

Fort Griffin was a Cavalry fort established in the late 1860s to provide protection from early Comanche and Kiowa raids. It was named for Charles Griffin, a former Civil War Union general.

OK.  Nothing exciting here.  My interest is more about the town that sprung up outside of the fort.  Moving over to LegendsOfAmerica.com, here are some excerpts from an article about the Fort:

Though there is little left of old Fort Griffin and even less of the settlement that formed below the bluff, Fort Griffin was one of the wildest places in all of the Old West.

Almost immediately after the fort was completed, a new settlement began at the bottom of the hill, first called “The Bottom,” “The Flat” or “Hidetown,” before it took on the name of the fort. In addition to the honest pioneers who settled the area, in flooded a number of ruffians and outlaws.

Some of these many people would later become well-known in the annals of history, including Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, who first met in Fort Griffin. Also there was the infamous gunfighter, John Wesley Hardin. “Marshaling” the lawless town was outlaw/lawman John M. Larn as sheriff, and his deputy, John Selman who, in the mid 1870’s, were working both sides of the law by controlling the vigilantes and rustling cattle.

John Larn; however, would be killed by those same vigilantes inside his own jail in Fort Griffin.  Selman, on the other hand, quickly disappeared and almost two decades later would kill John Wesley Hardin. During these lawless times, the settlement was so decadent that it was labeled “Babylon on the Brazos.”

Oh my!  Fertile material for some research and elaboration.  What caught my eye was John Wesley Hardin.  Being a child of the 60s, I am, of course familiar with the song “John Wesley Harding” by Bob Dylan (and the album of the same name).  The first hurdle:  “Hardin” vs. “Harding.”  From Wiki:

. . .  Dylan has had a well-documented interest in outlaw cowboys, including Jesse James and Billy the Kid.   John Wesley Hardin was another late-19th century outlaw, and Dylan has stated that he chose John Wesley Hardin for his protagonist over other badmen because his name “[fit] in the tempo” of the song.  Dylan added the “g” to the end of Hardin’s name by mistake.

 Bob, Bob.  You added a “g”  by mistake??  Come on.  Here’s a slightly revised album cover:

And here’s Dylan’s take on Mr. Harding:

John Wesley Harding
Was a friend to the poor
He trav’led with a gun in ev’ry hand
All along this countryside
He opened a many a door
But he was never known
To hurt a honest man.

It was down in Chaynee County
A time they talk about
With his lady by his side
He took a stand
And soon the situation there
Was all but straightened out
For he was always known
To lend a helping hand.

All across the telegraph
His name it did resound
But no charge held against him
Could they prove
And there was no man around
Who could track or chain him down
He was never known
To make a foolish move.

I could find no You Tube videos with Bob singing his own song.  But you can click HERE for a cover (and the words scroll by).

 Obvoiusly, Bob has a very sympathetic take on Mr. Hardin.  Is history as kind?  Evidently not.  From History.com (This Day in History, August 19^th):

John Wesley Hardin, one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West, is murdered by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.

Born in central Texas on May 26, 1853, Hardin killed his first man when he was only 15 during the violent period of post-Civil War reconstruction. During the next 10 years, he killed at least 20 more men, and some have suggested the total might have been as high as 40.

In 1878, Hardin was convicted of killing a Texas sheriff and sent to the Texas state prison in Huntsville. Prison life seems to have calmed Hardin–during his 14 years behind bars, he studied law. Released in 1892, he settled down in Gonzales where he worked as an attorney and tried, unsuccessfully, to win political office. Eventually, Hardin relocated to the violent town of El Paso, where, since the demands for his legal services were limited, he spent more time arguing in saloons than in court.

In 1895, the sheriff of El Paso tried to make the town a bit less deadly by outlawing the carrying of guns within city limits. In August of that year, Hardin’s girlfriend ran was caught with a gun in the city and arrested by El Paso office, John Selman. Hardin, who had never learned completely to control his vicious temper, became angry. Bystanders overhead him threaten Selman for bothering his girl. Not long after, on this day in 1895, Selman went looking for Hardin. He found the famous gunman throwing dice at the bar of the Acme saloon. Without a word, Selman walked up behind Hardin and killed him with a shot in the head.

Whether Selman was acting out of anger, self-protection, or perhaps to burnish his own reputation as a gunslinger remains unclear. Regardless, an El Paso jury apparently felt that Selman had done the town a favor. The jurors acquitted him of any wrongdoing.

So:  Selman and Harding had at least one thing in common:  Fort Griffin!

 There isn’t much to see at the Fort, but here’s a cool shot of some ruins (Wiki):

Here’s Shaunissy’s Saloon (where Doc Holliday met Wyatt Earp), from LegendsOfAmerica.com:

Nearby Albany stages an annual musical extravaganza called the Fort Griffin Fandangle, which is quite the production.  It’s all about the colorful history of the Fort & town.  It changes every year, but is put on by 300 or so townspeople.  They put on the show two weekends in a row (a total of six shows), with a total attendance of 10,000 for the two weekends. 

 From Wiki:

The Dallas Morning News describes Fandangle, accordingly: “as professional as a multi-million dollar Broadway musical, with sets and costumes to match.” The Abilene Reporter-News calls the program “Frontier history served up with genuine earthiness, spiced by rare humor.”

 From the Fort Griffin Fandangle website, this shot of the action:

 Getting back to Fort Griffin proper (and I’ll close with this) – it turns out that the Fort is the home to the official State of Texas Longhorn Herd, with this as a prime example.

  

That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

© 2013 A Landing A Day

West Point, Illinois

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much an every-third-day blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2015; A Landing A Day blog post number 433.

Dan –  Getting a bit of a USer roll (4/5) with this landing in . . . IL; 36/37; 5/10; 1; 151.7.  Here’s my regional landing map, showing that I landed close to the Mississippi, and close to the IL/IA/MO triple point:

 

My closer in shot shows my proximity to (as usual) a bunch of small towns:

 

The larger towns (in Illinois) near my landing are Warsaw (pop 1,800), Hamilton (pop 3,000) and Carthage (pop 2,700).  Keokuk is in IA, so I’m not going there.  Not ending up with a clear winner, my post title went to West Point (pop 195 ) by dint of its proximity alone (and hey, it got the closing picture, as you’ll see).

 Before I go any further with my typical ALAD material, I’d like to pause and note that I’ve landed in IL two times in a row.  No big deal, one might say, and I suppose that one would be correct.  But, since I keep track of all things landing (and therefore keep track of the times where I’ve landed in the same state twice in a row), I’ll digress a little with a few facts:

 1.  Out of 2016 landings, this was my 49^th double.  That works out to one double every 41 landings.

 2.  I’ve had more TX doubles than any other state (7), followed by CA and MT (5 each), then NM and WY (4 each), MO, NV and UT (3 each); and by AZ (twice).  For thirteen other states (now including IL), it has happened once.

 3.  I had a crazy stretch between landings 1080 and 1093 (a mere 13 landings) where I had four sets of doubles (MT, NE, KY and CA).

 4.  I had a sense that pre-blog, I had doubles more frequently than post-blog (I began blogging on landing 1583).  A little math shows that my rate of doubles pre-blog was once per 36 landings, and my rate of doubles post-blog is once per 72 landings!  Twice the rate!  No wonder I had that sense!  This is yet another fluky statistical anomaly of the type that people grab on to when they’re looking for meaning in statistics, like “the Landing God has clearly decided to grant me fewer doubles now that I’m blogging . . .”

 Hmmm.  I’ve never had a triple.  Maybe next landing?  (But it would be much more likely with a bigger state!)

 Here’s my Google Earth shot, showing that I landed right at the edge of field:

 

Unfortunately, there is no StreetView coverage on the nearby road.

 I landed in the watershed of rather substantial creek, Bear Creek (43 mile-long stream with a 570 square mile watershed), which flows directly into the Mississippi.  The number 19 comes up twice with reference to the creek:  1) this was my 19^th stream / river named “Bear,” and 2) this was my 19^th landing that I landed in a creek that flowed directly to the Mississippi, rather than into a tributary river.  Here’s a GE StreetView shot of Bear Creek near the Mississippi R:

 

As I was looking at information associated with the local towns, I realized that I stumbled into a hotbed of Mormon history.  Expanding my landing map to the north a little, you can see that I can also include the town of Nauvoo:

 

As any regular reader of my blog knows:  especially for western landings, I periodically and unavoidably bump into various events and places that involve the Mormons.  Well, although not a particularly western landing, this time I hit the mother lode.

 I’m going to be talking about Joseph Smith who I assume needs no introduction.  But just in case, he’s the founder and spiritual leader of the Mormon religion (the church known as the Church of the Latter Day Saints).  Here’s a much abbreviated early history of the Joseph Smith story.  After leaving New York (where he was born and received his divine inspiration – the Golden Tablets, writing the book of Mormon, etc.), Joseph Smith’s travels took him west to Missouri, picking up followers as he traveled.  He hoped that Missouri was the promised land for him and his followers, but the “Mormon Wars” resulted in a hasty retreat back east across the Mississippi.  They ended up in the town of Commerce, which Joseph renamed Nauvoo, more or less Hebrew for beautiful place.

 A Mormon temple was built in Nauvoo, and it soon became a bustling Mormon community.  But the Mormon detractors (like those in Missouri) were distrustful of the Mormon ways (to say the least).  A leading detractor was one Thomas Sharp, the editor of the Warsaw Sentinel, who published a series of articles that helped inflame anti-Mormon passions.  One thing led to another, and Joseph Smith was arrested and put in prison in Carthage.  A gang of locals, bent on taking matters into their own hands, stormed the prison and killed both Joseph smith and his brother Hyrum.

 Thomas Sharp and four others were arrested for the murders, and put on trial.  After a judge ruled that no Mormons should be on the jury, all of the accused were acquitted, and the murder of Joseph Smith was never “solved.”

 After the killing of the Smith Brothers, there was a bit of a power struggle; but Brigham Young became the heir apparent, and led the Mormons west where they eventually settled in Salt Lake City.  The rest is history . . . .

 By the way, the old Nauvoo Temple fell into disrepair after the Mormons were driven out of Illinois, and eventually burned down.  A new temple was rebuilt (that looks like the original) – it was dedicated in 2002.

 Obviously (I think, obviously) I’m not a Mormon, but I do find the history of this very recent, very American phenomenon to be fascinating.  A very casual Google search of the towns and history near my landing can keep anyone busy for a long time, piecing together the various story lines.  You can see that I did a little reading and decided to tell the story in my own words rather than attempting to pare down the voluminous materials that I could have copied and pasted (even using only Wikipedia).

 I mentioned Warsaw above; well, I found a nice piece of You Tube Warsaw history (very well done, by the by) that talks about Thomas Sharp, and the history of Warsaw in general.  It was a project by a Western Illinois University student, who posts by the moniker CrazyLegz70.  Click HERE for the piece:

 I’ll close with a couple of Panoramio shots.  First, this by SethMo38

I landed closest to the little burg of West Point.  I’ll close with a Panoramio shot by LSessions of the West Point Town Hall:

 

 That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

 

© 2013 A Landing A Day

McHenry, Illinois

tFirst timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a twice-a-week blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”  I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.  To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is and what the various numbers and abbreviations mean in the first paragraph), please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.

 Landing number 2015; A Landing A Day blog post number 433.

Dan –  Putting me at 3/4 is my first landing in this USer since landing 1912 . . IL; 35/37; 4/10; 5; 152.3.  Here’s my regional landing map, showing that I landed not far from Chicago:

 

My closer-in map shows my proximity to the fair city of McHenry (pop 25,000; Wonderlake is much smaller (pop 1,300):

 

My Google Earth (GE) shot shows that I landed in a farm field, fairly close to a road that I was hoping had StreetView coverage:

 

And yes!  StreetView coverage indeed!

 

I love it when the big yellow push-pin shows up (and the cow doesn’t seem too upset about it)!

 The site drainage from the yellow push-pin is towards us in the above photo,  and on to Boone Ck; then on to the Fox R (2^nd hit); to the Illinois R (17^th hit); to the MM (793^rd hit).

 Here’s a GE StreetView shot of the Fox River in McHenry:

 

I zoomed way out on GE to give you a perspective of my landing (looking west) in reference to Chicago and Lake Michigan:

 

I must tell you what happened as I realized that I landed near McHenry.  I was in front of my laptop on the kitchen table, with the Phillies vs. Pirates game on in the background.  When I realized where I landed, I let out an involuntary (and rather loud) “WHOA?!?!”

 Jody (my wife for those who don’t know me) was upstairs reading, and she yelled down “What happened?  Did the Phillies score?.”

 “No, I responded, but I’ll come upstairs and tell you where I landed.”

 So what’s the big deal?  I never lived there (although I did live in suburban Chicago; more about that later).  It turns out that I worked on a project near McHenry, but not just any project:  it was a class action lawsuit about an alleged cancer cluster in nearby McCullom Lake (see landing map, above).

 I hesitate to talk about this much.  The lawsuit is, of course, on the public record; and anyone can Google it and find out quite a bit.  Anyway, I was an expert hydrogeologist for the McCullom Lake Plaintiffs; and it was a very intense experience.  I think I’ll leave it there . . .

 Of my 35 landings in IL, this was only the third time I was even remotely close to Chicago.  Once, I landed west of Kankakee (50 mi south of Chicago), and once, near Mendota (75 mi west of Chicago).  But this landing, I was the closest yet, only about 40 miles NW. 

 So, while perusing GE, I couldn’t help but take a look at the old homestead:  the corner of East Ave. and Erie St. in Oak Park (a close-in western suburb of Chicago, where I lived from 1955 to 1960).  Our house faced East Avenue, and we looked across the street at the Oak Park River Forest High School.  Here’s the view from Erie:

 

No, that isn’t my house on the right.  That’s the house of my erstwhile best friend, Pete Stege (pronounced steg-ee).  My house was across the street . . . uh . . . right where the tennis court is . . .

 A German family lived in the gray house next to Pete (German accents and all; they had a son who was older who I didn’t play with).  I remember great excitement when the Dad bought a Volkswagen (first one we’d ever seen!) and gave Pete and me a ride in it.

 We played out in the street all the time (mostly on Erie between the Steges and the uh, tennis courts) because there wasn’t much traffic)  – baseball, kickball, kick the can, whatever.  Innocent times, those 1950s.

 Here’s another view from Erie, looking back the other way.  My house was on the right, and you can see the High School beyond the trees. 

 

Here’s another view looking back towards my house used to be that shows good ol’ East Avenue is pretty much gone, and has been replaced by a driveway / pedestrian walkway.  Change is good . . .

 

So far, this post has been all about me, and not much about McHenry.  But even though McHenry is a sizable community, it appears to be pretty much hookless (i.e., without a hook item of interest for me to write about).  However, heading northeast out of McHenry are many lakes, known collectively as the Chain O’Lakes.  The Chain O’Lakes are part of a larger lake system in this part of IL and neighboring WI:

 

This, about Chain O’Lakes, from Wiki:

The Chain O’Lakes is a waterway system in northeast Illinois composed of 15 lakes connected by the Fox River and man-made channels. Encompassing more than 7,100 acres of water and  488 miles of shoreline, the Chain is the busiest inland recreational waterway per acre in the United States.   Located about an hour’s drive from the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, and Rockford, the lakes are popular with boaters and fishermen drawing weekend crowds of 30,000 and holiday crowds of 100,000 people.

 Here’s a pretty soft geological explanation for the lakes, also from Wiki:

 The Chain O’Lakes were formed when the Wisconsin glacier melted, leaving behind many of the lakes now present in the Fox River Valley, including those in the Chain.

 I knew they were a result of the glaciers before Wiki told me so.  How, you might ask?  Let me digress a moment and talk about lake formation in general.  Geologically speaking (at least in the tectonically-stable eastern half of the country), lakes are unexpected interlopers on the geologic landscape, and they’re temporary, at that.

 You can start with any long-term geologically-formed landscape (un-glaciated), be it long eroded vestiges of former high mountains (like the Appalachians), a plateau (like the Allegheny Plateau of western Pennsylvania), or depositional landscapes, like coastal plains.  All of these landscapes have one thing in common:  they all have valleys and streams, but no lakes!  That’s because, as drainage patterns carve and shape the landscape, they naturally develop a drainage system whereby a drop of water continually runs downhill seeking the ocean (no lakes).

 Lakes only occur when something disrupts the natural drainage pattern, like a huge old glacier gouging out rock and dumping debris willy-nilly all over the landscape.  So, in the south, the only lakes are man-made.  But in the glaciated north, the landscape is strewn with lakes:  Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes!  The Great Lakes!  And, of course, the Chain O’Lakes!

 All lakes are temporary, because rivers and streams that flow into the lakes bring in sediment that is deposited in the lakes, slowly but surely filling them up.

Anyway, I’ll close with the sunset shot over nearby Wonderful Lake (not one of the Chain O’Lakes, but certainly a glacial lake); a Panoramio shot by WizFish:

 

 

That’ll do it.

 KS

 Greg

 

 

© 2013 A Landing A Day