Missouri - Day 1 - entering MO and Joplin area

Joplin KOA, Joplin

Thursday, 1 April 2021

For the first time in a while, I was able to pick up a local TV station to get the morning weather report.  Can't say I'm a big fan of the team at the Tulsa NBC station, but at least I learned it really was as cold as I thought - actually freezing this morning.  But we did get sun today, so that's an improvement over yesterday.

today's route

When I turned north at Pryor, I had only about an hour to the Kansas border.  The small (258 residents) town of Big Cabin claims to be the Hay Capital of the World because, they say, of the amount of hay that was grown and shipped between 1883 and 1910.  Which was a while ago, but you take your glory where you find it.

At Vinita, I saw one of the only 2 Trump signs I saw all day.  This one was a "Trump 2020" sign, but the "2020" had been spray-painted out with black paint, leaving only the "Trump."  Now I find that downright encouraging.

I saw lots of cows and lots of huge fields.  I saw a whole herd of cows following a pickup truck in their field - apparently the chow wagon.

I saw a marmot running along parallel to the road.

And then, "Kansas Welcomes You!"

I heard on the radio about a video that has gone viral, showing a mama bear in Connecticut trying to corral her 4 cubs on one side of a roadway.  People commented on how the police stopped the traffic long enough to let her do this - the video's about 4 minutes - but if the drivers were like me, they couldn't possibly have driven off because they were laughing too hysterically to see.  Here's the link.   https://www.rep-am.com/mama-bear-tries-to-corral-her-cubs  In this article, there's a 2-minute cut of the video and, lower down, a 4-minute version.

I came to Chetopa, Pecan Capital of Kansas, they claim.  To support that, I saw acres of pecan orchards straddling both sides of the road.  I also saw apple orchards, so I'm guessing this is a great place to be in the fall.

Nearing the Missouri border, I came to Baxter Springs (pop. under 4,000), which bills itself as the Birthplace of Waterjet Cutting.  Not something I'd ever heard of, but Wikipedia tells me a water jet is a tool that uses either extremely high pressure water or a mix of water and abrasive, either way allowing it to cut hard materials like metal, stone or glass.  And I guess it started right here. 

Baxter Springs also had signs pointing the visitor toward the Historic Rainbow Bridge.  Also something I'd never heard of, but it's a relic of the old Route 66.  It's a single-span concrete bridge, built in 1923, and was saved and restored in 1992 to be the only one of its type still left on Route 66.

We passed a very large herd of buffalo.  In fact, I've never seen so many in one place before.

And then, "Missouri Welcomes You."  (No exclamation point.  Not as excited about visitors as Kansas, I guess.)

Missouri - my 29th state

When I was getting directions to Joplin, I was taking a very close look at Google's proposed route to be sure they weren't sending me down one of their little jokes of a short-cut.  That close look showed me I'd be going almost right by something called a Tri-State Marker - at the junction of OK, KS and MO - so I decided to go look for it.  And I found it.

Tri-State Marker

Tri-State Monument

National Youth Administration - 1938

It was the Natl. Youth Admin. in 1938 (which sounds like a New Deal program to me) that built this marker, which is taller than it looks in my photo.  I think it's 8' or 10' high.  I'm very sorry to say that it's covered in graffiti, mostly people who don't seem to have heard that saying I got when I was a kid about "fools' names like fools' faces, often seen in public places."

Right about where I took that photo is another monument placed in 2004 by the Missouri Association of County Surveyors.

And finally, there's this plaque that explains how the original marker came to be placed.

It had only been about an hour since I'd last walked the dogs (in Chetopa), but that was way too long from their point of view, so I took them out on the little gravel road that led to the marker.  Along the way I noticed signs on the fence around the neighboring pasture.  I could read the part about "Warning - Keep Out" and even the smaller letters about "Do Not Approach Fence."  But there were other letters I couldn't read without approaching the fence so, instead, I took this photo so I could read it later.

Here's a blow-up of the sign:

"Buffalo are wild and dangerous animals."

Not being one of those idiots who try to take selfies with the buffalo in Yellowstone National Park, I followed directions.  We didn't see any buffalo, but the dogs definitely smelled something unusual.

I saw a sign on the highway claiming Missouri is The Cave State.  Hey - I've been to Kentucky so Missouri'll have to work to prove it to me.

I stopped at the Missouri Welcome Center on I-44.  A year ago it was closed closed closed, thanks to the virus.  Now it's open, but they still don't allow people to wander around among their racks of brochures.  A very nice young woman tried to understand what sort of information I was looking for and did the best she could.  Since I didn't have anything at all about traveling in Missouri before I got there, that left me a lot better off than I was.

From there I went into Joplin, partly to pick up doggy poop bags at the PetsMart because I was almost out (potential crisis), and partly to go by the AAA office for a current map.  This office is another place that was firmly closed a year ago - I could only get a person on the phone explaining that they were taking the virus seriously.  (Unlike Missouri's governor who, if I remember correctly, was pretending it was just a version of the flu while people were dropping like flies.)  So now I have a current version of my trusty AAA map to replace the one I had that dated back to 2008.

I noticed a lot of murals in downtown Joplin.  I also noticed that Historic Route 66 runs right through town - it's 7th Street.

I had to look up Joplin's population, because it wasn't included on the highway sign: 50,150 in 2010.

I saw a license plate that said EDJUC8.

Speaking of license plates, I ran into the same problem I have at the beginning of every month and every state.  I got confused because I was suddenly seeing so many Missouri license plates.  Those license plates are a constant reminder that I'm in a different state than I was, and it's odd how long it can take me to adjust to the new ones.

On the edge of town I came to a huge General Mills plant.  I'm guessing it's a big local employer, based on the size of the facility.

Last year when I was in the area, I passed the George Washington Carver National Monument in Diamond, not far from Joplin, and I decided to make a visit since I had some extra time today.

I took 2 different routes going and coming.  On State Route V, I was on a roller coaster - a constant up and down and up and down on the hills.  On a series of local roads, I passed very carefully under a narrow bridge marked with a clearance of 11' 6".  And I passed a nice place that looked almost like a park alongside a creek, with a sign at the entrance saying, "Don't Even Think Of Trespassing - Survivors Will Be Prosecuted."  I believed them.  And it reminded me of the most effective no parking sign I've ever seen, in Alaska at Bullwinkle's Pizza in Juneau.  Their tiny parking lot said parking was for customers only and "Violators' Cars Will Be Stripped and Sold."  I believed them too.

George Washington Carver National Monument

The National Park ranger at the front desk told me they'd only just gotten the go-ahead to reopen, and they weren't yet able to show the film about Carver.  There weren't many other visitors, so I just wandered around the exhibits.

George Washington Carver was born in 1864 to an enslaved mother, Mary.  They were both kidnapped while George was still an infant.

Mary was never found; George never knew who his father was.  He and his older brother Jim were taken in by the couple who had owned them before the War - Moses and Susan Carver.

from the Park Service brochure

statue on the grounds

The problem young Carver ran into in finding an education was that he was Black, living in an America - and a South - that was firmly segregated.  

Displaying a singlemindedness that would characterize his pursuits for the rest of his life, Carver went first 8 miles from home to a town where he'd found a school that would take him.  Then he moved and moved again, always in search of more education.  His interests were varied, including both natural sciences as well as art and music (he could play 4 instruments).  Finally at age 26, he was accepted as an art major at Simpson College, a small Methodist college in Iowa, and pursued painting.  A year later, he reluctantly decided he was being selfish, and that he needed to find a career that would more directly benefit others, so he transferred to Iowa State Agricultural College.  He continued to paint, however, and received a prize at the Chicago World's Fair.

The following year he earned his bachelor's degree and 2 years later his master's.  That same year - 1896 - Booker T. Washington offered him a teaching post in the new agriculture dept. at Tuskegee Institute.  Carver spent the next 47 years there.

promoting crop rotation

note the languages of these bulletins

taking the information to the farmers

It was because he wanted to free both Black farmers and the South in general from the hole they were digging by sole reliance on cotton that he began experimenting with peanuts.  It was this work that has brought him long-term fame.

Among his many admirers was Henry Ford, who asked Carver for information about industrial uses of plants, including peanuts and soybeans.

Carver saw his scientific achievements as merely the visible manifestations of his spiritual life.  He was devoutly religious and saw God not just in the world around him, but in all he, Carver, did in the world.  Here are some of his attitudes and teachings.

Carver died in 1943 and was buried on the campus of Tuskegee University in Alabama.