Yellowstone National Park

31 July - 4 August 2019

It was one of those bucket-list items: a visit to Yellowstone. And this midwesterner enjoys watching the terrain and vegetation change as we travel west. Our route, which took us to the park from the south, led through the Wind River Indian Reservation and Grand Teton National Park.

29 July: Our car was loaded with camping equipment, and we missed the much easier trips we took in the small RVs we owned over a decade ago. This day we drove around 13 hours, ending the day in North Platte, Nebraska.

While anticipating the drive, I checked some web sites for the Wind River Reservation, and learned that Sacajawea (or Sacagawea) is buried there, or so some folks, including the Eastern Shoshone who inhabit the reservation, believe. The cemetery is only two miles off our route, so we stopped there.

Sacagawea—the most accepted spelling—is mentioned seventeen times in the Lewis & Clark journals. It’s spelled differently each time, but always with a letter G.

I read long ago that Sacagawea died during childbirth in South Dakota at the age of 25, and that’s consistent with Wikipedia. But since Native Americans didn’t keep written records, it’s difficult to be certain. In any event, an effort by suffragists to locate her remains was undertaken in the very early 1900s. Sacagawea captured their attention because she was allowed to vote during the Corps of Discovery’s expedition. A Dakota Sioux physician was hired to find Sacagawea’s remains. After visiting numerous tribes, he learned of a woman who had once lived on the Wind River Reservation, whose great granddaughter said spoke of a long trip with white men when she was young, and who had in her possession a Jefferson peace medal, which Lewis & Clark handed out to Native Americans they met. So it was concluded that the woman was Sacagawea. We figured that whether Sacagawea was indeed buried on the reservation, it was still a memorial to her and worthy of our visit.

On to Yellowstone National Park: We’ve seen videos and photos of geysers, bears, Bison, Elk, and other wildlife, but our initial impression of the park was a surprise. It is not nearly as open as the photos seem to imply; rather, the roads travel through forests composed mostly of Lodgepole Pine, and vistas are limited.

In the portions of the park we visited, which were in the southern half, open areas were found only near geysers or other thermal features and a few valleys. Herds of Bison and Elk can be found in two valleys: Hayden and Lamar Valleys although the latter species can be seen elsewhere such as within a few yards of our campsite in Grant Village.

The park is huge—the caldera alone is the size of the State of Rhode Island—and the maximum speed limit is 45 mph, probably to safeguard wildlife as well as other visitors. As a result, a visit to the park results in a lot of driving, and it takes time to get where one’s going.

The first day, 31 August, we set up camp, and then enjoyed one another’s company for a while. We visited the nearby West Thumb Geyser Basin, which offered our first look at the park’s thermal features. Since the best time to see large mammals was at dawn or dusk, we drove to Hayden Valley where we watched a herd of a hundred or more Bison.  Some of them crossed the road, blocking traffic and creating long lines of stopped vehicles. A while later a herd of over 70 Elk emerged from trees across the valley.

Cold Water: Bathrooms in our campground, and I suspect others as well, offered cold water only. Hot water was available in the shower building, but the sinks in the same facility had only cold water. Twice I washed my hair and shaved in cold water. It wasn’t fun but not nearly as uncomfortable as I imagined.

Weather: During the course of a typical July or August day the temperature varies around 40-degrees, dropping from a high in the 80s in afternoons to overnight lows in the low- to mid-40s, and lows in the 30s are common. Because the atmosphere is thinner in the park—our campground was at 7800 feet in elevation—the sun feels more intense than at lower elevations. Sunny afternoons were uncomfortably warm, but around bed-time our sleeping bags were welcome sources of warmth. All of us were cold overnight even with sleeping bags rated at 20 or 30 degrees. Apparently such ratings are only reference points. I awoke several times because my head was cold, but eventually found that wrapping my poncho liner around my head kept me warmer. My wife and I took along yoga mats that we placed beneath our air mattresses as a form of insulation from the ground. The tent floor beneath the yoga mats was colder than above the mats (between the mats and our air mattresses) so it helped a bit.

Brochures and web sites advise carrying lip balm and plenty of water, and we found that to be valid advice; the air is dry at Yellowstone.

The next morning, 1 August, we made breakfast in our respective campsites, then convoyed to Old Faithful, which was erupting as we arrived. While waiting for the next eruption, I spotted a female Mountain Bluebird, and a male Western Tanager in a tree before us. I’d seen both species only once before. About a thousand visitors lined a semicircular walkway with benches to view the next eruption.

While in the vicinity we watched Old Faithful erupt four times. We also had lunch in the nearby cafeteria, and explored the area including the historic Old Faithful Inn. 

Cell Phone Service: We were warned that cell phone service would be spotty or poor, and we found it to be nonexistent. It was both a hindrance and a convenience. We noticed that a lot fewer folks had their heads down staring at their phones, and in restaurants, people looked at one another.

Bears: We didn’t see bears, although our son and family who arrived a few days before we did saw a mama and two cubs. But we obeyed regulations governing the cleanliness of our campsites. No food items, coolers, or even water containers—I guess to bears they look like food containers—were to be left in unoccupied campsites, so each day we loaded everything except our tents, luggage pack packs, sleeping bags, and lawn chairs into our cars. That meant that we didn’t have room for back-seat passengers, and each time we left the campground we traveled in a three-vehicle convoy. Communication between cars would have been nice. In hindsight, FRS (Family Radio Service) two-way radios, at least one per car, would have been nice to have.

2 August: We left the campground after breakfast, heading to the Grand Prismatic Spring, the most colorful thermal feature of the park. We hiked the provided boardwalk, and marveled at the colorful hot spring.

Crowds and Parking: The most popular attraction at Yellowstone is Old faithful, and the area offers plenty of parking. But other attractions had a lot less such as the Grand Prismatic Spring, which may be among the next most popular park features. Waiting in line to enter the parking lot, and then finding a parking spot once there was not fun. Plenty of folks parked along the main road, then walked in. Perhaps these areas are less busy once school starts, but then the nights can be much colder. During these times when NPS budgets are shrinking, this is something visitors have to deal with.

The next stop was a swimming hole, where the kids spent time in the water. Autumn spent time with 7-year-old Miranda, and they seemed to bond during their time in the water.

3 August: This was Casey’s birthday, and he was given the opportunity to pick out the day’s adventure, which consisted of hiking the Elephant Back Trail. It led through woods and up a mountain with a crest near 8500 feet. The top provided a great view of Yellowstone Lake. 

4 August: Our day of departure. We began the 1600-mile trip back home, passing once again through Grand Teton National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation. Lonnie and I stopped that night in Sidney, Nebraska.

5 August: Continuing the drive through Nebraska, thirteen miles of Iowa, and into Missouri, where we checked into a room in Columbia.

6 August: An easy drive back home.

I can’t leave this topic without mentioning our trusty, old Coleman Camp Stove. I bought it in 1978, and used it quite a bit over the years including making tea and preparing meals at Yellowstone.

Pristine Forests of the Shawnee

On a whim Lonnie and I ventured to southern Illinois where we spent a night in a cabin at Giant City State Park.

After dark I stood on the road outside our cabin and played the songs of Barred Owls, Great Horned Owls, Screech Owls, Whip-poor-wills, and Chuck Will's Widows.  Barred Owls responded first followed by Great Horned Owls. Screech Owls were the last to respond.

The next morning after breakfast we walked the park's Indian Creek Trail, hiking through mature, climax-deciduous forest.  We spotted a Tulip Poplar, Liriodendron tulipifera, that was well over 100-feet in height, the tallest tree species that occurs east of the Mississippi River, that is if they germinate and grow in optimum habitat--forested valleys where more moisture is available.

While crossing a creek with crystal clear water, Lonnie asked me why we don't have streams that clear where we live.  The answer involves two factors: first, streams in the Shawnee National Forest are more likely to have rock bottoms; and second, forests, I learned in college, produce the cleanest runoff water. Rain drops first strike a succession of tree leaves on their way to the forest floor where they land with less impact on a layer of leaves from the previous growing season. In comparison, much of the watershed of the Kaskaskia River, which runs through our home county, is farmland with lots of exposed soil that finds its way into streams, rivers, and lakes.

Later in the day we visited the Bald Knob Cross near Alto Pass. Throughout the day we passed through extensive mature forestlands, which I find spiritually cleansing. I found myself missing the relatively pristine mature forests of the Shawnee National Forest, where I spent a lot of time while attending SIU-Carbondale.  

The Farm Pond: An Environmental Analogy

While attending a community college in my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, I took two classes from the same teacher, a man named Keith Blackmore, who was an inspiration for me as I was beginning development as a naturalist.

One day during a series of environmental lessons in Ecology class, he told us the tale of a farmer who had a pond on his land from which his cattle drank. One day he noticed an aquatic plant floating on the surface of his pond. He researched the plant and learned that it doubled in size every day, and getting rid of it would take several days. The plant would also preclude his cattle from drinking. But it was small and his cattle had plenty of space to drink so he went on to other tasks.

A few days later he noticed that the plant was quite a bit larger, covering a greater portion of his pond, but it didn't block his cattle from drinking, so he once again ignored it.

Then one day he was surprised to see that the plant covered half of the pond's surface, and the next day his cattle would not be able to drink. He had ignored the aquatic plant until it became too late.

That's where we are with several environmental issues. Here are just a few.

- Overpopulation: We are crowding out numerous species of wildlife; polluting the air, soil, and water; and run the risk one day of running out of natural resources, particularly food and water. (Keith Blackmore's tongue-in-cheek solution for overpopulation was death for parking violations. But he added that no-one would listen to him.)

- The world's overuse of plastic: A floating pile of plastic garbage lies between California and the Hawaiian Islands that is as large as the State of Texas. But it's cheaper to continue using plastic bags for groceries than environmentally sustainable paper bags, to choose one of numerous examples, so we'll continue using plastic. Besides, the oceans are much larger than Texas.

- Global warming: The research of 96% of the world's scientists is not sufficient to spur action on the part of global warming deniers. Sadly this includes the United States Congress and the Administration.

We are the farmer, and the aquatic plant becomes larger every day that we do nothing. We ignore it at our peril.

In the same Ecology class we learned the requirements for life as we know it. The first was that a planet needs to be the right distance from its sun to sustain liquid water. Next was an atmosphere, followed by plant life. The final requirement was that the dominant form of life must be smart enough to avoid destroying the planet. We haven't shown that we're that smart yet.

A Girl Named Tran Ngoc Bich

Yesterday I attended the Veterans Day assembly at Granddaughter Autumn's school in south St. Louis. Afterward I was invited to address the classes in Autumn's wing of the building—the PEGS students. I wasn't sure what to share with them since they’re still kids, so I told them a true story about Tran Ngoc Bich, a girl who worked in our Dau Tieng mess hall who was their age, thinking they could relate to her more so than me.

Tran Ngoc Bich and I became friends while I was one of the walking wounded in August 68. After my book was published, I received a package in the mail. It was a paperback book sent by the author with a note that read, "Look on page 144." Okay, I thought, here’s someone who wants to argue with something I wrote." But I looked anyway, and there to my surprise was a photo of the same girl! I called him and over the next few months we exchanged emails, and he related her story.

It begins when Bich was 11. She lived in a brick house two doors from Dau Tieng's main gate. Her dad was, so I was told, a French foreman in the Michelin Rubber plantation. So Bich, pronounced "Bic" like the pen, as she was informally known, was half French.

Because she lived so close to the main gate, she passed it regularly, and came to recognize the Military Police guards who manned the gate. One day she spoke to one of them: "Don't go in the village today. Boocoo VC."

When the MP was relieved at the gate, he told his captain what he'd heard. "Where did you hear that?" "It was this kid, a girl who lives near the gate."

A few days later Bich told the MP about more VC activities in and around Dau Tieng, and based on what she reported, they planned ambushes in town. (I didn't know they did that, but the guy told me that they did.) A rock wall extended from the gate around that section of the camp’s perimeter, and a row of shrubs was in front of it. Bich would slip behind the shrubs, and sit on the wall, then relay what she knew of Viet Cong activities in and around the village.

Some time later Bich began accompanying the MPs on operations around the village as they captured and questioned VC suspects, serving as an interpreter since none of the MPs spoke Vietnamese.

The MP commander began worrying about her safety if it became known that she was aiding the Americans, so they moved her onto the base. She continued serving as an interpreter, and the Americans learned to trust her. On her own initiative she positioned herself on several occasions near the prisoner of war compound, and eavesdropped on their conversations. Then she told the MPs who to keep and who to let go. And they did what she told them!

This went on for several months, but then Bich went through puberty, and the MP captain, recognizing that it wasn't good for a pubescent teenager to live with lonely GIs, sent her home. But to compensate her, he got her a job in a mess hall elsewhere in the base camp--the one I walked into after being wounded on 19 August of that year.  

I wrote about Bich in On Point, but definitely did not know of her participation with the MPs, and she didn't tell me. Our company area had 7 or 8 walking wounded at the time, and we hung out in the mess hall because it was a lot cooler than our tents, which baked in the sun and were stifling.

Bich began teasing me, and when I wasn't there she asked the others about me. If I arrived late, she would meet me at the door, escort me to a chair she reserved for me, then bring me a glass of lemonade or fruit juice. Soon she began giving me photos of herself and writing me notes. I answered them at night, and handed her my replies when she arrived for work the next morning. I knew her for about two months, and during that time I held her hand on two occasions while sharing a bunker with her and the other mess hall workers during mortar attacks. She accompanied me to the air strip when my tour was over, the only person to do so. I kissed her good-bye, the only time I did so, and we wrote one another for the next 3 1/2 years. Of course she didn't have money for postage, so she talked various GIs into placing her envelope into one of their own, and writing "free" in place of the stamp (soldiers had free postage privileges). So every two or three weeks I received a letter from a soldier I didn't know, and inside would be an envelope from Bich.

Then we lost contact. It was around the time that our battalion left Vietnam, and the war was beginning to wind down. I've always wondered what happened to her. It's possible that the area VC executed her for her role in helping the Americans identify them. It's also possible that she spent time in a reeducation camp. The last time I heard from her, she was in Saigon. I hope that she was smart enough to stay there where no-one knew her history. I like to think that she stayed away from Dau Tieng and is a grandmother today. 

Tran Ngoc Bich and me, September 1968

Bich, left, with a friend

Tran Ngoc Bich about 2 years after I returned home

Genealogy Road Trip

On June 26 through the 28th we visited sites and cemeteries in southeastern Missouri where Lonnie's mom and numerous ancestors lived.  We were joined by Lonnie's sister Kelly and her husband from Colorado. Genealogy can uncover nuggets of family history, and here are a few.

The first day we visited sites near Cape Girardeau, and spent that night in a hotel there.  Kelly had contacted one of their first cousins once removed who lives nearby, and he and his wife joined us for an enjoyable dinner and conversation. Ernie is the sisters' first cousin 1x removed--the nephew of their grandmother.

Sisters Lonnie (left) and Kelly (right) flanking cousin Ernie Chiles and his wife Patty. 

During dinner I mentioned that I'm distantly related to President Rutherford B. Hayes, and Patty exclaimed, "So am I!"  After getting over the surprise, I promised to send her my link to our 19th President, and here's her response:

"You win: your 3rd cousin 3 times removed beats my 4th cousin 5 times removed! And we are 7th cousins 2 times removed, so that's getting pretty close to Adam and Eve. :)"

Over the course of the two days of ancestry search we visited five cemeteries finding the graves of twenty ancestors.  One of the highlights was the grave of Catherine Johanna Doretta (Herzinger) Ebrecht.  She and her family immigrated from Germany in 1838, and arrived in Jackson, Missouri two weeks before Christmas of that year.  Her father, a shoe maker, had come over the previous year, and set up shop in Jackson, about 8 miles northwest of Cape Girardeau.  Within the first year of their arrival, Catherine and her family witnessed the passage of Indians during their forced removal from the southeastern United States that has become known as the Trail of Tears.

Catherine was 8, and could not know the whole story and tragedy of the Trail of Tears.  Later in her life, in 1915, she dictated part of her life's story to her granddaughter, who recorded the tale in writing.  An excerpt from the document allows a fascinating glimpse of that period in history:

"My father was a shoemaker in Jackson, and had a big shop. We got there two weeks before Christmas. During the first year so many Indians were led by white men from Missouri through Jackson. I was so afraid of them when they would feel of my long yellow braids if I’d be on the street.

The Indians . . . had my father make shoes and boots for them, and when he’d tell them the cost, they’d make him take more. He sometimes made a hundred dollars a day. The Indians were passing through for two weeks." 

Kelly and Lonne at the grave of their maternal grandmother

After searching cemeteries farther north, we spent the night at the Inn St. Gemme Beauvais, a bed & breakfast in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.  

Lonnie & Kelly among ancestors' tombstones. The grave of Catherine, the girl who witnessed the Trail of Tears is on the left. 

Dinner in Ste. Genevieve

One of our rooms in the Inn St. Gemme Beauvais

Chickadee Started it All

It's common that many birders start their life of bird study as the result of a single bird sighting.  For me that species was a chickadee. 

It was during the first few years after I had left the United States Army.  Jeff, a friend, and I spent time in wild places, mostly patches of woods near our home in Freeport, Illinois.  We ventured to the woods about once a week for over a year, and it was during those excursions that my curiosity of the natural world was awakened. 

Jeff had a canoe, and one day we launched it in the Pecatonica River from Freeport's Krape Park, and paddled upstream until we found a spot we had not previously explored.  Jeff tied the canoe to a tree while I scampered up a hill.  At the top was a stand of White Pines, and I came face to face with a bird at eye level on a lower branch.  It had a mysterious, striking black and white face.  It looked at me, seemingly unconcerned for a few seconds, then flitted away. 

My mom's bird feeder attracted numerous birds, but while growing up I wasn't interested enough to learn the species that appeared at our kitchen window.  But I know chickadees were one of them because my mom mentioned them occasionally. The encounter on the top of that hill among the White Pines was the closest I had come to one.  I suddenly felt the compulsion to know more. 

A few days later I bought my first bird book.  After glancing through the pages for a while I concluded that the bird I encountered was a Black-capped Chickadee.  Now I live in southern Illinois, below the dividing line between Black-capped and Carolina Chickadees.  All of ours are the latter species, one of which is pictured below.

I now have almost 450 species of birds on my life list, but fondly remember the encounter on the top of that hill, the one that launched me on a life of birding, fulfilling adventures in nature, and numerous lessons from the natural world.

Carolina Chickadee

Whoopers

In February of this year, 2016, I saw a news article about Whooping Cranes, and on a whim, checked a birding web site--eBird.org--to see where the closest cranes might be.  I was surprised to see a cluster of markers indicating sightings of four immature Whooping Cranes at Kaskaskia Island, near Chester, Illinois.  They dated from mid-January to the present.  So I planned a road trip.

Historical Perspective:  The town of Kaskaskia, at one time located on a peninsula with the Mississippi River curving round its western side, was the capital of the Illinois Territory from 1809 until statehood in 1818 at which time it became the state capital.  In 1819 the capital was moved to Vandalia because of the threat of periodic flooding. 

Going further into history, Kaskaskia began as an American Indian village on the banks of the Mississippi, and was later occupied by French colonialists.  British forces during the French and Indian War captured Kaskaskia in 1763.  The town remained under British rule until the American Revolution during which a band of 200 men under the command of George Rogers Clark traveled by boat from Louisville, Kentucky to what would become the eastern border of Illinois, then marched overland to Kaskaskia.  They arrived in the middle of the night, and captured the town on 4 July 1778 without firing a shot.

The population of Kaskaskia peaked at 7000 inhabitants during the period it served as the state capital, but has fallen steadily ever since.  The 2010 census counted only 12 residents, and fewer may reside there today making it the second smallest incorporated town in Illinois. 

In the late 1800s the Mississippi River changed its course, resulting in the peninsula becoming an island ringed by a bayou and suddenly located on the west side of the river.   The approximate dimensions of the island are 4 x 5 miles.

25 February 2016:  A friend, Ken Pierson, and I drove through southern Illinois to Kaskaskia Island to see if we could find the four Whooping Cranes reported there.  I had a GPS waypoint marking the location of a sighing two days before, and we drove directly to that spot.

A quick scan over the low-lying farm fields revealed no birds, but then Ken spotted four large white birds with black wingtips taking off from a point farther to our northeast.  We both brought binoculars to our eyes, and Bingo!  Four Whooping Cranes!

We followed them and watched as they fed in a farm field near a body of water, then followed again as they flew to another area to feed.  We watched them for about an hour-and-a-half.

In 1941 only 15 Whooping Cranes existed, but through the diligent work of biologists they slowly recovered sufficiently for some of them to be released back into the wild.  According to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the current population is 603 with 161 of them captive birds--for species preservation.  About two decades ago a winter population of the cranes was established in Florida in the event that a storm wiped out the residual Texas population.  Today 95 of  the endangered birds  winter in Florida and spend the breeding season in Wisconsin. 

I presume that the four birds we saw are from the Florida population.  For whatever reason they have spent the past six weeks or so at Kaskaskia.  It is excellent habitat for them albeit possibly a bit cold in January and February.  It will be interesting to see if they return to the island next year.  Perhaps it will become a regular stop on their way to or from Wisconsin or Canada.