New Page 1

At the beginning of the month I had a job in Pinckneyville Illinois. It was about a weeklong. Pinckneyville is in the southwest corner of Illinois, a small prison town. After work I would take whatever daylight I had left to do little sightseeing. Then I would go for dinner to take back to my room to get on the Internet and watch TV. These next few pictures were taken when I was waiting for my dinner. The first one is the veterans Memorial in front of the courthouse. The next one is straight down Main Street, and the last is to the west of the courthouse. That was pretty much the whole town.

This area of Illinois is rich with coal, and has been strip mine for many years. The coal is no longer mine because it is high in sulfur content. I would take my lunch break at Pyramid State Park only 5 mi. away from the store. This Park was once a cold strip mine. All of the pits and slag piles are still there, the pits have filled with water and are now fishing lakes. The slag piles were left just where they were, and Mother nature has reclaimed them. There is abundant wildlife there. It was a great place to have lunch. The two pictures above are from Pyramid State Park. The pictures below are camera fun and a picture of land reclaimed after mining.

The two pictures above and the five pictures below are from my trip home. The next three below from left to right is of a field full of wildlife. In the back of the field there are over 20 deer, and halfway back on the left if you look closely you will see a flock of Canadian geese. The next picture is of the deer only, and the one after that is a closer look at the geese.

On the right a picture of me, in Missouri exploring the Mark Twain National Forest part of the Ozarks.
The picture on the left is the sun setting in a field in Missouri 7 mi. from Arkansas.

The spring is definitely a good time of the year to canoe the Buffalo River. The spring rains allow you to canoe the upper part of the river that in the summertime may be completely dry. This weekend the river gauge near St. Joe was 5.5 the perfect level. Linda and I went canoe camping so I am going to share some of the 281 pictures I took this weekend.
The pictures above was the start of our trip. Below Linda sitting by the campfire, our canoes parked in the moonlight, and a view upstream from our campsite.

Cave Creek is one of the places that we stopped to hike. Linda was prepared for the hike, and she knew she was going to cross the creek. I was not prepared and really did not feel like getting my feet wet. So she crossed the Creek and when up the trail. I stayed on the dry side and climbed up my side of the mountain. The next picture I took from the high advantage point looking down at Linda getting something out of her pack. Back on my side I found an old homestead. Also there was an old automobile. That had been torn a part in pieces spread all over the area.

The next group of pictures are of a creek hike that was not planned, and I have not found the name of it yet. The interesting thing about this creek is that it eroded away the earth down to a solid rock. Some signs of spring, both flowers are tubers.

The Nars In the next five picture's are of a very interesting place. The the first three are from this trip the last two are from September of 2000. The Nars is made up of a hard rock base that over the eons of time have not been washed away yet. On the bottom to pictures Pretty Girl walks across the Nars something that I tried to do but found the height to high for me.

This cliff protrudes out into the river and when you come around the bend you can see it from far off. (First picture) I am sure this spectacular place has a name but I don't know it. In the second picture you can see how it forces the river to go around it. You can see how the water has worn holes in the rock during the floods. Also the river has washed away their earth around the base of this rock making it very deep here. On the opposite shore there is a high bank of loose gravel deposited during the floods. Linda and I climbed up on the gravel to view the world from this vantage point. While we were sitting on our perch, some students from the University of Arkansas Fayetteville on spring break stopped at the rock. The adventurous jumper was good entertainment, at the end of our trip I met him in that his e-mail address to send him a copy of this picture. But I lost the little scrap of paper it was on.

Close to the end of our trip a hornet's nest protected by a cliff. I wonder how many canoeist in the summer will be stung by them. The last picture of this trip is a forest fire. After changing my clothes for some warm dry ones I headed out of the buffalo river valley. The fire that we have smelt the last half of the day was visible when the sun had set. I am not sure if this was a controlled fire or a careless Ozark camper.