Fairbury to St Joseph

In the morning, I drove through downtown Fairbury, several square blocks of brick buildings and, of course, brick streets, but not a soul around, Sunday morning sidewalk, thanks Kris, quiet, seemingly an essential quality of this part of the world. Another nice courthouse with a freshly tiled roof, one of many from back in the day when county government was important and, I suppose, worth putting money into.

Out highway 8 then 112 south into Kansas, roads Sunday morning empty the land a mix of corn, soybeans, more rolling pasture and some hay. Another very nice, older – 1891 – courthouse in Marysville,

then due east on Hwy 36, the road mostly empty even though a slightly bigger highway.

 Right at the Missouri, bluffs covered with trees, then across the river

and into St Joseph, into Missouri, finally. Old city, a big supply point for travelers back when and must have been wealthy for a time, many nice old buildings,

but downtown completely deserted. There may be life in St Joseph but I wasn't inclined to look for it and instead drove down the river a few miles on Hwy 57 to Lewis and Clark state park. I've been crossing paths with Capts Lewis and Clark for 2000 miles and here they are again. Along with the trappers and Oregon Trail pioneers, Lewis and Clark were at the center of the story of the west, in some ways still are.

The park sits on an Oxbow lake the Corps of Discovery passed July 4, 1804, the lake noted in Clark's journal although they didn't camp there. Beautiful big cottonwoods and maples, recovered from being flooded last spring, already quiet, the season over, I guess, only four of us camping there, the others Rvs.

Biked around the adjacent residential area, talked with a woman remodeling a WPA built house 

that also flooded and for which she blamed the Corps of Engineers. I told her we had very big water in Montana and North Dakota and it had to go somewhere, the dams up the river couldn't hold it all, but she wasn't having any of it. Later driving to Atchinson, Kansas for groceries, it occurred to me that maybe living in the riverbottom and expecting the Missouri to behave may be a bit unrealistic, but who am I to say.

Atchison, of railroad and song fame, is jammed in between the river, railroad, and the bluffs, tight now a snarl of two old bridges and one new one under construction, 

but a nice park (thanks to Lewis and Clark bicentennial a few years back), 

and the river still patiently doing what it has always done.