Deer Lake Savanna courtesy Forest Park.
Make plans to see the fall splendor of blooming native plants around the state while learning from an expert with a guided hike in September, organized by MPF in partnership with colleagues from the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and Forest Park.
The hikes are free, but registration is required. See details on each event and registration links below.
Plenty of canoes and kayaks are available for use at the Creve Coeur Lake Rentals.
By Don Corrigan
Popular venues for major outdoor activities in the St. Louis area include Forest Park, the Gateway Arch grounds and Jefferson Barracks. But Cheryl Beckmann wants you to know you’re missing out if you don’t include Creve Coeur Lake.
Beckmann touts the miles of hiking and biking trails, plus a recreational lake for kayaking, canoeing and boating. There’s also a sandy beach for sunning, sand castle building or casting to catch the big one.
Of course, Beckmann readily admits she has a vested interest in promoting fun times at the 2,125-acre park that includes a 320-acre lake. She and her husband, Rick, have operated Creve Coeur Lake Rentals for the past 13 years.
A staff member at Creve Coeur Lake Rentals prepares a kayaker for a trip on the lake located east of the Missouri River.
If you need a mobile surrey for the loop trail, or a single or tandem kayak, canoe or paddle board for the lake, the Beckmanns have you covered with rentals on the shoreline just northwest of the park’s famous waterfall.
“We were out on the lake 15 years ago in our canoes, and some people on the shore asked if they could rent them from us,” said Cheryl Beckmann. “So I said to myself, that sounds like a great idea. We should start a rental business.
That’s exactly what they did.
“We started with five canoes and two quad bikes, and it just took off from there,” she explained.
The road memorial for Marissa can be found on I-270 South between
the I-44 interchange and Gravois.
By Don Corrigan
Roadside memorials are becoming part of the highway landscape along with Culver‘s, Waffle House, and Circle K fuel stops. The grim reminders are not so hard to find in St. Louis – just hit the on-ramp of your nearest interstate – and drive.
James Hill of northern Indiana has made it his business to archive as many of these roadway memorials as he can with his Roadside Tribute. His web master handiwork can be found at roadsidetribute.com.
“Roadside Tribute is a place where families and friends can memorialize their loved ones lost in traffic accidents,” said Hill. “It does this by providing a place to share a picture and story of their roadside tribute site they built along the roadway.”
Hill is a mechanical engineer who began working in automotive design in 1985 at the Ford Motor Company. After witnessing many test crashes, he began to develop a passion for reducing automobile accidents.
According to Hill, there are a number of benefits in registering, free-of-charge, a roadside tribute to a crash site on Roadside Tribute:
The Grow Native! Native Gardens of Excellence program has inducted the Peers Store Pollinator Garden, located at 16011 Concord Hill Road near Marthasville, on the Katy Trail at Mile Marker 81.2.
Along with four more newly inducted sites, this garden joins 20 other locations in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and Illinois recognized by the program since it launched in 2021.
With its location on the Katy Trail, this pollinator garden, a partnership between Missouri State Parks and Magnificent Missouri, provides tens of thousands of yearly visitors a look at native plants and how powerful they can be in transforming a landscape. Visitors can see a prairie reconstruction with a variety of native plants, like rattlesnake master, sideoats grama, and slender mountain mint, that support wildlife and beautify the surroundings.
Washington State Park invites guests to a special overnight camping opportunity to view the Perseids meteor shower under a dark sky Friday, Aug. 11, and Saturday, Aug. 12. For this overnight meteor shower viewing, guests will camp out in the park’s Big River Day-Use Area near Shelter No. 2.
Beginning at 7 p.m. Aug. 11, special guest storyteller Flavia Everman will entertain guests around the campfire. This portion of the event is open both to registered overnight guests and the general public. Flavia’s program is brought to Missouri State Parks courtesy of the Missouri Arts Council.
On Aug. 12, multiple activities will be offered throughout the day leading up to the meteor shower viewing that night. Join Washington State Park staff at 4 p.m. for a tour of the petroglyphs, the park’s history carved in stone. Learn about the Mississippian-era carvings, the culture and community who created them, and possible interpretations of what they mean. Enjoy a short stroll on a covered walkway with interpretive panels highlighting the cultural features.
Then, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., park interpretive staff will present meteor-themed activities. Meanwhile, Edg-Clif Vineyard of Potosi and Fyre Lake Winery of Cadet will provide limited free sampling to adults 21 and older.
Advance registration is required to attend this event and there is a nonrefundable $10 registration fee. Each registration secures a spot for up to six people. To register, CLICK HERE. Or visit icampmo.usedirect.com/MSPWeb/Activities/Search.aspx and search for events at Washington State Park or call the park office at 636-586-5768.
No individual campfires, RVs or generators will be allowed at this tent camping event. The event area’s amenities include pit latrine restrooms, potable water and a group fire pit. There are no flush toilets or electrical services. Check-out is 10 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 13.
Washington State Park is located at 13041 State Highway 104 in De Soto. For more information, contact the park at 636-586-5768.
For more information on state parks and historic sites, visit mostateparks.com. Missouri State Parks is a division of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Pictured above: Dawn Chapman (Left) and Karen Nickel, co-founders of Just Moms STL.
By Don Corrigan
St. Louis residents have joined the rest of the nation in flocking to see the blockbuster, “Oppenheimer,” a movie about the making of the atomic bomb. Radioactive fallout from the new bomb descended over an area 250 miles by 200 miles in New Mexico.
The movie about the first atomic bomb brought renewed attention to Southwest U.S. residents downwind from the blast. Many are members of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, a group that feels they were poisoned by the explosion.
You don’t have to have seen the bright light, and felt the incredible rumble, however, to feel you have been affected by the bomb and the program for America’s nuclear arsenal. Just ask members of St. Louis County’s “Just Moms St. Louis.”
The Moms group has been fighting for the cleanup of radioactive waste in streams, creek beds, dumps and landfills near their homes. The huge amounts of waste are from the uranium processing that was necessary for making the bomb – and which was processed in St. Louis.
Instead of disposing of the waste in a responsible manner, chemical companies used careless contractors that dumped tons of radioactive waste throughout St. Louis County. Two radioactive dumping areas, which St. Louisans are familiar with from news coverage, are West Lake landfill and Coldwater Creek.
Pictured: Dan Burkhardt
by Dan Burkhardt
Missouri Wine Country is getting noticed. Its grapes and wineries have made more news in the past two years than when a state wine was named “best red wine of all nations” in Vienna in the late1800s. With growing prestige, it may be time for Missouri Wine Country to learn a thing or two from Napa Valley.
America’s, and probably the world’s, best known wine destination is Napa Valley. Napa’s Mediterranean climate, scattered small towns, and location just a short drive from San Francisco make for a grape-growing mecca.
However as they looked at their future way back in the 1960s, Napa County leaders saw this list of remarkable advantages as something that also held the potential to destroy the natural beauty and rural ambience that was the area’s greatest asset. They realized the need to develop a plan to protect what people came to Napa for — the rustic and open feel of the valley itself. They established the Napa Valley Agricultural Preserve.
A recent article about Napa asked, “What really draws people to the Napa Valley?”
All photos courtesy Bruce Sassmann.
By Don Corrigan
Missourians got their 93rd State Park, which is a total of 47.5 miles long, when mayors, state officials and citizen supporters had an unveiling and a little speech-making on June 30 in Windsor, Mo.
Among those in attendance was Rep. Bruce Sassmann, R-Belle, who has been
advocating for the park to extend 144 miles across the state. It would rival the Katy Trail State Park as a wonderful route for hikers, bikers, sight-seers and outdoor enthusiasts.
Sassmann advocates for the completion of the Rock Island Trail State Park and will frequently show photos of the corridor and the amazing sights and scenes that will be available when funding becomes available to complete the corridor’s entire length. Some of those visuals are posted with this article.
With completion of the Rock Island Trail State Park, the corridor will likely have
trailheads at Windsor, Ionia, Cole Camp, Stover, Versailles, Barnett, Eldon, Eugene Meta Argyle Freeburg Belle Bland Owensville Rosebud Gerald Beaufort and Union.
The open section now runs 47.5 miles from Pleasant Hill to Windsor. There are five trailheads, including the trailhead at Windsor that the park shares with Katy Trail State Park.
This developed section was originally considered the Rock Island Spur of Katy Trail State Park. With the acquisition of the Rock Island Railroad corridor, the developed spur became part of Rock Island Trail State Park.
Rock Island Trail State Park is part of a larger rail-to-trail system within Missouri State Parks. At Windsor, Rock Island Trail State Park connects to Katy Trail State Park, the nation’s longest developed rail-trail stretching 240 miles between Clinton and Machens in St. Charles County.
Katy is built on the former corridor of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT or Katy) and features 26 trailheads and four fully restored depots along the way. The trail is open to walkers, hikers and bicyclists with sections also open for equestrian use. Katy Trail State Park annually attracts more than 400,000 visitors.
Rock Island Trail State Park will connect to Jackson County’s Rock Island Trail and will become part of a trail network spanning the entire state of Missouri, linking Kansas City to St. Louis.
At the recent unveiling of Missouri’s 93rd State Park, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources released some fascinating factoids about the corridor:
Did you know…
Photo courtesy of the MDC.
Missouri is starting off summer in droughty conditions. Sunflower fans will be pleased to know that Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) biologists still expect the sunflowers planted at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area in Spanish Lake to put on a show this year. MDC staff has continued to plant multiple sunflower plots again this season.
Though the extremely dry conditions can put a lot of stress on plants and wildlife, MDC staff believe we’ll still see a good amount of blooming in the sunflower fields. If the plants are especially stressed, the flowers may be somewhat smaller than previous years, and they might shift their blooming a little earlier and end a bit sooner. But there should still be plenty to see for sunflower enthusiasts and photographers.
Showy sunflower fields have been an annual tradition at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area. MDC staff have been planting sunflowers for years as part of their management for mourning doves. The area is known for dove hunting each September. The large flowers supply seeds that entice the birds, and their lofty stalks create cover for the hunters who pursue them. Sunflowers also benefit a wide variety of other birds and pollinators. They lure plenty of photographers, too.
MDC work crews began planting additional sunflower stands in addition to the regular dove management fields again a few years ago. These viewing fields are easily spotted from the road and intended to provide convenient access for taking photos. MDC crews also stagger the timing of the plantings to spread their blooming periods out over a longer period. Visitors should be able to see sunflowers in bloom somewhere on the area from early July through the middle of August—depending on weather conditions.
Press Club members pause in the English Woodland Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden to collect their thoughts before composing prose at a nature writing workshop. Photo by Jessica Brown.
by Don Corrigan
You don’t have to go to David Thoreau’s Walden Pond or Joan Didion’s Tinker Creek to get some outdoor inspiration for writing prose and poetry. The Missouri Botanical Garden has some perfect spots, some quieter than others, for inspiration.
Michaella Thornton and Sean Dougherty give nature writers some instructions and encouragement before a June 10 creative writing workshop at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Photo by Jessica Brown.
Earlier this month, St. Louis Press Club members were hosted by the Missouri Botanical Garden to take a nature writing tour led by Sean Dougherty and Michaella Thornton.
Doherty is vice president for education for MoBOT and Thornton is an award-winning educator whose work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, best of the Net and Best Microfiction.
The educational tour was designed to acquaint participants with special park locations, to build nature vocabularies, and to provide background on the natural world and local landscapes.
Participants were invited to bring their electronic tablets or pens and notebooks. There was plenty of space and time allotted for some short writing exercises.
Among the park sites visited:
– The Victorian District, which includes statues and the home of Henry Shaw.
– The English Woodland Garden, with tall, leafy trees shading a hot sun.
– The Japanese Garden, with its soothing waters gurgling away.
At the Victorian District, Thornton read from Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s Calendar Poetica, including this excerpt: “My writing instrument is a Sheaffler fountain pen with a #304 nib. Everything else in my life is chaos: I am, of course, sleep-deprived, and the edges of my garden start to blur and shimmer as if near a gas flame … ”
