Photos around Cape Archives

August 14, 2011September 22, 2011

On a Wing and a Prayer

Passengers walking out on the tarmac at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport had to pass this guy – the largest praying mantis I’ve ever encountered. There are a lot of unknowns: I don’t know if he was praying for the passenger walking by or he (she?) was planning on flying out later.

Filing a flight plan

I also don’t know if he (she?) was filing a flight plan with the tower or a Higher Authority.

Cool factoids about the Praying Mantis:

It has been called the perfect predator because of its ability to rotate its head 180 degrees, its eyesight and its quick reflexes.
Insects form the primary diet, but larger species have been known to prey on small scorpions, lizards, frogs, birds, snakes, fish, and even rodents; they will prey upon any species small enough to successfully capture and devour.
When flying at night, at least some mantises are able to detect the echolocation sounds produced by bats, and when the frequency begins to increase rapidly, indicating an approaching bat, they will stop flying horizontally and begin a descending spiral toward the safety of the ground, often preceded by an aerial loop or spin.
Depending on which study you read, the females will or will not bite the head off the male during or shortly after mating. A lot depends on whether or not she’s hungry and how quickly the male disappears. One report says, “this behavior seems not to deter males from reproduction.” Do we find THAT surprising?
Tens of thousands of egg cases are sold each year to organic gardeners who use the Mantis as a biological pest control.

Moonlight Ramble madness

Crazy Brother Mark convinced me to sign up for a 13-mile Moonlight Ramble bike ride in St. Louis Saturday night. I can handle the 13 miles. I rode a little over 20 this afternoon after almost two months out of the saddle to see if it’s true that you never forget how. The part of my body that sits needs some toughening up, I found.

The problem is that we’ll be heading out at about 1 in the morning to ride the 13 miles, along with about 10,000 other crazy people. I’m used to riding at night and I’m used to being up doing this blog at 2 in the morning. Putting riding and 2 a.m. and 10,000 in the same sentence is the unusual part. I see several naps in my future.

If you don’t see anything posted Sunday morning, that’s why.

UPDATE

Right after I wrote that Friday night, the Internet service provider at the location in Florida that hosts my blogs and email crashed, keeping me from posting this for you to read Saturday morning. That’s why you’re getting this on Sunday. Let’s see how the Moonlight Ramble goes. You might get an update from it, but don’t count on it until later.

Update to the Update

OK, I didn’t make it up to the Moonlight Ramble. My woes with ground transportation are almost as bad as my experiences in the air. Brother Mark is shooting some photos of the ride. I’ll fill you in when his pictures arrive. For now, though, here’s your Saturday morning story on Sunday morning. If you have to penalize me a letter grade for turning it in late, I guess you’ll have to do what you have to do.

August 12, 2011June 17, 2021

Free Entertainment in Cape

After dinner, Mother and I took a drive down to the river where we were treated to a panorama of a barge crossing under a beautiful moonrise. If the moon wasn’t full, it was close enough for me. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

I’m getting ahead of the story.

But, the moonrise photo is putting the cart before the horse. That was the last thing I shot. Let’s take things in order.

I walked almost to the north end of the new river walk, then started back to the Broadway gate opening. The standard contingent of strollers, folks with folding lawn chairs, and just plain sitter-downers were gathering to enjoy the gentle breeze and welcome cool temperature.

My eye was drawn to a gentleman in a gray shirt who was teaching the Duncan kids how to skip rocks. He preferred to remain anonymous, so we’ll call him Sir Skipper.

Gerry and Cassie Duncan of Kennett, and their three kids, Whitnee (11), Tanner (7) and Caleb (4) were on their way from Kennett to St. Louis for a Cardinals baseball game. They are fans of Broussards, so they stopped for a bite to eat, then decided to wander down to the river to let the kids burn off some energy.

Search for the ultimate skipping rock

Sir Skipper explained to the children the the first step is to find “the ultimate skipping rock.” They followed him up and down the riverbank like he was the Pied Piper, rushing up time and time again, rock in hand to ask, “Is this it?”

Caleb and Tanner work on style points

Before long, every male who passed by offered his own special skipping advice. (It must be a guy thing.) For the first half dozen or so throws, Caleb and Tanner were bigger on style than results.

“You throw like a girl”

When I chided Whitnee for using an overhand throwing motion instead of a sideways flip – “You’re throwing like a girl” – she immediately countered with, “It’s because I AM a girl.” It didn’t take long for her to master the wrist flick that would send the rocks skipping.

Mom Cassie kept marveling, “This is free. It doesn’t take batteries. It’s not electronic…”

“MOM, I skipped one”

Caleb, at four, took a while to get the hang of skipping. When he DID start skipping as much as splashing, he expected to get noticed.” MOM!!!! (dragged out to three syllables), I skipped one!”

“Do you remember….?”

The kids took off a few minutes to watch a train go by, then to try to get a towboat to blow its whistle, but couldn’t get the boat’s attention. Dad was getting antsy to get on the road, but every entreaty to pack it in was met with “Just one more…..”

I told Cassie that 30 years from now the kids may not remember the baseball game, but I bet at least one of them will start a conversation with “do you remember that guy who taught us how to skip rocks?”

And that, Dear Reader, gets us back up the first photo where you came in.

August 11, 2011January 7, 2016

Red Carpet and Road Kill

For those of you who have been tracking my car saga, I elected to take it to LaGrand’s Transmission in Cape to have a rebuilt trannie put in it. Several other repairs will wait until I get it back down to Florida for my regular shop to work on it.

I can get all the repairs done for about a third of what a good used vehicle was going to cost. A new one was going to be in the $30K range. I LIKE not having car payments, so I’m going to roll the dice that I can get a couple more years out of my Honda Odyssey. Anyway, the decision meant that I had to fly back to Cape instead of driving Wife Lila’s car and ending up with TWO cars in Missouri.

We’ll deal with my trip out of order because of the photos I took. When I got into St. Louis’ Lambert Airport, I was amazed at how much damage had been done by the April tornado that roared through there. A lot of windows remain boarded up.

It’s a wonder no one was killed

When I look at all of the windows that must have blown out, it’s a wonder that no one was killed.

We have enough fuel for an hour

Keep looking at the Lambert photos while I recount the first part of my journey on Southwest from West Palm Beach to Tampa.

About half way between West Palm Beach and Tampa, the pilot came on the PA: “Some of you may have sensed that we’re not heading exactly to the Tampa airport. There’s a storm sitting right on top of it. We have enough fuel to fly circles for an hour. It should have moved on by then.”

About 30 minutes later, he said, “The storm is still sitting over the airport, so we’ll keep circling.”

Not long after that, he announced that we might have to return to West Palm Beach for more fuel if we weren’t cleared to land soon.

How I imagine the cockpit conversation went

Copilot: “I TOLD you that we should top off the tank before we left West Palm Beach, but, no, you said, ‘The gas in Tampa is cheaper. We have plenty to make it there.’ NOW look at us. Well, let me tell you, Mr. I Can Save a Buck for the Company, if we have to set ‘er down out here in the middle of nowhere, it’s gonna be YOU with a gas can knocking on the farmer’s door begging for fuel.”

Fortunately, a few minutes later, the pilot reported we were cleared for the approach. To his credit, either the tower was giving him good vectors or he was doing a good job reading the radar to miss the worst cells. We had lightning flashing around us, but the ride wasn’t too bumpy.

Can you open the exit door?

The Tampa – St. Louis flight was pretty uneventful. I lucked out and got a center seat in an exit row. When the flight attendant came by to give us the standard exit row speech, concluding with, “Do you agree that you can perform those duties?” I replied, “Yes, mam, you won’t believe how fast I can get out that door.”

“I’ll count that as a yes,” she said.

Cape Air promises red carpet treatment

After I did the piece on flying Cape Air, local manager Jennifer Huffman and I have become Facebook friends. I gave her fair warning that I was going to be on one of her flights. That set off this (approximate) dialog:

Her: “We’ll roll out the red carpet for you.”
Me: “Cape has a red carpet?”
Her: : “It does when you fly in, Ken. You’re a celebrity! I will even have an in-flight meal waiting for you. :)”
Me: “It’s not going to be an armadillo on the half-shell that you picked up on the way to the airport, is it?”
Her: “”LOL, I promise no road kill, I save the best possums for the family meals.”

Where’s my possum?

Right after I managed to navigate my way from Southwest to Cape Air’s terminal, I was paged to the check-in counter. That’s never a good sign. That’s where they tell you that your luggage is overweight, has been shredded, lost or all of the above, or that the flight is overbooked, or that the flight has been cancelled.

Instead, the very nice woman gave me a green tote bag that said “Valuables Tote for Wing or Cabin.” Inside was a nice cup filled with bubble gum and two small boxes of mints labeled In-Flight meal. There was also a small Ziploc bag containing what I presumed was once a warm paper towel. (I asked Jennifer if my VIP treatment would include a warm towel.)

No possum. I saw Pilot Sherry Murdoch walking around on the tarmac chewing on something. I don’t want to point any fingers, but I think I know where my possum might have gone. I looked for evidence of grease on her chin, but she must have cleaned it up.

Flies: welcome to Missouri

While waiting for the flight to be called, I wandered into the Mens room. Inside, I figured that I was back in Missouri, for sure: there was a fly perched in the urinal. Then I looked left and right and saw identical flies in exactly the same position. They were realistic-looking DRAWINGS of flies. I don’t know if they were added as a touch of whimsy or to give a target to aim at, but I got a chuckle out of them.

They were classier than the chin-high spitoon (sic) spotted in an Advance restroom.

Big Guy and our plane

This was about the last photo I shot of the ground until we got back to Cape. We were flying too high in too much haze and cloud to make it worthwhile once we got above about 1,200 feet.

We had a couple of white-knuckle passengers on board who didn’t seem to comfortable with some of the bucks, pitches and yaws when we were going through some of the clouds. I wasn’t worried, though. I’ve flown through a lot worse and the pilot seemed to be taking it in stride.

Unlike the other passengers, I had bigger worries. Pilot Murdoch normally flies a Boston route. She’s just filling in for a bit, so I was pretty sure she’s not well acclimated to fine Missouri cuisine yet. They don’t get exposed to many possum dishes in Massachusetts.

Mayday! Mayday!

I kept a close eye on the pilot, rehearsing what I would do if she went into possum failure at the yoke.I figured I’d have another passenger shove her aside, then I’d move into the command seat, put on her headphones and key the microphone:

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Cessna 402C November 6765 Tango with five souls on board. We are in the clouds approximately 23 miles south of St. Louis at 4,000 feet, flying on a 172 heading, straight and level. The good news is that all gauges are in the green. The bad news is that our pilot is incapacitated, possibly due to acute possum poisoning. The worse news is that nobody here is a pilot. I’m pretty sure I can get ‘er on the ground, but that’s only because of the law of gravity.”

At that point, I unkey the microphone and scream like a little girl. What do you expect? I’m a photographer not a twin-engine-rated pilot.

Cheated death again

Fortunately, Captain Murdoch got us back into Cape County. About five miles out, she turned around and made camera-clicking gestures at me. I took that to mean that we must be cleared to land, and I started to shoot her touchdown, which was much smoother than mine would have been.

We got our red carpet

When the plane puttered to a stop, Agent Jeff Sutton rolled out a red carpet for us. Well, it was actually a small red rug, but proportionally speaking, for an airport the size of Cape’s, I’ll rate it a carpet.

It just dawned on me that my window was covered with so many greasy noseprints that I had to scrub a clean spot to shoot through this afternoon. I’m wondering now if maybe I’ve been suspecting the wrong person: I wonder if my special in-flight meal could have been lost to passenger possum pilfering? Perhaps?

August 3, 2011July 1, 2021

Trotline Fishing on The Mississippi

After seeing that the flooding had gone down, I decided to drive down Old Highway 61 that parallels I-55 south of Sprigg Street and ends at a boat ramp. After taking a scenic photo, I noticed a couple throwing a cast net. [Click on any photo to make it larger.]

Aerial of Diversion Channel

Ed and Melinda Roberts of Jackson were trying to snag enough bait to put out two trotlines where the Mississippi River meets up with the ditch that is just north of the Diversion Channel. Ed Calls it the North Cut Ditch. I’ve heard it called the Little Ditch and at least one topographic map labels it the Dutchtown Ditch.

I was able to snap a picture of the Diversion Channel and the North Cut from the Cape Air Flight I was on. The Channel is on the right, the larger of the two canals.

“It’s all about stuffing the freezer”

Ed is a guy who fishes for the fun of eating fish. “I hope to have 400-500 pounds of fish in the freezer before the season is over. It’s all about stuffing the freezer.” Most of them will be channel catfish or blue cats. His biggest catch was an 82-pound blue on a trotline. “I WISH I had caught it on a rod.”

Enough bait to do the job

The water was boiling with fish, mostly gars, which the couple tossed up on the bank to join dozens more. “Most of them were killed by bow hunters,” he said. After about half a dozen casts, he brought up enough bait to do the job.

Heat killed many fish

“I’ve never seen shad die like this in the summertime. It’s the heat that’s killing them,” he explained. The hot water also limits how deep he can set his lines.

Nature’s cleanup crew

Maggots are hard at work cleaning up anything edible left behind by the flood and fishermen. “It’s a good thing,” Ed said.

Launching the boat

When I asked if I could follow them down to where they was going to put the boat in the water, ED offered me something better: a ride to watch them put out the lines.

Video: how to set out a trotline

Here’s your opportunity to see how to set out a trotline.

Motor wasn’t running right

When we started out, the motor was missing and sputtering. I wondered if they had invited me along to be a galley slave if the engine conked out. Ed assured me that wasn’t the case. He said that a plug was fouled and he wouldn’t go far from the ramp until he had it cleared.

Headed out the Diversion Channel

Before long, we were headed out the Diversion Channel to meet the Mississippi River. I’ll run scenic shots from the ride another day. I always thought of the Channel as a sterile ditch, but it’s a beautiful waterway with interesting trees on both sides.

Northbound on the Mississippi

Before long, we were northbound on the river. The boat felt a lot smaller out there.

Checking out the motor

When we got to where he was going to set his lines, he still wasn’t happy with the way the motor was running, so he left Melinda and me on the bank while he did a high-speed run in the river until he was satisfied.

Baiting the hooks

I couldn’t shoot both stills and video at the same time, so you’ll have to watch the video if you want to see what’s involved in setting a trotline. Here he is baiting one of the hooks with a fish he caught when we first met. If he’s in the river, he’s permitted to have 50 hooks; if he’s fishing in the ditches, he can have a maximum of 33.

Getting close to sunset

Ed was starting to run out of daylight, so he decided not to set out both lines. When we pulled into the bank, I asked what time the mosquitoes would show up. “I’ve got pepper spray, so I can hold ’em off for a little while while you make a run for it,” I offered.

Ed and Melinda assured me that they had plenty of bug repellent, but Ed said he’d run me back to the ramp before it got dark. They planned to stay a good part of the night running the line about every two hours and fishing with a rod and reel in the meantime.

It was a great experience. There’s a lesson here: you sure meet some nice people if you just get out of your steel cage from time to time and talk to the folks you come across. When I woke up that morning, I never dreamed that I’d end the day in a small boat on the Mississippi River.