North County Park Archives

February 17, 2016

Visited by Celestial Dandruff

It must have snowed pretty good while I was sleeping, because there was a lot more snow on my car and on the ground than when I went to sleep Monday night. Just before I sat down to lunch, I peeked out the window to see something between a light rain and a drizzle falling. I thought there might be a speck of white mixed in from time to time, but it was mostly splashing when it hit the ground.

Just as I was finishing lunch, I happened to glance out of the kitchen with the corner of my eye. Holy Crapola!!! The sky is full of God dandruff! (As always, click on the photos to make them larger.)

(I’m of the belief that every person should be allocated a finite number of exclamation marks to be used over their entire lifetime; when they’re gone, then it’s back to periods for everything. I spend my exclamation points sparingly, but today’s snow was worth every one of them.)

Biggest flakes I’ve ever seen

I ran to the living room door to see if the stuff was falling in both the front AND back yards. Yep, it sure was.

I told Wife Lila that the flakes were as big a quarters. Then, I amended it to say they were the size of quarter-sized marbles. They weren’t just two-dimensional like you cut out of construction paper in grade school; these were the Real Deal. Wednesday is Wife Lila’s birthday, by the way.

Overcoming inertia

It took me awhile to overcome inertia. In Florida, things are easy: you pull on a polo shirt, grab a pair of shorts and slip on some sandals. Up north, you have to consider layers. And, they have to go on in a certain order, particularly if you wear suspenders.

Just as I was pulling out of the driveway, the Low Fuel light came on. You do NOT want to be running around on potentially slick streets with that thing blinding you.

Gas is usually cheaper in Jackson and Fruitland, so I headed that way with a brief stop at North County Park.

By the time I got to Jackson, the big flakes had stopped. The show was over. I shot a little video, but it wasn’t impressive enough to spend the time editing it. Like I always say, “Some days you make pictures; some days you make memories.”

The nice thing about this snow storm was that it provided really nice eye candy for about an hour or two, then changed to rain, which kept the streets from getting slick.

There’s a rumor that we may be seeing temperatures in the mid-60s by the weekend. Maybe I shouldn’t have ordered that load of firewood to show up this week, although I don’t think we’re done with winter yet or that it’s done with us.

Thank you, Mother Nature. I really enjoyed your show. You really SHOULD do something about that celestial dandruff, though.

December 2, 2015January 1, 2022

Warm Ears and Christmas Lights

I had two errands to run that took me past North County Park after dark: I wanted a Wib’s BBQ fix, and I needed to return a cap to Buchheit.

When I was in Cape in 2009, I bought a super cap with fold-down ear flaps that did a great job of keeping my Florida ears from falling off in the cold. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack it, so I went in search for a replacement. Of course, my old faithful wasn’t in stock, and I wasn’t crazy about this year’s model, but it was better than blue ears. When I called Wife Lila last night, she said it was still hanging on the hat rack in the living room, so she’d mail it to MO, letting me return the not-quite-right model..

I liked the original cap well enough to buy one for Brother Mark. Here he and Future Wife Robin posed with the caps when they were new (the caps, not Mark and Robin). I think the classy way he wore it was what tipped the scales to get her to say “yes.”

The park was all lit up

Anyway, to get to the point of the post: when I passed the park Tuesday night, it was all lit up. If some of the pictures are confusing (like this one), it’s because I couldn’t resist shooting the reflections on a lake that was a smooth as a newborn baby’s butt.

For comparison, here’s what it looked like in 2011 (the post has a bunch of links to other Christmas posts, too).

Decoration photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around. (If you are wondering what the sign that says “P ACE” means, it means that the “E” that would make it spell “PEACE” isn’t working.)

North County Park Christmas Lights 12-01-2015

I hate to keep mentioning it, but don’t forget the yellow DONATE button.

December 6, 2014

Klaus Park

In the last few years, I’ve heard all kinds of stories about wild parties in Klaus Park, but I never got the word of them when I was growing up. From what little research I’ve done, it sounds like the land, like North County Park, South County Park and the VA Hospital site were all party of the County Farm at one time.

Considered for multipurpose building

A May 20, 1984, Missourian story by Mark Bliss said the land was being considered a possible site for the Cape Girardeau multipurpose building. County Court Presiding Judge Gene Huckstep said he had been contacted by several individuals about the possibility of the county offering a neutral site for the building which would eliminate a battle for the site between proponents of the Drury Development Corporation site south of Howard Johnson Motor Lodge along I-55 and the Bertling-Sprigg Street site (which is where the Show-Me Center was eventually built).

The park is relatively undeveloped. I’ve seen runners on the unpaved trails, and Missourian photographer Laura Simon shot some beautiful photos of fat bike (that’s the tires not the riders) riders in the park this fall. I missed the bikers, but DID see lots of hickory nuts on the ground.

Old jail site

The story also mentioned something else I’m going to have to research. “The County Court presiding judge ruled out the old jail site, across the interstate from Klaus Park, as a multipurpose building site because it contains only 23 acres. The building committee has indicated that a site of 30 acres is needed.

“In addition, Huckstep said, ‘we feel that the jail site is committed to a veterans home.'”

I never knew there was a jail located in that area.

August 18, 2014

Elk’s Lake

I don’t know how many times Mother has said, “Turn here and go back to look at Elk’s Lake.” I’m usually on the way to someplace important like Wib’s BBQ, so I drive right past it.

On this day, though, I heeded her directions to turn off on Limbaugh Lane, just past North County Park. (It’s a right turn, not surprisingly.) After a few twists and turns, Limbaugh Lane becomes Elk Lane.

It passes Elk Lodge #639, then goes down and curves past a baseball diamond. The road is marked 10 mph, by the way.

When the view opens up, you get a whole bunch of beautiful views of Elk’s Lake.

Guess I should have listened to her years ago.