Then I headed to the tallest deer stand in North America. To get there, I crossed Pole Cat Creek, and passed up the Toot Toot in Bethany, a restaurant with a rail theme. I turned north, and picked up a … Read More
Goodness, Gracious, Great Bales o’ Fire!
We came upon the biggest black field I’d ever seen. Musta been 100 acres. I drove through miles and miles of the blackened fields of Harrison County, burned off after the harvest, to reinvigorate the soil. It’s a fiery, smoky … Read More
Skunks, Laws and Hardware
“That there’s not a skunk,” the guide pointed to one animal pelt on a table, “That’s genuine Alaskan sable.” It was a skunk, the guide admitted, but to the European fur market in the early 1800s, the term Alaskan sable … Read More
A Toast to the World’s Hottest Museum
A witling would say it’s a description of Hell: 4,000 toasters, no bread. But hey, if Richard Larrison ever used all his toasters at once, it might create Hell, or havoc, or at least a lot of heat, pulling enough … Read More
Well-traveled children…
“Got a ham bone?” I asked the undertaker. I pulled a two-pound bag of great northern beans out of my overcoat pocket and plopped it on his desk. He looked puzzled. “Last request,” I said, and told him about my … Read More
I broke in…
Lewis Café doesn’t look like much from the outside. It sits on Main Street in downtown St. Clair under an old 1930s-looking awning in an old 1930s-looking beige brick building. But in the restaurant world, the homely facade means there’s … Read More
Watery Grave
Looking upriver from the Hermann bluff, I could almost see Sonora Chute. It was a cold February day in 1856 when Captain Bill Terrill ran his sidewheeler Sonora through ice floes near Portland, Missouri. At 363 tons, the Sonora was … Read More
Bothwellian
Detouring to the top of a high cliff, I stopped to see an old friend. On a clear day, she’s hard to miss, built on the edge of this bluff and sticking out of a forest canopy like a Bavarian … Read More