Sunday, November 7, 2010

weekend travel

today the temperture was 72 degrees with beautifuly sunny blue skies so i decided to take my self to the busch memorial conservation area. the last time i was here was 50 years ago with my dad and family to go fishing; we lived about 40 miles away and felt like we drove forever. the site contains 6987 acres, 3,000 of those acres are forest, grassland, cropland, prairie and wetlands, this site is about 10 minutes from my house, unbelievable!
bunker used in the 1940's by the u.s. army as storage for tnt munitions plants to support ww2 effort. the bunkers were also used to process uranium ore; and was part of a federal enviromental clean upanother bunker, some of these bunkers were very well hidden. i drove past several and didn't see them the first time past since they are earth covered it would have been hard to see them from any enemy planes that might make it to the midwest during ww2
there are 100 of these bunkers on the site
as well as an old cemetery
one of the more unusal grave markers. bonnie lee thiel was a poet according to her tombstone
benjamin howell was born in 1794 and his grave as a war veteran marker on it
one of the 32 lakes
another bunker. the bunkers are the only thing i remember about the area from my first visit
gaggle of geese
the leader just started swimming away and the rest of them all fell in line
the blind where i shot the geese ( with a camera of course) Busch's area is used for hunting, fishing, dog field trials, trapping, hiking and just enjoying being outdoors. it has been so dry this fall there was a high fire danger here as well as several places in Missouri.

1 comment:

Word Tosser said...

wow, what a great place... I am from R.I. and we had bunkers there too on the island...but no where as many as you have... as a kid they were cool.. as an adult of them were a little small...I remember cannons in them when I was a child..but they have been removed. They pointed out to the ocean.