Down the Road a Piece: A New Bridge

Since 2001 a thousand times on walks I crossed that crumbling concrete asphalt-topped Doc Sargent Road bridge across the creek, maybe 15 feet wide and 18 inches deep at that point, and maybe 50 times I waded beneath the bridge to hunt fossils, once scooping up a crawfish that bit me, a couple of times treading quicksand, and then after a storm one of the two ducts under the bridge got clogged with sand, and at the next serious rainstorm the mild-mannered LaBarque Creek began flooding in a foaming hurricane rush like I'd never seen, tore up stuff, then two years later did it again.

They're replacing that bridge. (Here's my 2018 post with a photo of the old bridge.) Work began in August. At 7 a.m. weekdays they're backhoeing and scooping and whatnot. Naturally I wanted to see, went over and asked a construction worker when they'd finish. He said, "Round Christmas." Here are some pictures. Where the bridge was is a tangle of naked, rusted rebar.

Considering that those toothpick-and-tar-paper new McMansions are built in two weeks from start to finish, they must be building a very good bridge here. Notice the pure-white sand. That's the sought-after St. Peters vein of sandstone than runs in a strip from Minnesota to here, and is still mined today in Pacific.

Missouri's Only Native Pine

The Short-Leaf Pine tree is Missouri's only native pine, and the map says that the eastern edge of Missouri, the Ozark foothills where the soil is rocky/sandy, sunny and dry, is about as far north as you can find them. It's a tree of the American Southeast. Here it is growing ever taller on the property's southernmost southern-facing sandstone cliff. It's rocky/sandy, sunny and dry there all right. Before European settlement and the invasive cedar trees that accompanied the settlers, Missouri was covered with Short-Leaf Pines, the conservation department says.

I like their powdery-soft look. The needles, two or three inches long, are "bundled" in twos or threes, and the bark looks scaly. Male and female cones grow on the same tree (very handy for them), although it takes a few years for the tree to produce cones. The wood is great if the tree is mature. The trees pictured must have taken root in 2002 or later, after the cliff's original face was blasted off for road widening.

While cedars, alien invaders in Missouri, require at least an inch of soil, and I know that because I chop them down and rip them up trying to preserve the property's native oak-hickory forest, the Short-Leaf Pine (pinus echinaceus) is tougher. I have no idea how these Short-Leafs cling to the foot of a St. Peters sandstone cliff and find nourishment, unless they simply like life.

The White Sand Beach

And the object of crossing the creek was to get to this beautiful and secluded LaBarque Creek "beach" and find a perfectly smooth spot and lie there in the sun, in sand so silky it doesn't stick to your clothes. It also makes great quicksand, which I've been caught in only once, in the LaBarque beneath a highway bridge.

Fortunately I'd previously read about quicksand. The impulse is to put all your weight on one leg, hoping to pull the other one out. But instead of helping, that leg sinks deeper, and vice versa. It's impossible to describe the sensation of suction from which you can't free yourself. 1) Don't panic. Areas of quicksand are mostly no bigger than a puddle and no deeper than a knee. In very slow motion -- don't tread or churn, it only makes it worse -- free one leg, and feel around with your foot or hiking pole until you find solid ground so you can -- again, slowly and steadily -- haul the other leg up and out, or 2) if that doesn't work, having tossed aside your backpack, lie back -- and either you will locate solid ground behind you or you will float. Yes, you'll float in quicksand; it's sand suspended in water. Lie back and your legs will eventually float upward. Then use extremely slow and gentle swimming motions to get to solid ground. Better yet, use your hiking pole(s) to test for firmness before stepping in unfamiliar wet sand.

Saint Peters Sandstone

Entertaining friends here is a matter of serving a meal, followed by outdoor activity, or outdoor activity followed by serving a meal, and I must say it's delightful to host a friend, Frank, with a British accent that my other friends from Britain say is not the same accent as theirs, and to learn that I do not pour enough hot water into my teacups. Did I mention he's an engineer? They are easy to entertain: I showed him the dump on the property, where he might still be figuring out the origins and angles of everything and wanting to take it all home unless I'd shown him the nearby Waterfall #1, now frozen, the one with the shallow cave of St. Peters sandstone. He said it was "extraordinary."