June 2002: The Tetons and Cross Country

We were headed for Scott and Joelene's graduation from Kirksville Osteopathic Medical School in June. Patti and I once again stuffed all our camping junk into the Honda (made a little easier by removing the rear seat), and hit the road. We started out by spending the night at Wenas Creek where the annual Audubon Memorial Day get-together was going on. We then drove through Washington, Idaho, Montana, and down into Wyoming for a couple of days at Grand Teton National Park. After some hiking and sightseeing there, we headed east across Wyoming to Fort Robinson State Park in Nebraska, then to Indian Cave State Park on the Mississippi, and finally to Kirksville, Missouri, for the graduation. I managed to get in a round of golf there with Scott, Eric (Joelene's brother), and another friend of theirs. Scott tried valiantly to follow the important golfing adage of "being the ball", but unfortunately he was being Eric's ball, which was usually in the bushes or a pond. After the graduation our cars headed in opposite directions: Scott and Joelene to Connecticut, where they will be doing their residencies at the University of Connecticut hospital in Hartford, and Patti and I up through Iowa and Minnesota, to check for some north woods and prairie birds. We hit some good spots, Rice Lake NWR and Agassiz NWR. Somewhere in Iowa I got a quick glimpse of a Greater Prairie Chicken, and ticked Mourning Warbler and Sedge Wren at Rice Lake. Then across North Dakota, through the minuteman fields, with a stop at Lostwood NWR, for a Baird's Sparrow (best bird in a while). Dipped on Connecticut Warbler and LeConte's Sparrow, though. Then across Montana, with plans to hike at Glacier, but it was snowing there, so we spent the night in a motel in Idaho and home the next day. It was a wonderful drive back, across the northern border of the country. ("Ticked" and "dipped" are important technical terms all birders know.)

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