The entire (well mostly anyway) reason for our jaunt up the road to the middle of the country wasn't to see the famous Arch. It wasn't to celebrate history. It wasn't even to find a cooler climate, though, that seemed to happen on the one day that mattered. The reason for the trip was to visit the special facility the citizens of St. Louis had built for the simple pleasure of watching the summertime antics of a flock of red birds. Cardinals of the subspecies Americanis baseballus St. Louis.
A cool front was moving through the area as I watched that morning. The day promised to be pleasantly warm and not as uncomfortably hot as it had been all week.
We headed north out of Houston on Tuesday before the sun came up and hit Oklahoma soon after noon. I had routed our trip to take advantage of the Arkansas Mountains...We had reservations at Queen Wilhelmena State Park for the first night of our travels.
The heat of the day arrived at about the same time I arrived at Brazos Bend State Park just the other side of the Brazos River from us off of FM 1462 and FM 762.