First we took a wrong turn toward the Missouri River, where we found a group of boys swimming and fishing.
"May I take your picture?" I asked.
The fisherman (who didn't look much older than my 12-year-old daughter) appreaed embarrassed and said okay but he wanted to put his pants on first.
"Oh, my goodness!" I said, realizing I'd mistaken his red boxer shorts for swim trunks.
One of the other boys hopped out of the river, shouting, "Let me put my pants on, and I'll pose for you!" Which he did. But the photo was not memorable, so I'll not share it here.
Re-examining the map, I realized the section of the conservation area where the lake was located was north of us. We had to cross a set of railroad tracks and Highway 210, which bisects the area.
This crossing is a reminder that the builders of the early highways designed them to parallel the railroads; and the railroads in turn ran along the rivers. Rafting and boating along the Missouri was the original way settlers -- my people among them -- came into this area 175 years ago and more. Along the water was the original route.
Now it is beginning to disappear.
(Back then, by the way, we still had brightly colored parakeets living the the trees here in Clay County.)
Certainly there is plenty of water left in the Missouri, but here is what we found where Lake Cooley was supposed to be.
This is the soil at the bottom of where the lake had been.
To be fair, this soil is an area designated on the map as a seasonally flooded wetland, a resting place for waterbirds migrating in the spring and the fall. Perhaps -- when the rains return -- the wetlands might fill again. According to the meteorologists -- although every county in Missouri has been declared a disaster area because of our drought -- the situation is not supposed to be long-term the way the drought in Texas has been.