From July 8-18, 2019, we took four and a half days to get to Mothapalooza 2019 held at the Shawnee Lodge and Conference Center near Portsmouth Ohio. The drive from New Mexico to Ohio took us through Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky; the return trip was two days quicker and added Indiana and Kansas. Along the way, we overnighted in Tulsa OK, Springfield MO, Giant City State Park IL, and Frankfort KY, and on the return in Lawrence KS and Clinton OK. We'd stop along the way looking for butterflies in various spots, and had fun spending a little time driving around Carbondale IL, I'd last seen almost 50 years ago attending SIU. Entertaining time in Frankfort KY, too, where a bartender refused to serve us mint juleps (traditionally only a possibility during Kentucky Derby week apparently). The place also turned out to be the local watering hole for apparently all the Democrats in the State including the mayor, who told us where to go look for butterflies the next morning. Most of the pictures below (and all of the moths) were taken there in Ohio; the rest from various stops along the way.
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The only lifer butterfly for the trip was the Regal Fritillary, a rarely seen species currently under review as as a threatened or endangered species. We finally saw one briefly in one of several remnant tallgrass prairie areas we searched in Missouri. A target of our trip, we'd search again unsuccessfully in an area in Kansas a friend of ours reported seeing a good number a few weeks earlier.
The Mothapalooza was as much fun as the last one in 2017, and great staying in one of the big cabins this time. Every night a number of the cabins would put up their white sheets and fancy UV lights to draw in some amazing moths, and there were plenty of experts around to help identify them.
Click on any of the thumbnails for the full sized image.
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