Travel Archives

January 24, 2013February 16, 2021

Snow is Like Cold Sand

I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. After doing a dry run at the Athens County Historical Society and Museum, I decided to rework my presentation to include more photos taken in Athens County.

I was feeling a bit sleepy (make that REALLY sleepy) around 2 a.m., so I thought I set the alarm on my cellphone for a 20-minute nap. I set it all right, but failed to hit the DONE button. I woke up with a start at 4 a.m., saw the time, saw the phone alarm, then decided I was still too tired to do anything. I set the alarm for 7:30 and hit SAVE and DONE.

After getting the show put together, Friend Jan Norris and I headed downtown for breakfast. Excellent food. Jan had eggs, two sausage patties, hashbrowns, toast and an order of pancakes (which she pronounced the best she had ever eaten). “I heard that you’re supposed to eat lots of carbs when it’s cold,” she justified.

Presentation went well

I had a good audience for my photos of Southern Ohio and the years of protests at Ohio University. There’s a good chance that I’ll be working with the group for quite awhile. (You can click on the photos to make them larger, by the way.)

An icicle!

Jan was excited to see an icicle hanging above us. I tried to explain how guys at Scott Quadrangle, the dorm I lived in, would suspend a thin wire out a second or third floor window, then drip water down it. Layers and layers of ice would build up until the ice spear would be 20 or 30 feet long and a foot or more thick at the top.

The university, not looking forward to writing a “Dear Mom and Dad, Your child took part in an innovative experiment to determine just how long an icicle can grow before breaking off, ” letter, put an end to the practice.

Starting to find the style

She was looking a little less like a rainbow-covered Michelin Man today. [Wife Lila suggests that I clarify that the Michelin Man look is from all of the layers of clothing, not the natural Jan. Of course, Wife Lila hasn’t seen the size of those breakfasts….]

She got cold AND snow

Jan went roaming around town while I was wrapping up at the museum. She came back to say that it was snowing. Indeed, it WAS. A fine dusting of dry snow that didn’t look like it was going to amount to much.

We made arrangements to meet OU friends Terry and Lyntha Eiler for dinner, then drove around to find the apartments Wife Lila and I lived in when we were newlyweds. We found one for sure, and maybe a second one. It looked “almost” right, but I couldn’t be positive. By this time, the ground was turning white and some of the intersections were getting slippery.

We had a great dinner (sure wish I had left off the onions), then walked outside to see the sidewalks covered and quite a bit on the roads where the cars hadn’t worn it off. On the way back to the motel, we passed a car that had slipped off onto the median.

We head toward Cape Thursday if we don’t see bad weather rushing at us. I told her she’ll have a chance to scrape ice off the windshield in the morning. I mean, after all, she wants the WHOLE cold weather experience, right?

January 22, 2013January 22, 2013

Cold: A Matter of Degree(s)

Road trip Day Two checked off some boxes:

Friend Jan wanted to go to to Mary Jo Fabrics in Gastonia, NC. Done.

She got to see snow

Norris wanted to see snow. She got to see snow going through the West Virginia mountains. This area got about a foot-and-a-half of snow in the last week or so. I would like to have taken a better photo, but my model was whining and running inside.

She wanted to feel cold air

She wanted to experience cold. She got to feel minus 3-degree wind chill when we pulled into Athens around midnight. I have to admit the 10-16 mph cut right through you.

From now on, “cold” will be when she turns the AC down to 65.

Photo gallery of Day Two

Here some other photos of the day that I’m too sleepy to write about. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

January 20, 2013

Rocking with the Shrimp

Well, Friend Jan and I survived the first 500+ miles together today. She suggested we stop for lunch at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville because she had eaten there lots of times and because she had written a rave review of the place for The Post. Indeed, she had. On the wall in the main lobby was a laminated copy of her review. She insisted on basking in the reflected glow of her former glory even while the server was attempting to hustle us to an empty booth.

Following Jan’s recommendation, I ordered a dozen broiled rock shrimp. After I had eaten half the platter, I got in the review mood and said, “I really like the crunchy texture of these shrimp.”

“You’re supposed to peel the shells off them first, doofus,” she said, with no small amount of satisfaction.

She’ll be stiffer than a plaster shrimp

Miz Jan has been obsessing over the weather all day. She keeps feeling the windshield to see if it’s getting colder.

Wait until Monday. Here’s the forecast for Athens, Ohio, where we’re going to be tomorrow: Mostly cloudy with snow showers in the morning, then overcast with snow showers. High of 30F with a windchill as low as 16F. Winds from the West at 5 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 40%.

Monday Night: Partly cloudy with a chance of snow. Low of 9F with a windchill as low as -4F. Winds from the WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 30%

She’s going to be as stiff as that plaster shrimp.

January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Reminds me of the 1930s

No, despite what some folks think, I wasn’t around then, but, thanks to the photographers from the Farm Security Administration, we know what the country looked like during the Depression and the Dust Bowl days.

I opened an envelope labeled “St Mary,” thinking I would find the church and school located on Sprigg Street. Much to my surprise, I found images of the notorious speed trap located between Perryville and St. Genevieve on Hwy 61. My best guess is that it was taken in 1966, but it looks like something from 30 or 35 years earlier. Click on the picture to make it larger. I can make out the name “Clem’s” on the sign, but the rest isn’t readable. What I find striking in these days of digital photography where you bang off hundreds of photos without thinking is that I thought the subject worthy of only one shot.

I’m going to hold off publishing most of the pictures until I can shoot contemporary photos on my next trip to or from St. Louis at the end of January.

I’ve tried to emulate the FSA photographers

This image jumped out at me, though, as something that could have been taken by one of the 22 FSA photographers working for Roy Styker between 1935 and 1944. I grew up trying to emulate photographers like Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lang, Walker Evans and Arthur Rothstein. If the names don’t mean anything to you, check Google images for some American icons.

In looking for that, I stumbled across a catalog of images available from the Library of Congress. Some of the topic include Wright Brothers Negatives; Popular Graphic Arts, World War I and Spanish American War Posters; 2100 Baseball cards from 1887 to 1914, and Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints.