Road Trips Archives

July 3, 2013

Waving Goodbye at Lambert

Friend Anne and Wife Lila hopped on a plane at St. Louis’s Lambert Airport Tuesday morning. (Lila isn’t in the picture because she’s still on the shuttle.) Just as I started to pull off, I thought, “Maybe I should bookend the trip by getting a final shot of her leaving Missouri.”

‘It’s just my daughter….’

I got out of the car, called her name and watched heads swivel around. To avoid attracting the attention of the security folks, I announced in a loud voice, “It’s OK. I’m just sending my daughter off to school.”

(I’m pretty sure Anne paid that woman to say, “Looks more like his granddaughter,” but I could be mistaken.)

On our first day on the road, the server said, when I asked about an item on the menu, “I find that a little on the spicy side. The couple behind you ordered it, though.”

I started to get up. Anne put her hand on my arm. “You wouldn’t, would you?” Yep, I would. The server was right. The couple agreed that it might be a bit too spicy for a long road trip that late in the evening. Anne knew from that moment on to expect the unexpected. I have no shame.

Stuff to remember

Once she gets past the cringing and embarrassments, I hope she’ll remember all the cool stuff we saw and the people we met.

The gas tank read somewhere between “Low Fuel” and “Who gets to walk for gas?” when we pulled out of Wib’s, but Anne and Lila wanted to shoot a sunset. While they were making art, I was looking at this mailbox and thinking that sometime over the next couple of days, maybe a mailperson would come by and take the survivors back to civilization.

Boat traffic on the Mississippi

We stopped at the overlook in Trail of Tears State Park only to be greeted by a nice ranger who said, “This part of the park closes at 7:00 and it’s 7:05.” Anne must have batted her eyelashes at him, because he waved us on, saving me from having to pull out one of my “we’re newlyweds” stories. I knew there was a reason to bring her along.

Bald Knob Cross

Looking up and to our right, we saw one of the clearest views of the Bald Knob Cross I’ve seen in years. Anne resisted directing any bald knob comments in my direction, for which I was grateful.

Spectacular rainbow

Shortly after I took this photo of an irrigation system, the temperature dropped about 15 degrees and we were met with a gust of wind that sent umbrellas flying, accompanied by a brief squall. After the storm moved on, a double rainbow of incredible intensity formed off to our side. It’s the first time I can recall actually feeling like I could see where it was touching the ground.

Good persimmon crop

I can’t take anyone to Missouri without showing them the Lutheran Heritage Museum in Altenburg and Tower Rock. We coasted into town after the museum closed, but we spotted Gerard Fiehler pedaling down the street. He recognized my van, pulled over and agreed to open the museum for us even though he was hot and sweaty from mowing.

If they don’t fall or get blown off, it looks like Mother’s favorite tree is going to have a good crop of persimmons.

Flood not so good for fish

We spotted lots of vultures sitting on the wires of the suspension pipeline, but didn’t think much of it. When we drove out of Wittenberg and over to Frogtown, we saw lots of white wading birds off in the distance. When we got past where the old train depot and church would have been, we noticed all sorts of white objects in the fields.

They turned out to be huge carp and other fish who had come in on the flood waters, then gotten trapped when the waters went out quickly. My guess is that the white wading birds were going after the live fish because they weren’t bothering the carrion. The vultures had probably had their fill for the day (or like their food a little riper).

Years have taken toll

The years and high winds have taken their toll on this old barn seen on the way back home from Altenburg. You can click on the photos to make them larger, by the way.

Here are earlier Anne road trip stories:

Don’t forget First Friday

If you missed me at Hastings, stop in at Annie Laurie’s Antiques on First Friday, July 5. I’ll have Snapshots of Cape Girardeau calendars and Smelterville books. I’ll be there from 6pmish until 10 or when I start snoring and Laurie kicks me out.

June 25, 2013October 22, 2015

Anne Day 1: Clermont

Bike partner Anne Rodgers heard how much fun Jan Norris had on her winter road trip with me that she wanted a piece of the action. The first thing that happened was that my cruise control stopped working. That means I’m either 10 mph under the speed limit or 20 mph over it, depending on flow of traffic.

We had hoped to make it to a place on the Gulf coast for seafood, but it became clear that they’d be closed. That gave us an excuse to take the scenic route Mother and I drove in 2011.

Anne, a Texas innocent, had never been to the Florida Citrus Tower in Clermont.

No, you can’t sit on his lap

While I was taking the shot of Anne and the tower, a nice man came out of the Presidents Hall of Fame. He told us the place was closed, but gave us a two-for-one ticket for our next trip. (Like Anne would sign up for another one.)

Oh, yes, he also said, “No, you can’t sit on his lap.”

She settled for second best, muttering, “Your loss, Abe.”

You should have been here yesterday

The nice man said if we had been there yesterday, we’d have been able to see him put Abe back together. A microburst in a storm tore Mt. Rushmore apart.

We’re newlyweds

We fought rain for about an hour before pulling into the Comfort Suites in Lake City, FL. I like the place. It’s clean, convenient (there’s a Waffle House across the street) and the staff is friendly.

I tried every trick I’ve earned from years on the road to get the best price. Finally I said, “Look, we’re newlyweds and we’ve had a spat. If we want this marriage to survive, we need separate rooms tonight. Will that qualify for a better rate?” We got another $10 knocked off, probably because that was one they’d never heard before.

“Do you want adjoining rooms?” the clerk asked?

“No,” I replied.” I think we’ve had all the adjoining we can handle for the day.

Stay tuned for more adventures on the way to Cape.

February 6, 2013February 6, 2013

Pencil Sharpener Museum

Let me say right off that a guy who can put his hands on his grade school Valentines and almost every negative he’s shot since 1959, doesn’t have much room to wiggle when it comes to talking about what someone else collects.

Passenger Jan and I were blasting down the backroads of Ohio on our way to Old Man’s Cave when she spotted what looked like a welcome and information center. We did a quick U-turn and headed back.

One of the things I like about rural areas is that you can do things like U-turns and stop in the middle of the road if you want to take a picture.

Jan, a Florida native, wasn’t used to roads that curve and have deep dropoffs. About half her early postings were that she feared she was going to die in a crash or, worse yet, go flying over a cliff Thelma and Louise-style to meet her end in a ball of fire and/or freeze to death because nobody would find us until around March 15, when the buzzards would pass over on their way to Hinkley, Ohio.

People here drive, they don’t AIM their car

“Jan,” I explained patiently, “people outside of Florida learn to DRIVE their vehicle, not POINT it. Florida puts guard rails on perfectly straight stretches of road if there is a canal within 300 feet. Up here, you can have a 300-foot dropoff at the edge of the shoulder and it’s assumed that you are going to keep the car on the road because if you DON’T, there’s a 300-foot dropoff at the edge of the shoulder.”

She eventually quit whimpering. Or, maybe I just got to where I tuned it out.

So, back to the Pencil Museum

The Paul A. Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum, which might measure roughly 10′ x 20′, is located on the grounds of the Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center at 13178 State Route 664 South, Logan, Ohio, 43138. It is open to the public for free Mondays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can find out more at the center’s website.

It does NOT take you long to go through it unless you REALLY appreciate pencil sharpeners.

No puns or word play

First off, I am going to write this without any cheap puns because the walls of the place are covered with newspaper stories writers and editors tried to make “clever” and “cute” with bad puns and plays on words. I won’t do that, not because I don’t like puns and silly word play, but because some topics are too easy. This is one of them.

I have that camera

I have that camera pencil sharpener on the shelf in my office. I think Wife Lila may have given it to me. When Paul Johnson’s wife gave him a couple of sharpeners for a Christmas present after he retired in 1988, it triggered a dormant sharpener collecting gene. Before long, he had more than 3,400 of the things in all shapes, kinds, colors and subjects.

I showed more restraint. Besides, I liked mechanical pencils that didn’t need grinding.

Wife donated collection

When Paul died in 2010, his wife, Charlotte, donated his collection to the welcome center. (You can click on any photo to maker it larger.)

I bet you’ll recognize something

The odds are pretty good that you’ve owned at least one of his collection. In addition to the camera, I saw the old-fashioned plastic pencil boxes that had a sharpener built in that we used in grade school. He arranged his art objects by category.

Used to give them away

Early news reports said Paul would give away his duplicates to visitors. All of the ones on display now are supposed to be unique.

Plenty of color

Some of the colors are eye-catchingly, garishly blinding.

The Museum isn’t somewhere I’d go miles out of my way to visit, but it’s worth a stop if you want to kill a few minutes. The workers at the welcome center are friendly and the restrooms are clean. What more can you ask for? That’s the point of it, right?

Darn! I ALMOST made it without using any puns.

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.