Travel Archives

May 6, 2014

What Is the Green Stuff?

Mother and I were cruising around Allenville for a followup on an old story when we started passing field after field of green stuff. She thought it might be wheat, but she wasn’t sure.

I divide the world into two classes: food and feed. Food has feet or fins. If it doesn’t have feet or fins, then it must be feed for food.

So, what were we looking at? You can click on the picture to make it larger.

Travel update

Got a late start leaving Cape Monday, so I didn’t make it east of Louisville as planned. I stopped at a rest area with a decision to make: do I take a 22-minute nap and push on, or do I search to see if there is any lodging nearby. I selected Door Number 2.

There was a motel five minutes away in Ferdinand, IN. It was sometime around midnight-thirty (more about that in a minute), so I decided to stop.

I earned one discount because of the alphabet soup of travel organizations I threw out (I didn’t actually SAY I was a member of them; I just asked if they cut prices for them. I got another reduction by pointing out that I was the last person they were probably going to see that night, and I got another cut by being a member of their chain’s organization.

Time is a little confusing

Just before I headed to the room, the desk clerk said, “Time is a little confusing here. The motel is the the Eastern Time Zone; your cell phone is going to show Central time because the dividing line is the Interstate.”

He wasn’t kidding. My cell phone alarm went off at 9:32 a.m., but the motel’s alarm clock said 10:30. Must be tough to live around there.

I got into Athens in time to have dinner with Curator Jessica. She says I have to put on my shoes and pants tomorrow for a 3-hour oral history interview with the Ohio University School of Media Arts and Studies. Jessica is supposed to be asking me questions about what it was like to have gone to college shortly after the earth’s crust cooled. They told her that we don’t have to fill the whole three hours, but Jessica said, “I don’t think he’ll have any problem talking that long.”

January 20, 2014

Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

It all depends on when you did it

If it was on the side of a building in your neighborhood, it would be called “tagging” and you’d be annoyed.
If it was high up on the side of a water tower, it would be called graffiti and you would lament the stupidity of kids.
If it was scratched on a rock over 600 years ago, it is called a “petroglyph,” and there’s a whole site dedicated to to the art near Tularosa, N.M.

The Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

The Bureau of Land Management’s website says that the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site is one of the few locations in the Southwest set aside solely because of its rock art. It is also one of the few sites giving visitors such direct access to petroglyphs. The number and concentration of petroglyphs here make it one of the largest and most interesting petroglyphs sites in the Southwest. More than 21,000 glyphs of birds, humans, animals, fish, insects and plants, as well as numerous geometric and abstract designs are scattered over 50 acres of New Mexico’s northern Chihuahuan Desert. The petroglyphs at Three Rivers, dating back to between about 900 and 1400 AD, were created by Jornada Mogollon people who used stone tools to remove the dark patina on the exterior of the rock. A small pueblo ruin is nearby and Sierra Blanca towers above to the east.

Why vacation photos all of a sudden?

I had a hard drive crash. I didn’t lose any data because of the way the system is designed, but I didn’t want to dip into my Cape photos until the “mirror” as it is called is completely rebuilt. (Hint: that’s why I keep bugging you to click on the big CLICK HERE button when you shop on Amazon. A few pennies here and there keep those hard drives spinning.)

Photo gallery of the art

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to mover through the gallery. These photos were taken in June 2009, when we went back to the Southwest where Wife Lila grew up before moving to Cape.

December 21, 2013

Downtown Chillicothe, Ohio

I’m cleaning up some loose ends from my Midwestern meanderings. Here is the Ross County Courthouse in Chillicothe, Ohio, built back in the day when public buildings were supposed to be imposing.

I figured it would be easy to come up with the history of the building, but Google was light on information. The courthouse was built in 1858. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Chillicothe was the first and third capital

Chillicothe was a rolling stone of a state capital. It served as the capital of Ohio from the beginning of statehood in 1803 until 1810 when Zanesville became the capital for two years as part of a state legislative compromise to get a bill passed. In 1812, the legislature moved the capital back to Chillicothe. In 1816, the state legislature voted to move the capital again, to Columbus, to have it near the geographic center of the state

Part of Underground Railroad

Wikipedia reports that migrants to Chillicothe included free blacks, who came to a place with fewer restrictions than in the slave states. They created a vibrant community and aided runaway slaves coming north. As tensions increased prior to the breakout of the American Civil War, the free black community and white abolitionists maintained stations and aid to support refugees on the Underground Railroad. Slaves escaping from the South traveled across the Ohio River to freedom, and then up the Scioto River to get more distance from their former homes and slave hunters.

Strange net on building

I never did figure out what the netting on the top two floors of this building was for. If it is designed to protected pedestrians from falling bricks or to keep birds away, it needs to be replaced.

The Carlisle Building

If newspaper stories are any indication, the community has been trying to figure out what to do with the Carlisle building for more than a decade, since arsonists caused major damage to it. The local paper has its archives behind a paywall, so I could only read a couple of paragraphs of each story.

The Columbus Dispatch reported on June 22, 2012, that city officials and developers announced plans to spend up to $7.5 million to rehabilitate the 1880s building and reopen its doors by mid-2014. They might pull it off, but it looks like they have a long way to go. Still, it’s a neat building.

A story by Pat Medert, a local historian, said the cornerstone of the Carlisle Building was put in place in April of 1885. It contains a copy of the city ordinances, a report of the Chillicothe schools, the local newspapers, a photograph of Andrew Carlisle, a picture of the old building and a list of the tenants who occupied the old building.

November 29, 2013

Missouri Flag House Ornament

Old Town Cape is carrying on a tradition started in 1997 to produce a Christmas ornament featuring a familiar Cape Girardeau landmark. Here is information from the Old Town Cape website describing this year’s ornament.

The 2013 Oliver-Leming House Christmas ornament is available for sale at the Old Town Cape office and other various locations downtown, so get yours before they are gone! It is a limited edition, numbered piece produced by Hestia and is the seventeenth in a series.

The 100th year anniversary of the Missouri flag was celebrated earlier this year, so we chose to commemorate that by displaying it on this year’s ornament. The Missouri flag was designed in 1913 by Marie Watkins Oliver, wife of Sen. R. B. Oliver, at their home at 749 North Street. The home, now called the Oliver-Leming House, is owned by Drs. Bert and Mary Ann Kellerman.

You can purchase the ornament with a stand for $30 or without a stand for $25. They are available at Bob’s Shoe Service, C.P. McGinty Jewelers, Cape Girardeau Convention & Visitors Bureau, Hutson’s Fine Furniture, Jayson Jewelers, Knaup Floral, Pastimes Antiques, Philanthropy, Shivelbine’s Music, Renaissance, Zickfield’s Jewelers and Old Town Cape.

For more information, please contact us at 573-334-8085 or visit us at 418 Broadway.

Some earlier ornaments are available

There are some of the older ornaments available. I did ornament stories in 2010 and 2011, so if you see something you like, you could contact the nice folks at Old Town Cape to see if it is still available.

(Speaking of Hutson’s display, here are photos I made of the store in 2011)

Tis the season for shameless pitches

My kids will yell at me if I don’t include two shameless pitches:

Travel progress report

Well, I’m not back home in West Palm Beach yet. I tossed and turned last night and have been dragging all day. Part of the reason is that we’re in the flatlands now and for the rest of the trip. I REALLY hate boring Interstates. The Groundhog Day effect kicks in and you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.

I shot a couple of lackluster sunset pix, but it would be a waste of electrons to post them. I’m turning in early tonight so I can make the final 433-mile push home Saturday. Traffic was heavier today, and there was a curious mix of tourists wearing shorts in the southbound rest stops .