Living Our Dream

Louisville, KY

Shepherdsville, KY - Events of Wednesday, Oct. 5 to Friday, Oct. 7, 2011

After 8 days at Caesar Creek State Park in Willmington, OH, we drove about three hours southwest to Grandma's RV Camping about 20 miles south of Louisville in Shepherdsville, KY. Grandma's has about half back-ins and half pull-throughs. Although they are a decent length, the sites (especially the pull-throughs) are quite close together. The roads are paved, as are the small patios; but the patios are a little too far toward the rear of the sites for motor homes. The sites themselves are all gravel (the gravel is fresh, clean and plentiful) with no grass. There are full hookups with 30/50-amp electric and free Wi-Fi. The utilities are also toward the rear of the site, which is not bad for 5th wheels, but we needed all 30 feet of our sewer hose for our motor home. The next photo, which was taken when the sites on either side of us were unoccupied, shows our site at Grandma's.

And below is a shot looking down the road from our site.

Grandma's is conveniently located right off I-65, and that means there is quite a bit of traffic noise. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the traffic noise almost covers up the sound of the trains. Oh yeah, and if the wind is blowing the right direction, the campground is also on the glide path for the Louisville airport.

We complained about cool weather up north, and with a general warming trend across the eastern half of the country plus moving a little farther south, the 50 to 60º highs and 40º lows have given way to highs around 80º and lows in the mid 50s. Not only that, but the sun is out a lot more than it was up north. Ahhhh, that's more like it!

We continue to be in relaxation mode, but there were a few things we wanted to see in the Louisville area. One was the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. Louisville Slugger, whose official company name is the Hillerich & Bradsby Co., is the world's largest manufacturer of baseball and softball bats. Hillerich & Bradsby also makes sports and recreational gloves and golf clubs. The most distinguishing feature of the museum is the "Big Bat," which is the world's largest bat.

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The 120-foot tall bat is hollow and is made from steel. It weighs 68,000 pounds. It would take a real power hitter to swing that one!

The museum is loaded with baseball memorabilia, and it has several displays depicting the history of the company. J. F. Hillerich opened a woodworking shop in Louisville back in 1855. The shop made bed posts, stair railings, bowling pins and butter churns. Although the story is sometimes disputed, legend has it that Hillerich's 17-year old son, Bud, took off work one afternoon in 1884 to watch Louisville's professional baseball team play. Pete Browning, who was a star player for the Louisville Eclipse, broke his bat during that game.

As the story goes, young Bud offered to make Browning a new bat at his father's wood shop, and Browning got three hits with his new bat the next day.

With Browning's success, Bud got orders for more bats from Eclipse players. The elder Hillerich didn't want anything to do with baseball bats; but word of the success of players using bats made at the Hillerich shop spread, and he eventually relented and began to embrace the new addition to his business.

The bats were originally sold under the name "Falls City Slugger" because of the location of Louisville near a waterfall on the Ohio River. Bud changed the name to Louisville Slugger when he took over the business from his father in 1894.

In 1911, Frank Bradsby joined the company. Bradsby became a full partner in 1916, and the company name was changed to Hillerich & Bradsby Co.

A factory tour is included in the $10 museum admission fee ($9 for seniors), but photos are not permitted inside the factory itself. Therefore, Margery missed getting a picture of Paul swooning at the smell of fresh sawdust when we first entered the factory. He still misses his workshop.

There are, however, a couple of displays in the museum that relate to the manufacturing process that we could photograph. The logs in the next photo show how the blanks for the bats, called billets, are taken from the logs. The log to the left shows the more modern method where a boring machine extracts the billets from an intact log. This method maximizes the number of billets that can be obtained from each log. In the method shown on the right, the log is first split into wedges, then the wedges are turned on a lathe to form the billets.

Another display in the museum shows the process that turns the billets from wedges. Those are mannequins in the photo below, not real people. The display is very realistic right down to sawdust everywhere, including on the workers themselves.

On the factory tour, we learned how bats are made from the billets. Most bats are made from ash, but some are made from maple. Maple is more brittle and prone to breaking, but some players think maple gives them an advantage.

Minor league bats and bats for the general consumer market are made on tracer lathes. The cutting head on the lathe follows a stylus that traces a metal pattern of the bat's contour. The pattern can be changed to produce different sizes and styles of bats. It used to take 20 minutes for a skilled operator to hand turn a bat. A tracer lathe can turn a bat in 30 seconds.

Bats for professional players are made on CNC (computer numeric control) lathes because these lathes can programmed to produce an almost infinite combination of size, shape and weight characteristics. Of course, these characteristics must be kept within the limits of the rules. Professional players take thousands of swings a year, and they can feel subtle differences in their bat. Over their careers, they develop preferences for certain characteristics in a bat. The machine can remember each program, so changing from one style of bat to another is as easy as pushing a couple of buttons. A CNC lathe takes about 45 seconds to turn a bat.

After the bats are turned, they are sanded and branded. Some bats are flame tempered and some bats are dipped in color. The bats are then finished by dipping them in clear lacquer.

After we finished the factory tour, we had time to look around the museum a little more. Although Paul was somewhat of a baseball fan when he was a kid, neither one of us follows baseball today. If you are an avid fan, however, there are lots of things of interest. For example, you can don white gloves or batting gloves and handle bats used in actual games by well-known players such as Mickey Mantle and Johnny Bench.

Other historical bats like the one shown below belonging to Babe Ruth are much more rare and are housed under protective covers.

Babe Ruth, who played from 1914 to 1935, was the most prolific hitter of his time. In fact, his 1927 record of 60 home runs in one season stood for 34 years, and wasn't broken until 1961 by Roger Maris. He is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture. There are several mannequins of famous players including one of Babe Ruth in a classic pose watching the ball go over the outfield wall.

There were numerous other bats on display including one belonging to Joltin' Joe DiMagio shown below partly out of the photo to the right. Paul was more interested in one of the bats in the drawer (the one just visible over the top of the drawer front) that belonged to Roberto Clemente.

Roberto Clemente, who was born in Puerto Rico, played his entire 18-season major league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1972. Clemente is considered by some to be the greatest right fielder to have ever played the game. His career was cut short in 1972 when he was tragically killed in a plane crash while helping in a relief effort to aid earthquake victims in Nicaragua. As we said, Paul did follow baseball back when he was a kid, and he was fortunate enough to have seen Roberto Clemente play in person several times.

Another famous Pittsburgh Pirate was Honus Wagner. Wagner played from 1897 to 1917, mostly for the Pirates. He is considered to be one of the best short stops ever, and he was an excellent all-round player. The photo below shows his jersey and one of his bats. Honus Wagner was the first baseball player to endorse the Louisville Slugger bat.

The museum also has a 20-minute movie about baseball. Since our parking meter was about to run out and since we don't follow baseball, we decided to skip the movie.

Everyone on the factory tour receives a miniature souvenir bat. Paul tried his out next to the "Big Bat" on our way out of the museum.

We found more to do and see in the Louisville area, so stay tuned.

More Greenfield Village

Milford, MI - Events of Friday, August 26, 2011

As we explained in our last post, Greengield Village is divided into several areas with different themes. After seeing the Working Farms and the Railroad Junction areas of Greenfield Village, we headed to Main Street where shops and businesses of yesteryear are located.

Some of the buildings in Greenfield Village are of great historical significance, and some are fairly ordinary and are being preserved simply because they help illustrate a past way of life. The Cohen Millinery Shop, which was built in Detroit around 1880, is an example of the latter. Sara Cohen, a young widow, started the business to support herself and her children after her husband died. She made new hats and redecorated old ones to keep women of the neighborhood in the latest styles. Hat making was also a popular hobby back in the 1950s, and both our mothers made hats. That's what sparked our interest in the millinery shop. Of course, Margery HAD to try on some of the fashions. 

Next to the millinery is the Heinz House. The house was built in 1884 in Sharpsburg, PA in our old hometown of Pittsburgh. Henry J. Heinz worked in the basement of the home making and bottling horseradish. Horseradish, not ketchup, was the first product of the H. J. Heinz Co.

The Wright Cycle shop, which has great historical significance, was relocated from Dayton, OH and sits right across the street from the Heinz House. The Wright Brothers used money they earned selling and repairing bicycles in the front of the shop to finance the experimental flying machines they built in the workshop in the back.

As a young lawyer, Abraham Lincoln tried cases in the Logan County Courthouse between 1840 and 1847. The courthouse was originally located in what is now Lincoln, IL.

The J. R. Jones General Store was built in 1857 in Waterford, MI. It represents countless general stores in small-town America that sold everything from clothing to hardware to groceries.

The next area we visited was called Edison at Work, the main feature of which is Thomas Edison's Menlo Park, NJ complex that includes his machine shop, several smaller buildings and his main laboratory, which is shown below. Notice all the copper wires running to the lab from the upper right corner of the picture.

Thomas Edison was one of the most prolific inventors of all time with over 1,000 U. S. patents, and many in Europe as well, in his name. Most of those inventions came from the Menlo Park lab.

On the first floor of the lab, an interpreter demonstrated the use of an actual, 130-year old Edison phonograph. By shouting into a cone, the operator's voice vibrates a needle to make indentations in tin foil wrapped around a cylinder (left). For the playback, the indentations vibrate a needle attached to a diaphragm, and a larger megaphone amplifies the sound (right). This type of phonograph was first made in 1878. The phonographs that recorded onto wax cylinders came a little later.

The second floor of the lab has many of the thousands of bottles and jars originally located in Edison's lab.

It was on the second floor of the lab where Edison developed the first practical light bulb. Edison didn't invent the light bulb - there were over 20 people who had created some sort of electric light bulb before him. However, through perseverance, Edison found the proper combination of filament material (he used carbonized bamboo), vacuum and electrical resistance that enabled the light bulb to work for extended periods outside the laboratory. There are numerous reproductions of early Edison light bulbs throughout the Edison at Work area.

 

The next area of Greenfield Village is called Porches and Parlors, which is a collection of homes. Our first stop was at Cotswold Cottage, which was a stone mason's cottage originally built in England in the early 1600s.

Henry Ford's wife admired English cottage gardens, and the one at Cotswold Cottage is beautiful.

Margery had read about tea at Cotswold Cottage. Margery loves to "do tea," but Paul wasn't too enthusiastic initially. However, the cottage is located at just about the farthest point in Greenfield Village from the entrance; and by the time we got there, we were hot, tired, hungry and thirsty. Paul agreed it would be nice to sit a while and have something to eat and drink.

Cotswold Cottage only serves one thing - afternoon tea consisting of tea sandwiches, cookies and scones for $12 a person. Fortunately, you can substitute iced tea for the traditional hot tea. The photo below shows our assortment of tea sandwiches (bottom), cookies and scones (top).

When our food arrived, the conversation went something like this:

Paul - Doesn't look like much food for $24.

Margery - It's about the experience.

Paul - For $24, we should be able to experience being full.

Seriously, the food was good, if not plentiful. We also had a nice place to sit in the shade surrounded by flowers to rest our feet for a while. The iced tea really hit the spot, too.

After we finished our tea, we headed back through the Porches and Parlors area by a different street. There are a total of about 15 to 20 old homes, some relatively ordinary and some belonging to well-known people like Robert Frost (poet), William McGuffey (writer of McGuffey Readers), and Stephen Foster (song writer). Stephen Foster's house from Lawrenceville, PA near Pittsburgh is shown below.

  

There is a reproduction of the log cabin belonging to George Washington Carver. Carver was born a slave and became a well-known scientist who experimented with peanuts and sweet potatoes.

The last area of Greenfield Village we visited was back near the entrance and is called Henry Ford's Model T. Henry Ford was born in 1863 in the farmhouse in the photo below in Greenfield Township near Detroit.

Ford's father always expected him to take over the family farm, but Ford despised farm work. He was interested in things mechanical, and he left home when he was 16 to become an apprentice machinist in Detroit.

In 1891, Ford became an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. We showed a photo of a replica of the generating station where he worked in our last post. While he was employed at Edison Illuminating, Ford experimented with gasoline engines on his own time. In 1896, Ford completed his first motor car he called the Quadricycle because it used 4 bicycle tires.

After Ford finished building the Quadricycle in the small workshop behind his home, he realized it was too big to fit out the door. He solved that problem by picking up an axe and enlarging the door opening.

In the same year Ford built his first Quadricycle, he attended a meeting where he met Thomas Edison. Edison approved of Ford's automobile experimentation and encouraged him to keep at it.

In 1899, Ford resigned from Edison Illuminating and formed the Detroit Automobile Company. The company failed and was dissolved less than two years later.

Later in 1901, Ford joined with a number of investors and formed the Henry Ford Company with Ford as the chief engineer. Ford left the company in 1902; and with Ford gone, the company was renamed the Cadillac Automobile Company. Cadillac was bought up by the General Motors conglomerate in 1909.

Ford formed his third and final automobile company in 1902. This company was reincorporated in 1903 as the Ford Motor Company. The photo below shows a one-quarter size replica of Ford's first factory located in Detroit.

  

Inside the factory, Paul posed for a photo with the 15 millionth Ford that was on display. This Model T rolled off the assembly line on May 26, 1927.

  

The Ford Motor Company was born in 1903, but the Model T didn't come along until 1908. Up until the Model T, automobiles were all hand built and were very expensive. Henry Ford came up with a design that was simple, that had interchangeable parts, and that could be mass produced making it affordable to the middle class. With that, he changed automobiles and manufacturing for all products forever.

The Model T was produced until 1927 at which time it was replaced by the Model A. Ford called the replacement the Model A rather than the Model U because they said it was such a radical departure from the Model T that they wanted to start all over with the name.

Greenfield Village is extremely well done, and we loved our visit. There are interpreters in almost every building who present a history of the building and answer questions. The village is also big. We spent almost 5 hours there, and we still skimmed through some of the buildings and exhibits.

We had a few miscellaneous things planned for the weekend, then we planned to hit the ground running on Monday with more sightseeing. Stay tuned.

Duluth, MN Part II: SS William A. Irvin

Superior, MN - Events of Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Right near the dock for the Vista Fleet harbor cruise is the SS William A. Irvin. The Irvin is a bulk-cargo ship that was the flagship for US Steel's Great Lakes Fleet from when she was launched in 1938 up until 1975. The Irvin was used as a general-purpose freighter from 1975 up until the time she was retired in 1978. She was retired because she was too small. The Irvin was bought by the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center in the 1980s and turned into a floating museum.

The boat was named for William A. Irvin, who was the fourth president of US Steel. US Steel also has a plant in Dravosburg near our old hometown of Pittsburgh named after William Irvin.

Although Great Lakes freighters are large enough to be classified as ships, they are nevertheless usually called boats. The Irvin is 610 feet long and 60 feet wide with a cargo capacity of 13,600 tons. Newer freighters are around 1,000 feet long.

The tour starts up on deck. The pilot house structure, which also houses the crew quarters, is in at the bow for better forward vision.

The hatch covers, which weigh 5½ tons each, are removed by means of a crane (the horizontal, white beam with the ship's name in the photo below) that runs on rails on the deck on either side of the hatches.

At the stern, we got to see some of the equipment stored there like a spare blade for the propeller.

Also at the stern below deck is the engine room. The Irvin was powered by two steam turbine engines that produce a total of 2,000 horsepower. The engine speed of 5,600 rpm was reduced by gears to turn the screw at 90 rpm. The boat burned about 1.2 tons of coal an hour (there was an automatic stoker so the coal did not have to be shoveled by hand) and had a speed when loaded of about 11 miles per hour. The steam turbines are at the bottom of the photo. Those are generators to supply the ship's electrical power on the deck above.

The handrails in the photo above are brass because the Irvin was the flagship of the US Steel fleet and was frequently shown off to visitors. Most freighters have handrails that are all painted.

Our tour guide showed us how the captain would send signals to the engine room to tell the crew what engine speed he wanted by means of the engine order telegraph, which is called the Chadburn after the inventor, Charles H. Chadburn. If the captain wanted to change engine speed, he would move the handle to set the desired speed on the Chadburn in the pilot house. An indicator (black pointer on the inner dial) would move to that position in the engine room, and a bell would ring. The crew would set their handle to match the position of the indicator to acknowledge they had received the order, then they would adjust valves and controls accordingly. Starting in the 1950s, direct throttle control began replacing the Chadburn.

From the engine room, we went to the forward cabin structure to see the living quarters. The photo below shows one of the crew quarters. Officers' quarters were similar, but with only one or two beds in each room.

The next photo shows the officers' dining room. Although there were only a few officers on board, there were extra chairs in the dining room because they would sometimes use the room for meetings.

Contrast the officers dining room above with a wooden table and chairs with backs and arms to the one for the crew with a Formica table and stools.

The kitchen was an important place. The crew worked hard, and they were well-fed. In addition to regular meals, there would be left-overs and snacks available on the table in the foreground 24 hours a day.

The calm water when we took our harbor cruise belies the potential for violent storms on the Great Lakes. Superior, being the largest, deepest and northernmost of the Great Lakes, has particularly rough water during storms. The stove had an adjustable, metal grid to keep pots and pans from sliding off. The handle on the frying pan was even bent to fit within the grid.

As flagship of the US Steel fleet, the William A. Irvin had an extra deck in the forward cabin structure to house a guest lounge and 4 guest rooms. Guests aboard the Arthur M. Anderson were very important customers and members of upper management. William Irvin and his family were the first guests aboard the boat that was named after him. The guest rooms even have fireplaces.

There was also a guest dining room complete with fine china where guests could order anything they wanted from the kitchen.

From the forward cabins, we went to the cargo hold. It was dark down there with only the glare of a few lights and with all the hatch covers in place. It was difficult to get a photo of the cargo hold itself, but we were able to get shots of a couple of old photos showing loading...

...and unloading. The tractor in the photo below would be loaded into the hold by a crane and used to scrape the cargo, in this case iron ore, into piles that were easier for the unloader (center) to pick up.

Also in the cargo hold in an area with better lighting were flags from the Edmund Fitzgerald. These flags were replaced by new flags sometime before the Fitzgerald went down in 1975.

We really enjoyed the tour of the SS William A. Irvin. From there, we had yet more to see while we were in downtown Duluth. Stay tuned.

Minneapolis - St. Paul, MN Part II: James J. Hill House

Woodbury, MN - Events of Thursday, June 30, 2011

Our next day of sightseeing was a busy one. We had three things we wanted to do in downtown St. Paul, and we were originally going to take a couple of days to relax before heading into the city. That would have made it a Saturday, which we thought would mean less traffic and easier parking.

However, like so many states, Minnesota is undergoing a budget crisis and was facing a state government shutdown on Friday, July 1. Therefore, since the three things we wanted to do in downtown St. Paul were scheduled to be shut down by the budget impasse, we decided to squeeze in all three things in the city on Thursday before the shutdown.

Our first stop was the James J. Hill House. James J. Hill was a railroad magnate who built a red sandstone mansion on fashionable Summit Avenue. The mansion was completed in 1891.

The James J. Hill house is operated by the Minnesota Historical Society which gets more than half its funding from the state. Their funding was scheduled to be cut off when the state shut down on July 1, so they were being forced to shut down along with state facilities.

Reservations for tours are suggested, so we called the day before and scheduled a tour for 10:30 AM. Tours are given on the hour and on the half hour. We arrived a little early and found plenty of free, on-street parking. We had a some time to kill before our tour, so we walked down to the corner to see the Cathedral of St. Paul.

This is the fourth building in St. Paul, MN to bear the name Cathedral of St. Paul. The first was a small log chapel built on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in 1841. The chapel was later officially designated a cathedral. A second cathedral was built in downtown St. Paul in 1851, and a third cathedral was completed in 1858. Construction of the existing cathedral was begun in 1906, and the first mass was celebrated in 1915. Work on interior projects continued over the ensuing years until the final stained glass windows were installed in 1941.

The structure is truly immense and very impressive.

We have no idea how many people the cathedral seats, but it is easily the largest sanctuary we have ever seen.

The next photo is a closer view of the chancel.

After spending 10 or 15 minutes at the cathedral, we headed back up the street to the James J. Hill House.

James Hill, who was born in Canada, moved permanently to St. Paul in the 1850s. He worked in the wholesale grocery business where he learned about freight and transportation. He eventually started working for himself, and in the 1860s and 1870s, he was very successful in the steamboat and coal businesses. He also became a member of the board of directors at several major banks. Hill began buying up bankrupt businesses, building them up again, and selling them for a profit.

After the Panic of 1873, Hill and several partners bought a railroad and were able to not only rescue it, but they were able to greatly expand it. In order to prevent government crackdown because of excessive profits, Hill poured a lot of the profits back into the railroad. Not only did Hill expand the railroad, he sold land along the route to developers and helped bring in business and industry. James Hill became known as the "Empire Builder." By 1892, Hill's Great Northern Railway reached all the way to Seattle, WA.

James Hill married his wife Mary in 1867. They had 10 children, one of whom died in infancy. In 1882, the Hills bought two lots on Summit Avenue, which has a commanding view of downtown St. Paul and the Mississippi River. They razed the two houses on the lots they bought, and began construction of their own mansion.

The house is designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Henry Hobson Richardson was a well-known American architect of the 1800s who created a design style that is typified by heavy cut-stone blocks, arches and turrets. Richardson designed, among other things, the Allegheny County Courthouse in our old hometown of Pittsburgh.

Our tour started in the music room. Like many grand homes built in the Victorian period, many of the rooms were decorated with different themes. The music room is decorated in the style of Louis XIV, which is characterized by intricate decoration that is typically painted white of cream-color like the fireplace in the photo below.

The next photo shows the fine carving of another fireplace. The fireplaces in the photo above and below are hand-carved, painted mahogany.

James Hill built his house about the time electric lighting was being introduced. Because electric lighting was so new, it wasn't always reliable. In fact, since it was mostly businesses that were using electricity in the beginning, and since most businesses were closed on Sunday, the generators would be shut down for maintenance. The lighting fixtures in the Hill House are set up to run on gas and electricity. The two candles in the sconce without light bulbs are piped for gas.

The grand staircase is shown in the photo below. The wood is hand-carved, quarter-sawn oak.

The Hill House is very sparsely furnished. James Hill died in 1916, and Mary died in 1921. Four of the daughters purchased the house from the estate and donated it the Archdiocese of St. Paul who used the house for offices, residences and classrooms for a teacher's college. The Archdiocese had no need for the furniture, so it was sold. Only a few original pieces have been returned to the house.

The church used the house for 53 years. Fortunately, they only did some minor remodeling and made no major or irreversible changes. After building new, spacious offices next door, the archdiocese sold the house to the Minnesota Historical Society in 1978.

Since there isn't much furniture, most of our photos were of fireplaces and woodwork. Big, empty rooms just aren't that interesting. Speaking of fireplaces, the one in the formal dining room was especially beautiful. The fireplace and diningroom chairs were carved with the same intricate design. They were all carved out of mahogany.

The Celtic-style carving is very finely done.

The tour goes to the second floor where James', Mary's, and the girls' bedrooms were, and to the third floor where the boys' bedrooms and the servants' quarters were located. There isn't much to see there because, as we said, there isn't much furniture in the house in the first place, and most of the fancy woodwork and fireplaces are on the first floor where they would have been seen by guests.

The tour also goes to the basement. This was where the kitchen and other work areas of the house were located. The photo below shows part of the laundry room. Laundry would have been done by hand. Notice the washboard and the hand wringer near the center. The tub on the left was for soaking, next was washing, the third was for rinsing, and the last was for bluing. Many people today may not know what bluing is. It is a blue dye (usually ultramarine or Prussian blue) that is added to the final rinse, especially for whites, to help counteract greying or yellowing of the fabric.

The furnace room is also in the basement. During the winter, a workman called the stoker would have to hand shovel tons of coal into the burners. The strength and stamina the stoker built up from shoveling all that coal earned him another job - he also got to pump the huge bellows for the organ located upstairs in the library.

We finished up our tour of the James Hill House a little after noon. We still had two more things we wanted to do in downtown St. Paul, so stay tuned.

Kansas City Part I: Steamboat Arabia

Lee's Summit, MO

On the day after we arrived in Lee's Summit, we made the 20 minute drive into Kansas City, MO to visit the Steamboat Arabia Museum. The museum, which is located in the City Market north of the downtown Kansas City business district, was opened in 1991 to showcase artifacts from the steamboat Arabia that sank in the Missouri River a little north of Kansas City in 1856.

The museum, which is still a family operation, is very well done. Everyone working at the museum is very friendly and pleasant. Our tour started out with our guide giving us a history of the side-wheeler steamboat Arabia. She was built in Brownsville, PA near our old hometown of Pittsburgh in 1853. She sailed on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers for a time before heading to the Missouri River in 1855.

In September of 1856, the Arabia hit a snag (a snag is a submerged tree) just north of Kansas City while carrying a 200-ton cargo and 130 passengers. The boat sank within 5 minutes. The cargo was lost, but fortunately, all 130 passengers survived. The water wasn't very deep, so the upper part of the boat was above water. The passengers were able to scramble to the the roof to await rescue.

The Arabia's hull quickly sank into the muddy river bottom; and within a short time, the river currents swept away the upper decks. Over the years, the river changed course leaving the forgotten boat under 40 or 50 feet of silt and topsoil from seasonal flooding.

There were a couple of unsuccessful attempts to salvage cargo from the Arabia in the late 1800s, but they found only boots, hats and lumber which they considered to be of no value so the salvage attempts were abandoned.

Our tour continued with photos and a description of the recovery. Bob Hawley was fascinated with the prospect of treasure hunting, so he researched old maps, courthouse records, newspaper accounts, and almost any information he could find on the sinking of the Arabia. Hawley knew the boat was located on a farm; and in 1988, he got permission from the farm owner to search the site to locate the boat. He was also given permission to excavate the site provided he finished before spring planting.

Metal detectors were used to locate the boilers, and test holes were drilled to determine the outline of the hull. Bob Hawley, his two sons, and two friends formed a company called River Salvage, Inc., and they brought in heavy equipment and pumps to begin excavation. The photo below shows an aerial shot of the site of the wreck (the oval near the center with the red lettering under it) during excavation. Notice how far it is from the river, and notice the flow lines on the ground below the site where the river once flowed.

The next photo shows the hull during excavation. Twenty pumps removed 20,000 gallons of water a minute. If you look closely, you can see the three boilers at the back of the site near the center of the photo.

After we saw an excellent video about the Arabia and the excavation, we were personally greeted by a daughter of one of the original family members of River Salvage, Inc. She said she was just two years old during the excavation, but she remembers how she grew up with the artifacts and she often worked on cleaning various items that were going to be restored so they could be displayed in the museum. She had an obvious love for the artifacts and the history.

The Arabia was heading to the frontier town of Council Bluffs, IA. Its cargo consisted of a wide variety of goods from fine china to clothing to tools and hardware. The men of River Salvage, Inc., originally planned to sell whatever they could salvage from the Arabia, but when they saw how well preserved everything was and how the Arabia was such a precious time capsule from 1856, they decided to keep the collection intact and open a museum to share what they found with the public.

Of course, all the artifacts had to be cleaned and restored, and that is still going on today with about 1/3 left to be done. They do their serious restoration behind the scenes, but the museum has a Presentation Lab where visitors can watch a technician working on various restoration projects and ask questions.

Because most shipwreck salvage occurs in the ocean, there is a wealth of information available on the restoration of artifacts recovered from salt water, but very little information on fresh water. River Salvage, Inc. got a little information from the Canadian government, but they essentially had to develop their own restoration methods.

The display case in the photo below was at the Presentation Lab and shows a mixture of restored and unrestored items. To the left of the bottom shelf are what were kegs of nails. The nails have been fused into solid lumps by rust. Beside the nails are door hinges, white porcelain door knobs and brown porcelain door knobs. To the left in the front of the top shelf are two wooden rolling pins.

Being buried deep in mud helped preserve many of the artifacts because the mud kept oxygen away. Stabilizing wood that has been submerged can be tricky, however, because wood that has spent long periods in water or wet mud has had the softer parts of the cell structure dissolved over the years. The cell walls remain, but the cells are filled mostly with water. When allowed to dry, the cells will collapse.

The rolling pins in the above photo are a good example of what happens if long-submerged wood is allowed to dry out on their own. The rolling pins were identical when they were removed from the mud. The one on the left was allowed to air dry over a period of about three days, and it has collapsed into a flat blob. The one on the right was soaked in a chemical called polyethylene glycol (PEG). The PEG binds with the water in the wood cells and prevents the water from evaporating rapidly. Slowing the evaporation of the water in the cell allows the water to eventually be replaced by PEG, and the wood will retain its original shape.

Because of time constraints and difficulty retrieving large pieces of the hull, only a section of the stern of the Arabia was recovered. The photo below is looking at the inside of the stern.

In order to prevent the wood from disintegrating, a grid of perforated pipes was built over the area where the stern was displayed to bathe the wood in PEG every night. Shower curtains surrounded the area. The water in the wood cells has now been completely displaced by PEG, so the nightly showers are no longer required.

Also recovered from the excavation site was the tree snag that caused the Arabia to sink.

The next photo shows the Arabia's boilers (rear) and the pump that was used to pump water into the boilers to make steam.

As we said previously, all the passengers escaped by climbing onto the roof of the Arabia after she sank. The only casualty was a mule that was left tied up near the bow of the ship forgotten by its owner as he scrambled to save his own life. The mule's skeleton is displayed just about the way it was found complete with saddle.

Near the exit of the museum was a display of full-size reproductions of one of the Arabia's 28-foot tall paddle wheels (the originals were badly damaged as they churned themselves into the mud as the boat sank) with a town on the river bank in the background.

The history of the Arabia, how she sank and how she was rediscovered was fascinating. Even more interseting is the cargo, which we tell you about in our next post.

Ringling Museum Part II: Circus Museum and Art Museum

Sarasota, FL

After we visited the Ringling mansion, we headed to the circus museum, which fills two buildings. One building houses the world's largest miniature circus. It was built over a period of 50 years by master carver Howard Tibbals. The model, which is built to a scale of ¾ inch equals one foot, covers 3,800 square feet and has 8 main tents, 152 wagons, 1,500 circus workers and performers, more than 800 animals, and a 57-car train. The next photo is a view inside the main tent. There is a wild animal act going on in the center ring.

The side show traveled with the circus, but it wasn't part of the main circus. It was called a side show because it was off to the side of the main activities. There was a separate admission charge for the side show, which featured oddities of nature that the crowd would gawk at as they walked through.

The second circus museum building houses a collection of costumes, wagons and circus equipment. Showy costumes like the one below are known as "spec" (as in spectacular) costumes. These were worn for the spectacular, which was a parade of animals and performers around the arena at the beginning of the show.

In the early days, the circus traveled by wagon. By the late 1800s, the Ringling Brothers Circus began to travel by railroad. They kept many of the same wagons, but they loaded them onto flat cars. When the circus train pulled into town, the wagons, performers and animals would parade through town to the place where the tents had been erected. Many of the parade wagons were elaborately decorated like the band wagon in the photo below. This is the oldest and largest wagon at the museum. It dates from the late 1800s. The band sat atop the wagon and would have led the parade through town.

Since the circus traveled by train, John and Mable Ringling bought a 79-foot Pullman car in 1905 to use to travel with the circus and to travel back and forth between New York and Sarasota. The custom-built car was named the Wisconsin after the Ringling's home state.

The next photo shows the cannon truck used by Bruno Zacchini. He was a human cannonball who was "fired" into a catch net. The first cannons used to "fire" humans were powered by springs. Later versions used compressed air. Incidentally, the world record for human cannonball flight of 185 feet 10 inches was set by David "Cannonball" Smith, Jr. in 1998 in Kennywood Amusement Park in West Mifflin, PA, right near our old hometown of Pittsburgh.

There is a group of woodcarvers who meet at the museum on certain days to work on circus-related carving projects. The photo below shows their latest project, which is a camel. It is mounted on a stand that enables the carvers to rotate the piece so they can work on the bottom. In addition to the large animals, they work on some smaller projects that can be seen sitting around the room. There are also some pieces of carved scrollwork that would have been used on some of the wagons.

The next photo shows Paul with one of their completed works.

Next, we went to the John and Mable Ringling Art Museum. In 1925, the Ringlings hired an architect to design a museum to house their personal collection of paintings and sculptures by the Old Masters. The Ringlings had assembled a sizable collection from New York auctions and from their frequent trips to Europe.

The museum is built in a U-shape around an outdoor courtyard that contains bronze casts of some of Europe's most famous statues...

...including Michelangelo's David.

John Ringling suffered from poor health in his later years, and he died in New York in 1936 from pneumonia. Ringling left the circus to his nephew, John Ringling North, son of his only sister, Ida.  He left Cà d'Zan, the art museum, his art collection, and a sizable cash endowment to the State of Florida. There were struggles with creditors in the early years after Ringling's death, but the state finally won out.

Over the years, the estate and the endowment were not well managed. By the 1990s, there was a lot of decay from deferred maintenance, and security systems were hopelessly out of date. The museum and mansion had reached a critical state. In 2000, while the state maintained ownership, they transferred governance of the Ringling property to Florida State University. Under FSU management, the property has undergone a rebirth. In 2007, through a combination of state and private funds, all existing buildings were restored and several new buildings were constructed.

Visiting the Ringling estate was enjoyable, but there sure was a lot of walking. We spent the better part of the next two days just hanging around the motor home relaxing.

From Sarasota, we headed to Blueberry Hill in Bushnell, FL, where we will spend the next several months.

Mobile, AL Part II: Day Trip to Pensacola, FL

Pensacola, FL is only about 35 miles from where we were staying in Summerdale, AL, near Mobile. We decided to take a day trip over to the Florida Panhandle to do a little sightseeing.

Margery's online research turned up a lot of things to see in the Pensacola area, but since we were only going there for the day, we decided to concentrate on the Gulf Islands National Seashore because we thought it would provide a good combination of history and nature. Gulf Islands National Seashore runs along the barrier islands off the coasts of western Florida and Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico. For some reason, the islands off the Alabama coast were not included.

Gulf Islands National Seashore has several visitor centers, and we started at the visitor center at the Naval Live Oaks Reservation located on the spit of land along the outer edge of Pensacola Bay. Prior to the start of the use of steel for ships in the 1860s, wood from live oak trees was very desirable for shipbuilding (especially for warships) because of its great strength. The area gets its name from the fact that the live oaks that grew in this area were once set aside for shipbuilding. More about that later.

Much of the strength of live oak comes from the high density of the wood, which is up to 75 pounds per cubic foot - over 30% more than white oak and 70% more than yellow pine. The visitor center has a display with one cubic foot samples of live oak, white oak, and yellow pine that you can lift with pulleys to feel the difference in weight.

The Pensacola area was first explored in 1513 by Ponce de Leon, and a settlement was established there in 1559 making it the first European settlement in the continental United States. However, the settlement was never able to fully recover from a devastating hurricane that hit later in 1559, and the settlement was abandoned in 1561. Therefore, St. Augustine, FL, which was established in 1565, retains the title as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States. Pensacola lay abandoned for 135 years before it was finally reestablished by the Spanish in 1696.

Pensacola is on the dividing line between what is considered to be French Louisiana and Spanish Florida. Pensacola was occupied by the French in 1719, but the Spanish returned in 1722 after the French left Pensacola following another devastating hurricane. After the French and Indian War, Pensacola became part of the British Colonies in 1763. During the Revolutionary War, Spain reoccupied Pensacola and other parts of Florida, but eventually turned the occupied areas over to the United States in 1818.

The United States established a permanent naval yard in Pensacola in 1824. In 1828, the government established the Naval Live Oak Reservation near the naval yard. It was established not only to protect the live oaks growing there, but also to experiment with the cultivation of live oaks. Today, it is part of the national seashore.

There are several hiking trails in the vicinity of the visitor center, and we decided to take the nature trail. The nature trail winds through a forest made up primarily of magnolias, slash pines, and live oaks. The next photo shows a live oak along the trail.

Many of the large live oaks along the nature trail have plaques in front of them with a photo of that particular tree. The photo has an overlay showing how various shapes would have been cut from the tree to be used for shipbuilding. For example, a rib for the side of a ship's hull might have been cut from a gently curving branch, and an angled support bracket might have been cut from the crotch where a branch met the trunk. The natural direction of the grain helped make the pieces very strong.

One of the most noticeable plants along the trail were the beautyberry shrubs. The magenta berries almost seemed to glow in the bright sun.

We stopped for a photo at the deck at the far end of the nature trail.

We took the trail back to the visitor center that ran closer to Pensacola Bay where we watched a great blue heron hunt for food in the shallows. He would stretch his neck up seemingly to get a better look down into the water ahead of him.

When he would apparently see something, he would crouch down and stalk forward. We watched for several minutes while he repeated those actions, but we never saw him catch anything.

 

From the Naval Live Oak Reserve, we took the bridge over Santa Rosa Sound to Santa Rosa Island. There is another area of the national seashore at the western tip of the island. On the way we drove through Pensacola Beach with its high-rise hotels and condos and its colorful beach houses.

Once we got to the national seashore, we got to enjoy views of Santa Rosa Sound on one side and the beach along the Gulf of Mexico (shown below) on the other. This area has some of the whitest sand in the world.

 

There was considerable damage to the road and the infrastructure in this area of the national seashore due to the severity of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. The road to the western tip of the island had been closed, and it only reopened on March 22, 2009.

At the tip of Santa Rosa Island is Fort Pickens. Following the War of 1812, the United States decided it needed to fortify its major ports. Fort Pickens was completed in 1834 and was one of three forts guarding the entrance to Pensacola Bay. Fort McRee was located on the barrier island opposite Fort Pickens (Perdido Key), and Fort Barrancas was located on the mainland right inside the entrance to the bay.

About 21.5 million bricks were used to construct the walls of 5-sided Fort Pickens. Strength to support the weight of the walls and heavy cannons was achieved by the use of arches. The photo below shows some of the cannon ports along the outer wall. You can see how the walls are a series of arches within arches.

 

Even though Fort Pickens was deep in the South, it was occupied by Union forces throughout the Civil War. The 15-inch Rodman cannon in the photo below was installed atop the northwestern wall of the fort shortly after the Civil War. The 15-inch Rodman cannon was one of the largest smooth-bore cannons ever used by the U. S. Army (there also was a 20-inch version), and it required a team of 10 men to fire.

The Rodman cannon was developed by a career Army officer by the name of Thomas Rodman. Rodman experimented with new casting methods to overcome previous size limitations of cast iron cannons. Rodman worked with the Fort Pitt Foundry located in our old home town of Pittsburgh to develop the new, larger cannons. Fort Pitt Foundry produced many Rodman cannons during and after the Civil War.

Some cannons during the Civil War were rifled, but most were smooth bore. In the 1870s, rifled cannons became more commonplace making brick forts like Fort Pickens obsolete. The rifled cannons were much more accurate and they could repeatedly hit the same spot on the wall of a fort. Brick construction was not strong enough to withstand repeated hits, so a reinforced concrete battery was built diagonally across the parade ground of Fort Pickins facing the Gulf of Mexico in 1898 as a response to possible threats from the Spanish during the Spanish-American War.

Several other gun batteries were constructed at the end of Santa Rosa Island in the early 1900s. Instead of concentrating them within the walls of the fort, the new batteries were spread out over a wide area. Since naval gunfire had become much more accurate and more powerful, the new system relied on disbursement and concealment for protection.

An interesting feature of Fort Pickens is the gap in the walls at the northwestern corner. This gap was caused when a fire in 1899 reached a powder magazine containing 8,000 pounds of black powder. The explosion showered debris 1½ miles, some of it reaching Fort Barrancas on the mainland across the entrance to the bay.

The famous Apache Indian chief Geronimo, along with several of his warriors, were held prisoner at Fort Pickens from 1886 to 1887. Their families were held at Castillo de San Marcos (renamed Fort Marion by the Americans in 1821) that we visited in St. Augustine, FL in 2007. To read about our 2007 visit to Castillo de San Marcos, click here.

Fort Pickens remained in use through WWII until 1947.

When we left the fort and Santa Rosa Island, we took the long way back to the motor home and followed a route along the Gulf. We wanted to stop for an early dinner at Mikee's Seafood restaurant in Gulf Shores, AL. Mikee's is part of the local chain of Shrimp Basket restaurants that we stopped at in Foley earlier in our stay. Unlike the other Shrimp Basket restaurants, Mikee's has a unique name and maintains a slightly different menu.

Margery had all-you-can-eat fried clams (not available at the other Shrimp Basket restaurants) and Paul had all-you can-eat fried mullet. We both had red potatoes and marinated cabbage (similar to German-style sweet/sour cole slaw). Paul's meal also included corn fritters served in their own cast iron skillet. Dinners at Mikee's run $1 to $2 more than at its sister Shrimp Basket restaurants, but the menu is a little more extensive, and the food is the same high quality.

After dinner, we headed back to the motor home. We enjoyed our time relaxing at Rainbow Plantation so much we extended our stay by a few days. We went back to the Shrimp Basket in Foley for all-you-can-eat shrimp with new friends from the park. It was so good the first time we just had to have more.

In our next post we'll tell where we headed after we left Mobile.

Grand Canyon Part II: Hermit's Rest

After our hike down Bright Angel Trail, we boarded the shuttle to Hermit's rest. Along the way, you can get off at any of the numerous stops to explore the overlooks, and then catch another passing shuttle (shuttles run every 10 to 15 minutes) to continue your journey.

The road along the rim to the west of Grand Canyon Village is closed to private vehicles, and only commercial tour buses or the free park shuttle bus are allowed. Near Grand Canyon Village you can board a free park shuttle bus going along the rim to the west.

When we visited the Grand Canyon with Lora and J. Michael two years ago, we took a short, narrated bus tour along this rim road. The bus tour was available as an option when we bought our train tickets. However, the bus tour didn't go all the way to Hermit's rest, and it only stopped at a few overlooks. Since we were staying longer on this visit, we wanted to be sure to see Hermit's Rest. We also chose to get off the shuttle at most of the stops along the way.

In the photo below, Paul is using the binoculars at one of the stops to look for the Grand Canyon Lodge over on the North Rim, which is about 10 miles away. If you know where to look, you can just barely make it out. We learned where it was located on the bus tour we took during our visit in 2007.

The next photos show some of the beautiful views from the overlooks.





 

Margery usually looks away if Paul gets close to the edge, but she somehow managed to take the next picture even though Paul was only a few feet from the drop off.

Powell Point is one of the overlooks along the road to Hermit's Rest. Here, you can look down over the edge (there's a railing, so you can safely lean over far enough) and see the remnants of the Orphan Mine. In 1893, a prospector found copper and opened the mine. Difficulty getting the ore up to the rim forced the mine to close after a short time. In 1951, uranium was discovered at the site, and the Orphan Mine became America's richest source of uranium - even though the mine was within the national park. By 1969, the high-grade ore was mined out and operations ceased. The Park Service gained control of the mine in 1988. The photo below shows a shed (left) and the rusty remnants of the tower (just below center to the right) for the tramway used to bring ore to the surface.

 

The photo below is yet another beautiful view from one of the overlooks on the way to Hermit's Rest. You can see a short stretch of the Colorado River near the center of the photo.

 

At the end of the shuttle route is Hermit's Rest. Designed by architect Mary Colter and built in 1914 as a rest stop for tourists in coaches operated by the Fred Harvey Company, the building now contains a snack bar and gift shop.

 

The next photo shows the fireplace and some of the furniture inside Hermit's Rest designed by Mary Colter.

Architect Mary Coulter was born in Pittsburgh and is well-known for pioneering in the aesthetics of an architecture appropriate to a natural setting. Hired by Fred Harvey, the various buildings at the Grand Canyon including Hermit's Rest, Hopi House, Desert View Watch Tower, and Lookout Studio are excellent examples of some of her work.

Fred Harvey Company got its start by opening high-quality eating houses for railroad passengers. He contracted with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to build eating houses all along their routes. The eating establishments grew into hotels. When the AT&SF Railroad built its Grand Canyon Railway line to the South Rim in the early 1900s, Fred Harvey also got the contract to build hotels, inns, and rest stops at the Grand Canyon. Do you remember hearing about The Harvey Girls?

The name Hermit's Rest comes from a Canadian-born prospector by the name of Louis Boucher. In 1891, Boucher staked mining claims below the present-day site of Hermit's Rest and carved a trail down into the canyon. Although not a true hermit, Louis Boucher is the person for whom Hermit Trail and Hermit's Rest are named.

From Hermit's Rest, the shuttle bus only makes three stops on the return trip to Grand Canyon Village where we parked, and it only takes about half an hour to get back.

Next, we explored the Grand Canyon eastward to Desert View. Look for our next post.

Memphis Part II: Museums of Memphis

Having taken a trolley ride around Memphis the previous day to reconnoiter, we headed back into town to visit the Mississippi River Museum at Mud Island River Park.

Mud Island is located next to the eastern bank of the Mississippi right at the Memphis waterfront. The island began forming in the early 1900s as the Mississippi deposited sand and silt. Over the years, squatters occasionally farmed the island, but it was sometimes covered by high water. In 1958, a large section of the western side of the island was removed for the construction of the bridge for I-40, and the soil was placed on the northern end of the island raising it above flood stage. Construction of Mud Island River Park began in 1977. The park opened in 1982 and is a showplace of the life and culture of the lower Mississippi. The park has a museum, canoe and kayak rentals, picnic areas, an amphitheater, and hiking trails.

There is a Swiss-made monorail that runs over to Mud Island; but, unfortunately, it was out of service the day we went there. We walked 1/3 of a mile over the elevated walkway to the island. This gave us a good view of the marina with the Pyramid Arena in the background. Memphis is to the right and Mud Island is to the left. The main channel of the Mississippi is to the left beyond Mud Island.

It was interesting to see how they have accommodated the frequent changes in river level. In the photo above, you can see the marina and docks are moored to very tall, metal pilings. This allows the docks to rise and fall with the level of the river. The smaller dock to the right, which is the fuel depot, is attached to the tracks on the bank. The tracks not only allow the dock to rise and fall, but they also allow the dock to move laterally as the river widens as it rises.

Mud Island River Park also has a topographical map representing 1,000 miles of the lower Mississippi River from Cairo, IL, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The map is called the Mississippi Riverwalk. The photo below shows a small section of the map from the overhead walkway.

The map has a horizontal scale of 30 inches (one step) equal to a mile and is one-half mile long. A mosaic of 1,746 precast concrete panels each weighing 5 tons makes up the map. An average of 1.3 million gallons of water flows through the system, including the large pool at the end representing the Gulf of Mexico. There are street maps of all the major cities and communities along the river.

We were fascinated by the map and walked nearly the entire length. There are plaques with descriptions of memorable people, places, or events along that particular section of river.

 

There are several places where major tributaries join the Mississippi. These are symbolized by large panels indicating the area drained by the tributary. In the photo below, Margery is standing in front of panel showing the 160,500 square mile watershed area of the Arkansas and White Rivers.

The Mississippi River Museum is adjacent to the Riverwalk. The museum starts with the history of the Native Americans who populated the lower Mississippi valley starting with the Paleo-Indians about 10,000 years ago. These people probably hunted mastodons and smaller game.

The area was explored by the Spanish in the 1500s and by the French in the 1600s. The United States acquired the area to the west of the Mississippi with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson.

Indians controlled the much of the lower Mississippi even after the settlement of St. Louis and New Orleans. After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, however, the demand for cotton rose sharply; and there was an increase in the need for more land to grow cotton. In 1818, a series of treaties with the Indians paved the way for the settlement of western Kentucky and Tennessee and eastern Arkansas. The town of Memphis was laid out in 1819; and, although the growth was slowed by yellow fever, malaria, and smallpox, the favorable location of the city attracted increasingly larger numbers of settlers. By the mid 1800s, Memphis had 5,000 immigrant settlers of mostly German and Irish descent which really surprised us.

The Mississippi obviously played a huge role in the history of Memphis. The museum traces the history of river transportation from Indian canoes, to log rafts, to flat boats and keel boats, to the great Mississippi River steam boat era. The photo below shows numerous steamboat whistles with a model of the famed steamboat the Robert E. Lee in the background. The Robert E. Lee was built in 1866 in New Albany, IN. It is best known for beating the steamboat Natchez IV in a race from St. Louis to New Orleans in 1870. The Robert E. Lee covered the 1,154 mile distance in 3 days, 18 hours, and 14 minutes. To date, no commercial vessel has ever beaten this time.

Over 6,000 riverboats were built for service on the Mississippi and its tributaries from 1820 through 1880. Most were built along the Ohio River in Louisville, Cincinnati, and our old hometown of Pittsburgh.

The photo below shows a steamboat paddle wheel and several riverboat engines from a 1920-era steam engine to a 1950s diesel.

There was also an important Civil War battle on the Mississippi River just above Memphis which resulted in the Union Army capturing the city. The museum includes information on the men, boats, and equipment from both sides. The conflict comes alive with a simulated battle between a Confederate shore battery and a Union ironclad gunboat.

The museum also covers Memphis' rich musical history. Memphis claims to be the birthplace of both the Blues and of Rock 'n' Roll. The Blues started with slaves in the field and evolved from "field hollers" and slave chants. These were sometimes an expression of an emotion and sometimes were a way of communicating. Many times, the hollers contained secret messages to fellow slaves. In the '20s and '30s, Blues artists performed on Beale Street, the main entertainment area in Memphis at the time.

Following WWII, new forms of the Blues evolved with the advent of electric instruments. New rhythms combined with the electric instruments led to early forms of Rock 'n' Roll by artists like Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

And, of course, you can't mention Memphis without thinking of Elvis. Elvis began his music career in the early '50s and was a huge influence on Rock 'n' Roll even after his death. We checked into visiting Graceland while we were in Memphis, but we thought the admission price was quite high at $27 for the basic admission (the price goes all the way to $69 for the VIP Tour that includes his planes and cars). Since we aren't big Elvis fans to begin with, we decided to pass on touring Graceland.

After Mud Island, we could see the skies darkening so we called it a day and headed back to the motor home. Shortly after we got back, the rains came. We had seen the outer bands of rain from hurricane Gustav lurking to our southwest on radar before we left in the morning, and the winds had kicked up the night before. The rain started fairly hard, then tapered to a steady, all-night rain.

The next morning, there was a forecast of a 100% chance of rain so we decided some more indoor activities were in order. We headed out to a couple of other museums we wanted to see. The first stop was the Cotton Museum at the Memphis Cotton Exchange.

The exchange was founded in 1874 as a result of the growing cotton market in Memphis. In 1922, the exchange moved to its current location at the corner of Front St. and Union Ave., which was the center of cotton trading activity in the city.

The first evidence of cotton being woven into fabric is from Pakistan sometime between 2300 and 1750 BC. It was grown in Egypt in the first century AD, and Spain became the cotton-growing center by 950 AD. The name comes from the Arabic word "qutun" or "qutn."

Colonists planted cotton in Virginia in the early 1600s, and it soon became a primary crop in the South. Cotton planting fell during the Civil War, but rebounded afterward with sharecroppers doing the bulk of the planting.

The exchange established rules and regulations for cotton grading, pricing, and trading. Trading was done on the first floor and was open to members only. In 1978, the trading floor was closed in favor of computer trading. The historic trading floor now houses the Cotton Museum.

The centerpiece of the trading floor was the large blackboard where members could keep track of changing prices. Today, the blackboard remains as part of the display. Life-like mannequins illustrate how the board was used.

Cotton grading was done on the top floors of buildings along Front St. under north-facing skylights. Until a special light was developed in the 1950s, cotton could not be graded on cloudy days or at night. The museum had a display showing how cotton was graded according to staple (fiber) length, color, and the amount of foreign inclusions.

Cotton was at the center of the economy in the South, and it was at the center of society as well. In 1931, the Memphis Cotton Carnival was organized to promote the wearing of cotton fabric and to help counteract the effects of the Great depression on the cotton industry. Societies were formed to host elegant parties. Today, the event is known as Carnival Memphis, and has been reorganized to include community outreach projects. Margery is checking out some of the gowns worn by past carnival queens.

From the Cotton Museum, we went several blocks farther south to the National Civil Rights Museum. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis. The aftershock of the assassination would plunge the motel, as well as much of the city, into a decline. In 1982, a group of citizens who were concerned the historic site would be lost, formed a foundation and bought the motel at auction when the property was foreclosed. With city, county, and state support, the National Civil Rights Museum opened its doors in 1991.

A portion of the original motel has been preserved to look the way it did back in 1968, including two cars outside with 1968 license plates. Room 206, where Dr. King stayed, can be viewed from inside the museum and is set up to look the way it did on the morning of April 4. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside the museum, so the outside is the best we could do. The wreath in the photo below commemorates the spot where Dr. King stood when he was shot.

Inside, the museum uses primarily old photos to trace the stories of the brave men and women who fought against segregation and discrimination throughout history. Visitors can read stories about people like Nat Turner, Dred Scott, Harriet Tubman, and Fredrick Douglass. You can also learn about ordinary people like Rosa Parks who just decided she wasn't going to give up her seat on that bus that day in Montgomery. We learned about the sit-ins, boycotts, and marches that eventually led to better education and more equality. Our country has come a long way, but there is still more to do.

After the Civil Rights Museum, we headed back to the motor home. It had rained rather gently off and on all day, but by evening the rain was steady and harder. By the next morning, hurricane Gustav had finally dissipated enough that the rain let up. It was still cloudy and windy so we made a quick trip to Wal-Mart, then hung around the motor home the rest of the day.

There is still more to see and do in Memphis. Check back in a few days to see what else we found.

As we drove west from Quad Cities, we were passed by several flatbed semis with John Deere farm and construction equipment on board. We also saw the familiar green equipment parked in rest stops we passed. It was good to see good ol' American industry at work.

Our originally intended stop was Prairie Flower Corps of Engineers Campground located on Saylorville Lake just north of Des Moines, IA. Because we didn't have reservations, we called ahead to see if they had any non-reservable sites open. It's a good thing we called because they were filled. It turns out one of the four COE campgrounds around Saylorville Lake was closed due to flooding and consequently, the other three had filled up. There was also an Indy car race in Des Moines that weekend and that may have also contributed to the filled campgrounds since the lake isn't too far from the track.

It was on to Plan B, which was Winterset City Park in Winterset, IA. Winterset was a little farther out of our way being about 14 miles south of the interstate, but they had sites available. Winterset Park turned out to be very nice. The roads and pads are gravel and the sites are fairly nicely spaced with grass between. There are trees that provided nice shade, but most aren't big enough to block our satellite dish. Some of the sites are a little short, but we managed to get the motor home to fit by allowing the rear to overhang the grass.

Marion Morrison was born in the little town of Winterset, IA on May 26, 1907. For those who aren't aware, Marion Morrison was better known as actor John Wayne, aka "The Duke." Paul was a big fan of John Wayne growing up, and we still enjoy watching his old movies on one of the classic movie channels on a lazy weekend.

The John Wayne Birthplace Museum consists of the original little 4-room house and a gift shop next door. The house was restored to look the way it did in 1907.

The Morrisons moved 15 miles to the east when Marion was 3, and then picked up and moved to California when he was 7. Although the original furniture is long gone; the house is furnished with pieces appropriate to the period.

There aren't as many pieces of movie memorabilia in the museum as we thought there would be. Apparently most of these belong to either collectors or the movie studios out in California. But there are hundreds of photos from John Wayne's movies and an interesting narrative on his life during the tour of the birthplace. There are also plans for a new 8,500 sq. ft. interactive museum next to the birthplace.

Although Marion Morrison's film career began with bit parts in silent movies in the 1920s, his first starring role was in The Big Trail in 1930 in which he used the name Duke Morrison. Although this first epic sound western was an economic failure, it established Morrison's screen credentials.

The name John Wayne was selected by a director and a movie executive. His first starring role as John Wayne was in Stagecoach in 1939. John Wayne appeared in over 200 movies and starred in over 140 of them.

Margery hadn't realized that John Wayne starred with Marlene Dietrich in the 1942 movie, Pittsburgh, which was, in fact, filmed in our hometown. His character, Charles 'Pittsburgh' Markham, rides roughshod over his friends, his lovers, and his ideals in his trek toward financial success in the Pittsburgh steel industry. You'll have to bear with us, Margery gets excited whenever we discover how history has intersected with Pittsburgh.

One of the most interesting things we learned was how John Wayne got the nickname Duke. It seems when Marion was a boy, he had a dog named Duke. When he passed the local fire station, the firemen knew the dog's name, but didn't know Marion's name so they said here comes little Duke and big Duke. The name stuck.

The gift shop has a larger-than-life bronze statue of the larger-than-life American icon.

Winterset is located in Madison County, which was made famous by the 1992 novel and the 1995 movie The Bridges of Madison County. At one time there were 19 covered bridges in Madison County of which five original bridges remain. Several bridges have also been reconstructed.

Most of the construction work on the original bridges was done by farmers to pay their poll taxes (a fee citizens in some states had to pay in order to vote in a national election). It wasn't until January 23, 1964, that the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials.

Although we had not read the book nor seen the movie, we did visit a couple of the bridges. One of them was Holliwell Bridge, which was located a few miles past the campground and which was featured prominently in the movie. At a length of 122 feet, Holliwell Bridge is the longest of the Madison County bridges and was built in 1880.

Another covered bridge, the Cutler-Donahoe Bridge, is located in Winterset Park right next to the campground. This bridge was built in 1871 and was relocated to the park in 1970.

The campground and adjacent park are operated by the city of Winterset, and they have done a nice job with both. In addition to the covered bridge, there are some nice shelters and picnic areas. Although the shelters are empty in the early morning photo below, we were glad to see they were being used later on in the day. On the weekend, one group even came in for an early breakfast picnic.

The park also had a maze, two playgrounds, hiking trails, and a reconstructed log cabin.

Also in the park is Clark Tower, which was built of native limestone as a tribute to Caleb and Ruth Clark. Caleb, who was himself a stone mason, and his wife, Ruth, were the first pioneer residents of Madison County. The tower was erected by descendants of Caleb and Ruth Clark in 1926 on the 80th anniversary of the founding of Madison County. The tower is 12' in diameter and 25' high.

In the photo below, we're clowning around on our way to the top of the tower...

...where you can see for quite a distance.

We left Winterset on a Sunday, something we usually don't do because we like to relax, watch the NASCAR race, and watch the "weekend warriors" pull out of the campground. However, with 775 miles yet to travel to get to Gillette, WY, by June 28, we needed to be on our way.

In mid-September, we attended a week-long Escapade sponsored by the Escapees RV Club. Over 1,400 diverse people descended on the Van Wert Fairgrounds in Ohio. It was interesting to see all manner of recreational vehicles from vans to motorhomes with many fifth wheels in between...they were as diverse as the people. We got a lot of good information at the seminars we attended. From Foto Fixin' to Veterinary Care; Honey, Let's Clean the RV to Don't Go Without Velcro. Handling Medical Emergencies, Geocaching, and How to Live in a Sardine Can were some of the other classes we took. With over 700 RVs parked in every nook and cranny, we were fortunate to be parked along one of the main thoroughfares close to everything. It was really helpful to have the scooter to tool around in....Paul's already trying to figure out how to hook up a seat to tow behind it so he can ride too! :)

Following the Escapade, Ohio's Grand Lake St. Marys State Park (a Passport America campground) was our home base for a week before meeting Lora and J. Michael for a fall weekend in the Amish country in Holmes County, OH. This 13,500-acre lake was the largest man-made lake in the world when it was completed in 1845 and has 60 miles of shoreline. It took 8 years for 1,700 workers using hand tools to make the reservoir for the Miami-Erie Canal. In the late 1890s oil was discovered and for a time the lake was dotted with oil derricks. Today, a pile of rocks near the center of the lake marks the spot of the last producing well.  A side note:  For those who have requested it, we were able to get a picture of the motorhome with the satellite deployed. It is in the Photo Album 007: Ohio to Pennsylvania.

We enjoyed biking, watching the sunsets,

and exploring the town of St. Marys. We found Memorial Park which included a replica of the Belle of St. Marys canal boat, a clock tower, and a covered bridge.

It was heartwarming to read about the building of the Memorial Covered Bridge dedicated in 1992. It seems that the citizens of St. Marys had traveled to a town in North Carolina following a hurricane to deliver much-needed donated hay. A continuing relationship was built between the two cities and the NC city donated the shingles for the Memorial Covered Bridge.

This 8-inch Rodman gun was made at Ft. Pitt, PA in 1864! There are additional pictures in this edition's photo album.

A week later we were on our way to Berlin, OH. We had a great fall weekend with Lora and J. Michael enjoying the beauty of God's creation and some of the fun people have with it. :)

Paul got some more great fall pictures in the photo album.

The first week of October found us in Pittsburgh being poked, squished, probed, adjusted, shot, etc. Molly even got her teeth cleaned! It feels really good to be all caught up on our medical appointments for the year. We also had nice visits with Paul's step-mom and my dad. Both are doing well. We are so blessed to have parents and a daughter who encourage us in our lifestyle. It could be best summed up in Dad's parting greeting, "Happy landings!"

We spent a few days in Gettysburg riding our bikes, visiting the Boyd's Bear Country, re-exploring the battle through a very well-done  Gettysburg Battlefield Diorama,  touring the Confederate side of the  battlefield, cruising around the fruit-laden apple orchards in the area AND getting Paul's Golden Age Passport which gives us 50% discount at all national parks, Corps of Engineers campgrounds, and Bureau of Land Management. Molly even made nice with some barnyard animals. :)

A bonus of our Gettysburg campsite at Artillery Ridge  (a Passport America campground) was that it was in the horse camp.  The camp was full with people who trailered in their horses for a weekend of riding the battlefields.  It sounded like the 35 Boy Scouts tent camping in the field behind us had a good time, too. :)

While biking on the Union side of the battlefield, we stopped to read some of the memorials. The men of the 1st Minnesota are most remembered for their actions on July 2 resulting in in the prevention of a serious breach in the Union line. The regiment was ordered to assault a much larger enemy force in an effort to buy time while other forces were brought up. Of the  262  soldiers, only 49  survived and to this day  the 82% casualty rate stands as the largest loss  by any surviving military unit in American  history.   

We've been blessed to be able to enjoy some beautiful fall weather before the wind and rains brought down the colorful leaves.

We're off to Lancaster before heading south to Williamsburg. Highs in the 40's means its time to move on. :)