Author Archives: Denny

I Care Less About How You Vote Than If. (2020)

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I confess to seriously considering making major changes to this article this year. The easily guessable reason is that, while I still care less about how than if, I care a whole lot about how. However, I published the first version of this article because of the abysmally low rate of election participation in the United States, and I still see that as a central issue. The article mentions several major step inputs to potential voter numbers including the largest of them all when non-males were permitted to vote exactly 100 years ago.

So I’ve made no changes in what this post says, but I have changed when it says it. This post normally appears on the Sunday immediately preceding election day. Early voting, both by mail and in person, was already on the rise but the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic jump to be predicted this year. In many states, including Ohio, voting has already begun and the observed numbers reinforce that prediction greatly. An increase in the rate of participation is also predicted, with some saying that the percentage of eligible voters casting ballots this year could be the highest since 1908. I doubt my little post has anything to do with that, but, just in case, I’m doing my nudging a little earlier this year.

yvyvWe fought a war to get this country going then gave every land-owning white male above the age of twenty-one the right to vote. A little more than fourscore years later, we fought a war with ourselves that cleared the way for non-whites to vote. Several decades of loud, disruptive, and sometimes dangerous behavior brought the granting of that same right to non-males a half-century later, and another half-century saw the voting age lowered to eighteen after a decade or so of protests and demonstrations.

dftv1Of course, putting something in a constitution does not automatically make it a practice throughout the land and I am painfully aware that resistance followed each of those changes and that efforts to make voting extremely difficult for “the other side” are ongoing today. I don’t want to ignore partisan obstructions and system flaws but neither do I want to get hung up on them. I meant my first paragraph to be a reminder that a hell of a lot of effort, property, and lives have gone into providing an opportunity to vote to a hell of a lot of people. Far too many of those opportunities go unused.

A Wikipedia article I have referenced in years past has been updated and a table showing voter turnout in a number of countries for the period 1960-1995 has been removed. Sadly, the point being made by the inclusion of that table, that the United States trails most of the world’s democracies in voter turnout, continues to be supported by more recent statistics such as those cited in a Pew Research article. We may be getting slightly better, however. 2018 turnout set a record for midterm elections as reported in this Vox article. Let us hope that continues. I noticed something in the Pew Research article that I simply hadn’t realized previously. The United States has the greatest difference between the percentage of voting-age population (VAP) actually voting and registered voters actually voting. In many countries, there is no difference at all since to be a citizen is to be allowed to vote. In other countries, the difference is trivial. In the U.S. presidential election of 2016, it was a whopping 31.1% (86.8-55.7). I found that startling. I think that means only 64.1% of the VAP is registered which rather clearly shows the importance of voter registration efforts.

dftv2I first posted the core of this article in 2014. In the original title, I claimed to not care how anyone votes. That was never entirely true, of course. I have my favorite candidates and issues. I’ll be disappointed in anyone who votes differently than I do but not nearly as disappointed as I’ll be in anyone who doesn’t vote at all. I’m reminded of parents working on getting their kids to clean their plates with lines like, “There are hungry children in China who would love to have your green beans.” I’m not sure what the demand for leftover beans is in Beijing these days but I’m pretty sure some folks there would like to have our access to ballots and voting booths.

Minor Ado About Nothing

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Today is the final day of 2020’s Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Week. In normal times, I would have visited at least one or two of the participants, but, to restate the obvious, these are not normal times. I scanned the restaurant list looking for places that I’d not tried but wanted to, that offered something appealing to me, and that had outdoor seating. I came up empty and had accepted the fact that there would be no new restaurant experience for me this year. Then a friend posted something about a pop-up at a restaurant I’d never tried but wanted to. The restaurant was not a GCRW participant and the dates of their pop-up (9/25-10/2) didn’t align with Restaurant Week (9/29-10/4) but the two did overlap. There was outdoor seating and the food offering did appeal to me. As I learned the story behind it, it became more than appealing; It became an all-consuming but short-lived obsession that I satisfied the very next day.

Northside Yacht Club is the place. It has a pretty nice front door but during the pandemic that is used only for picking up carry-out orders. These days, the main entrance is on the side next to the tastefully decorated utility poles. It has been there since 2015, normally has a variety of live music, even now has cool drinks and food, and has done a couple of pop-ups in the past.

Building on an old false rumor, NSYC wore an Applebee’s costume for Halloween in 2017. Last year it combined two Cincinnati favorites, Skyline chili and LaRosa’s pizza, to become SkyRosa’s. It was Ronny Salerno’s tongue in cheese-filled cheek report on the faux Applebee’s that first brought the Yacht Club to my attention. This year, they put on their disguise a little earlier, possibly because the end of September in Ohio usually offers a better outside dining experience than does the end of October. The pop-up that just ended involved Arby’s, but there was more to it than that. NSYC’s menu temporarily mimics that of the roast beef chain but the inspiration came from a punk rocker’s Twitter account. That both the rocker (Brendan Kelly) and the account (@Nihilist_Arbys) are well known is evidence of just how uninformed I am. You’re better off checking out the Twitter feed and this Arby’s-meets-nihilist story than having me try to explain things. There’s a good CityBeat story here.

Each sandwich comes with a nihilist_arbys’ Tweet. Mine was originally published on Valentine’s Day. I chose the beef and cheddar and it was excellent. The Sixteen Bricks bun makes it look like the Arby’s version but believe me it was many steps up in quality. The curly fries, on the other hand, were a near-perfect match for Arby’s in all regards. The beer may look like a Bud Light but it’s Riegele Privat lager. Neither, of course, are available at a real Arby’s.

Before leaving, I checked out the upper deck which offers plenty of additional seating and overlooks a Northside style split-the-yacht wall decoration.

 

Trip Peek #98
Trip #152
Dirk and Lincoln

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This picture is from the 2018 trip I called Dirk and Lincoln. The purpose of the trip was to see Dirk Hamilton performing at a venue he played at frequently in the 1980s with the musicians he played with there. That was all I needed to justify the trip, but the venue was in California and there was no reason not to hang around a few days. That’s where the Lincoln part comes in. I flew to Sacramento then drove to Stockton for the show. I drove down to the bizarre Winchester Mystery House the next morning and picked up some Lincoln Highway on the way back. The rest of the trip was spent following a sort of Lincoln Highway loop to the east through Carson City, Reno, and Donner Pass then back to Sacramento for a night that included a visit to the Delta King.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Oktoberfest Lite

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As everyone should know, the largest Oktoberfest in the world takes place each year in Munich, Germany. Not this year, however. A very distant second is the Cincinnati Oktoberfest which has also been canceled. Both of these events, as well as many others, are victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the cancellation of Cincinnati’s Oktoberfest was first announced, there was some muttering about a decentralized event whose participants could be counted so we could claim the number one spot for one year. Those mutterings seem to have completely faded and I suspect part of the reason is that a fair amount of decentralized partying is going on in Germany, too.

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati has a website and a Facebook page through which some activities, such as a Zoom based Chicken Dance, have been and will be coordinated — after a fashion. Even in decentralized form, attendance is limited by social distancing requirements and I opted to avoid anything resembling a crowd by celebrating solo in the afternoon. The site of my “celebration” was Cincinnati’s oldest restaurant and one of the most Germanish places in the city, Mecklenburg Gardens. To head off any claims of fibbing on my part, Arnold’s (1861) is indeed older than Mecklenburg’s (1865), but Arnold’s began life as a tavern. Mecklenburg’s has been a restaurant since day 1. UPDATE 9-20-20: Postcard image added.

My pocket camera did not do well in the mottled light beneath the 150-year-old grapevines but you might be able to pick out the photo-op cutouts in the first picture and the open tables in the second. Only one customer entered ahead of me, but several of those tables were filled soon after. A sausage and beer seemed appropriate and Mecklenburg’s offers a variety of each. I chose a goettawurst which is, of course, based on goetta, a Cincinnati creation. I bet you can’t get one of those in Munich. The beer is Spaten Märzen which you certainly can get in Munich, but there I’d be laughed at for drinking it from a tiny half-liter mug.

Before leaving, I stepped inside where I got a not-so-good picture of the bar which the pandemic has caused to be stripped of stools. A pleasant chat with bartender and part-owner John Harten made for a nice finish to my visit. John told me they have started doing tours of the historic building on Tuesdays. That sounds like something I need to check out.  

Trip Peek #97
Trip #45
2006 Illinois 66 Festival

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This picture is from my 2006 trip to the Illinois 66 Festival. There were three documented days preceded by an undocumented dash to Vandalia, IL. The trip journal begins with meeting some friends at the west end of the Chain of Rocks Bridge then a caravan style drive across the bridge to a big surprise. I had backed out of my garage the previous morning then driven forward through a parking spot at the motel, a gas station, and the staging area at the bridge. Parking at a stop after crossing the bridge called for reverse and I found I had none. I eventually drove all the way home using only forward gears but it would be the last trip for the 1998 Corvette. The photo is of an old Route 66 alignment that is usually a simple drive through, but, as the sign so eloquently says, was not that day. This was between the bridge and the festival and could have been a real disaster. I survived, made it to my motel, and carefully selected a place to park. I enjoyed the festival using my feet and public transportation then drove home with extreme caution — and lots of luck.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Corner to Corner to Corner II

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For the first time this year, I’m sleeping somewhere other than home. I’ve left home to travel to the far corner of Ohio and back much as I did in 2001. Outbound will be on US-42 with the return on OH-3/3C Highway. It has been so long since I’ve been on an actual road trip that I forgot to make a blog post this morning when the first day’s journal was published but I did finally remember.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

A Pair of Parks and a Pint

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Parks are pretty good places to go when one of your goals is not getting close to people, and Friday’s extra fine weather made doing something outdoors all but mandatory. I had only recently heard of Chrisholm MetroPark and the fact that it was fairly close to another park I’d been thinking of revisiting made it the choice for my first stop of the day. The opening photo was taken from the east end of the full-width porch on the front of the Augspurger House.

In normal times, tours of the Augspurger House are given on certain days but that has been curtailed by COVID-19. There was no apparent activity at Rosemont Barn, either. In fact, the only non-visitor I saw was a fellow doing some mowing in a field on the far side of the barn.

This turned out to be the most interesting building in the park today, and I think it would be quite interesting even with house tours and a critter filled barn as competition. The interesting part is that, as the sign explains, it is one of thousands built by the Works Progress Administration. Existing outhouses were often quite shabby with poor drainage. For the cost of materials, the WPA would construct a properly designed sanitary outhouse. The WPA was the brainchild of Franklin Roosevelt and his wife was the major proponent of this effort to improve sanitation in rural areas. The tidy tiny buildings became known as Eleanors.

That’s just one of the things I learned today. I also learned a new word. The park’s real restrooms are next to the restored (but unused) Eleanor. They are currently closed and I didn’t even get a picture of the building but I did get a picture of a sign describing them and teaching me a new word. Described as “Butler County’s First Green Restroom[s]”, the composting restrooms deal with “humanure”.

Half of the visitors I saw in the park were at this very cool Playscape. On the way out, I drove by a couple walking their dog, and here I encountered a mom and daughter having a great time on the rustic-styled playground equipment. They do appear as two dots in the background of the second picture, but I really tried avoiding them in my pictures which meant waiting to photograph the tractor while mom was in the wagon being pulled “very fast”.

Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park is a little more than eight crow miles from Chrisholm MetroPark. My most recent visit was last December for the Holiday Lights. Today was a reminder that I need to come in the daytime more often and I probably need to pack a lunch. I also need to schedule better so that I am here when the indoor Ancient Sculpture Museum is open.

I started off misreading the map so was sort of walking around randomly for a bit. That’s not a problem, of course, as there are sculptures and scenic backdrops everywhere. These photos were chosen about as randomly as my path. The first is of Greg Loring’s Life’s Twists and Turns. The second is Age of Stone by John Isherwood, and the third is George Sugarman’s Garden of Sculpture.

Harry T. Wilkes, the man responsible for creating the park, built and lived in this pyramid topped home that gives the park its name. His 2014 obituary describes him well, and John Leon’s lifesize sculpture gives him something of a continuing presence in the park.

With more than a hundred sculptures displayed on 300+ acres, there is no shortage of things to look at or photograph. I did not photograph everything I saw but I came away with enough photos to overflow this blog post and probably a couple more. In fact, I took enough photos of just this one piece to bore most people. I’m wrapping up my visit with just three views of Sam McKinney’s Wherefore Art Thou with Romeo and Juliet reaching desperately to touch each other through the black granite and family conflicts that separate them.

This was my first COVID era visit to Municipal Brew Works which sits between the two parks in downtown Hamilton. I ordered the 1791 Oktoberfest from mask-wearing servers inside then parked myself at an outside table far from the few other afternoon drinkers. I can’t think of a better way to finish up a temperature perfect day filled with history, art, and sunshine. 

It’s a Gas… Engine Show

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Terry’s back. And so is Dale. And so am I. I’ve known Terry since about age twelve. Dale and I go back even further having met in first grade at age six or so. Terry collects and restores Wheel Horse tractors and is a regular exhibitor at an event sponsored by the Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Association at the Jay County Fairgrounds in Portland, Indiana. Dale has a passion for bicycles and regularly exhibits at an event the National Vintage Motor Bike Club puts on at the same place. I have attended both events multiple times as a spectator with a lot more curiosity than knowledge. The events have provided the three of us with an informal get-together opportunity and that is something that’s been extra scarce this year.

As a primarily outdoor event, I figured the show would be relatively safe and I believe it was. At odds with that belief was the fact that most attendees walked about without masks most of the time and often chatted without fully six-feet of separation. But people did don masks when standing in food lines and such, and staff at the entrance and elsewhere were masked. And, while faces weren’t always a fathom apart, they were rarely significantly closer than that and people at least seemed somewhat aware of their distance from others. There were frequent announcements about masks being required in the few indoor spaces being used this year, and it sounded like that was being enforced although I did not check it personally. Those announcements also told everyone that masks were required by the free shuttles. We noted that not one person was wearing a mask when the shuttle passed several times within sight of our home base at Terry’s display, but the one time I actually saw someone exiting the shuttle he pulled up his mask as he walked past the other passengers. It was a mixed bag, Safe? Relatively is the right word.

We made two forays into the exhibits. Our first destination was a threshing operation that some of Dale’s neighbors were involved in. Threshing is one of many farming tasks involving multiple generations, and that was the case at this demonstration. Power for the threshing machine was supplied by a kerosene-fueled 1920 Rumely Oil Pull. Mobility came via a somewhat newer 1954 International Harvester Farmall.

I’m told that large scale vintage construction gear has long been part of the show but I either failed to notice or failed to remember. There was even a big pile of dirt available where “kids” could play without being yelled at for messing up the yard.

Here are a few of the things to be seen near home base where we returned to eat lunch purchased from a nearby vendor.

This is the home base I’ve mentioned, with Terry under the canopy and Dale beside it. Those are, of course, just some of Terry’s herd of Horses. The newest addition is that black nose that can barely be seen at the far end of the row. It’s a real one-of-a-kind hotrod that, while I failed to get a good picture of today, I did get pictures of at its place of birth. They’re here and here.

Following lunch, we headed out to cruise the other half of the show. I rode behind Dale in the trailer as I had on the earlier outing. I quite enjoyed being chauffeured around and being able to take (only slightly crooked) pictures at will. Dale once had a summer job as a test driver for Lambert Manufacturing and scored a factory ride for a lawn tractor rally at the annual company picnic. A trailer was included and I was invited so I covered the rally with a view somewhat like the first picture behind a Lambert tractor somewhat like the red one in the second picture.

Not only do the dirt piles you play in grow bigger as you age, so too do the scale models you build. This one is street legal and capable of hauling… stuff.

The guy with the miniature semi-tractor told us about this miniature inline-six a few aisles over. It isn’t a copy of any particular bigger engine, but, with the exception of the carburetor, is built completely from scratch. Even the tiny sparkplugs were machined from some sort of countertop material. It’s mighty impressive from the outside but thinking about the cam and crank shafts inside makes it even more phenomenal.

With a straight line distance of approximately ninety miles, this becomes the farthest I’ve been from home since February. Greenville, which I’ve been to multiple times, is about sixty straight line miles away. The other Gibson I saw there was a lot farther from home than I. This fellow is from a Seattle, WA, company that closed down in 1952. If my original plans for this year had held up, that’s where I would have been sometime earlier this month. Hold on, Seattle, I’m coming.

Here’s the Beef

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Cincinnati Burger Week number six is almost over. Today is the final day of an event that is now part of a statewide Ohio Burger Week. Maybe it has been in the past although I always thought it was local. For 2020, special hamburger deals were/are to be found in five cities — Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo — from August 17 through August 23. I’d seen claims of fiftyish participants but that turns out to be rather low. Nearly seventy restaurants are now listed on the Cincinnati Burger Week website. With this blog in mind, I picked six to try on the six days preceding publication. The number six also fit in with the sixth year for the event and the six dollar (up from $5) burger price. I picked places based on location, the availability of outside seating, and how strongly a specific offering appealed to me. One of the goals of Burger Week is to try something new so half of the places I picked were places I’d never been to before.

The first day went swimmingly and that included perfect weather. Two of my selections were within walking distance but one is closed on Mondays. I headed to the other. At deSha’s American Tavern I enjoyed a Ducking Good Burger at one of the well-spaced tables on the waterside deck. A Ducking Good Burger is described as ground beef, fontina cheese, roasted tomato-garlic aioli, topped with shredded potatoes tossed in duck fat, served on a brioche bun. The only thing keeping this from being the perfect Burger Week experience is that I’m quite familiar with deSha’s (and Belhaven Scottish Ale) so the sandwich itself was the only thing new to me.

The second day was hardly perfect, but it ended well. I decided to head to the farthest away of my selections trying to target a point where the rain that filled most of the day would let up. Not only did I mistime the rain, I really blew it with the ‘burger. I’d made myself aware of the days each restaurant would be closed but not of the time. I arrived at 4:15; They closed at 3:00. But I knew of another nearby Burger Week participant so headed over to Keystone Bar & Grill. The rain had more or less stopped but the outside tables were not yet being used. I sat near the door at a properly distanced table. It turned out that a choice of two hamburgers was offered. When asked, my waitress told me, “I think you should try the donut.” I was well aware that people have been making sandwiches out of donuts but considered them to be totally over the top and had so far managed to avoid them. I tried again today but the waitress and my own curiosity won out. In my defense, this wasn’t just any donut but a Holtman’s donut. I haven’t found a detailed description of the Maple Bacon Donut Burger, but it was delicious even though the touch of sweetness from the donut glaze was a little strange. The new-to-me Three Floyds Gumballhead was pretty good, too. When I went looking for that detailed description at the end of the day, I discovered an apology tacked to the front of the Keystone website. It was an apology for some slow service on the first day of Burger Week that was at least partly due to overwhelming demand for donuts. Henceforth, it said the donut ‘burger would be available for dine-in only.

Great weather returned on Wednesday making it a good day to head to the closest restaurant on my Burger Week list. I placed my order inside Frenchie Fresh Burger Bar then took a seat outside, near the Little Free Library in a phone booth, to await its arrival. Inside seating is available. Burger Week ‘burgers are usually enough to fill me so I tend to skip the extras but I decided to give “Frenchie Fries” with parmesan and truffle dust a try. Good but not necessary. As expected, Le Alpine ‘burger (swiss cheese, caramelized onions, & mushroom demi-glaze) would have been enough. As I ate, I noticed a familiar name in the storefront signage that I had not noticed when checking out things online. Beneath the sketch of a French Bulldog is the phrase “by Jean-Robert”. Jean-Robert de Cavel is a Cincinnati celebrity chef who gained fame at the Maisonette, Pigall’s, and his own fine dining establishments. Apparently, Frenchie Fresh Burger Bar is his move into more casual dining. The beer is Country Boy Brewing’s Cougar Bait which (fortunately, I think) doesn’t seem to work for a guy in his seventies even if he is eating truffle dust.

After starting the week with two places where I’ve eaten many times, I moved on to a pair of new-to-me restaurants. Wednesday was the first I’d been to Frenchie Fresh, and Thursday was my first visit to Brown Dog Cafe. It is one of several restaurants inside Summit Park on the former site of Blue Ash Airport. Both indoor and outdoor seating is available but I didn’t even consider eating inside on such a glorious day. I washed down my fontina cheese, bacon jam, and apple slaw topped ‘burger with Grainworks’ Blue Skies Hero Brew in a Fathead’s Brewery glass. Summit Park really is a park with an observation tower I need to come back and check out. On my way out today, I strolled by a playground I could see in the distance from my table. All distancing and mask protocols were carefully observed by the Brown Dog staff but that was not the case with all the kids playing on the equipment and sliding down hillsides on sheets of cardboard.

On Friday, I made it three new-to-me restaurants in a row by returning to the place where I’d arrived too late on Tuesday. Butler’s Pantry is on the inland side of a building on the south banks of the Ohio River. All COVID precautions are in place and there seemed to be plenty of outside seating. The tasty  ‘burger was topped with pimento cheese, red onion, bacon, onion straws, and root beer bbq mayo although I gotta admit I didn’t pick up much root beer flavor. Maybe the real beer (Braxton Storm, brewed less than half a mile to the south) washed it away. Free parking across the street with validation at the Pantry.

Even though there were still candidates on my list, by Saturday I decided I’d consumed enough hamburgers for the week. I had penciled in the lone non-beef Burger Week participant for a possible dessert someday but used it to fill the last slot in my six-day moving feast. I learned that my impression that only carryout was available was wrong when I arrived and saw the tables out front. I carried my purchase back home as planned, but in hindsight, wish I’d ordered a cup of coffee and nibbled on my beignet sliders at one of those tables along the one time Dixie Highway (now US 42) in Reading. Très Belle‘s Burger Week page describes one of these treats as a berry-filled beignet bun with edible rainbow sugar cookie dough patty and the other as Nutella filled with edible chocolate brownie cookie dough. They only call one decadent but that doesn’t seem entirely honest in my opinion. Maybe advertising double-barreled decadence is against somebody’s rules.

Dam Dents Revisited

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I know I can’t do this forever, but I let the Facebook crowd steer me to another blog post this week. This one is somewhat different in that it doesn’t involve something new to me but some things I’d seen multiple times in the past that I was due for a refresher on. Back in 2006, I did Oddment pages on two dams that altered the path of the National Road north of Dayton, Ohio. Those pages are here, for the Taylorsville Dam, and here, for the Englewood Dam. The next year, I wrote an article for American Road Magazine (Vol V Num 3) that talked about both dams. The name of this post comes from the name of that article.

The first photo at left shows the easternmost edge of the easternmost dent. The road runs south for about a mile and a half before turning west to cross the mile-long dam then turning north to rejoin the original route. The dam is shown in the opening photo, which some will recognize as my attempt to reproduce George R. Stewart’s Photo #27 from 1953’s US 40: Cross-Section of the United States of America. Stewart’s photo and my “update” concentrate on the spillway and the bridge that crosses it. More of the massive earthen dam can be seen in the picture at left. The dams were completed in 1922 in response to the horrific 1913 flood. At that time, this was still known as the National Road. It would become US-40 in 1926. The 1953 and 2020 photos show some differences in the bridge itself due to a 1979 rehabilitation. The National Old Trails Road, a continent crossing named auto trail that existed from 1912 to 1926 never crossed these dams since the NOTR followed the “Dayton Cutoff” south through Dayton and Eaton.

There is a small paved area at the east end of the Taylorsville Dam where I parked to photograph it. On the west end, there is an actual park area with considerably more parking space and several informative signs including one from the Ohio National Road Association on Tadmor and Taylorsville. A section of the extensive Miami Vally Trails system passes through here and makes it easy to get to the former location of the town of Tadmor about 1.3 miles away.

The first of these pictures was taken looking back to the south after I’d strolled beyond Tadmor. I have been to the site since the dual purpose plaque (readable here and here) was placed but there are more labeled posts than I remember. Another difference is the rather impenetrable growth between the path and the river. There is a narrow path next to the previously pictured Tadmor sign that leads directly to the abutments of a short bridge that crossed the canal. Because of the growth and my aging sense of adventure, I did not go beyond this today as I did in 2006. The third picture shows a wall of the canal sluice gate with the canal bridge abutments in the foreground.

The rules called for the National Road to follow a straight line to the capital city Columbus with no grade greater than 10%. At Tadmor, following both of these rules in the early 19th century was impossible and it was the straight-line rule that lost. The road turned to the south on the west bank of the Great Miami and curved around a large hill. The grade, though not as bad as climbing the hill, still gave westbound travelers and their animals quite a workout. A spring near the top was certainly a welcome sight. The spring can be reached by heading east a bit where US 40 picks up the original path of the National Road. Although it’s not easy getting a clear view of the spring-fed waterfall, it is pretty easy imagining how refreshing it was to a team of horses dragging a Conestoga wagon up from the riverbank. A less blown-out version of the plaque is here.

An intersection between the dents has a legitimate claim on the Crossroads of America. In the days before US Numbered Highways, the National Road and the Dixie Highway crossed here. With the coming of numbers, the crossing routes became US-40 and US-25. A fair amount of traffic still passes through the intersection today though not nearly as much as through the nearby intersections of the successors to these routes, I-75 and I-70. The memorial bench and explanatory sign are just west of the intersection. A detail lifted from the sign explains a detail lifted from the photo of the intersection.

Continuing west, I came to the beginning of the second dent. Behind those trees on the right is a bypassed earlier curve which I slipped onto for a photograph. The entrance to the eastern portion of Engelwood Metropark is right at the eastern end of the dam. There is parking space for several cars and that is where I paused to photograph the dam and explanatory sign.

The road through the park is one-way which requires the former National Road, now called Patty Road, to be driven from west to east. Since all my other driving in this post has been east to west, that’s the sequence in which I’ve arranged these photos. The little bridge doesn’t look particularly historic when driving over it but the underside is a different story. The second picture shows the bridge from the north side and there’s a view from the south here. A sign that once stood near the bridge has gone missing so I’ve included a photo of it from 2006. The third photo shows where the National Road once continued westward. I walked down it in 2006 but did not today. There really isn’t much to see as a water-filled borrow pit prevents reaching the river.

This is on the west side of the Stillwater River in the smaller portion of Engelwood Metropark. I’ve been in the park before but did not do much exploring. Today I walked an abandoned section of the National Road down to the river. I’ve heard, and have even told others, that there are pieces of bridge abutments along the river. That might be true, but I didn’t see any today. I also didn’t see an explanatory sign mentioned in a Facebook post by William Flood, author of the upcoming Driving the National Road & Route 40 in Ohio: Then and Now. Further online discussion indicated that it might have gone missing from this wooden post. Not finding the sign certainly wasn’t an issue since looking for it is what led me to the riverside and that’s a good thing.

Yes, I had breakfast. The Mell-O-Dee Restaurant isn’t exactly on the National Road, but about two miles to the south where it’s been since 1965. COVID-19 precautions include a closed counter, plexiglass dividers between booths, and masked staff. They bake their own bread and pies and their French toast is made with that bread. It’s what I ordered and devoured with another COVID-19 precaution, disposable utensils.