Trip Peek #31
Trip #90
Skyline and Blue Ridge

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Denny

This picture is from my 2010 Skyline & Blue Ridge trip along Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway. The two more or less connect a little west of Charlottesville, Virginia, to provide a nearly 575 mile long scenic drive. The picture was taken near the southern end of the Parkway looking down from Waterrock Knob. I prefaced starting down Skyline Drive with a touch of Darke County Fair, some cardboard boat racing, and a goodly amount of scenic roadway in Ohio and West Virginia. I paused between Drive and Parkway to tour Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

Trip Pic 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 trip journal it is from.

Trip Peek #30
Trip #71
Thanksgiving 2008

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Denny

This picture is from my 2008 Thanksgiving trip. It was my fourth and last (so far) Thanksgiving Escape Run. I believe it was the first trip on which I got serious about traveling the Dixie Highway and I followed it all the way from the Ohio River to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The estate was decorated for Christmas and that’s what is in the picture.

Trip Peek #29
Trip #94
Buzzards with Syrup

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Denny

This picture is from my 2011 Buzzards with Syrup trip. The name comes from combining a trip to see the buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio, with the Maple Madness Drive-It-Yourself Tour to visit several producers of syrup and other maple based products. The buzzards officially return on March 15, the Maple Madness Tour is a weekend thing which I tackled on Saturday the 19th, and the Buzzard Day Festival took place the next day on Sunday. That left the days in between to visit Center of the World, a couple museums, and the shore of Lake Erie plus celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. The picture is from the festival when experts from the Medina Raptor center were present to show and talk about the birds.

Trip Peek #28
Trip #76
Memorial Weekend 2009

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Denny

This picture is from my 2009 Memorial Weekend trip. The purpose of the trip was to research a magazine article on the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. That made the journal a little strange since I didn’t want to include photos or other items intended for the article. As the article was never published, the fact that the journal contains so little about the trip’s primary target may seem even stranger now than when it was posted. The photo was taken inside the Princess Restaurant in Frostburg, Maryland. The restaurant was celebrating its 70th anniversary then which means it is turning 76 this year.

Trip Peek #27
Trip #23
Kentucky Short Loop

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Denny

This picture is from my 2004 Kentucky Short Loop day trip. The trip was prompted by good weather and was fairly spontaneous although I did have a few places in mind to visit. It was basically a day spent driving around Lexington, Elizabethtown, and Versailles, Kentucky. The picture is of a horse farm near Versailles. Apparently this was the trip where my attraction for US-62 began.

Trip Peek #26
Trip #62
Original OH LH

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my 2008 Original OH LH trip to attend the Ohio Lincoln Highway League annual meeting in Galion. The route initially announced by the Lincoln Highway Association, now known as the Proclamation Route, included the cities of Kenton and Marion. When a revised route was announced a few weeks later, the route was moved to the north and these cities dropped. I decided to take a look at Ohio’s part of the Proclamation Route on this drive which is how I ended up in Kenton where this Gene Autry Mural is located. The drive continued through Marion and other Proclamation Route towns. The manufacture of Gene Autry toy pistols is a big part of Kenton’s past and that’s why the big mural is there and why there used to be an annual Gene Autry Days festival. As I prepared this post, I learned that the 2013 festival was the last.

Trip Peek #25
Trip #59
Thanksgiving 2007

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my 2007 Thanksgiving weekend trip to Nashville, Tennessee. This outing actually started with a ferry ride across the Ohio River and visits to a few spots in Kentucky including the Jefferson Davis Monument. In Nashville, I took in shows at both the Ryman and the Bluebird and ate breakfast at both the Loveless and the Pancake Pantry. I also visited two car museums on the trip but only one, Lane, was in Nashville. The other was the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I stopped on the way home. The photo is of the Bellsouth Tower (a.k.a. “Batman Building”) taken through a large ring gear displayed in a park across the Cumberland River.

Oops! (6-Sep-14) Part way through a road trip, I realized that I did not have enough posts in the queue to cover the trip. The random trip selector came up with the 2007 Thanksgiving trip and I hastily put a post together in a motel room. But once I was home and able to pay a little more attention to what I was doing, I discovered that this had already been posted as a Trip Peek in June, 2013. At least my descriptions were similar.

Trip Peek #24
Trip #44
Labor Day Loop

Posted on August 17, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my 2006 Labor Day Loop trip through southern Ohio. I started out tracing the Ohio River eastward to meet some friends in Portsmouth. From there, we visited a couple of blast furnace sites from the Ohio Valley’s heyday as an iron producer. The photo is of the completely restored Buckeye Furnace. Little remains at most sites beyond a stone chimney if that.

Trip Peek #23
Trip #35
SB Rendezvous

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my San Bernardino Rendezvous fly-and-drive trip to the 2005 Route Festival. I flew into Phoenix then drove north through Prescott, Jerome, and Sedona to reach Historic Route 66 at Flagstaff. The photo is of the late Bob Waldmire’s 1972 VW Microbus being returned after mistakenly being towed from the authors & artists area of the festival. Bob was pretty nervous until the bus was back on the ground without damage. Following the festival, I drove through Joshua Tree National Park before picking up US-60 to the coolest named airport in the country, Phoenix’s Sky Harbor.

Trip Peek #22
Trip #86
Ohio NR Bus Tour

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my 2010 Ohio NR Bus Tour day trip along the western half of Ohio’s portion of the National Road. Doug Smith, coauthor of A Traveler’s Guide to the Historic National Road in Ohio, acted as guide and provided much information when we stopped at several landmarks and as we rolled by others. The pictured stop is along the Ohio River to get a look at the 1849 Wheeling Suspension Bridge.

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