Trip Peek #119
Trip #34
PA Potpourri

Posted on September 11, 2022 by Denny

This picture is from my 2005 PA Potpourri trip. It is of the incline built in Johnstown, PA, just two years after the infamous 1889 flood. This trip was one of a cluster of work-related trips to central Pennsylvania augmented with some personal time. Previous trips had been focused on US-6, the Lincoln Highway, and the National Road. This one, as the name suggests, focused on nothing in particular. I used it to visit some sites that those roads did not. The potpourri included, in addition to Johnstown, the still-burning town of Centralia, a coal mine in Ashland, the nation’s oldest brewery (Yuengling), the world’s oldest roller coaster (Leap the Dips — not operating on the day I was there), and some parts of the National Road.

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.

Trip Peek #118
Trip #151
Only Rock and Roll

Posted on August 28, 2022 by Denny

This picture is from my 2018 Only Rock and Roll trip. The picture is from part two of the three-part outing. It started with a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH, continued with a Tubes concert in Akron, OH, and concluded with a Little Steven concert in Wabash, IN. I had been to the Hall of Fame a couple of times, had seen the Tubes once, and had seen Little Steven Van Zandt several times. In the past, he had been backing Bruce Springsteen as a member of the E Street Band. This time he was fronting his own fifteen-piece Disciples of Soul and it was glorious.

Trip Peek #117
Trip #127
2015 LHA Conference

Posted on June 26, 2022 by Denny

This picture is from my 2015 LHA Conference trip. The conference was unusual in that it did not take place on the Lincoln Highway. It was held in Ann Arbor. MI, and focused on Detroit, MI. Detroit had never been served by the highway but had been home to the association’s headquarters for its entire existence. In 1915, LHA President Henry B. Joy drove to the Panama-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco on the LH after connecting with it in Indiana via a feeder route from LHA headquarters. That trip would be recreated with a tour immediately following the conference. I was present at the start of the tour but was not a participant. I did get to experience the feeder, however, even if it was in the opposite direction. Prior to the conference, I joined a small group in Elkhart, IN, that followed the feeder to near Ann Arbor. I followed it the rest of the way on my own after the conference. The picture of the Irish Hills Towers was taken while following the feeder on the way to the conference.

Trip Peek #116
Trip #63
National Road Festival

Posted on June 5, 2022 by Denny

This picture is from my 2008 National Road Festival trip. It was taken in Addison, PA, where I encountered a wagon train encampment on the way to join a different wagon train in Clear Springs, MD. I became “embedded” in the Clear Springs train for the purpose of producing an article for American Road magazine. Because of that, I avoided using photos or other items destined for the article in my journal. Even so, I managed to include a few pictures from my two days with the train and plenty from the before and after travel days. Post-train travel included a visit to Antietam National Battlefield and some time on the Lincoln Highway as I headed home. That Lincoln Highway time included a stop at the Flight 93 Memorial which still had a very “homegrown” appearance.

Trip Peek #115
Trip #47
Natchez Christmas

Posted on February 20, 2022 by Denny

This picture is from my 2006 Natchez Christmas trip. It shows the gilded hand atop the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church in Port Gibson, MS, that mimicks a gesture the church’s founder and first pastor often used in his sermons. The photograph was made while traveling north on the Natchez Trace Parkway after spending Christmas in Natchez, MS. On the way south, I’d spent a night in Clarksdale, MS. My northbound route followed the parkway all the way to its terminus near Nashville, TN, but I slipped off to visit things like the Vicksburg National Military Park, Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo, and this flying finger of faith in Port Gibson.

Trip Peek #114
Trip #159
Corner to Corner to Corner II

Posted on July 11, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2020 Corner to Corner to Corner II trip. The corners involved are the southwest and northeast corners of Ohio and the II identifies this as a repeat of an earlier outing. The first Corner to Corner to Corner was in 2001. It was just the third trip documented on this site and was partially a practice run for a much larger trip that would follow in four months. Similarly, this trip, the first of the COVID-19 riddled 2020, could be considered a test run for a larger trip planned for two months in the future. Pretty much by coincidence, the larger trip being prepared for in both instances was a retrace of a trip taken by my great-grandparents in 1920. In what was perceived as a way to limit exposure to COVID, the trip was organized around two nights at a motel near Medina. I reached the motel on the first day by following US-42 north and returned home on the third day by following OH-3/3C Highway south. in between I followed those same roads in and out of Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Trip Peek #113
Trip #150
Spontaneous Nash Dash

Posted on July 4, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2018 Spontaneous Nash Dash. The two concerts around which this trip was centered had been on my radar for a short while but the decision to attend really did occur spontaneously on the morning of the first concert. I left home on Thursday, and that night took in The Cleverlys at the Station Inn. That’s when the featured photo was taken. The other concert that was used to justify the trip was The Long Players on Saturday night. That left plenty of daylight hours to take in the new Patsy Cline Museum, the Gallery of Iconic Guitars, Santa’s Pub, and the Lane Motor Museum with a stop at Bobby’s Idle Hour on Friday night.

Trip Peek #112
Trip #21
Impromptu PA

Posted on June 27, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2004 Impromptu PA trip which was exactly what the title says. It started with an impromptu work trip that put me in the middle of Pennsylvania a few days ahead of the Memorial Day weekend and finished with a drive home that filled the weekend. On Friday, I headed north through some interesting small towns to reach US-6 which I would follow west until it crossed US-62. US-62 took me to Ohio where I hugged the north bank of the big river till I was back in home territory. The photo is of the Sterling-built diner in Wellsboro, PA, on Route 6. The just-completed World War II memorial was being dedicated that Saturday and a real treat was attending a ceremony in Smethport, PA, that was coordinated with the events in D.C. On Memorial Day, I saw the very tail end of the parade in Portsmouth, OH. In between, I checked out the reconstructed Fort Steuben and the Ohio River Museum in Marietta.

Trip Peek #111
Trip #4
Little Miami

Posted on June 20, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2001 Little Miami River day trip. As this was only my fourth documented trip, I was still sorting out just how I wanted to handle things. In fact, this trip was undertaken primarily for practice and experimentation rather than for sightseeing and discovery. My starting point was near where the Little Miami River enters the Ohio River and I followed the smaller stream from there to its source. That source is not too far from the pictured Historic Clifton Mill.

I really got a kick out of reviewing the twenty-year-old trip to produce this Trip Peek. Of particular interest were glimpses of the abandoned Peters Cartridge Company and the rustic-looking Train Stop bar. The long-empty factory was recently given a new life with the opening of Cartridge Brewing and the Train Stop got a new owner and major improvements a few years ago and is now a popular riverside stop called the Monkey Bar.

Trip Peek #110
Trip #124
Dandy Trail

Posted on June 13, 2021 by Denny

This picture is from my 2015 Dandy Trail day trip. The Dandy Trail was a scenic loop that circled Indianapolis, IN, in the 1920s. I would have known nothing of this loop were it not for friend and blogger Jim Grey who shared old photos and other knowledge of it on his blog. I combined my drive of the Trail with a gathering of area road fans at the historic Oasis Diner in Plainfield. It’s an informal group that often includes mister Grey but this time sadly did not.

Denny G's Road Trips Blog

A DennyGibson.com accessory

Category Archives: Trip Peek