Trip Peek #94
Trip #69
Labor Day 2008

Posted on May 3, 2020 by Denny

This picture is from my 2008 Labor Day trip. Although the trip eventually included wonderful experiences in Point Pleasant, WV (Mothman), and Marietta, OH (Lafayette Hotel), the highlight of the trip occurred right at its beginning. I took the photo at right about fifteen miles from home at the Crabfest in Blanchester, OH. That’s Gene Sullivan landing next to the spike of a 68-foot horseshoe crab after jumping over its body and through the “flaming gates of Hell”. Crabfest is no more, and neither, apparently is the church that sponsored it. But Gene and the crab survive. The crab has been moved about twenty-five miles east to Hillsboro, and Gene, at 73, has, or at least had, a 50th anniversary “Jump for Jesus” tour planned for the summer of 2020. I could find no current information on the tour so do not know whether it has been canceled or postponed by the coronavirus pandemic or has been affected by something else.

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 #93
Trip #114
Battle of Lake Erie Bicentennial

Posted on April 26, 2020 by Denny

This picture is from my 2013 trip to the Battle of Lake Erie Bicentennial. Even though the anniversary of the battle was the trigger for the trip, it would be over and I would be back home before the date actually arrived. The battle took place on September 10, 1813. A reenactment occurred on September 2, 2013. Watching the reenactment required a ticket that I’d waited too long to buy so I did a “bicentennial light”. I took two ferry rides to Put-In-Bay checking out Perry’s Victory Monument on one trip and a reproduction of the Niagara, Perry’s flagship, on the other. Onboard for the second trip was a Commodore Perry reenactor who provided considerable history. There was a day between the rides which I spent exploring Sandusky, Ohio. The picture shows both the Niagra and the monument.

When I left Sandusky, I headed to Canada to explore some of the sites connected with the Battle of the Thames in which Tecumseh was killed less than a month after the Battle of Lake Erie. I returned to the states to cover the bits of Michigan’s Dixie Highway that remained undriven by me. All of that had been planned before I left home. The trip’s unplanned bonus (Every trip should have at least one.) was in Canada. I stayed at a very nice B & B near Buxton National Historic Site. That this was “A Terminus of the Underground Railroad” was cool enough, but the fact that the 90th annual reunion was taking place while I was there was an extraordinary piece of luck.

Trip Peek #92
Trip #144
SCA Conference 2017

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Denny

This picture is from my 2017 “trip” to the SCA Conference. I put trip in quotation marks since the conference was in Cincinnati and I spent every night at home in my own bed. The retired Holiday Inn sign is in front of the American Sign Museum where we had dinner after the first full day of the conference. That day was spent on a bus tour around the Cincinnati area, the next was filled with presentations, and the third with a bus tour north along the Dixie Highway.

Trip Peek #91
Trip #87
Route 66 Festival 2010

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Denny

This picture is from my 2010 trip to the Route 66 Festival. It was promoted as a Joplin, Missouri, event since that was the nearest city but the main organizers lived in Kansas and most activities took place at the Downstream Casino in Oklahoma. It’s quite fitting that the featured photo is of the point where all three states meet. The first day of the festival was the sixth day of the trip. On the way there I visited Saint Louis, Missouri, and a few towns in Kansas and Oklahoma. The homeward portion of the trip is documented in a separate journal since I headed directly to my first ever Lincoln Highway conference after the three day Route 66 festival.

Trip Peek #90
Trip #134
Jefferson Highway Conference 2016

Posted on December 29, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2016 trip to the Jefferson Highway Association Conference in Carthage, Missouri. Conference presentations were in a center across the road from Red Oak II and wrapped up early enough that attendees could cross over for a look. This was my second visit to the whimsical town but my first time meeting its creator, Lowell Davis. After graciously posing for the photo at right, Lowell treated me and Mike and Sharon Curtis to a tour of his home and a look at some of his classic artwork. The next day was bus tour day but I skipped it for something more important. Route 66 icon Laurel Kane had died the previous January and friends and family gathered at her beloved Afton Station this day to celebrate her life.

I drove some Jefferson Highway, of course, but I also drove some Historic Route 66, US-60, US-62, and even a little Dixie Highway. The range of stops was about as wide as any trip I’ve taken. They included Apple Valley Toyland, Gary Turner’s (reopened by his daughter) Gay Parita, the Woody Guthrie Center, an Ian Moore concert in Tulsa, Monte Ne, Eureka Springs, Branson (really just a drive-by), Cairo (IL), the Everly Brothers Museum, and Bill Monroe’ birthplace. Yeah, I can’t guess what the theme was either.

Trip Peek #89
Trip #33
The New Kid

Posted on October 20, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2005 trip to see The New Kid. This was a working trip that I extended with some vacation time and a weekend. I also extended the journal backward a little bit by including a few pictures from working days. The new kid was grandson Noah who had been born barely a month previous to my sailor son who was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, at the time. Most of the drive home was on US-60 with stops at Colonial Williamsburg and in Richmond to visit friends. I even got in a few miles of Blue Ridge Parkway.

Trip Peek #88
Trip #29
Rock and Stone

Posted on September 29, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2004 Rock and Stone trip. It was one of those working trips that I stretched into a personal trip with a weekend and a couple of vacation days. The work site was in Ty Cobb’s birthplace, Royston, Georgia, so that’s where the trip journal really begins. The title comes from stops at Rock City and Stone Mountain. The picture comes from a ride on Chattanooga’s incline.

Trip Peek #87
Trip #141
Lincoln Highway Conference 2017

Posted on September 8, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2017 Lincoln Highway Association Conference trip. The conference was in Denison, Iowa. The photo was taken during a bus tour stop at Lions Club Tree Park near Grand Junction, Iowa, where bridges from three different periods can be viewed. I made it to the conference in a little more than a day by sticking mostly to expressways. My drive home was a bit more leisurely as I revisited some of the same areas that conference bus tours had covered only I did in on narrow — and sometimes dirt — old alignments that the busses had not been able to follow.

Trip Peek #86
Trip #133
Rock ‘n’ Rail Redux

Posted on July 7, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2016 Rock ‘n’ Rail Redux trip. Readers may recall that previous railroad based trips to Washington, DC, have had issues ranging from extremely late trains to completely canceled trains. This one was essentially problem free. The “Rock” in this particular outing was a Willie Nile concert at, as the sign says, The Hamilton Live. In addition to a pretty much on schedule train ride and a rollicking concert, I enjoyed a day on the National Mall including an independence for Punjab parade.

Trip Peek #85
Trip #148
Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Nile

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Denny

This picture is from my 2018 Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Nile trip. It consisted of a day driving to Pittsburgh, PA, a day in the city, and two days driving home during which I got to visit with three old friends. The picture shows the Duquesne Incline which I rode down on after riding up on the Monongahela Incline. I also checked out a couple of museums in Pittsburgh and another on the way home. The Allegheny and Monongahela are the rivers that meet in Pittsburgh to form the Ohio. Willie Nile is the musician whose concert the trip was centered around.

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