2024 in the Rear View

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The year in numbers with 2023 values in parentheses:

  • 7 (7) = Road trips reported
  • 68 (81) = Blog posts
  • 72 (47) = Days on the road
  • 2,491 (2,029) = Pictures posted — 671 (866) in the blog and 1,820 (1,163) in road trips

Last year I wrote that everything went up except interest. This year even that increased with more visits to both the blog and the trip journals than in 2023. I made the same number of trips as last year but spent over three weeks more on them. That is undoubtedly why road trip pictures are up and probably why blog posts and pictures are down. There were just eight reviews published in 2024 compared to sixteen in 2023, and that is a big part of the difference. The number one post on both the blog and non-blog lists is a repeat of last year. In fact, both lists have four of last year’s entries returning this year. Could that be a sign of website maturity? Stagnation? Irrelevance?

Top Blog Posts:

  1. Twenty Mile’s Last Stand
    This is the second consecutive first place for this post. That makes a total of five times in first and ten times in the top five. Clearly, this post about a nineteenth-century stagecoach stop destined for destruction by developers continues to attract attention.
  2. Review: Route 66 Navigation
    “Product Review — Route 66 Navigation — by Touch Media” was posted in February of 2023 and it accumulated enough visits by year’s end to rank fourth. In 2023, the Twenty Mile’s Last Stand post became the first ever to see more visits than the blog’s home page, and this year the Route 66 Navigation review joins it in outperforming the home page. I was rather impressed with the reviewed product, and hope this post has sent a customer or two its way.
  3. My Wheels – Chapter 1 1960 J. C. Higgins Flightliner
    Since it was published in 2013, this post has appeared in the top five every year except one. In 2022, it was sixth.
  4. Review: Every Christmas Story Ever Told
    Last year I made something of a big deal of the fact that a play review (A Christmas Carol) earned a spot in the top five with only a couple of weeks to draw readers. A year previous, the review of another annual Cincinnati theatrical offering in nearly identical circumstances wasn’t even close. But in 2023, that review of Every Christmas Story Ever Told missed the list by just one position and this year moves from sixth to fourth.
  5. Scoring the Dixie
    After a second-place finish last year, this post about tracking drives on the Dixie Highway slips but hangs on for its eighth top-five appearance. As I have noted several times, I know that some visits are for the wrong (i.e., Dixie bashing) reasons but I hope that all visitors leave with the realization that the Dixie Highway was an important part of American transportation history.

Top Non-Blog Posts:

  1. Sixty-Six: E2E & F2F
    This 2012 end-to-end and friend-to-friend drive of Historic Route 66 appears in the top five list for the eighth time and tops it for the fourth time.
  2. Lincoln Highway Conference 2011
    This trip moves from third to second for its fourth top-five appearance. It includes a full-length drive of US-36 before reaching the Lincoln Highway.
  3. Lincoln Highway West
    This 2009 trip swaps positions with the 2011 LH conference trip this year but stays in the top five for a fifth time.
  4. Kids & Coast
    Helping to make the 2024 list resemble the 2023 list, this west coast trip takes the number four slot for the third time in a row.
  5. JHA Conference 2024
    The two most recent top-five lists have included the Christmas Escape Run from the previous year. I’m sure at least part of the reason is that those posts each had a full year to accumulate hits. This year, despite its twelve-month existence, the 2023 version of that trip was edged out of the list by the 2024 Jefferson Highway Association Conference trip that took place just eight months ago in April.

All three of the main traffic measurements were up this year. Overall site visits grew from 95,651 to 164,460, blog visits rose from 4,366 to 5,236, and page views went from 651,826 to 815,886. I don’t think the increases are something to get excited about but they are encouraging or at least not discouraging, and I’m pretty happy with that.

In case your seeing of DennyGibson.com posts is haphazard and you’d like it not to be, email lists and RSS feeds are available. Descriptions and links are provided in the website FAQ under How can I keep up with it?

Trip Peek #144
Trip #165
JHA 2022 Conference

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This picture is from my Jefferson Highway Association 2022 Conference trip. As mentioned in the previous Trip Peek, COVID-19 had put in-person conferences on hold for a couple of years. The JHA came out of the hold with this conference in Pittsburg, KS. When I drove the full length of the Jefferson Highway in 2018, I followed what I considered the primary alignment through Missouri. There was an alternate alignment on the Kansas side of the border and I welcomed the chance to drive that on this trip. The conference included presentations, museum visits, sign dedications, and, as the photo shows, a performance of a slightly modified “How You Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm” by Loring Miller while JHA President Roger Bell tries — and fails — to keep a straight face. I managed visits to the National World War I Museum and John Brown Memorial Park on the way to the conference, then stopped at Boots Court, Gay Parita, and Uranus Fudge Factory on the way home with an overnight at Rockwood Motor Court in Springfield, MO.

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.

You Never Even Called Me by My Name

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The photo at right was taken at the very beginning of the longest night of 2024. It was supposed to show the sun setting over the Ohio River but the sun is doing its thing behind a wall of clouds. Winter Solstice is about eleven hours and thirty-eight minutes away. Sunrise is fourteen hours and twenty-three minutes away.

In four of the last five Decembers, I have published a solstice-related post. Three were versions of A Cosmic Reason for the Season which was first published in 2019. It basically tries to explain how modern-day Christmas had its beginning in celebrations of the Winter Solstice and how the two have become quite disconnected over the centuries. Last year’s Don’t Christmas My Yule post came from my realization that not everyone considers Yule to be synonymous with Christmas and that many celebrate a Yule that is just as tightly tied to the solstice as it ever was.

Those posts, along with a few others, talk about how holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Groundhog Day (Candlemas) have become so out of synch with nature that most see no connection at all. If that sort of thing interests you, I suggest reading them and I doubly suggest reading an article I’ve cited in them: The Winter Solstice and the Origins of Christmas

This article is being published during the gap between Solstice and Christmas and looks at a question I’ve had about the latter for some time. I guess the question had never bothered me enough to look for an answer because, when I did, I immediately found an article that used the question I was asking as its title and answered it quite nicely. The question — and article — is: Why is Christmas a Federal Holiday?

As I said, the article answers the question quite nicely and I won’t repeat it all here. The extremely short version is that it was declared a holiday by date rather than by name and that seems to be the primary reason it has survived First Amendment-based challenges. Some weight has also been given to the fact that three other clearly secular holidays were established at the same time. The pertinent text of the 1870 bill is: “The first day of January, commonly called New Year’s Day, the fourth day of July, the twenty-fifth day of December, commonly called Christmas, and any day appointed or recommended by the President of the United States as a day of public fast or thanksgiving shall be holidays…” The full bill is here.

Note that the bill tied three of the holidays to days of the month with no mention of days of the week and no consideration for solar or lunar positions. Thanksgiving was not tied to anything at all. It had been celebrated since the days of George Washington but its date was set by proclamation and varied considerably. Lincoln moved to tie it to the last Thursday of November with an 1863 proclamation but for some reason, the 1870 bill did not put that into law. Nonetheless, Lincoln’s proclamation held until Franklin Roosevelt tried moving the holiday to lengthen the 1939 “25th of December” shopping season. Not everyone went along and in 1941 the legislature finally stepped in to nail Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November.

I felt somewhat chagrined when I read that 1870 holiday bill. For several years I have made a conscious effort to refer to that big mid-summer holiday as Independence Day instead of the — I thought — more informal 4th of July. I stand corrected and henceforth will try to remember to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July and a Merry 25th of December.

My Old Kentucky Hotels

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For the first time in decades, I saw an advertisement for a Black Friday special I could use. When the Brown Hotel in Louisville, KY, offered discounted rates and free parking for bookings during the post-Thanksgiving window, it became the clinching member in a trio of historic hotels in Kentucky that fill the days between Winter Solstice and Christmas Day. The first day consisted of driving across most of Kentucky to take a picture of clouds but it is posted.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.

Solstice Glow at Krohn

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I admitted attending Krohn Conservatory‘s holiday display last year partly because of the word “yule” in the name “Golden Days of Yule”. I’m back again this year largely because of the name. It was almost unavoidable since “Solstice Glow” was near the top of the list of hits in my annual search for solstice-related events. I went on Wednesday when temperatures were in the 20s and an overnight dusting of snow left no doubt that winter was here and made the warmth inside the giant greenhouse much appreciated.

The giant poinsettia tree that has become a regular winter feature at Krohn is once again front and center near the entrance. The tree appeared, as planned, on December 6 more than a month after the November 2 opening of “Solstice Glow” and is scheduled to remain two days beyond the January 5 closing. I intentionally delayed my visit to not miss the tree.

At the heart of Kron’s holiday show are the models of area landmarks made from natural materials. A new model is constructed each year to be added to the display. This year that new model is of the CVG Airport complete with airplanes and a pair of abbreviated runways.

Last year’s addition was the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. The year before that, the eight-foot-long Music Hall was added and Findlay Market was new in 2021.

Bridges and railroads have played an important role in Cincinnati’s history and the Krohn holiday display recognizes both with model trains traveling over replicas of automobile bridges. Of course, the 1866 Roebling Bridge predates automobiles but that is its role today. The Daniel Carter Beard Bridge opened in 1976 but is partially closed today due to a November 1 fire over which arson charges have been filed.

All of those model buildings, bridges, and trains are the work of Applied Imagination of Alexandria, KY. Today the company is responsible for similar displays in many cities but started the whole concept here at Krohn in 1991. In 2012, station KET created a video profile of this remarkable company which can be accessed from the company website or directly here.

I have made much of my attendance at this event being prompted by the words “yule” and “solstice” in its name. I came dangerously close to making way too much of that and making a big mistake. I’m guessing we have all seen click-bait, stir-the-pot posts of the form “X is really upset by Y” with little or no evidence that X is even aware of Y, let alone upset by it. When Krohn Conservatory announced the title of this year’s winter event, I thought I saw some posts bemoaning the presence of the word “solstice” and the absence of the word “Christmas”. I even thought addressing that would be a major part of this post. Fortunately, I took another look.

As one commenter observed, there were “…more people complaining about people  complaining than actual people complaining.” In all honesty, I found no one complaining. Just some people defending something that was not attacked. I believe what I initially took as a complaint about the name was intended as a many-year belated complaint about a pricing change. I guess that I, like several news sources, had somehow decided this was the Krohn Conservatory Christmas display. It is possible that once upon a time, that was its official name, but of all the online references using the word Christmas that I found, not one came from the conservatory. 

I believe the official titles of Krohn Conservatory’s holiday displays over the last dozen years were: 
2024 – Solstice Glow
2023 – Golden Days of Yule
2022 – Celestial Holiday
2021 – Trains and Traditions
2020 – A Very Merry Garden Holiday
2019 – A Zinzinnati Holiday
2018 – A Crystal Holiday
2017 – Cincinnati Choo Choo
2016 – Whimsical Wonderland
2015 – The Poinsettia Express
2014 – Magic and Mistletoe
2013 – A Cincinnati Scenic Railway

Discovering Ansel Adams at the Cincinnati Art Museum

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I post a lot of pictures on the internet, and occasionally, someone will say something nice about one of them. Any photo of mine that is worthy of a compliment is invariably the result of me accidentally being in the right place at the right time. Just like Ansel Adams — except for the “accidentally” part. The remarkable landscape photos that Adams became famous for were almost always the result of significant study to determine just what the right spot and right time were and usually some significant effort in getting there. The Discovering Ansel Adams exhibit contains plenty of those famous landscapes along with many of his lesser-known works.

The exhibit begins with items from the not-yet-famous part of his life. In addition to family snapshots and letters, one display contains a compass and some light meters used in the complementary “getting there” and “getting the shot” aspects of Adams’ work. The leftmost picture on the wall is the earliest landscape photo by Adams in the exhibit and probably the only one that is fairly well known with the word “inadvertently” in a description from Adams himself. Taken on his very first visit to Yosemite with his parents, the photo and description are here.

Black and white photos from large format cameras are most commonly associated with Adams and those make up the bulk of the exhibit. Many, but not all, are of various national parks. A couple of photos are accompanied by display cases holding backlit negatives and associated laboratory notes.

To support his fine art tendencies, Adams did a fair amount of commercial work including some in color. He even took pictures of people now and then and sometimes used small handheld cameras instead of bulky tripod-supported boxes. Sometimes, he even took pictures for his own enjoyment. Several things we don’t normally associate with Ansel Adams are associated with this photo of Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox, described here, that shows the same crisp detail seen in his large-format people-less landscape work.

Copies of several of the books that Adams authored or contributed to are available to leaf through as part of the exhibit. I spent some time in one of those padded chairs reading bits from The Camera. The exhibit runs through January 19, 2025.

I also took in CAMaraderie: Artists of the Cincinnati Art Museum while I was at the museum. This impressive exhibit is comprised of numerous works of art from members of the museum staff. It runs through January 5, 2025.    

TG ’24

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I did it again. I dunno, maybe I’m in a rut. I see that last year I had thoughts of Thanksgiving dinner at an Ohio or Indiana state park but waited too long to make reservations. I wrote that only the meal, and not an overnight stay, was actually considered for Ohio so maybe the lodges had already priced themselves out of contention. They certainly had this year, which made me drop them from consideration for the meal so quickly that I can’t say whether or not I would have been too late. But I did pick an Indiana park and I did make a call only to learn that the meal was sold out. Thankfully, Kentucky was there for me once again. BTW, one way of producing a washed-out photo such as this is to grab a camera last used for shooting in the dark and start snapping away without so much as a glance at sensitivity settings and such.

I again picked a park I had never been to in a part of the state that I was pretty unfamiliar with as well. Buckhorn Lake State Resort Park lies about 75 crow miles southeast of Lexington. I decided to reach Lexington on a semi-official Dixie Highway alignment, then head to the park on new-to-me back roads. I feared that the Log Cabin Inn would be closed on Thanksgiving Day but it was serving breakfast and had a sold-out dinner planned for later. Today I learned that the dog-trot cabin that forms the oldest part of the restaurant was moved here from Bardstown in the late 1800s. There’s a giant fireplace in each half of the original cabin and some good advice over the bar.

I called this section of Dixie Highway that passes through Falmouth, KY, while connecting Cincinnati and Lexington, “semi-official” because it was included as an alternate path then the Dixie Highway Association disbanded before an official choice was made between it and the original alignment through Florence, KY. Most of the route has been taken over by KY-17 and US-27 and become quite modern looking but some still looks much like it did when it was the DH. Some of the locals seemed mildly interested in my passing, though others could not care less.

That 75 crow miles between Lexington and Buckhorn Lake State Park became a little more than 110 road miles most of which looked like this. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive but there was near-constant — mostly quite light — rain and I did not take many pictures.

My scheduling was far from precise but at one point it looked like I was going to reach the park with nearly an hour to spare. Then I missed a turn. By the time I realized it and backtracked, all my cushion was gone. I reached the lodge at 3:31 for my 3:30 — last of the day — seating. The girl at the desk correctly guessed my name and I hurried downstairs to the dining room. The platters weren’t overflowing but there was still plenty of turkey, ham, and catfish plus most of the trimmings. Stuffing, it seems, had been depleted before I got there. I avoided a more significant disappointment with a preemptive strike. The dessert area was in full view from my table with the pie table filled with pumpkin and pecan pie when I sat down. At some point, I looked over to see the pumpkin pie side still well populated with just one piece of pecan left. I altered my plans just a bit to park that piece of pecan pie beside my plate while I finished the rest of my meal.

I now had time to check into my room in the lodge. It included a balcony which I’m sure offered a very nice view during warmer months. In late November, it simply let me verify that the pool was closed for the season and so too, apparently, was the lake.

Of course, it was too cold to sit on that balcony and really too cold to explore the park. I did return to the lobby to grab a shot of the Christmas tree and a clearer view of the lake at “low tide”.

As I headed out in the morning, I did a little exploring in the warm dry car which suited me much better than on foot in yesterday’s cold and damp. I’ve assumed that the low lake is an annual thing but don’t really know that and wish now that I had asked. I did not see any black bears but did read the instructions. I did see some other visitors. Only a few rooms were occupied in the lodge last night but a whole bunch of cabins had at least one car parked nearby. State parks are a pretty good place for families to spend holidays.

Then it was quite a few more miles of the sort of road that finished up yesterday but without the rain. One of these pictures was taken inside the Daniel Boone National Forest and the other just outside it. Hard to tell the difference, eh?

Breakfast was in Hazard at France’s Diner. Good food, good people, and a little local history on the walls.

I finally made it to the Mother Goose Inn in Hazard. It was built as a market and has been a store, a B&B, and a private residence but I couldn’t tell you what it is now.

I backtracked just a little from Hazard to pick up the Hal Rogers Parkway and head back into the Daniel Boone National Forest. I left it at London to head north on the Dixie Highway. Following one DH alignment to Lexington to start the trip then taking the DH back to Lexington and following another alignment back to Cincinnati seemed rather natural to me but it makes that Kentucky Thanksgiving rut I mentioned a little more obvious. Two years ago, I didn’t even do a Thanksgiving meal but spent the day driving this pair of DH alignments in Kentucky. The blog entry is here.

I paused to take a picture from the Clay’s Ferry Overlook and another at the 1871 bridge below. I contacted owner Jay Webb when I realized I would be coming by the overlook and, although we did not connect today, I do think we will be meeting here around Christmas.

Just a few miles north of the river, a large brontosaurus stands alone in an empty field watching traffic. About a quarter mile away, a smaller version uses a shed as a viewing platform. I assume they are somehow connected but what they are watching for is a mystery.

When I drove these two Dixie Highway alignments in 2022, I did them in the reverse order but that’s not the only difference. I could not cross the Roebling suspension bridge southbound because it was closed for a foot race that has since relocated to TQL Stadium. I did not cross it northbound because a slight detour prompted me to abandon the DH in the dark. This year, it was the historic Dixie Highway and the even more historic John A. Roebling Bridge both going and coming.

African American History along the Cincinnati Riverfront

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I took this Harriet Beecher Stowe House walking tour last Saturday with the idea that it would be the subject of last Sunday’s blog post but it was not. I told myself there wasn’t enough time to create a post for Sunday morning, which was certainly one reason, but another reason was that I felt slightly disappointed in the tour. I should not have. The problem was my expectations were off. For no good reason, I had thought we would visit spots where historic things happened but with just a little more thought I realized how ridiculous that was—the Cincinnati riverfront of 2024 bares little resemblance to the riverfront of the past. The tour took us to places where historic things are commemorated. I enjoyed the tour as it happened and now appreciate it with the passage of a little time.

We met tour guide Zinnia Stewart by the statue of John Roebling near the south end of the bridge that bears his name. Other than a meeting point, the statue plays no role in the tour. Neither does the bridge as anything other than a walkway across the river. I chose the particular opening photo that I did because it mimics the photo that has appeared at the front of this blog since the beginning. Its purpose is to show the river of the tour’s title. Dredging, dams, and other feats of engineering have made the Ohio River consistently navigable for large barges which is something it was not in the days when it separated the free North from the slaveholding South.

The tour began by heading east along the river to a statue representing James Bradley. We were supplied with small wireless (Bluetooth I assume) listening devices so that we could easily hear Stewart as we walked. Bradley was abducted from Africa and worked as a slave until he was able to buy his own freedom in 1833. He then moved to Cincinnati and was the only former slave participating in the pivotal Lane Debates of 1834.

We then headed west past the Roebling Bridge to the string of Robert Dafford murals on the riverfront and stopped at The Flight of the Garner Family. In 1856, Margaret Garner escaped from slavery by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her husband and children. They were captured in Cincinnati and Margaret killed her daughter to save her from a life of slavery. She was prevented from killing herself and her other children as planned. Toni Morrison’s Beloved was inspired by these events.

It was now time to cross the river ourselves. I had taken that opening picture of the River Queen during our visit to the murals and now caught it from the middle of the Roebling Bridge after it turned and headed back. We stopped twice while crossing as Stewart shared stories and photos of people and places along both sides of the river.

On the Ohio side, I spent more time at the Black Brigade Monument than I have ever spent before, and as a result, I know I need to spend a lot more time here in the future. I simply did not realize the many facets of this monument that it seems I’ve only glanced at before. One bit of information that made the whole tour worthwhile is that William Mallory, who was instrumental in getting the monument constructed, was the model for the face of Black Brigade member Marshall P.H. Jones. I thought I knew the story of the Black Brigade but, just like the memorial, there is a lot more for me to learn.

Our last stop was at this statue of politician Marian Spencer. Spencer left her mark on the area in many ways but she is probably best remembered for her efforts to desegregate Coney Island Amusement Park.

Trip Peek #143
Trip #166
LHA 2022 Conference

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This picture is from my Lincoln Highway Association 2022 Conference trip. COVID-19 had put in-person conferences on hold for a couple of years and the LHA ended the hold with this conference in Joliet, IL. Between Lincoln Highway and Route 66 events, I was familiar with many of the highway-related points of interest in the area but I had never been inside the Old Joliet Prison which appeared in “The Blues Brothers” movie. The photo at right was taken inside the East Cell House. Besides the prison, tours included the Rialto and Egyptian Theaters, which I had seen before, and a farm, winery, and museum, which were new to me. Of course, there were some interesting presentations and tasty meals in between all that.

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.

Some Setbacks Are Unavoidable

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The About page for this blog says its topics might include “just about anything other than politics or religion”, and I have been pretty successful in keeping religion out of my blog and my life — less so politics. I’m pretty sure this post is the most blatant breaking of my own rule yet, but during a week when the internet is awash in political posts, perhaps no one will even notice.

Around Independence Day this year, I revisited the document at the heart of the holiday and was struck by a sentence containing the words “character” and “tyrant”. So much so that I soon made it part of my Facebook cover photo which is shown here.

Last Sunday, I replaced my Facebook profile picture with the one at left which I had used previously on the anniversary of the pictured assault on our capitol. I had wanted to do that sooner but was traveling and chose to keep an “on the road” picture in place until I was home. My intention was to replace both pictures on the day after the election. The cover photo would go back to the picture of the 1923 version of the Pledge of Allegiance in the Indiana War Memorial Shrine Room that the Declaration of Independence quote replaced, and the profile picture would become one of my previously used “at home” pictures. That has not happened because the day after the election did not feel like the “return to normalcy” I had expected and hoped for. My plans for replacing them are uncertain.

When I changed my profile picture a week ago, I included this text: “There are many reasons to vote against Donald Trump but for me, his actions of January 6, 2021, and the intentions they revealed are, by themselves, more than enough.”

I don’t participate in political discussions in real life much more than I do online but in the few I have had during the last year or so, I have noted my feeling that the disregard for the rule of law and the workings of U.S. democracy Donald Trump showed that day made virtually every other consideration in the presidential election insignificant.

One commenter on the profile picture told me that I was the one being “gaslighted” and that Pelosi was to blame. Another claimed that the assault was planned by “the Dems”. The comments came from good people who I assume really believe what they say. Why is their view so different from mine? Why is my view of Donald Trump so different from that of the majority of voters in Tuesday’s election? I don’t know the full answer to that but do believe that what Heather Cox Richardson referred to as “the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now” is a big part of it. I do on occasion respond to someone sharing disinformation online by pointing to a source that refutes it. Common reactions are “I don’t trust that source” or “It doesn’t matter if that evidence is fake because I know something is going on”.

Incidentally, Richardson is someone I follow and respect. If you don’t follow her yourself and have room for one more analysis of the election, I suggest her Letters from an American of November 6.

With Trump’s clear victory on Tuesday, I confess to briefly questioning my view of the man but it was over in a flash. All it took was remembering how many members of his first administration, including a chief of staff and his own vice president, also consider him unfit for office.

This post’s title comes from President Joe Biden’s speech on November 7. I listened to it live and was struck by the phrase “Setbacks are unavoidable but giving up is unforgivable.” Others were too as it seems to be quoted in the bulk of reports on the speech. In the speech, Biden, mentions some of his successes such as infrastructure investment and the seemingly unappreciated “soft landing” from high inflation. Understandably, he did not mention failures. The biggest, in my opinion, was the failure to quickly and aggressively prosecute Donald Trump for his words and actions related to that 2021 attack on the capitol. I agree, Joe, that we probably can’t avoid all setbacks. But I do think we could have avoided this one.