Trip Peek #139
Trip #107
Sixty-Six: E2E & F2F

This picture is from my 2012 Sixty-Six: E2E & F2F trip. Most of you will probably recognize Route 66 legend Angel Delgadillo standing behind me. This was my third end-to-end drive of Historic Route 66 and that is what the E2E in the title stands for. The F2F stands for “friend to friend”. This being my third full-length drive of the route, there were quite a few people along the way that I considered friends and to whom I could say hello. The Route 66 portion started with a Chicago tour conducted by the late David Clark with a Scott Piotrowski tour of Los Angeles at the other end. One purpose of the trip was to attend the Route 66 Festival in Victorville, CA, and I followed that with a visit with my son in San Diego then headed home through Tombstone, AZ, Roswell, NM, Gene Autry, OK, Hot Springs, AR, and several other interesting places.

This was the most visited trip journal when it first appeared in 2012. It also ranked number one in 2021 and 2023 and stands second in the 2024 rankings at the time of this Trip Peek posting.


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.

Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival

Although I had heard of lantern displays, I had never attended one so Thursday’s experience was a completely new one for me. Apparently, the event is also something new for the Columbus Zoo but they had more than a month’s experience with it before I got there. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival opened on August 1 and will run through September 29.

It opens at 7:00 while the sun is still shining and remains open until 10:00 long after the sun has set. I initially thought that was much more time than was reasonably required but realized that the lanterns essentially fill the entire zoo. And it’s a really big zoo.

I probably saw less than a third of the lanterns in full sunlight. 

Then I revisited some of those and took in the remainder as things got darker.

In between my light and dark walks, I took in one of the two shows that are offered. These photos are from the Martial Arts show. The other show, which I did not see, is Shadow Puppets.

Of course, darkness and lanterns really do go together.

Many lanterns represent living creatures and some are close enough to scale to be considered lifesize. That is decidedly not the case with this group.

When I searched for this event, I called it a Chinese Lantern Festival and many of the lanterns displayed in Columbus match some shown on a website with that name. The Columbus event, however, mostly, but not entirely, avoids the word Chinese. Perhaps that is because the zoo and the lanterns are organized to represent all the different areas of the globe. Of course, that means there is a section that does represent China.

Admission includes unlimited rides which was wasted on me although I did briefly consider taking a few laps on the historic carousel. And there are bunches of lanterns not pictured here. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival is open tonight and there are two more weeks of Thursday through Sunday operation.

Goetta Again

GoettaFest is that eight-day festival that is spread over two four-day weekends with a gap in the middle. Two years ago I made it to the first day of the first weekend. This year I made it — just barely — to the first day of the second weekend. I knew of the festival’s opening last week but had other things to do. When I did get around to thinking about this week’s itinerary, the predicted weather did not seem a very good match for outdoor activities. Several days of rain were predicted with possibly severe thunderstorms arriving just about the time of the festival’s opening. But, as opening time approached, those storms and even the rain were still marking time in Indiana. I decided to give it a try.

The Ferris wheel is new this year and “The World’s Only Goetta Vending Machine” might be too. I did not try it and now regret not studying it closer so I could describe it here. I believe this is the world’s only Goetta festival so one Goetta vending machine might be enough.

I have previously explained that the Cincinnati area has a near monopoly on Goetta and that Glier’s Meats has a near monopoly on Goetta in the Cincinnati area. The festival is officially the Glier’s GoettaFest. Next to the vending machine, there is a tent filled with Giier and Goetta information. The tent is a Goettafest fixture and I’m sure that the “Goetta Guy” has been here before but this was our first meeting. The “Goetta Guy” is Dan Glier, President of Glier’s Meats since 1977 and the second generation to run the company. Dan’s a very friendly fellow who is there to answer questions or just chat and that’s what we did. I was well aware that Glier’s Meats is located sort of across the street from Anchor Grill where I’ve consumed a fair amount of Gliers Goetta. Today Dan pointed out that the two began in the same year (1946) and have always been neighbors.

Here are a couple of other things that I had not seen previously but which may very well have been here before. I didn’t see anyone riding the mechanical bull while I was there but it was early and the bourbon bar was pretty much idle too. I suspect the two work well together.

Full-time music was happening on both of the festival’s stages with the Billy Brown Band opening on the west end and Red Hot Riot opening on the east stage. They would be followed by Vinyl Countdown and the Kevin McCoy Band.

Of course, there were plenty of food booths offering a variety of creative Goetta-based treats.

I opted for a Goetta Bun Link which, despite the word new on the sign and the fact that I’d never had one, were introduced in 2000. It was quite good and I even have a pseudo-drone shot for the truly curious.

I had every intention of riding that Ferris wheel and, now that I was fed, I turned my attention to it. There was no line but as I was about to approach the ticket booth, I felt the first drops of rain and noticed the breeze had picked up a little. I thought it over only briefly before heading for the car. I was inside the garage before the rain became steady and inside a nearby bar with a $2 PBR before it really cut loose. There was water running in the street when I left but the rain had slowed to a light drizzle.


I am disappointed that I missed my chance to ride the big Ferris wheel on Thursday but just seeing it reminded me of a time when giant “dueling” Ferris wheels were proposed for both sides of the Ohio River. It was just a few years ago that Newport, KY, had plans to build a 230-foot tall wheel on the flood wall near where GoettaFest’s 90-foot wheel was placed. At the same time, Cincinnati had plans to build a 180-foot wheel near the north end of the Roebling Bridge. In a sort of trial run, a 150-foot tall (137-foot diameter) wheel did operate at that point temporarily and I did get to ride that one. Read about it here.

CincItalia 2024

It looks like CincItalia came into being in 2010 so it is not an ancient Cincinnati tradition I need to feel guilty about not attending in years gone by. But it was something I was aware of and thought sounded interesting so I was kind of pleased when things worked out for me on Friday. Yes, it is a church fundraiser and that is something I’m trying to cut back on but I realize that my flesh is entirely too weak to completely avoid a little backsliding now and then.

One of my first stops at the festival was in a large building where some presentations take place and where a couple of culturally significant items are displayed. One is a Sicilian Festival Cart from Palermo, Italy, described by the sign propped against it. The other is a plaster cast used in replacing a bronze statue stolen from Cincinnati’s Eden Park in 2022 as summarized on a nearby sign. A fuller telling is here. A photo of the currently displayed statue is here.

I was here for my evening meal and thought of it as essentially just another dining-out occasion and not so much as a wild festival. With that in mind, I made one “browsing” pass through the area identified in the opening photo as “Little Eataly” and then selected my three-course meal.

Toasted ravioli made a great appetizer and lasagna was perfect for the main course. That’s CincItalia Pils, brewed by West Side Brewing especially for this event, in the cup. Mini-cannolis were three for the price of two. I forced myself.

Plus there were plenty of food and beverage choices that I did not get around to.

No self-respecting Cincinnati church festival would omit several raffles and other games of chance but that’s another thing I did not get around to. I did poke my head into one of the cooking demonstrations but it was full and I’m pretty sure it would have been over my head anyway.

I definitely enjoyed the many “Leonardo’s Fun Facts” that I spotted but I know that I missed a bunch.

Even though I was there, as I’ve said, only for the food, I did stick around for a bit of the Naked Karate Girls show. These guys are definitely entertaining and one or two of them may even know some karate. If so, that would mean their name isn’t a complete lie.

The festival is a three-day affair with Saturday and Sunday presented as family-friendly events. I assume that means, among other things, that the carnival-style rides I saw parked around the edges will be operating. Saturday runs 3:00 to 11:00 and Sunday runs 1:00 to 9:00. Friday’s 6:00 to 12:00 run was billed as adults only but I’m not sure whether that meant a wild Bacchanalia throughout the grounds, some dirty jokes from the bandstand, or old folks nodding off at sundown. I left before I found out and before I nodded off.

ADDENDUM 2-Jun-2024: These photos were not part of the original post but, after tagging a Facebook link to it with the line “There’s a party on the Buddy LaRosa side of town.”, I thought them appropriate. Yes, LaRosa’s Pizza had a trailer there and San Antonio Church had a booth. That’s the church where Buddy sold his first pizzas using sauce made from his Aunt Dena’s recipe.

2024 Appalachian Festival

I know I have gone to the Cincinnati Appalachian Festival before but I don’t know when. It was first held in 1970 so I could have attended fifty years ago. That seems ridiculous, of course. Surely I’ve attended more recently than that. I believe that I must have but the truth is that I have no clear memories to support that belief and I most definitely have no physical evidence. As crazy as it sounds, it seems at least possible that my visit on Saturday was the first in a half-century or so.

Like any good festival, there were food vendors. There were also crafts and other items offered for sale along with numerous displays with nothing for sale at all.

Demonstrations of various aspects of life in the area during past times were offered. Blacksmithing and weaving were both very important parts of Appalachian life.

Maybe I should have spent more time among the vendors and taken more pictures of the exhibits but I guess I was more interested in the music. Two stages presented a non-stop parade of Bluegrass and other forms of American Roots Music. The only groups I saw on the Up Close & Personal stage were Sherry Stanforth & Tangled Roots and the Forest Hills Bluegrass Band. I had actually seen FHBB earlier on the other stage but did not immediately recognize them because I’d not heard the Dobro earlier.

Here is the Forest Hills Bluegrass Band on the Appalachian Heritage Stage with the fellow at stage-left playing a banjo. The middle picture is of the Wayfarers (check out that bass) with Sammy Adkins and the Sandy Hook Mountain Boys filling out the panel.

I also checked out some of the non-stop action in the dancing tent. That’s the Country Steps Cloggers in red and two different lines of the Kentucky Bluegrass Cloggers in blue.

As much as I enjoyed the bluegrass and cloggers, I believe I spent more time watching the Native American dancers.

A skilled drum circle backed the dancers and often supplied singing and chanting too. When the dancers and drummers took a well-deserved break, a talented flute player (and maker) filled the space wonderfully.

A lot of energy went into the dancing but it was quite apparent that the dancers had also put considerable effort into their authentic dress.

I have many more pictures of the Native American dancing but will move on after these scenes from a dance depicting ritualized combat between two warriors.

Coney Island was the site of the festival. The former amusement park had been operating as a water park until it was sold in December to a group associated with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for development into a concert venue. The giant Sunlite Pool has already been demolished and I’ve no idea what else will disappear soon. I’m hoping that this entrance where riverboats once delivered patrons to the park — and through which I once walked while on a dinner cruise during 1988’s Tall Stacks — will be spared.

The festival continues today, May 12, 2024, 10:00-6:00.

Meltdown Winter Ice Festival

The last weekend in January seems like a pretty safe time to have an ice festival in Richmond, Indiana. The average temperature there for both the 26th and 27th is 32°F which sounds just about perfect. But averages are not guaranteed. If the town’s Meltdown Winter Ice Festival had taken place a week or two ago, organizers might have wondered if people would brave the near-zero temperatures to attend. On Friday, their top concern was probably whether or not the ice sculptures would survive the day’s temperatures which were pushing fifty.

This is the Meltdown’s eleventh year but it somehow hid from me for the first decade. A significant part of it escaped me this year, too. I timed the hour-and-a-half drive to give me time for dinner before the first item on the schedule. I parked near Jack Elstro Plaza where big blocks of ice were being unloaded and food trucks were setting up. I ate at a local restaurant as I worked my way to the historic district. An online map indicated where sculptures would be but those I walked by were empty. It eventually sunk in that all carving was to be done on-site and was just starting Friday evening. All ice festivals I’ve attended had on-site carving but others also had some sculptures finished elsewhere and trucked in ready to display.

I continued along the path indicated by the map. It included several blocks of Main Street and it was on Main, in the vicinity of Jack Elstro Plaza, that I saw my first ice sculpture of the day. A fellow adjusting the sponsor tag as I approached told me it had just been finished a very short time before. There was already evidence of melting and I had to wonder if it would make it through the night.

Back at the plaza, things had picked up considerably while I was walking and eating. Several sculptures were nearing completion and perhaps would soon be positioned around town like the one I had seen on Main Street.

A couple completed sculptures appear to have already been moved from the carving area to display positions around the plaza. Or maybe they had been carved in place. I’m still not really sure how all this works.

The food trucks were all operating and the igloos scattered around the plaza area had a few occupants although I believe they had entered out of curiosity rather than a need to keep warm. I went through all of the food trucks looking for a cup of coffee but came up empty. Maybe if it had been fifteen or twenty degrees cooler, some enterprising vendor would have coffee or hot chocolate on their menu. And maybe those igloos would have been completely filled.

So I learned that showing up when the event first opens is not a wise move in terms of looking at completed sculptures. I had intentionally picked Friday over Saturday because I thought Saturday might be too crowded. I had only myself to blame for feeling a little disappointed when I started for home.

I was not disappointed enough to drive back to Richmond on Saturday but I did check in on things remotely. Rain might have reduced crowd size somewhat but there was still a good turnout and there was never any thought of canceling the festival’s main event, the Meltdown Throwdown, because of the rain. I was surprised to learn that this timed competition between two teams of carvers was being streamed live for the first time. The teams carve in three ten-minute segments. The screen captures are from the beginning of the second and third segments and after it is all over. The winner, selected by audience volume, was the iguana from Team Ice with a tongue carved separately and attached in the final moments. The guitar on Team Fire’s rocker was also a separately carved attachment. A second guitar was smashed in dramatic Pete Townsend fashion as time expired

Ohio River Sternwheel Festival

For the forty-seventh time, a bunch of sternwheelers gathered to party in Marietta, Ohio, and, for the first time, I was there. Motel and hotel rooms in Marietta are pretty much filled by Ohio River Sternwheel Festival attendees but I found a very reasonably priced room less than twenty miles away in Mineral Wells, West Virginia. Even after a very leisurely drive on US-50, I arrived in plenty of time to head to Marietta for the festival’s opening ceremonies.

There were some short speeches and some long and sincere thank yous, the national anthem with a giant flag overhead, and a flyover by a Navy jet. Things officially went live with the lighting of the festival torch.

A full evening of entertainment followed with a Tina Turner tribute to finish out the day. Despite knowing that “big wheel keep on turning” would sound extra special tonight, I headed to my motel to rest up for a full day on Saturday. I did stay long enough to hear several tunes from Steve and Beverly Pottmeyer and a friend. Steve performed at the very first Sternwheel Festival in 1976 and has only missed performing at one since then.

I made it back Saturday in time to catch the first musical performers. The Marietta High School Wall of Sound wouldn’t fit on the stage so they formed their wall on the river bank. The Marietta High School Choir – Vocal Point did fit on the stage. The place where I parked yesterday was operated by the choir. The Bruce Hass Trio was up next with, as far as I know, no high schoolers.

Between checking out the musical acts, I walked the line of boats pulled up to the shore. I counted thirty although I could detect no wheels on the sterns of two of those I counted.

I had noticed a large sternwheeler passing by yesterday and again today. Thinking it might be offering cruises, I zoomed in on its name and turned to the web. Sure enough, the Valley Gem was offering one-hour cruises and there was one remaining before the sold-out fireworks cruise. I reserved a spot on that cruise then turned to Google Maps for directions. I knew the dock would be some distance up the Muskingum River but it was a little farther than I would have guessed. My estimated arrival time for the 2:45 cruise was 2:46.

Although I was one of the last to board, I made it. I could now see the wheels on all those sterns. Note the kayakers in that picture with the Lafayette Hotel in the background, and take a look at some of the onshore crowd in the third picture. The cruise also provided a pretty good look at the fireworks barge.

My return to the festival area was a lot more relaxed than my hurried walk to the Valley Gem had been. I tried out a couple of benches along the way then stopped at the Marietta Brewing Company for a brew and dinner. Even so, a couple of hours remained until fireworks time and the ever-increasing crowd reminded me of why I mostly avoid events such as this. I probably would have left if I had not been parked in.

So I stayed and enjoyed a very good, nearly half-hour long, fireworks display. This is a festival highlight that locals mention a lot and it’s easy to see why.

Getting through the ensuing traffic jam was every bit the nightmare I anticipated. I don’t think I learned a whole lot about fireworks-related traffic jams that I didn’t already know but I still feel I deserve a few continuing education credits.

Dayton Porchfest 2023

I attended my first Porchfest in 2018. It was Dayton’s second. Despite good intentions, I did not make it back in 2019 and there understandably wasn’t one in 2020. Dayton did hold Porchfests in 2021 and 2022 but they did it without me. I guess I sort of forgot about them until I saw an ad of some sort a few weeks ago. Ithaca, NY, had the first Porchfest in 2007. The Dayton Porchfest was number 94. There are now more than 150 taking place each year.

That opening picture of Baker & Collins, of the band Berachah Valley, probably looks exactly like what you expect a porch fest to look like but that is not the way this one started. At 12:15, after a few announcements,  Phil’s Big Azz Brass Band kicked off the music in a parking lot. No porch could hold them.

Starting at 1:00, and continuing for the next six hours, eight to ten concerts began on porches — or something similar — throughout the Saint Anne’s Hill section of Dayton every hour on the hour. After listening to a few tunes from Baker & Collins, I moved on to catch a few from Jimmy D. Rogers then around the corner to catch a few more from Dennis Geehan and the Storied Blues Project.

This is crabswithoutlegs who, in addition to having a name that triggers a plethora of questions, were probably the highlight of my day. They are on a back porch in a fenced yard completely filled with people with more listening outside the fence. Fortunately, there was a small but steady stream of folks moving to other porches so I was able to slip inside the fence for a bit. This extremely tight jazz fusion group was made extra impressive by the apparent young age of every member.

They and I performed on a very real porch although it faced a side yard rather than the street. I had paused for a beverage at the Fifth Street Brewpub as the 1:00 concerts came to an end then spent a little extra time taking in crabswithoutlegs. As a result, I only managed to hear pieces of two of the 2:00 concerts.

Sharon Lane was the first of the 3:00 performers I saw. I’ve included a shot of the building where she performed to show that she really was on a porch. The porch that Novena performed on was much more open and stage-like.

Other 3:00 concerts I saw included Austin Wolfel, Tim Gebard & the Hit Men, and Dave Zup who performed in the street while his accompaniment was on a porch.

There is no such thing as too much music but there was more music than I could take in. It wasn’t really practical to attend all of the eight or more concerts occurring simultaneously plus I did not make it to the end of the festival. In 2018, it was rain that caused me to leave early. In 2023, it was my legs. Four hours (minus one beer) of walking wore me out. I know I missed a lot. Porchfest is a great concept and Dayton, via Saint Anne’s Hill, does it right.

 

Paddlefest 2023

I’ve known of Ohio River Paddlefest for quite a while. I even planned to attend last year until severe weather convinced me — and everybody else — otherwise. Heavy storms led to the cancellation of several outdoor events including the 2022 Paddlefest. There wasn’t even a hint of foul weather this year and I finally made it to “the largest paddling event in the country” for the first time. I was not in position to see the launch of approximately 2000 participants into an Ohio River that was cleared of powered watercraft for the event but I did get to see many of them pass through Cincinnati’s riverfront.

I decided to park in Kentucky and use the century-and-a-half-old Roebling Bridge as an observation deck. People can choose to paddle either 4.5 or 9 miles from the launch point at Schmidt Recreation Complex at the east edge of Cincinnati. The pullout point for the shorter trip is the public landing near the coliseum. The big paddle wheeler at the landing is the American Heritage on her way to Pittsburgh. I don’t know whether being in town for Paddlefest was intentional or something they just couldn’t avoid. Also in that photo, the three ladies in the opening photo can be seen well past the landing on their way to the Roebling and my camera.

There was a race and I’m sure there was a winner but most participants seemed to be much more concerned with enjoying the float and maximizing rather than minimizing their time on the water. Some even took time to look up and wave or wrangle three boats together for a group selfie.

Shooting upriver at the approaching boats meant shooting into the sun but at some point, I realized that I could completely avoid any glare issues by shooting straight down. Snapping paddlers just before they disappeared under the bridge was actually quite addictive and I snapped a few more before I could pull myself away.

Not everything is ruined by shooting toward the sun. Some things actually look pretty good or so I convinced myself.

With the exception of some safety and patrol boats, these were probably the most powerful watercraft on the Ohio near Cincinnati throughout the morning. They did not flaunt it, however, and were well back in the pack.

Shortly after the big boats passed, I finished crossing the bridge and moved to the downstream side to return to Kentucky. Catching boats just as they popped out from under the bridge wasn’t nearly as easy as catching them just before they popped under it but I did catch one.

These are all a bit away from the bridge and moving slowly.

Back in Kentucky, I grabbed brunch and then headed to where the nine-mile paddle ended and where the wrap-up party was being held. For some reason, northbound I-71/75 was closed at the river. I didn’t figure that out until I was forced beyond it. I decided to just keep going and cross the river on the Anderson Ferry for a real break from the normal. The Miata got the first of two comments when the attendant collected my fare. “Nice change of pace. I have to reach up for every other car.”

The second comment came from a fellow directing traffic at the Gilday Recreation Complex. With a mostly straight face, he asked if I was there to pick up a 17-foot canoe. Lots of canoes and kayaks had already departed and many more were in the process of being loaded. But there were still plenty waiting in the park and even a few still on the river. The finish line was still in place when I arrived but it would soon be gone.

Madtree had a beer tent set up and there were several food trucks. The Sunburners provided some good Jimmy Buffet-style music and there were some Jimmy Buffet-style listeners too.

I had my doubts about the claims of this photo-op but a little research confirmed that the Gilday Complex really was the southernmost point of the Ohio River Paddlefest. And today it even felt kind of tropical.

Support Your Local Cryptid

I can’t really claim to be a big supporter of cryptids of any sort but I can claim to support my local cryptids more than any of the others. I have taken a few pictures of Bigfoot signs and statues but I’ve never gone out of my way to do it, and I’ve never for a moment thought of going to Scotland solely to look for that critter reported to live in Loch Ness. I have, however, visited Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a couple of times primarily to admire the Mothman statue, and when I heard about the first-ever Frogman Festival, I figured attending it would just be proper. You can’t get much more local than a cryptid sighting a mile and a half from where I once lived and less than three miles from where I live now.

Some background, I suspect, might be in order. I’ll start with a definition. I now know what a cryptid is but I didn’t a few years ago and the word is not one I use daily. From Wikipedia: “Cryptids are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, but are not recognized by science. Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, which primarily looks at anecdotal stories, and other claims rejected by the scientific community.” Mothman, which has been sighted about 120 miles from my home, is a cryptid and I believe the pictured inflatable is a representation. Here is a picture of a more solid, but not necessarily more accurate, rendition that’s in his hometown.

The Loveland Frog or Frogman is a cryptid that some cryptozoologists believe lives, or at least lived, in or near the Little Miami River around Loveland, Ohio. There are numerous descriptions floating around and even some reports of more recent sightings but essentially all descriptions mention sightings in 1955 and 1972. The creature is sometimes described as having webbed hands and sometimes as having human-like hands. Sometimes it’s very frog-like and sometimes it is basically a human with the face of a frog. Sometimes it’s about three feet tall but sometimes it’s closer to six feet. There are many other variations too. Legends and cryptids are often like that.

Vendors were a major part of the festival. It was announced at the start of the presentations that there were fifty-two vendors present representing twelve states. They filled the majority of the space offering clothing, books, games, a variety of craft items, and some really serious masks. Some very impressive works of art could also be found.

Here is an aspect of the festival that was a complete surprise to me. A company named MetaZoo was identified as the festival’s official sponsor. The name meant nothing to me but I soon learned that it is a gaming company and that a big tournament was part of the festival. I said that vendors had the majority of space but that’s because vendors were set up in the hallways. Space inside the main room was about evenly split between vendors and gamers. I don’t know much about the game itself but it looks like wizard hats, swimming goggles, and other paraphernalia could be important. I did learn from one of the people supervising the tournament that the play was one-on-one with winners advancing. The final rounds will be held at the tables with overhead cameras sending the action to the large screens. At the moment, all tables were being used so that random preliminary games were taking place at those tables.

I took in some but not all of the festival’s eight hours of presentations. The first picture is of one of the event’s organizers, Jeff Craig, introducing the first speaker. Dee Elliott talked about the effect of “hauntings” on three small West Virginia towns. Ashley Hilt’s presentation was entitled “Mothman” but it ended up touching on other sightings as well. I realize it looks like Mickey Mouse ears on the pair of audience members but they are actually frog eyes. Quite a few attendees were wearing frog eyes or something similar.

James Willis’ “Frogman of Loveland, Ohio” presentation was the main thing I wanted to see and I was certainly not alone. This was a standing-room-only presentation that was worth the price of addition. Willis dug into original police and newspaper reports to construct a rather thorough history of the legend. It’s the first time I’ve heard a version of this saga that makes sense.

The City of Loveland seems to have embraced its local cryptid. The picture at left was taken during the recent Hearts Afire weekend which I reported on here. That’s the city mascot greeting a young visitor on the bike trail.

I suppose it’s too early to know if this will become an annual event or was a one-time thing. It was clearly well-attended which I assume means it was a success. I had fun and learned more than I expected and will be on the lookout for a big festival or a big frog.