Tag Archives: Holiday

Hearts and Blues Afire

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I originally planned to do what I did for last year’s Inaugural Hearts Afire Weekend, and just attend the 2023 Hearts Afire Weekend on Saturday. By showing up mid-afternoon in 2022, I had been able to see some of the ice carvings in both darkness and daylight. Then I realized that Saturday was the day of the Cincinnati Winter Blues Experience and it wasn’t long until friends convinced me I should be there. So, without actually reading the schedule, I headed to Loveland Friday evening thinking I’d get to see at least some of those ice sculptures. Nope. There were plenty of festivities happening but no ice carvings. I told myself they were probably delayed because of the warmish temperatures but eventually learned that the plan had always been to have all the frozen art appear on Saturday.

So I headed over to Cappy’s where the Charity Date Auction was in full swing — inside. Outside, only a couple of teddy bears were hanging out with the roaring fire and the giant Chair-ity Date Auction chair. Inside the big tent, local TV and radio personality Ken Broo was MCing the auction. When a representative of auction beneficiary Women’s Health Initiatives Foundation came forward to talk about the foundation, she ended up getting auctioned off as part of the Saturday night group date.

Although I did pop into a couple more local businesses, I basically made it an early night with intentions of coming back on Saturday to check out those ice sculptures. As I headed home, I snapped a shot of this Loveland home decorated very appropriately for the location and the holiday.

I made it back on Saturday to see the ice carvings. I’m sharing photos of a few starting with these on or near the bike trail. I generally avoid posting pictures of children and really make an effort to avoid posting children’s faces even when I’m sure they are very happy ones.

Here are half of the six sculptures that Cappy’s, where last night’s auction was held, has this year. Some of them are sponsored by suppliers.

I did not have time to hang around for the ice carving demonstrations but I did get to watch one being started while a couple of future carvers looked on. I also spotted some blocks of ice being prepared for carving.

Remember that event that kept me from the ice sculptures tonight? There were eleven bands performing at the Cincinnati Winter Blues Experience and that included seven that I’d not seen before. I caught just the last few notes of The Mojo Blues Cats and got no picture. Here are the other six.

To be honest, I think I may have seen The Tempted Souls Band before but if so I don’t believe it was this lineup. Tullie Brae’s piano was initially missing in the mix but things were soon sorted and sounding good. Ivy Ford led her trio with good vocals and very good guitar work.

Gabe Stillman fronted his own trio as did King Soloman Hicks. Hicks might have been best of show. GA-20 is an unusual two-guitar trio. The band’s guitarists took turns playing bass lines on their fat strings while the other took the lead.

The Blues Experience was a one-night affair but Hearts Afire continues through today, Sunday, February 12.

Happy Imbolc Again

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I’ve made it known that I use canned posts when my world is “too busy or too boring for a current events piece”. Although my life was neither this week, the things that kept it from being boring were not the sort of things that make interesting reading. I was on the verge of scheduling a Trip Peek when I decided to instead reuse this article from 2016.

gknob2010Groundhog Day has long been one of my favorite holidays. In fact, attending America’s biggest Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, PA, was among the first things I did with the newly available time that retirement brought. The photo at right was taken at 4:58 AM, February 2, 2010. Sunrise was more than two hours away and the temperature was four degrees Fahrenheit. I had a good time and I’m glad I went but the experience did not lead to plans for an annual return. Standing outside in pre-dawn single-digit temperatures is something I prefer to discuss in past tense only.

I credited my original fondness for Groundhog Day to a belief that it had no religious connections and was basically folklore that had been adopted by some Pennsylvanians largely to promote silliness. While both of those claims are sort of true, there is more to it. I started to doubt the “no religious connections” when I discovered that America’s Groundhog Day shares its February 2 date with Christianity’s Candlemas. But sharing a date does not a connection make and there are no direct ties apparent between Groundhog Day and any of the three events (presentation of the child Jesus, Jesus’ entry into the temple, and Mary’s purification) Christians attribute to the day.

February 1 is also a day recognized by Christians. It is the day that Saint Brigid of Ireland is reported to have died and is celebrated as her feast day. Before Saint Brigid was born (in 451 they say) a Gaelic festival was celebrated about this time to honor a goddess also named, perhaps by coincidence though probably not, Brigid. I have to say “about this time” because man-made calendars had not yet taken over and feast days were not yet tied to specific numbers on pages. Brigid’s was associated with a point halfway between Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox called Imbolc which happens near the beginning of what we call February. In 2016 it occurs at 4:30 EST February 4. (See 2023 comments at end of article.)

Without donut shops and corner diners, it isn’t clear where ancient Irish farmers gathered to talk about the weather but it’s a safe bet that they did. Around Imbolc, the coming spring would have been a big topic. Farmers without donut shops and cable television are quite observant of their environment and they no doubt noticed that bright clear days in the middle of winter were usually a little colder than cloudy ones. With Imbolc being the most “middle of winter” you can get, giving some special significance to the weather on that day was likely fairly natural. That’s about as close to science that the groundhog and shadow story gets.

I’m guessing that making a determination at sunrise was also fairly natural. Even if those early farmers were capable of determining Imbolc’s exact moment — and I’m not saying they weren’t — in those years when it did not occur during the daytime they weren’t about to get up in the middle of the night to see if the sun was shining. The crack of dawn probably seemed about right.

So there really are no direct connections between Groundhog Day and religion and there is plenty of silliness in its fairly recent (1887) use to bring fame to a small Pennsylvania town but its timing is firmly linked to the workings of the solar system and there is a tiny bit of logic in it being a day to make weather predictions. If nothing else, the days around Imbolc are most likely the coldest of the year meaning there’s a good chance that it’s all up-thermometer from here.

My 2010 Punxsutawney visit is here. I will, as usual, celebrate Groundhog Day on Tuesday by consuming pork sausage at some point. I have no plans to be awake at 4:30 Thursday to observe Imbolc.

I don’t know where I got the time and date for Imbolc 2016 but I know I did not calculate either. This year, my first searches turned up the date February 1 but no time was given. I decided to calculate it myself and came up with 11:48 GMT February 3. Of course, I initially doubted my math but quickly found reassurance at the Farmer’s Almanac that February 3 indeed is the midpoint of winter and eventually found support for that being the date of “Imbolc exact” in the Witches Astrological Calendar at Patheos. I cannot say for certain why so many sites give February 1 as the date but am guessing that some have decided that Imbolc is just another name for Saint Brigid’s Day. Regardless, I now have some confidence in my calculations being reasonably close and there is even a possibility that I’ll be awake when Imbolc 2023 rolls around (at 6:48 EST) with the previous day’s serving of pork sausage completely digested and sunrise not quite an hour away. 

Boar’s Head Festival

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Back in 2013, I posted an article about the four oldest Cincinnati Christmas Traditions after learning about them by way of a lecture at the Cincinnati Museum Center.  Three of the four were displays and I had seen all three multiple times and that year I saw them all again. The fourth was not something displayed for a period of time but was an event that required advance ticketing and scheduling that I never made work. I missed a chance to see it online last year when the pandemic caused it to go virtual. Guess I just wasn’t paying attention. This year the event is again live but ticket distribution was online and that really worked for me. I attended the 5:00 performance yesterday.

I’m talking about the Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival at Christ Church Cathedral. It has been going on since 1940 and it was identified as the third oldest of Cincinnati’s big four Christmas traditions in that Museum Center lecture.

Humans have been eating pigs, including boars, for a long time. Their roasted and garnished heads had been the centerpiece at many a banquet centuries before Christianity was invented. Wild boars are ferocious critters and Christians probably weren’t the first to think of them as something evil. They may not have even been the first to equate the killing of one with the victory of good over evil but they do seem to be the first to make that connection formally and construct a ritual around it. That apparently happened in fourteenth-century England as explained in a legend. The legend says that a student at Queen’s College in Oxford, England, was walking through the forest on his way to Christmas Mass in 1340 when he was attacked by a wild boar. Lacking any other weapon, the quick-thinking student jammed the metal-bound volume of Aristotle he had been reading down the beast’s throat which almost immediately brought on the animal’s demise. The garnished head was presented at that night’s feast and people have been repeating and enhancing the festivities ever since. There is a fair amount of doubt associated with that legend but I hope it’s true. Having Aristotle even slightly responsible for the founding of a Christian ritual is certainly something worthy of deep contemplation.

I know there are hundreds of people involved in the production although I don’t have an actual count. In addition to the visible players, there is a sizable orchestra and choir mostly hidden from sight behind something resembling giant poinsettias. There are many non-speaking roles. The cast includes literal spear carriers although those are probably technically called pikes. But there are lots of singing roles and every vocalist was outstanding. The orchestra and choir were also outstanding meaning that if this was only a musical performance, it would be quite impressive. The lavish costumes and pageantry make it considerably more so.

The storyline is not the easiest thing to follow. It includes — among many other things — good King Wenceslas, the lord and lady of the manor, and the Nativity complete with shepherds and Magi.

At one point, and this just might be my favorite part even though I don’t quite understand it, cast members are climbing over and standing on top of the pews.

It is quite the spectacle and the music is superb. I can understand why it has drawn crowds for more than eight decades. There are just four performances each year. All four for this year have been “sold out” for some time. I put that in quotes for two reasons. One is that tickets are not actually sold; they are free. The second is that the performance I attended was far from full. I know that tickets have always gone quickly and I assumed that meant a full house at every performance. My crude guess is that nearly a third of the seats were empty Saturday.

Today’s (Sunday’s) performances are to be live-streamed. Maybe that’s the reason for the empty seats or maybe there have been empty seats every year. Maybe people who hurriedly scarf up the free tickets balk at putting out any effort to use them.

Posts of Christmas Past (2022)

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This is the third time this blog has been published on Christmas Day. The first time apparently caught me unprepared. It was in 2011, just a few months after this blog was launched with a promise to post every Sunday. I was in the middle of a road trip but managed a short Merry Christmas post that consisted mostly of apologies for being caught off guard. I must have been ready when Christmas again fell on a Sunday five years later. I was again in the middle of a road trip on Christmas Day 2016 but the Another Christmas Squirrel post shows no signs of distress so was likely written well in advance of the holiday. This post is also being prepared in advance.

Soon after realizing that Christmas is on Sunday this year, I thought of Posts of Christmas Past that I put together for the stay-at-home Christmas of 2020. I first thought of simply pointing to it with a short explanatory post but decided to republish it with updates. What follows is a recounting of the sixteen Christmases when I’ve run — or at least tried to run — away from home. The opening picture is from the blog’s first Christmas post in 2011. It was taken just ahead of Christmas on December 22. All other photos in this post were taken on Christmas Day.

2006 — Natchez Christmas was organized around a drive of the Natchez Trace Parkway that began the day after Christmas. Christmas Eve and Christmas Night were spent in a room above the Under the Hill Saloon in Natchez, MS. It’s between the two white-fronted buildings in the picture.

2007 — I decided to go a bit farther south the next year for Crescent City Christmas. New Orleans had recovered sufficiently from Katrina’s 2005 devastation to welcome tourists to bolster the recovery effort, and it’s a pretty good place to celebrate anything. The tree and Joan of Arc statue are in front of the French Market.

2008 — My great-grandparents spent Christmas on the Alafia in 1920, and I tried to do something similar. I could not camp on the river bank as they did but I could stay in a nearby motel. On Christmas Day, I had breakfast at Showtown USA in nearby Gibsonton. At the time, Showtown still had plenty of carnival people as both employees and patrons.

2009 — My retirement in mid-November meant I now had time to drive to US-62’s West End from my most western contact with the route in western Kentucky. After spending a day snowed in in Altus, OK, I reached Lubbock, TX, on Christmas Day and stopped by Buddy Holley’s grave. Lubbock possesses no snowplows so most of the record five inches that fell the day before was still there although much had been blown from the area in the photograph.

2010 — My Chattanooga Christmas was also a white one. The depth may not have been a record but the fact that this was the first Christmas Day snowfall in Chattanooga in forty-one years meant it was something special. The Delta Queen had been forced to quit cruising in 2009 and was serving as a stationary hotel. I had spent Independence Day 2009 aboard her, and couldn’t resist the chance to spend another holiday on board.

2011 — Although my path reached as far south as Alabama, Nashville, TN, was the target for George for the Holidays. The title refers to George Harrison whose 1970 album All Things Must Pass was performed by The Long Players on December 23. Oven Master Mary had supplied me with a whole gingerbread family for the trip, and I photographed one family member on stage at Legends Corner.

2012 — The plans for Christmas Escape Repeat included New Year’s Eve in Raleigh, NC, and some time in Atlanta, GA, but were timed to allow me a second Christmas stay — this time without snow — on the Delta Queen in Chattanooga. It was the first of only two times I used the word “escape” in the title.

2013 — A Wild and Wonderful Christmas was spent at North Bend State Park in West Virginia where “Wild and Wonderful” is a slogan. After a fine holiday meal at the lodge, I went for a drive that took me to “America’s Oldest Five and Dime” in Harrisville. Berdine’s was not open on Christmas Day but was open the day after so I got to check out this delightful store on my way home.

2014 — Christmas Escape 2014 turned out to be quite the escape indeed. There was Christmas Eve with friends in Savannah, GA, Christmas Day with a friend in St Augustine, FL, (where the picture was taken), and some time with an uncle near Lake Alfred, FL, to start the new year. Plus a lot of Dixie Highway and a little time in the keys.

2015 — That WV state park had worked out well in 2013 so I tried out a neighbor on the other side for It’s a Wanderful Life. The holiday meal at Indiana’s Turkey Run State Park was fairly late in the day so I helped my appetite by doing a little hiking before dinner.

2016 — I stayed fairly close to home and used Ohio’s new tourism slogan for Finding It Here. Home base was the lodge at Burr Oak State Park. A Christmas Day drive took me to the town of Cambridge and a long stroll through the Dickens Victorian Village erected there each year.

2017 — With this trip, I proved that I Can Drive Twenty-Five. I followed the current US-25 from its beginning at the Ohio River to its other end in Brunswick, GA. Holiday dining options were somewhat limited and I ended up with a not-so-traditional Christmas dinner of crabcake, grits, broccoli, and cookies. In honor of the holiday, I named these four gingerbread men — a gift from Oven Master Mary, of course — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Ringo.

2018 — The focus of Kitty Hawk Holidays was the 115th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight at Big Kill Devil Hill. That was on the 17th so I did a bit of running around before ending up in Knoxville, TN, on Christmas Day. A selfie in Worlds Fair Park let me show off the new mustache my grandson had given me for Christmas.

2019 — Finding (More Of) It Here had me back in Ohio at a park lodge. This time it was at Geneva-on-the-Lake State Park. The photo was taken just before dinner and just outside the dining room as the sun set to my left and illuminated the clouds over Lake Erie.

2020 — The COVID pandemic had me staying home for Christmas for the first time since 2005. Since there was no trip journal to document the day, I used the blog to post a picture of my Christmas dinner spot and a listing of Posts of Christmas Past.

2021 — After just one travelless Christmas, I was able to be Wild and Wonderful Again in 2021. The title comes from it being my second Christmas spent in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. This time I stayed at three different state parks with Christmas dinner at Hawks Nest. The park isn’t far from New River Gorge which is where the picture was taken. The little red spot near bottom center is a fairy door.

Christmas MOP

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I headed out on my Christmas Escape Run yesterday and now have the first day’s journal posted. Since my October Route 66 Miles of Possibility 2022 trip was cut short by COVID, I decided to finish it (and then some) for Christmas. The original draft of this post said if things go as planned, every night of the trip will be spent in a classic motel and classic restaurants will account for a high percentage of my dining activities. The classic motel and restaurant comment might still apply but things definitely are not going as planned. Dire weather forecasts for my intended route have me detouring to the south although I still hope to end up where planned for Christmas. The picture is of the winter solstice sunrise near Greensburg, Indiana.

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

Light in the Forest

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I doubt anyone will be shocked to learn that Cincinnati Nature Center is not inside the official limits of its namesake city. It lies a bit more than fifteen miles east of downtown Cincinnati near the town of Milford. Some, however, might be a little surprised that I had never been there. The center has existed since 1967 but it wasn’t until the fourth night of the third year of the Light in the Forest event that I actually drove into the property. I drove to walk. There are several drive-through seasonal light displays in the area but I believe this is the only walk-through display anywhere near Cincinnati. It’s just over a mile long, pretty much level, and a real treat for the eyes and the other senses too.

The trail opens at 5:30 with entry assigned at half-hour intervals. I picked the first slot but, in hindsight, that might not have been best. Sunset was at 5:16  and the last rays of sunlight may have benefited the lighted elk by the lake but perhaps not so much the flowers in the Electric Garden by Golden Brown or the color-changing orbs in Owens + Crawley’s Shimmer.

The lingering light probably didn’t affect Polymath’s Fluere very much one way or the other. The projection really held people’s attention and many (including me) stood and stared for a complete cycle of the moving images of butterflies, birds, frogs, and plants.

I treated myself to a white chocolate mocha from Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee Truck just before entering the Krippendorf Lodge. It wasn’t really terribly cold but the hot drink and heated building provided a nice break before heading on down the trail.

Between the lodge and the Visitor Center, lights were descending from the sky and beyond the center, they were twinkling in the trees. I’m sure that many parts of the walk could be appreciated through a good video but the time dimension seemed so important to the twinkling lights that even I was prompted to attempt one. It’s here.

Before looping back to the Visitor Center, the trail continues to a small lake with Lake Lumineer by MDC Design Studio on the other side. The lake reflects the cylinder with its images of wildlife. A pair of Charlie Harper bluebirds can be seen through trees and even better here. The birds are on the side of the Visitor Center which I had erroneously entered earlier. The trail is designed to go past the center, to the lake, then back to the center, and through it. I had simply confused myself by popping into the center as soon as I saw it but eventually sorted things out and caught the big caterpillar as I exited the center as intended.

Near the Abner Hollow Cabin, there is another chance to get warm at a roaring bonfire. The trail forms a big circle with multiple points of entry. I had parked and entered the trail not far from the bonfire.

Even though the bonfire more or less marked the completion of a lap on the trail, I wasn’t quite done. I had been a little disappointed in my earlier look at the Electric Garden which others had cited as a highlight of the experience so I broke some of the oneway pedestrian traffic rules to get a true nighttime look. I was not disappointed at all this time and could now agree with some of the folks I’d overheard earlier. I had dawdled early and often so that many who had started later than I did had passed me long ago.

This was a most pleasant experience and definitely one I recommend. It continues through January 1 with the exception of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I think a 6:00 start might be a little better than 5:30 but there are pros and cons to both. I have enjoyed driving through holiday light displays and I’m sure I’ll be driving through some more. They are bigger with more spectacular displays and they are warmer. But Cincinnati Nature Center’s Light in the Forest offers some real advantages. I’m sure some are immune to it but I, for one, always feel kind of guilty sitting in a line of idling or slowly moving cars and unwelcome fumes are always a possibility when rolling down a window. There is none of that here nor are there any real problems with wanting to travel at a different pace than the guy in front of or behind you. And there’s no problem saying hi to him or her either. “Nature” is very much the operative word here and something I did not fully appreciate until I looked back on my experience is the complete absence of religious or commercial symbols in the displays; Just patterns of light and images of plants and critters. There was — naturally😁 — a touch of commercialism in the gift shop but even there the Santa Clauses were few and were far from prominent in an inventory of classier than usual, often handcrafted, items.

Play Review
Every Christmas Story Ever Told
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company

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At just seventeen years of age, I don’t doubt that some will take issue with me calling this a tradition but that’s how I see it. Starting in 2006, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company has mounted a production of Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) every year except COVID-ravaged 2020. CSC was not the first group to perform the play. That honor belongs to Cape May Stage in Cape May, NJ, which did the play in 2003. Apparently, there were no performances in 2004 then Cape May Stage and two other companies gave it life in 2005. Cape May Stage’s third and final production took place the same year as CSC’s first which means Cincinnati’s sixteen years of performances is the record.

I don’t know when I first became aware of it but it’s certainly been a while, and I long ago read enough about it to think it was something I would enjoy. Yet I somehow had not attended a single performance until this year. They clearly didn’t miss me. This very non-Shakespearean comedy has risen from its very humble beginnings in a downtown bar to become the most popular offering in CSC’s history.

That downtown bar was Arnold’s where the small stage in the courtyard normally might hold a musician or two. The most theatrical things I’ve ever seen there are Reds opening day readings of Casey at the Bat or Who’s On First. I am sure sorry that I missed that first performance and sorry I also missed the next fifteen years even though I don’t know where they took place. I do know, however, one of the actors that appeared in every one of them and this year’s production too. Justin McCombs has been in the cast from the beginning and with the same red Christmas sweater. Other 2022 cast members are Geoffrey Warren Barnes II, Colleen Dougherty, and Candice Handy.

Justin, Geoffrey, and Candice play characters named Justin, Geoffrey/Geoff, and Candice/Candy. Colleen plays Santa Clause who sometimes participates in the action center stage and at other times wisecracks from a stageside sleigh she slowly fills with empty beer — or maybe it’s hard seltzer — cans.

Following some opening remarks from Santa, Candy begins A Christmas Carol but Geoff and Austin aren’t having it. They’ve seen and performed the Charles Dickens story more than enough times and convince her to do every other Christmas story instead. She frequently attempts to return to the original plan with a somber “Marley was dead” but even more frequently participates in whatever story or stories are the focus of the moment.

As one online reviewer somewhat comically (IMO) complains, they don’t really tell EVERY Christmas story but they sure tell a bunch or at least little bits of them. And they sing bits of a bunch of Christmas carols and describe (none too accurately) a bunch of Christmas traditions from around the world. There’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and a ton of others and all are lovingly skewered. To deliver all those stories, Justin, Geoff, and Candy must each fill dozens of roles and they do so wonderfully. For the audience, identifying each character and story is a large part of the fun. Sometimes the roles are coordinated and sometimes things are something of a smash-up like when Clarence the guardian angel visits Ebenezer Scrouge. The script has obviously been updated over the years to include references to current events. This time around, Ye appears as a spokesperson for fruitcake and Santa admits to buying up all of the Taylor Swift tickets.

Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) runs through the end of the year (2024 link here) and can provide some real laughs during a time that can be really stressful to some. Of course, those laughs will only come if you don’t take yourself or your Christmas classics too seriously. I did not see an official age requirement but maybe there should be one. Adult topics and humor are sprinkled about along with the tinsel and fake snow.

Playscripts handles licensing for this play and many others. It is where I learned of that first production in Cape May and other details. Most of what I learned there was not at all surprising but one accidental discovery was. The website provides full production history and allows it to be filtered by state. I filtered it by Ohio in order to more easily check Cincinnati’s history and was surprised to see my high school alma mater on the list. The Drama Club of Ansonia High School, which even now has just over 200 students, performed the play in 2014.

Horses on Parade

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In the very first year of this blog, I attended a triple header of holiday horse parades and documented them in two posts. I wrote about a nighttime parade in Greenville here and nighttime parades in Springfield and Lebanon here. There was a fourth parade that I mentioned but did not get to see in 2011. The parade in Springfield was their first and I don’t believe it lasted much beyond that inaugural year. Greenville’s 10th annual Hometown Holiday Horse Parade took place a couple of weeks ago. The nighttime 33rd annual Lebanon Horse Drawn Carriage Parade took place last night and the daytime version, which is the parade I missed in 2011, took place yesterday afternoon. This time I made it.

Lebanon’s nighttime parade typically has well over 100 entries. The daytime parade is a bit smaller. The highest numbered unit I saw was 80 and there were a few gaps in the numbering. The pictures at left are of carriages carrying the parade’s Grand Marshal and the couple seen waving in the opening photo. The Grand Marshal was not identified on the carriage, I’ve found nothing online, and I didn’t recognize him. Maybe you can.

Some elegant horses followed including a pair sporting glittery blue hooves.

The number of small ponies in the parade kind of surprised me. I felt a little sorry for some of the tiny creatures pulling Santa Claus-sized individuals. I also felt a little sorry for some passengers who, although they looked quite cute, didn’t seem overly happy with the hats they were made to wear. The pony may deserve some pity, too.

Even though I know that the Grinch’s heart “grew three sizes that day”, I am still a little surprised every time I see him as a symbol; of Christmas. Given the parade’s name, I was also surprised to see one of those new-fangled carriageless horses.

There was certainly no lack of power near the parade’s end where a couple of six-horse teams appeared. Secure in the safety of both size and number, a member of one of those teams had no qualms about openly laughing at me as my cold hands tried to focus the camera on his face.  

Some Dixie Highway for Thanksgiving

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The daily rate and a two-night minimum put the kibosh on preliminary thoughts of spending Thanksgiving night at a nearby state park lodge and other things got in the way of even making a reservation for the buffet there. Even so, I went to bed on Wednesday thinking that I would call about a last minute spot in the morning. By morning, however, I was ready to acknowledge that I would rather be driving than eating and set off to cruise some bits of the Dixie Highway that I had not been on for some time. In downtown Cincinnati, I was quickly reminded of the Thanksgiving Day Race that blocks several streets including the Roebling Bridge on which the Dixie Highway entered Kentucky from Ohio. I climbed onto the interstate and picked up the old auto trail on the other side of the river.

One reason the Dixie Highway makes for a good day trip south is that two alignments exist between Cincinnati and Lexington. The original path was pretty much straight south through Dry Ridge and Corinth. At some point, a path through Falmouth and Paris was proposed and recognized as an alternative by the Dixie Highway Association. Plans were to eventually pick one or the other but the Numbered US Highways came along and the DHA disbanded before a selection was made which leaves both alignments as somewhat official.

My pathway south was on the original alignment past the old gas station in Dry Ridge, the tin tepee (with recliner) near Williamsburg, and remnants of Fisher’s Camp near Corinth.

Lexington’s Main Street, which carried the Dixie Highway, is now one way northbound so I briefly left my southbound route to photograph the camel-topped Zero Mile Marker at Main and Limestone. While there, I slipped across the street to photograph just a few of the many painted ponies (actually thoroughbred racehorses) that decorate the city. I also snapped a picture at Thoroughbred Park before leaving town.

I had originally planned to pick up the other alignment in Lexington and head home but it was still fairly early and I decided to drive on to a place I had been interested in for a while. The first picture is of the modern bridge that currently carries I-75 and US-25 over the Kentucky River. The second picture shows the 1871 bridge that carried the Richmond-Lexington Turnpike, the Dixie Highway, and US-25 across the river. The third picture was taken from Clays Ferry Overlook on the south side of the river. Jay and Ashley Webb purchased this about a year ago and the Webbs have removed hundreds of truckloads of trash and cleared away trees to make it a real overlook again. Check out their Facebook page here. I did not prepare very well for my visit and I know there’s a lot of history here that I don’t yet know. I do know that the stone wall was built by the WPA in the early 1930s. This section of the road was relocated shortly before that but after it had become US-25. I believe that this is where the Richmond-Lexington turnpike and the Dixie Highway would have run.

I’d driven to Clays Ferry because of the big cleanup and because it wasn’t much more than a dozen miles from Lexington and I drove on to Richmond because it was only a dozen or so miles farther. In Richmond, I was definitely tempted to drive the dozen or so more miles to Berea but managed to stop myself. I took the expressway back to Lexington and the southern end of that Falmouth alignment. The slightly off-route moves I’d made earlier had not actually been necessary, I now discovered. Not only did my northbound route take me right by Thoroughbred Park, the route to Falmouth begins at Main and Limestone and the Zero Mile Marker.

The Dixie Highway, as I’m sure almost everyone knows, passes right through Paris. At its southern edge, Central Kentucky Classic Cars pulled me in to drool over a 1968 Camaro, lower my sights slightly to consider a ’55 Chevy sedan, then eventually move on with the free digital photos that were a better fit for my budget. Every Paris deserves an Eiffel Tower and this Paris finally got one in the summer of 2021. At 20 feet tall, it is considerably shorter than the original in France (1024 feet), and the replica just up the road from me in Kings Island (314 feet), but it’s still pretty cool. Incidentally, the Edward Shinner Building in the background was declared the “Tallest 3-story Building in the World” by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! which explains why its top got clipped in the photo.

Much of this Dixie Highway alignment has been taken over by US-27 but a few miles south of Cynthiana it moves to the west side on Mark Road then cuts back across the US route, slips through a narrow underpass, crosses a narrow bridge, and heads straight (but not quite level) into the Kentucky countryside on Old Lair Road.

Sunset occurred almost simultaneously with my reaching Punkyville so things were starting to dim when I took this driveby shot. When I first drove this alternate alignment in 2015, I stopped and explored Punkyville and I’ve done that a time or two since but not today.

Despite increasing darkness, I stayed with the Dixie Highway through Falmouth and Independence but encountered a road closure about three miles north of the latter town. By then, even though it was not yet 5:30, full-on darkness had arrived and I abandoned the DH for a more direct route home. I grabbed a shot of the last electric overhead sign I passed so I could share ODOT’s Thanksgiving greeting. 

Trip Peek #121
Trip #153
Kitty Hawk Holidays

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This picture is from my 2018 Kitty Hawk Holidays trip. It was a Christmas Escape Run so obviously the December 25 holiday was included but it started sufficiently early to include another holiday — the 115th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight on December 17. Stops on the way to Kitty Hawk, NC, included the National D-Day Memorial and Appomattox Court House. The anniversary was celebrated with ceremonies at Kill Devil Hill then I stuck around the area a couple more days in order to drive some of the Outer Banks Scenic Byway and check out other points of interest. Christmas was spent in Knoxville, TN, which I reached largely on US-64 and the Dixie Highway with several stops and side trips to Charlotte and Mount Airy. I reached home on December 27 following a last meal on the road at the since-closed Parkette Drive In in Louisville, KY.

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.