Day 1 - Fallingwater and... at DennyGibson.com

Day 1: August 22, 2022
Getting Through Ohio
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It must have been really foggy earlier. It was just about 8:00 when I got started and it had not yet burned off of US-22.

I made it all the way to Lancaster before stopping for breakfast. I had the 2+2+2+2 special at new-to-me Deb's Corner Cafe.

On the way out of Lancaster, I drove by General Sherman's home then also took a drive-by picture of General Sheridan's statue up the road in Somerset. The Skyview Cruise-In is in between and might have been a convenient place for the two generals to meet except it didn't open until 1948.

I know this isn't the only support standing in the middle of a US Highway but there aren't many.

I have driven by Alan Cottrill's studio in Zanesville many times and have taken several versions of the picture of sculptures lined up on the sidewalk. Noticing the sign on the sidewalk and having a fairly loose schedule, I drove around the block then parked. It took me awhile to reach the door. There's enough fabulous art displayed on that sidewalk to keep a photographer occupied for hours regardless of whether the studio is open or closed.

Stepping inside the building for only the second time ever, I was surprised to find Alan and some assistants busy attaching a football player's head. I watched for a bit, stepped into the "wax room", then returned to watch some more. I eventually moved on to explore the rest of the gallery/museum thinking that I seemed to feel a lot more self-conscious watching than they did being watched. What was a real treat for me was completely normal for them.

The bust with the topknot is a copy of the head of the statue of Chief Nemacolin that stands on top of the studio and on the grounds of Nemacolin Resort in Pennsylvania. A smaller version of the full sculpture stands nearby.

By the time I'd checked out the second floor and came back downstairs, work on the football player had been paused. I did not want to let this opportunity to at least say hello to Alan slip away. He was talking with one of the assistants and trying to reach someone by telephone. I waited for an opening then offered a greeting and an awkward compliment. Alan was polite and returned my hello and a few words but his mind was clearly occupied with other things. I returned to my car quite happy to have exchanged even that short greeting with the guy responsible for everything I'd just seen.

I next went to the center of the Muskingum River and turned right to reach Tom's Ice Cream Bowl. At the end of the day, after discovering that I had done the same thing and taken pretty much the same pictures following my first visit to Cottrill's studio in 2012, I constructed a nearly identical panel. The only differences are the 'L' was still on the building, the patio wasn't there yet, and I had Lime Sherbet instead of Coconut Chocolate Almond ice cream. Servers at Tom's are careful listeners. I'm not sure what I asked that the sherbet be served in but I asked for the ice cream in a cup and my order was filled with precision.

After again crossing half of the river, I stopped briefly at the Muskingum County court house. Many counties have monuments to their war dead. Some are quite elaborate but the soldiers' names are typically inscribed on a plaque of some sort. When Alan Cottrill lives in the county, that just won't do. Here the 297 names appear on 297 helmets and only a description appears on a plaque. Cottrill's studio contains evidence of this project.

Even though I hadn't realized that my visit to Tom's was a near duplicate of the one I'd made ten years earlier, I was having memories of that trip. It was essentially the shake-down cruise for the car I would drive across the country in 2013. When I bought that car, it was stored in this garage in Cambridge. Memories of that prompted me to snap this picture as I passed through the town. In December of 2010, a red 1963 Valiant took its first step toward cruising the entire Lincoln Highway by passing through that door.

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