Cleveland, Springfield, IL, Indiana and Wisconsin
June 25
While Steve is packing up the motorhome this morning in preparation for our 150-mile drive to Cleveland, I go to Wal-Mart to stock up on a few items we need and pick up a prescription for Princess. A part of me dislikes patronizing Wal-Mart; it seems to represent everything I am against - but truth to tell, it’s very convenient, both in location and in the products stocked, and the low prices are appealing for anyone on a budget (like us). The “few items” and the prescription add up to $113. That’s the problem with Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s and Costco – it’s too easy to find things you can’t live without because the price is so low. On the way to Cincinnati and Dayton, we stop in Columbus where there’s a Trader Joe’s, and spend $300 on groceries and wine. Oh well . . . our freezer is full and we won’t have to restock for quite a while.
Sunday, June 26
In Cleveland, we stay at Pier-Lon Park. There are warnings all over the park office, on signs and on the brochure for the park that NO alcohol is allowed in the park. There are quotations from the Bible everywhere too – it’s apparent they mean business. It’s a good thing they don’t inspect each motorhome or we’d be thrown out. We just stocked up at Trader Joe’s on a case of Charles Shaw chardonnay and a case of assorted other wines.
We’re in Cleveland to go to the Rock and Roll museum. There’s a Nascar race and downtown is crowded with fans – at the race and at the museum.
We spend the day at the museum; it’s not the tacky homage to musical celebrity I’d expected. Rather, the building is a superb architectural work of glass, steel and limestone overlooking Lake Erie, and the exhibits are at times respectful, at times brash acknowledgements of the contributions of artists ranging from Les Paul and Leadbelly to Buddy Holly and Elvis.
The next day, we drive to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It is not a typical national park. Sitting in the middle of an urban area, it follows the Cuyahoga River, and preserves the heritage and historic sites of the Erie Canal. We hike through the forested trail in the park on a warm, humid day, eat a picnic lunch in the shade of a ramada, and then take another short walk to a beautiful waterfall, one of several within the 33,000 acres of the park . Cuyahoga Valley is not one of the most lush or beautiful national parks we’ve visited, but it’s a pleasant green oasis, especially considering its location.
From Cleveland, we decide to go toward Dayton, in the southwestern Ohio, and Cincinnati, in the southeast corner. We pinpoint Stonelick State Park for its location midway between Dayton and Cincinnati. A lush wooded green sanctuary, Stonelick Park is on a lake where the sun sets each night into a molten pool of orange. For some reason, I thought Arizona had a lock on gaudy sunsets. I did not expect to see memorable sunsets in – Ohio??
Stonelick is one of the nicest parks we’ve stayed at, but the day we leave, I wake up scratching, and when I look in the mirror, I discover why: Bug bites - I look like an army of insects marched up my torso, stopping every few inches to feast. Where there’s skin, there are bumps, red, itchy and oozing. I look like I’ve come down with chickenpox or some scary dermatological disorder. Fortunately the 101 bites only itch at night . . . or when I scratch. The bites take more than a week to fade and for the irritation and itching to go away. Strangely, Steve doesn’t have a single bite . . ..
Steve’s love of all things aviation means we will not, can not, miss the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton. In truth, it’s more than an Air Force museum – while the focus of the history and the exhibits is on the USAF contribution to aviation and World Wars 1 and II, Viet Nam and Korea, the museum is really a history of aviation. I especially enjoy the Berlin Blockade exhibit, and a special exhibit on Dayton Holocaust survivors. Steve, of course, could spend a week at the museum; he settles for two half-days. At the end of Day 1, I can tell he’s wishing he had more time and suggest that when we leave Stonelick State Park tomorrow in the RV, we come to the museum, spend 4 or 5 hours and then drive on to Indiana. He’s delighted with the suggestion and agrees without hesitation.
July 1
We spend three days in Nineveh, Indiana, at Steve’s Aunt Jane & her husband Gene’s house on Lake Sweetwater. We attend a pops concert with Jane and Gene on Friday evening, followed by fireworks. On Saturday, while Gene works on his boat and Steve relaxes on the dock, Jane and I take a pedal boat ride around the cove, past the homes on the lake where kids splash and play in the clear, cool water of the lake and parents sun themselves on the shore or putter with their boats and jet skis. Later, we take a drive so they can show us the sights around the lake and in Indianapolis, where Steve was born. During the next 2 days, we visit the cemetery where Steve’s grandfather is buried, have lunch at Jane and Gene’s favorite New York style deli where huge sandwiches feature 3-inch thick piles of meat on home-made rye bread. Yum! Steve and I share a corned beef sandwich; there’s not a scrap of fat and even a half is more than one person can eat – but somehow I manage to consume the whole thing (half, that is). We walk around a revitalized downtown Indianapolis, watch a bald eagle soaring on updrafts at a state park, and enjoy the green wooded hills of southern Indiana. Aunt Jane and Gene treat us like royalty – they won’t let us do anything or pay for anything. They are warm and hospitable and we thoroughly enjoy our visit. On Monday, as we’re getting ready to leave, they suggest we stay longer – but we know the time to depart is when your hosts still want you to stay, not when they’re wishing you would leave!
July 4
It is July 4th. We are on our way to Springfield, IL, home of the Abraham Lincoln Museum. We are driving across Indiana on the Ernie Pyle Memorial Highway, which seems a fitting route on this day, as does our destination. We pass several iconic images of Americana enroute – an old red farm tractor parked in the field along the way; an American flag flies proudly on the tractor. We pass fields of corn – waist-high sweet corn, ready for eating by September; and field corn for livestock, “as high as an elephant’s eye.” I’m just thinking that in all our journey, I can’t recall having seen any corporate farms – the fields we’ve passed are relatively small with family homes and barns centered in them. Just as this thought flits into my mind, we pass huge fields marked with very official looking signs, each named and numbered. It’s apparent the signs designate tracts of land and what’s planted in them – these are no family farms.
We’ve seen many images of Americana in our travels – images I haven’t always been able to record photographically. For example:
- In the Hudson River Valley of New York, a deteriorating barn with a hand-painted sign on the side: “Farm For Sale.”
- Small ‘50s era motels with names like Ed’s Motel, Smith Motel, Friendly Inn. These are often small, one-story L-shaped buildings with 10 or 15 units, each with two weatherproof resin chairs precisely positioned by the door. The building is often white or grey with a contrasting color door – bright blue, red, forest green. The architecture is efficient, serviceable. I can envision the rooms – 2 double beds covered in ‘60s style “modern” print bedspread of aqua or green; blond or “faux walnut” formicaq nightstands with lamps that are efficient and uniformly ugly; a triple-drawer dresser of the same blond or brown formica; a 25-inch TV with bad reception and a clicker that doesn’t work; and an open closet intersecting the passably clean bathroom with sink, toilet and tubless shower. There will be menus for the local pizza parlor and Chinese take-out. And of course, there’s the faded floral still life or seascape print in aq cheap glassless frame hanging on the wall above the bed. It’s a functional room meant for sleeping and leaving, nothing else.
We’ve also visited many, many museums – and missed many others, to my dismay. It is remarkable how many unique, inspiring and just plain wonderful museums there are in places where you least expect it. Buffalo, New York has a renowned museum of art (which unfortunately we didn’t get to see); Cincinnati has the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center – newly opened in 2004 – with dramatic architecture and exhibits that explore all aspects of freedom – genocide, poverty, resources, slavery, oppression, injustice. We visited the Freedom Center expecting to spend an hour or two and instead spent the day, departing at closing time with disheartened at how inhumanely humans can treat each other – and with renewed awareness that freedom – and its counterpart, oppression – is not the responsibility of world leaders or countries, but each of us everyday. It’s much easier to shift the burden and the blame to the impersonal, distant “they” rather than acknowledge the impact of our own everyday words and deeds.
“Become the change you seek in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi
July 5
Today it’s the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The museum opened in April 2005; it provides a chronological view of Lincoln’s boyhood, pre-presidential years and presidency. The exhibits are interesting, and a short video attempts to “de-mythologize” Lincoln, but at the end of the day, I believe the museum perpetuates the iconic, mythic Lincoln rather than depicting him as a human with flaws and strengths, a political man with integrity, a leader who vacillated and put off making decisions, but ultimately made the right one, whether it was finally firing the spineless McLellan, or making Grant head of the Union army despite his past failures. Although history refers to Lincoln as The Great Emancipator, his primary goal from the start of the war was to save the Union, and emancipating the slaves was a decision he made only after many years and much thought, and always with the idea that the or freed slaves might be colonized in South America or Africa, not in the U.S. – north or south.
Nevertheless, we spend the day at the museum, visit the Presidential Library briefly, then go to Oak Ridge Cemetary, where Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, and 3 of their sons are buried. The Lincoln monument, with its sandstone tower reaching to the sky, is a powerful and moving monument to one of our nation’s greatest leaders. We visit the tomb and return later that evening to watch the flag ceremony with members of the 114th Infantry Regiment Illinois Volunteers.
The next day, before leaving Springfield, Steve vists Shea’s Gas Station Museum, where gas station and Route 66 memorabilia are plentiful. Since he managed a gas station in his teens, he’s always had an affinity for old gas pumps, and he spends a couple of hours with Mr. Shea hearing how he bought the Marathon gas station after World War II and eventually converted it to a museum.
July 11
Door County, Wisconsin
We picked cherries today – a gallon of Montmorency tart red cherries for $5.50, and bought fresh-made Wisconsin cheese at Renard’s cheese shop – extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar for $2.49 a pound!
While Steve is packing up the motorhome this morning in preparation for our 150-mile drive to Cleveland, I go to Wal-Mart to stock up on a few items we need and pick up a prescription for Princess. A part of me dislikes patronizing Wal-Mart; it seems to represent everything I am against - but truth to tell, it’s very convenient, both in location and in the products stocked, and the low prices are appealing for anyone on a budget (like us). The “few items” and the prescription add up to $113. That’s the problem with Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s and Costco – it’s too easy to find things you can’t live without because the price is so low. On the way to Cincinnati and Dayton, we stop in Columbus where there’s a Trader Joe’s, and spend $300 on groceries and wine. Oh well . . . our freezer is full and we won’t have to restock for quite a while.
Sunday, June 26
In Cleveland, we stay at Pier-Lon Park. There are warnings all over the park office, on signs and on the brochure for the park that NO alcohol is allowed in the park. There are quotations from the Bible everywhere too – it’s apparent they mean business. It’s a good thing they don’t inspect each motorhome or we’d be thrown out. We just stocked up at Trader Joe’s on a case of Charles Shaw chardonnay and a case of assorted other wines.
We’re in Cleveland to go to the Rock and Roll museum. There’s a Nascar race and downtown is crowded with fans – at the race and at the museum.
We spend the day at the museum; it’s not the tacky homage to musical celebrity I’d expected. Rather, the building is a superb architectural work of glass, steel and limestone overlooking Lake Erie, and the exhibits are at times respectful, at times brash acknowledgements of the contributions of artists ranging from Les Paul and Leadbelly to Buddy Holly and Elvis.
The next day, we drive to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It is not a typical national park. Sitting in the middle of an urban area, it follows the Cuyahoga River, and preserves the heritage and historic sites of the Erie Canal. We hike through the forested trail in the park on a warm, humid day, eat a picnic lunch in the shade of a ramada, and then take another short walk to a beautiful waterfall, one of several within the 33,000 acres of the park . Cuyahoga Valley is not one of the most lush or beautiful national parks we’ve visited, but it’s a pleasant green oasis, especially considering its location.
From Cleveland, we decide to go toward Dayton, in the southwestern Ohio, and Cincinnati, in the southeast corner. We pinpoint Stonelick State Park for its location midway between Dayton and Cincinnati. A lush wooded green sanctuary, Stonelick Park is on a lake where the sun sets each night into a molten pool of orange. For some reason, I thought Arizona had a lock on gaudy sunsets. I did not expect to see memorable sunsets in – Ohio??
Stonelick is one of the nicest parks we’ve stayed at, but the day we leave, I wake up scratching, and when I look in the mirror, I discover why: Bug bites - I look like an army of insects marched up my torso, stopping every few inches to feast. Where there’s skin, there are bumps, red, itchy and oozing. I look like I’ve come down with chickenpox or some scary dermatological disorder. Fortunately the 101 bites only itch at night . . . or when I scratch. The bites take more than a week to fade and for the irritation and itching to go away. Strangely, Steve doesn’t have a single bite . . ..
Steve’s love of all things aviation means we will not, can not, miss the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton. In truth, it’s more than an Air Force museum – while the focus of the history and the exhibits is on the USAF contribution to aviation and World Wars 1 and II, Viet Nam and Korea, the museum is really a history of aviation. I especially enjoy the Berlin Blockade exhibit, and a special exhibit on Dayton Holocaust survivors. Steve, of course, could spend a week at the museum; he settles for two half-days. At the end of Day 1, I can tell he’s wishing he had more time and suggest that when we leave Stonelick State Park tomorrow in the RV, we come to the museum, spend 4 or 5 hours and then drive on to Indiana. He’s delighted with the suggestion and agrees without hesitation.
July 1
We spend three days in Nineveh, Indiana, at Steve’s Aunt Jane & her husband Gene’s house on Lake Sweetwater. We attend a pops concert with Jane and Gene on Friday evening, followed by fireworks. On Saturday, while Gene works on his boat and Steve relaxes on the dock, Jane and I take a pedal boat ride around the cove, past the homes on the lake where kids splash and play in the clear, cool water of the lake and parents sun themselves on the shore or putter with their boats and jet skis. Later, we take a drive so they can show us the sights around the lake and in Indianapolis, where Steve was born. During the next 2 days, we visit the cemetery where Steve’s grandfather is buried, have lunch at Jane and Gene’s favorite New York style deli where huge sandwiches feature 3-inch thick piles of meat on home-made rye bread. Yum! Steve and I share a corned beef sandwich; there’s not a scrap of fat and even a half is more than one person can eat – but somehow I manage to consume the whole thing (half, that is). We walk around a revitalized downtown Indianapolis, watch a bald eagle soaring on updrafts at a state park, and enjoy the green wooded hills of southern Indiana. Aunt Jane and Gene treat us like royalty – they won’t let us do anything or pay for anything. They are warm and hospitable and we thoroughly enjoy our visit. On Monday, as we’re getting ready to leave, they suggest we stay longer – but we know the time to depart is when your hosts still want you to stay, not when they’re wishing you would leave!
July 4
It is July 4th. We are on our way to Springfield, IL, home of the Abraham Lincoln Museum. We are driving across Indiana on the Ernie Pyle Memorial Highway, which seems a fitting route on this day, as does our destination. We pass several iconic images of Americana enroute – an old red farm tractor parked in the field along the way; an American flag flies proudly on the tractor. We pass fields of corn – waist-high sweet corn, ready for eating by September; and field corn for livestock, “as high as an elephant’s eye.” I’m just thinking that in all our journey, I can’t recall having seen any corporate farms – the fields we’ve passed are relatively small with family homes and barns centered in them. Just as this thought flits into my mind, we pass huge fields marked with very official looking signs, each named and numbered. It’s apparent the signs designate tracts of land and what’s planted in them – these are no family farms.
We’ve seen many images of Americana in our travels – images I haven’t always been able to record photographically. For example:
- In the Hudson River Valley of New York, a deteriorating barn with a hand-painted sign on the side: “Farm For Sale.”
- Small ‘50s era motels with names like Ed’s Motel, Smith Motel, Friendly Inn. These are often small, one-story L-shaped buildings with 10 or 15 units, each with two weatherproof resin chairs precisely positioned by the door. The building is often white or grey with a contrasting color door – bright blue, red, forest green. The architecture is efficient, serviceable. I can envision the rooms – 2 double beds covered in ‘60s style “modern” print bedspread of aqua or green; blond or “faux walnut” formicaq nightstands with lamps that are efficient and uniformly ugly; a triple-drawer dresser of the same blond or brown formica; a 25-inch TV with bad reception and a clicker that doesn’t work; and an open closet intersecting the passably clean bathroom with sink, toilet and tubless shower. There will be menus for the local pizza parlor and Chinese take-out. And of course, there’s the faded floral still life or seascape print in aq cheap glassless frame hanging on the wall above the bed. It’s a functional room meant for sleeping and leaving, nothing else.
We’ve also visited many, many museums – and missed many others, to my dismay. It is remarkable how many unique, inspiring and just plain wonderful museums there are in places where you least expect it. Buffalo, New York has a renowned museum of art (which unfortunately we didn’t get to see); Cincinnati has the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center – newly opened in 2004 – with dramatic architecture and exhibits that explore all aspects of freedom – genocide, poverty, resources, slavery, oppression, injustice. We visited the Freedom Center expecting to spend an hour or two and instead spent the day, departing at closing time with disheartened at how inhumanely humans can treat each other – and with renewed awareness that freedom – and its counterpart, oppression – is not the responsibility of world leaders or countries, but each of us everyday. It’s much easier to shift the burden and the blame to the impersonal, distant “they” rather than acknowledge the impact of our own everyday words and deeds.
“Become the change you seek in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi
July 5
Today it’s the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The museum opened in April 2005; it provides a chronological view of Lincoln’s boyhood, pre-presidential years and presidency. The exhibits are interesting, and a short video attempts to “de-mythologize” Lincoln, but at the end of the day, I believe the museum perpetuates the iconic, mythic Lincoln rather than depicting him as a human with flaws and strengths, a political man with integrity, a leader who vacillated and put off making decisions, but ultimately made the right one, whether it was finally firing the spineless McLellan, or making Grant head of the Union army despite his past failures. Although history refers to Lincoln as The Great Emancipator, his primary goal from the start of the war was to save the Union, and emancipating the slaves was a decision he made only after many years and much thought, and always with the idea that the or freed slaves might be colonized in South America or Africa, not in the U.S. – north or south.
Nevertheless, we spend the day at the museum, visit the Presidential Library briefly, then go to Oak Ridge Cemetary, where Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, and 3 of their sons are buried. The Lincoln monument, with its sandstone tower reaching to the sky, is a powerful and moving monument to one of our nation’s greatest leaders. We visit the tomb and return later that evening to watch the flag ceremony with members of the 114th Infantry Regiment Illinois Volunteers.
The next day, before leaving Springfield, Steve vists Shea’s Gas Station Museum, where gas station and Route 66 memorabilia are plentiful. Since he managed a gas station in his teens, he’s always had an affinity for old gas pumps, and he spends a couple of hours with Mr. Shea hearing how he bought the Marathon gas station after World War II and eventually converted it to a museum.
July 11
Door County, Wisconsin
We picked cherries today – a gallon of Montmorency tart red cherries for $5.50, and bought fresh-made Wisconsin cheese at Renard’s cheese shop – extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar for $2.49 a pound!
posted by Anne-Marie | 2:01 PM
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