Wehmhoff Jucker Park

Posted on July 18, 2023 by admin

An easy stroll from downtown Burlington, Wisconsin, is Wehmhoff Jucker Park.

Interesting name. Wehmhoff appears elsewhere in or near town: Wehmhoff Square Park, Wehmhoff Woodland Preserve and Wehmhoff Mound. The Burlington Historical Society posted a 1919 article that mentions both names in passing, but provides little other detail, except that a Mr. Wehmhoff was a jeweler 50 years earlier, and that in the late 1860s or early ’70s, “Miss Emma Jucker, about to marry E. Wehmhoff, sold her millinery business to Mrs. Williams.”

Perhaps the park land was once theirs. Anyway, the people are long gone. A few of the names linger.

The park is on either side of the Fox River, connected by a bridge.

That’s the same Fox River that generally runs along the western edge of metro Chicago, meeting the Illinois River near Ottawa. (Not the one in Canada.) A path runs next to the river for a ways in Burlington, which I followed for a ways.

That’s not the Fox River that flows into Green Bay, and gives a nickname to the Fox Cities of Wisconsin. You’d think at least one of them could be called something else, maybe some version of a Native name, but it didn’t work out that way.

Dublin, Barcelona, Then Venice

Posted on July 9, 2023 by admin

After a mostly dry June here in northern Illinois, early July saw some rain, but not quite enough to end the dry spell. Out beyond the grass and gardens of the suburbs, it’s a “stressful time for corn and soybeans.”

June 25, mid-day, at a cornfield in southern Wisconsin, which is suffering a drought as well. Moderate drought for the county that includes this field, at least as of the end of June.

The field looked healthy to my untrained eye, but for all I know that’s what a stressed crop looks like a few weeks into a drought. I might be up that way again next weekend or the next, and I’ll stop by for a look at the same field if so.

I had the opportunity to spend most of a weekend in Los Angeles in early June, so naturally I did. To visit some of the places that I considered but didn’t have time for in pre-pandemic 2020, because that’s how I think, though I didn’t make it to La Brea Tar Pits this time or earlier. Like the Cloisters on the other coast, it’s a place that still eludes me.

On the other hand, I made a point of going to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice this time.

Though named for the place in Italy, Venice has a distinctly American history, invented as it was ex nihilo by a real estate developer looking to reference the Old World in the newest part of the New World, namely California. Not just any developer, but one Abbot Kinney, whose career was circuitous and strange, the way business men could be in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Not only that, the arc of history in Venice is very much American: an initial flowering, subsequent decline, much demolition and disfigurement in the name of modernization, years of scraping along the bottom, an effort to save its meager remnants, gentrification and insane property values – all within the span of about a century, specifically within the 20th, though spilling into the 21st. Which is an affluent time for Venice of America.

“When it opened on July 4, 1905, Venice of America boasted seven distinct canals arranged in an irregular grid pattern, as seen… in Kinney’s master plan for the community,” KCET says. “Totaling nearly two miles and dredged out of former saltwater marshlands, the canals encircled four islands, including the tiny triangular United States Island. The widest of them, appropriately named Grand Canal, terminated at a large saltwater lagoon. Three of the smaller canals referred to celestial bodies: Aldebaran, Venus, and Altair.

“Soon, a second set of canals appeared just south of Kinney’s. Linking up with the existing network through the Grand Canal, these Short Line canals (named after the interurban Venice Short Line) were apparently built to capitalize on the success of Kinney’s development. Their origins are uncertain, but work started soon after Venice of America’s 1905 grand opening, and by 1910 real estate promoters Strong & Dickinson and Robert Marsh were selling lots in what they named the Venice Canal Subdivision. Built almost as an afterthought, these six watercourses are the only Venice canals that survive today.”

The rest, the originals in their irregular grid and with their celestial names, were long ago filled in and paved over – that would be the demolition and disfigurement.

I arrived in the neighborhood fairly early in the morning, early enough – I realized later – to park on Venice Blvd. within walking distance of both the canals and the beach, which is more difficult later in the day. Venice Blvd., near the ocean at least, also happens to be the locus of a handful of residents living in parked RVs and, for those who can’t swing that, tents in the boulevard median.

The canals form a neighborhood unlike any I’ve seen and, I have to say, flat-out gorgeous in our time.

Public sidewalks run between front yards and the canals, with occasional footbridges crossing the canals. This arrangement, I’ve read, is the result of renovation that occurred in the early 1990s. The only vehicular street running through the neighborhood is Dell Ave., which connects with alleys behind the houses with the wide expanse of LA streets. The way residents drive in and out of the area, that is.

The yards are lush, at least they were in June. Temps weren’t that warm the day I visited, and the skies fully overcast and sometimes drizzly, since southern California seems to be in some kind of weird weather bubble these days. Made for a good walking environment, though.

Hard to believe the area spent much of the 20th century as a slum; a quick look at Zillow’s estimates puts no property along the canals at much less than $2 million, and many a good deal more, with a scattering of new houses under way as well. Such is real estate across the decades.

Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

Posted on May 9, 2023 by admin

A total of four hours behind the wheel there and back from the northwest suburbs of Chicago to Normal, Illinois, could be considered a chore, but not if you have time to stop a handful of places along the way. That isn’t always possible – weather or scheduling might prevent it – but when it is, you might happen across things to see. Maybe even things you won’t see anywhere else.

Such as in Pontiac, Illinois, pop. 11,150. It’s been a surprisingly good source of stopover sights since I started driving to Normal on a regular basis, and so it was on Sunday, when I headed down to Normal to load up the car with some of Ann’s possessions. She’ll be done with school for the semester later this week, so the goal was to not be overloaded when she finally returns.

Plunge into the small streets of Pontiac – that might not be the right verb, since its grid is pretty small – and soon you’ll be at Chautauqua Park.

Spring green and on Sunday at least, warm enough to inspire a little sweat.

A good place to walk around, but also to read, with a good many signs like this.

I read at least a half-dozen. Most of them told me about the history of the park as the setting for the Pontiac Chautauqua, as the park name suggests.

A few quotes from the various signs:

A.C. Folsom

“Under the leadership of A.C. Folsom, a group of civic-minded citizens organized to bring a Chautauqua to Pontiac. Between the years 1898 and 1929, the Pontiac Chautauqua Assembles developed into one of the Midwest’s most popular and successful summer festivals.”

“As the Pontiac Chautauqua grew, dramatic presentations became particular favorites of the crowd. Shakespeare, melodramas, domestic comedies, mysteries, and tragedies graced the stage of the pavilion. Troupes of actors from New York, Chicago and elsewhere traveled the Chautauqua circuit, playing a repertory of four or five plays.”

The Chautauqua pavilion as it appears now.

Theatrical presentations still occur there. According to a non-historic sign, the next one will be the Broadway musical version of Beauty and the Beast, June 14-18, 2023, by the Vermillion Players.

More Chautauqua Park history-sign verbiage:

“Specialty acts from all over the world brought exotic sounds which floated over the park on warm summer evenings. Here are just a few of the individuals and groups which graced the Pontiac Chautauqua: Mme. Schumann-Heink, opera star; The Weber Male Quartette; Colangelos Band; The Honolulu Students; Mr. & Mrs. Tony Godetz, Alpine Singers & Yodelers.”

“Each year of the Pontiac Chautauqua Assembly, noted lecturers, politicians and educators came to edify the event’s patrons… some of the most notable speakers include: Booker T. Washington; William Jennings Bryan; Samuel Gompers; Rev. Dr. Thomas DeWitt Talmage; Carrie Nation.”

Yep, there’s Carrie Nation at the Pontiac Chautauqua.

No visible hatchet. It’s clear she didn’t wear a corset. She considered them harmful.

As fascinating as the park’s Chautauqua history is – and there’s the basis of another limited costume series on prestige streaming, namely the story of a plucky, slightly anachronistic woman entertainer on the Chautauqua circuit, ca. 1900 – that isn’t all the park has to offer.

Namely, it sports two of the town’s three swinging bridges. Dating roughly from the time of the Chautauqua. Original iron work, with wooden planks that have been replaced many times.

Naturally, I had to cross them. One of them:

And the other.

They don’t swing, exactly, at least when you walk normally, but they do wobble, and it takes a moment to get used to the motion. Nice views of the Vermilion River along with way.

Bigger than I would have thought. At this point, the waters are on their way to the Illinois River, then of course Old Man River.

One more item in the park: a plaque-on-rock memorial.

Not just any memorial, but a fairly unusual one.

But not unknown. Naturally, I had to look up Fred Bennitt. I’m cursed that way.

Nichols Bridgeway ’23

Posted on May 8, 2023 by admin

Saw this headline in the WSJ late last week: ‘I’m Not Excited For Him to Become King’: American Royal Watchers Draw the Line at King Charles Coronation

Do we as Americans need to be excited about the coronation of Charles? No, we do not. Interested, if that kind of thing interests you, but I’ll bet even a good many Britons don’t have strong feelings one way or the other. As one of those things that doesn’t happen very often and which harkens back to a long history, the event interested me, but not to the point of distraction.

Reporting on the event makes it seem as if there are only two modes of thinking about Charles, and the British monarchy for that matter: slavish adoration and awe at the pomp, or bitter republican convictions that see the royals as posh parasites. I can’t muster enough emotion to feel either of those, though I could probably sit down and come up with reasons on each side of the monarchy, pro- and anti-, like any former high school debater.

Still, I did a little reading about the sceptre and orb, because who doesn’t like a little reading about orbs especially? Of even more interest, though, is the Stone of Scone, which for years I thought was pronounced the same way that the British refer to their biscuits (but no, it’s “skoon,” which does sound more Scottish). I understand that all it takes to see the stone these days is a visit to Edinburgh Castle. Its presence there since 1996 must count as a physical reminder of UK devolution.

All in all, the coronation didn’t interest me enough to get up at 4 or 5 am on a Saturday for live coverage. Plenty of video was available soon after.

While we were in Chicago on Saturday, we found ourselves on the Nichols Bridgeway, which runs from Millennium Park to the third floor of the Art Institute.

I couldn’t remember the last time we were there. Might have been back in 2011, when we attended my nephew Robert’s graduation from the School of the Art Institute. That’s when I took this picture of him with a faux nimbus.

The bridge still stands, of course. Looking north.

South.

We went for the views from the bridge. One thing Chicago has for sure is an alpha-city skyline.

Looking west on Monroe St.

Looking east.

Note how few cars there are (none) compared with the number of pedestrians. Turns out the Polish Constitution Day Parade had just finished. We missed it. Maybe next year; looks like a spectacle.

Thurmond, West Virginia

Posted on April 9, 2023 by admin

I was thinking ghost town, but the data says otherwise. Someone lives in Thurmond, West Virginia — five people as of the 2020 Census. They must be in the few houses perched on the enormous slope over the historic core of the town, which is formed by a string of commercial buildings and railroad structures at a flat place next to the New River.

Thurmond was a small railroad town at a waystation, back when that meant coal-burning giants among locomotives, which came to pick up shipments of coal, or acquire coal, water and sand for their own use. Maybe the shades of long-gone people wander Thurmond, if you believe that sort of thing, and if so, the rattle of pouring coal, the venting of steam, the screech of metal on metal, are echoing on as well.

What does every railroad town need?

The National Bank of Thurmond failed in 1931, but there were successor banking entities of some kind in the building into in the 1950s, when the town essentially shut down. The fact that the last bank paid 3 percent reminds me of a shorthand for the way mid-century savings and loans did their business: 3-5-3. Pay 3 percent to depositors, charge borrowers 5 percent interest, and close up to go play golf at 3 pm.

Other commercial buildings fronting the tracks, with the river just a little beyond them.

The mostly hidden ruins of a grand hotel on the slope. Burned down.

The bridge that brings trains and motor vehicles to Thurmond over the New River. One track, one lane.

The station. I thought it was merely for tourist use now, but no: it’s an active Amtrak station, reportedly the second-least used, after one in West Texas. So not that active.

The steam went out of Thurmond pretty much when the steam went out of Thurmond. That is, coal-fired steam locomotives disappeared, replaced by diesel, and the contracting coal industry as natural gas gained a foothold nationally probably didn’t help either.

Trains still transit Thurmond, but the land around — most of it, anyway, as boundaries are invisible — belongs to the national park. The star of modern Thurmond, I believe, is the ruin of the coaling tower.

Near the coaling tower. Maybe where the crew boss stayed, and members of the crew when no trains were in town.

Both are full of the ravages of time, but still standing. Barely? I’m not engineer enough to make an assessment, but my layman’s opinion is that chunks of stone drop off the tower now and then, so watch out.

A selection of graffiti.

Bleak, O.G. Bleak.

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve: The Bridges

Posted on April 5, 2023 by admin

I didn’t appreciate the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia until I’d driven across it more than once, and more importantly, seen it from a distance.

A handsome design for a magnificent setting. Elegant. Sturdy. Spanning the gorge spider-web like. Imagine a species of large, intelligent arachnids that can extrude metal and spin webs of steel across the many gorges on their forested planet. Artful shapes like the New Gorge River Bridge, maybe.

Even better, such an artful shape was made by us clever apes here on Earth. Within my lifetime, completed in October 1977. If I’d been in that part of West Virginia then, I could have driven across the newly minted bridge carrying my newly minted drivers license, obtained in some haste that summer to take a girl I’d recently met on dates. But I wasn’t anywhere near the bridge in my South Texas adolescent driving days, and never heard of it till much later.

“The bridge reduced a 40-minute drive down narrow mountain roads and across one of North America’s oldest rivers to less than a minute,” the park service says. “When it comes to road construction, mountains do pose a challenge. In the case of the New River Gorge Bridge, challenge was transformed into a work of structural art — the longest steel span in the Western Hemisphere and the third-highest in the United States.

“The West Virginia Division of Highways chose the Michael Baker Co. as the designer, and the construction contract was awarded to the American Bridge Division of U.S. Steel. In June 1974, the first steel was positioned over the gorge by trolleys running on three-inch diameter cables. The cables were strung 3,500 feet between two matching towers. Cor-ten steel, with a rust-like appearance that never needs painting, was used in construction.”

Good to know, but if anything, the experience of driving across the bridge is too detached from the sense that you’re passing over an 800-foot void. The opaque fences along the edges of the bridge obscure the drop, though you do get a glimpse of the far-away cliffs of the gorge.

The bridge transits New River Gorge National Park and Preserve land on either side. A few minutes walk from the park’s visitor center takes you to a view of the bridge, which we saw on the morning of March 23, the brightest, warmest day of the trip.

The gorge, looking away from the bridge.

The old way to cross the gorge by vehicle involved spending 40 minutes or more on small roads that switchbacked their way down into the gorge, to just a few feet above the river, where there’s a much shorter bridge.

Stop there and you see the postcard-Instagram view of the New River Gorge Bridge in all its glory.

We drove down to the river the morning of March 24, the day after we’d seen the bridge from near the visitors center. Cold rain fell periodically and clouds clung to the side of the gorge.

A small aside. I saw that a number of things are named after Sen. Byrd in West Virginia, and I’m sure if I’d stayed longer, I’d have seen more. Why not this grandest of Mountaineer State bridges? Than again, maybe the thought of it being the “Byrd Bridge” has given policymakers second thoughts on a renaming.

The bridge down near the banks, where a few generations of West Virginians before 1977 made the crossing, does have a name: Tunny Hunsaker Bridge.

I had to look him up. I thought, local politico? A local man who didn’t return from a war? No, he was a prizefighter who later was police chief of nearby Fayetteville, West Virginia (d. 2005). I’m not up on the history of boxing. Now I’ve read that Muhammad Ali’s first professional win, in 1960, was against Hunsaker.

The current bridge dates from 1997, built to replace an earlier iteration. You can’t walk across the New River Gorge Bridge (except on Bridge Day), but you can walk across Tunny Hunsaker any time. So we did in turn. When you can cross an interesting bridge in an epic setting, you should.

Ohiopyle State Park

Posted on March 30, 2023 by admin

The curious name Ohiopyle has naught to do with Ohio, which is apparently from a Seneca word meaning “big river” – but rather apparently a Delaware (Lenape) word meaning “frothy waters.” Standing on the banks of the Youghiogheny River, looking at Ohiopyle Falls in Ohiopyle State Park in southwestern Pennsylvania, that’s easy to see.

For its part, Youghiogheny, also Lenape, apparently means “flowing backwards,” and so it seems to at times, as it twists along, including in the park. I say apparently each time because I only know what I read, and am not an authority on any Native American language, or the place names that evolved from Indian words, which have a long history of being mangled or given over to (apparently) fanciful translations.

The state park is large – more than 20,000 acres – and Fallingwater is just outside its bounds. After visiting Fallingwater, we sought lunch in the town of Ohiopyle, which is actually the borough of Ohiopyle. Pennsylvania has counties, cities, boroughs and townships, but not towns, according to the Pennsylvania Manual, Volume 125, page 6-3. Boroughs form a middle rank of populated areas between cities and townships.

Anyway, the borough of Ohiopyle is only a few blocks in any direction, and clearly a tourist town, but not on the order of Gatlinburg in Tennessee or Wisconsin Dells or Hannibal, Mo. Rather, it caters to visitors to the park, who are mostly there for rafting, kayaking, and canoeing on the waters, and hiking, horseback riding, cross-country skiing, mountain biking and snowmobiling on land. I have a feeling the place is best known to Yinzers and unpleasantly crowded on summer weekends.

Mid-March is low season, and so pleasantly uncrowded. Only one place that served food seemed to be open, and we got sandwiches to go. There must be some full-time residents. Someone goes to Ohiopyle United Methodist Church.

Across the street from the church is a former train station, these days a tourist office with public bathrooms that serve recreational travelers on the Great Allegheny Passage. I don’t think I could think of a more Pennsylvania-y name than that for a trail. If we had a mind to – or more to the point, time for it – we could have walked to Pittsburgh. Or to Cumberland, Maryland, going the other way.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the trail was formed from a series of abandoned railway lines: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Union Railroad, and Western Maryland Railway. Standing in Ohiopyle, all you see is that the trail crosses a cool old railroad bridge.

Love locks. Not many, though. Guess that beats graffiti.

Yuriko and the dog went on ahead. I paused here and there to push my camera button, and take in the views of the Youghiogheny in that better way, with your eyeballs.

I’d just planned to cross the bridge and come back, but they found a trail at the bottom of the stairs, one leading off onto the Ferncliff Peninsula.

Looked easy enough. Mostly the trail followed the river.

Eventually the trail lost its through-the-woods vibe and offered us rock surfaces and large underfoot stones and mud patches, which slowed us down.

Better shoes and our walking sticks were back at the car, so eventually we turned around, but not before getting a close look at the top of Ohiopyle Falls.

Just another bit of turbulence destined for the Gulf: Youghiogheny, Monongahela, Ohio, Mississippi.

Tri-State Appalachian Equinox Road Trip

Posted on March 26, 2023 by admin

Old Chinese proverb, I’ve heard: even a journey of 1,000 leagues begins by backing out of the driveway. That we did on Friday, March 17. We pulled back into the driveway on Saturday, March 25. In between we traveled 2,219 miles, using the ragged marvel that is the system of roads in the United States.

My fanciful name for the trip refers to three states that were the focus: Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. We actually passed through seven states, also including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and very briefly, Maryland.

We saw a lot of places, but two in particular motivated the trip as a whole. One was Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright sculpture – I mean, house – perched over an irregular drop on Bear Run, a creek in rural Pennsylvania. Visiting Fallingwater had long been an ambition of Yuriko’s, maybe since before she lived in this country, since FLW is known far and wide; but I needed no persuasion to go myself.

The other was New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in eastern-ish West Virginia. This was my suggestion, since I keep up on national parks. But I’ve wanted to go there a good while, long before Congress promoted it to national park, which only happened in 2020. Besides, it was high time I spent a little more than a few minutes in West Virginia which, for whatever else it has, is known for its surpassing scenery. This reputation, I can confirm, is deserved.

Weather-wise, spring travel is a crap shoot. The day we left a cold, unpleasant wind blew in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and it followed us under the same gray skies and at temps barely above freezing the next day, into central Ohio.

By last Monday, in southwest Pennsylvania, temps had moderated with the appearance of the sun, and each day was more pleasant than the last as we headed south into West Virginia, where the grass had greened and some bushes had too, though most trees were at the barely budding stage. Thursday, March 23 proved best of all, with sunny skies and temps in the 70s, allowing us to enjoy the best meal of our trip — ricebowl meals — at a picnic table in Fayetteville, W.Va.

A cold rain came calling on Friday as we headed from West Virginia back to Ohio. On Saturday, again in central Ohio, it wasn’t bitterly cold, but the wind was so strong at times that it jostled my car as I drove and my body as I walked. Rain squalls came and went, with a spell of sleet I actually enjoyed, sitting in our parked car listening, knowing that the ice was too small to do any damage. Returning home yesterday, Illinois was pretty much as we’d left it, chilly and not-quite-spring.

The upshot of it all is to pack for the weather variety you’re going to encounter, and I was more than glad – as I returned to the car in a stiff wind, crossing a green field in small-town Ohio, feeling wind chill that must have been around zero (and I mean Fahrenheit) – that I’d brought the coat I use most of the winter.

We brought the dog. We don’t want to leave her at a kennel any more, and no one was at home to mind her. Having your dog along is something like traveling with a small child you can’t take into restaurants or a lot of other places, but we don’t regret a bit of it. Long drives in the car don’t faze her at all, since after the first few minutes, that’s like lying around the house and, as the comedian said, a dog’s job is lying around the house.

She had her energetic moments too, more than you’d think for an ancient dog, such as walking the trail to Diamond Point overlooking the New River Gorge, with its smooth straightaways through forests giving way to patches of mud, large rocks or tightly packed tree roots underfoot, sometimes all of those in a single stretch. Our reward for the sometime-slog was a vista of rare beauty. Her reward? I don’t think it was anything so visual. Maybe following the pack is its own reward for her.

Companion dogs also mean you acquaint yourself with the look and feel of the front office and main entrance of limited-service hotels during the empty early a.m. hours, well lit as a Broadway stage but without any players. Except maybe for the night clerk, just outside the door, who is peering into his phone, cigarette in other hand. Probably our dog, as any dog, could be trained to pee on a disposable rug in the room during the small hours, but somehow we’ve never wanted to do that. There’s something appealing somehow about the ritual of dressing as simply as possible a few minutes after waking at 2:30 or 3, or 25 or 6 to 4, hitching a leash to the dog’s collar and repairing to the first patch of green, or pebbles ringed by a curb, outside the hotel door

Take me home, country roads. I’ll say this for West Virginia, it’s got some crazy-ass serpentine roads through its ancient and forested mountains. The Laurel Highlands in southwest Pennsylvania was no piker in that regard, either. You need to keep an intense focus on the road as it winds this way and that, rises and falls, and passes ever so close to boulder walls, massive trees and wicked ditches. If you don’t mind thinking about your mortality every now and then, that’s some good driving.

Mostly good driving. There are moments when a red sedan, or a black pickup truck, decides that tailgating you at roughly the speed limit as you wind around and navigate switchbacks, is a good idea, and blasts around you at the first marginal opportunity, double solid stripes be damned.

Yet I only got the smallest sampling of the twisty roads. No roads without pavement this trip, though plenty enough didn’t bother with details such as guardrails. Another, entirely unpaved and mostly unregulated network of roads and tracks, many perhaps pre-New Deal, must exist in West Virginia. Out away from the nearest town, while we were parked a national park site on a small paved road, three ATVs buzzed past, each with two people. They were headed toward town after emerging from the woods, their vehicles streaked with mud. I was just close enough to see in their faces they’d had a fine time out in the unpaved network.

Also, if you really wanted to get home to West Virginia, wouldn’t you take the Interstate?

We made stops in Ohio going and coming.

On Saturday, March 18 we made our way south from Ann Arbor, where we’d spent the first night, to Columbus, Ohio, to spent the second. On the way is the Basilica and National Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation, a Byzantine edifice rising in a small town, which we visited, but also sites associated with Warren G. Harding: his memorial and burial site, and also his home, in the large town of Marion, Ohio.

Our return home, beginning on Friday, March 24, took us back through Ohio, to Columbus for the last night of the trip. Saturday morning, after takeout breakfast at Tim Horton’s – for that part of Ohio is in the Tim Horton’s orb, we were glad to learn – we visited downtown Columbus and the Ohio Statehouse in a howling cool wind. Ate lunch, Korean-style chicken and salad, sitting in the car in a clearly gentrified neighborhood, the bricked-streeted German Village. We spent the rest of Saturday driving back, via Indianapolis.

On the morning of Sunday, March 19, we left Columbus and made our way east through the remarkable town of Newark, Ohio, then Wheeling and Moundsville, West Virginia and from there to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, a mid-sized far outer suburb of Pittsburgh. Or at least it will be in a few years.

On Monday, we paid our visit to Fallingwater, taking turns on tours, after which we had lunch in a low-season tourist town and took an impediment-rich hike in Ohiopyle State Park, along the rocky shore of the Youghiogheny River, at that point boasting a highly picturesque waterfall. That was enough for one day for Yuriko, who napped in the car (along with the dog) as I walked the much shorter and smoother path to Fort Necessity National Battlefield late that afternoon.

On Tuesday, we made our way back west a short distance, to visit the Palace of Gold in rural West Virginia, in the peculiar north panhandle of the state (which I’ve long thought of as a conning tower). We returned that day to Uniontown by way of Moundsville, W. Va., home of an ancient mound of remarkable height, a former penitentiary of remarkable solidity, and a bridge across the Ohio River of remarkable elegance. Those things, and some tasty if not remarkable barbecue.

The next day, we left for West Virginia, but not by the most direct route, because I wanted to see the Flight 93 National Memorial in deep rural Pennsylvania. Progressively smaller roads lead there, including – as we traveled it, which I figured would be the quickest route – a short stretch of I-68 through the oddity that is the Maryland panhandle. Late that day, Wednesday, we arrived in Beckley, W. Va.

We spent almost all of Thursday at the national park, at one sight or another, driving and hiking and pondering historic and sometimes crumbled structures. But that wasn’t quite enough. On Friday morning, before we left for Ohio, we went back to the park. Around noon, we headed west, passing through Charleston long enough to visit the West Virginia State Capitol and eat Chinese takeout, though not at the same time. A little north of Charleston, we crossed back into Ohio after gassing up near the small town of Ripley, West Virginia. Believe it or not.

One other thing: this was a vacation from the news, which following is part of my job. Except for the briefest snippets on the radio, when sometimes I didn’t change stations out of habit for some seconds, I ignored the news of the world, or even smaller parts of it. I think that’s a good thing to do.

But of course, a few things got through. I heard the opening bars of The Dick Van Dyke Show theme on a news program one day, and I jumped to the conclusion that he had died. That isn’t a big jump, since he’s 97. But no, merely a one-car accident.

Image being that well regarded, that your minor auto accident as a nonagenarian is national news. Anyway, glad not to say, RIP, Dick Van Dyke.

Buffalo Creek Park, Long Grove

Posted on February 28, 2023 by admin

This is all the that Long Grove Park District has to say about Buffalo Creek Park in Long Grove: “Buffalo Creek Park became the Park District.”

Maybe that’s just a mangled placeholder. Guess the district will get around to finishing that description sometime. Unless they decide to let generative AI do their jobs for them, like certain exceedingly lazy employees of my alma mater did recently. They need to be careful, though.

Me: Describe Buffalo Creek Park in Long Grove, Illinois.

Generative AI: Buffalo Creek Park is a public park located in Long Grove, Illinois. The park covers an area of approximately 408 acres and features a variety of natural habitats, including wetlands, prairies, and savannas…

There was more, but I’m skipping it because clearly the program mistook this small park with the much larger Buffalo Creek Forest Preserve. Oops.

I don’t know the park’s actual size, but I know for certain it isn’t anything close to 408 acres – 20 or 25 would be my guess. One entrance to the park is near Long Grove’s historic covered iron bridge.

At the stub end of February, the park is a brown expanse.

In contrast to what it looks like in July.

A single bridge crosses Buffalo Creek.

Buffalo Creek is a short (about 11 miles) tributary of the Des Plaines River, which eventually flows to the Illinois, itself is a tributary of the Mississippi. I enjoy knowing that some of the chilled water under that little bridge is bound for the warm reaches of the Gulf.

A gazebo. Long Grove wouldn’t be a very civilized place without one, after all.

Time to see what ChatGPT knows about gazebos.

Me: What’s the difference between British and French gazebos?

Generative AI: British gazebos are typically more traditional and classic in their design. They often have a hexagonal or octagonal shape, with a pointed or domed roof. British gazebos also tend to feature intricate details such as latticework, ornate moldings, and decorative finials. They may be constructed from wood, metal, or other materials.

French gazebos, on the other hand, are often more ornate and elaborate in their design. They may feature curved lines, intricate ironwork, and decorative scrollwork. French gazebos may also have a more rectangular or oval shape, with a flatter roof. They are often made from wrought iron or other metals, and may be adorned with flowers or other decorative elements.

Oh, really? I can make up stuff about gazebos, too, Mr. Robot Brain. It takes me a little longer, but I’d say my make-believe is still higher quality. For now.

Looks like some Eagle Scouts – and their leader, Aadi Jain? – this troop, since Buffalo Grove isn’t far away? – take an interest in civic improvement projects. I’m happy to report that the gazebo ramp is smooth and stable.

One more park feature: a plaque-on-boulder memorial.

The honoree is one Edward H. Wachs III (1907-99), who, according to the words in bronze, was on the local school board, the village board, the park district board and the architectural board. That’s a long lifetime on boards.

The Peace Bridge

Posted on February 15, 2023 by admin

Not long ago, I learned that gephyrophobia, an irrational fear of bridges, is a real thing. I find it a little hard to imagine. I’ve been on a few white-knuckle bridges in my time, such as the unnamed span that crosses the Mississippi from Savanna, Illinois, to Sabula, Iowa, which is as narrow as two-lane bridge can be and still be two lanes. But that was a rational reaction, not a generalized dread.

“In Michigan, the Mackinac Bridge Authority drives vehicles for free over a bridge that connects the state’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas and rises 199 feet above the strait below,” Car & Driver reports. “Formerly known as the Timid Driver Program, it’s now referred to as the Driver Assistance Program. Bridge staff, who are also responsible for escorting hazardous-materials trucks and maintenance chores, drive up to 10 people across the bridge each day.”

Mostly I have the opposite reaction to bridges, wanting to cross them in one way or another – walking, driving or by public conveyance. That includes the grand bridges I’ve crossed, such as Mighty Mac but also the Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate, Sydney Harbour and Seto-Ohashi, as well as mid-sized and smaller ones. Sometimes it’s an essential part of visiting somewhere, such as crossing the bridges on the Thames in London, the Seine in Paris and the Vltava in Prague. Or even the Tridge in Midland, Michigan.

In Batavia, Illinois, a footbridge crosses the Fox River from the west bank peninsula to the east bank. I had no hesitation in crossing it during our Saturday visit. It’s a fairly ordinary iron structure with wood planks, the kind you see in a lot of places.

Except for one feature, best seen from nearby.

It’s known as the Peace Bridge. The “PEACE” and “EARTH” letters are 12 feet tall; the “ON” letters eight feet. Beginning from their first installation in 2008, the letters were seasonal each year — around Christmas — but now they are year-round.

Remarkably, the sign was the idea of a local barber, Craig Foltos, owner of Foltos Tonsorial Parlor, who persuaded the Batavia Park District to install the letters he had fashioned (with help).

Foltos Tonsorial Parlor. I like that name so much I might have my hair cut there someday.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Bridges