South Texas ’23: Kerrville & Bandera

Last Tuesday, my brother Jay and I drove from San Antonio to Kerrville, Texas (pop. 24,200) to visit an old friend of his, who has a separate small building in his back yard to house an extensive model train that he’s building. We got a detailed tour. Cool.

That was part of a larger trip that took me to Austin and San Antonio to visit friends and family. I flew to Austin on October 18 and returned from San Antonio today.

Rather than take I-10 west from San Antonio to Kerrville (though we returned that way), we drove Texas 16, which is mostly a two-lane highway that winds from exurban San Antonio and then into the Hill Country. Always good to drive the Hill Country, even on a rainy day. It was a rainy week in South Texas on the whole, but still quite warm for October. Had a few sweaty walks in San Antonio last week as well, more about which later.

Besides visiting Bob and his wife Nancy and his HO model train construction, we also stopped by the Glen Rest Cemetery in Kerrville (my idea). The recent rains had made it a muddy cemetery. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, but also mud to muddy?Kerrville, Texas Kerrville, Texas Kerrville, Texas

A curious figure. At least for a cemetery.Kerrville, Texas Kerrville, Texas

Glen Rest – which is incorrectly noted as Glen Rose on Google Maps – dates from 1892, according to the Texas Historical Commission plaque on site. “Glen Rest Cemetery is the final resting place for many pioneer and historic families of Kerrville and the surrounding Hill Country,” it says.

En route to Kerrville on highway Texas 16 is the much smaller burg of Bandera, pop. 829 and seat of Bandera County. That means a courthouse, and we stopped to take a look.Bandera, Texas

The courthouse itself isn’t unusual, but it is positioned unusually. Instead of being the focus of a square, it’s simply facing the highway. So are a handful of memorials. This one honors “All Cowboys” because Bandera is “Cowboy Capital of the World.”Bandera, Texas

This stone oddity honors a Bandera pioneer named Amasa Clark, giving his birth and death dates as 1825-1927.Bandera, Texas Bandera, Texas

More about him is at Frontier Times magazine, which annoyingly doesn’t say when the text was written, who wrote it or where it was published. Internal evidence, along with the style of writing, puts it in the early 1920s, probably in a local newspaper. Clark came to the site of Bandera in 1852, not long after serving in the war with Mexico, and stayed until his death in 1927 as a very old man.

Also along the highway in Bandera is a strip center including a store the likes of which I’d never seen before. Neither had Jay.Bandera, Texas Bandera, Texas

We had to take a look inside.Bandera, Texas Bandera, Texas

I should have asked to woman behind the counter how long the store has been in business, or whether the man himself gets a cut, or some other questions, but I was in vacation mode, not interview mode. So all I know is what I saw, which was enough. For the record, and this is no surprise, Trump overwhelmingly carried Bandera County — 79.1% to 19.7% for Biden — in the 2020 election.

The Peshtigo Fire Museum & Fire Cemetery

You can drive from Sault Ste. Marie to metro Chicago in a day. It would be a long day, maybe eight or nine hours depending on traffic, construction, etc., but you can do it. I decided against such a long day, breaking the trip roughly in half by spending the last night of the drive around Lake Superior – which I was leaving far behind by this point – in Marinette, Wisconsin.

One reason: so I could enjoy a leisurely drive through the UP, including westward on Michigan 28 and then south on National Forest 13 through Hiawatha National Forest.

These are roads unlikely to make it on conventional best-drive lists, except for one that I might compile myself according to idiosyncratic lights, which might also include the Icefields Parkway, Lake Shore Drive, Alamo Heights Blvd., North Carolina 12 on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, among others that come to mind. That the UP has two such favorite roads says something about the car-commercial driving to be had in the mostly forested UP.

Light enough traffic, at least on National Forest 13, that you can stand on the center line and take pictures at your leisure.

Another thing about NF 13: It took me to Pete’s Lake once upon a few times, and again on August 5, though I didn’t camp this time or experience a thunderstorm or yahoos yelling in the distance. It remains a sentimental favorite spot.National Forest 13

On the morning of August 6, I finally headed home, with one more stop in mind: Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a place that demonstrates, if nothing else, that the human mind is a creature of habit.

That includes me. I only mentioned the town in passing in 2006, when we stopped at the Peshtigo Fire Museum.Peshtigo Fire Museum Peshtigo Fire Museum

The building is a former Congregational church, on the site of a Catholic church that burned down in the firestorm of 1871 – which remains the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Remarkably, the Maui wildfire is, for now, placed at fifth; modernity can’t protect us from everything.

“On the night of October 8, 1871, in Peshtigo, a lumber town about seven miles southwest of the Michigan-Wisconsin border, hundreds of people died: burned by fire, suffocating from smoke, or drowning or succumbing to hypothermia while trying to shelter in the Peshtigo River,” notes USA Today.

“But the fire also raged across Oconto and Marinette counties into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, while another blaze burned across the bay of Green Bay in Brown, Door, and Kewaunee counties.”

No one knows exactly how many people perished in the Peshtigo fire — I’ve seen varying estimates, all in the low thousands — but it was certainly more than in the Great Chicago Fire, which happened the same day. Which one is mostly remembered? Chicago, of course, thus illustrating a habit of mind. Once a thing enters the tapestry of the popular imagination, it can crowd out similar events.

Peshtigo isn’t a large museum, but it is full of stuff.Peshtigo Fire Museum

The museum includes much information and a few artifacts from the fire, though naturally not much survived. The fire itself is illustrated not by photography, but artwork.Peshtigo Fire Museum

Two volunteer docents were on hand to spread the word about the fire. It’s the only distinction for modern Peshtigo, pop. 3,400 or so. One was a woman about my age, the other a woman about Ann’s age. Again, good to see young’ins up on their local history.

Speaking of that, the museum is actually more local history than the single incident of the fire, as important as that is. As such, there are many artifacts from the entire spectrum of the town’s history (including in the basement).Peshtigo Fire Museum Peshtigo Fire Museum Peshtigo Fire Museum Peshtigo Fire Museum

Next to the museum is the Peshtigo Fire Cemetery.Peshtigo Fire Cemetery Peshtigo Fire Cemetery Peshtigo Fire Cemetery

Including survivors of the fire.Peshtigo Fire Cemetery

Along with many who did not.Peshtigo Fire Cemetery Peshtigo Fire Cemetery

Too grim a note to end on. Not far south of Peshtigo is a roadside plaque I’d seen before, but not photographed.45th parallel Wisconsin 45th parallel Wisconsin

“The most obsessive of all of 45th Parallel markers are the plaque-on-rocks sponsored by Frank E. Noyes,” says Roadside America. “We know that he sponsored them because he put his name on every one.

“Frank was 82 years old, a faithful Episcopalian and 32nd degree Mason, and president, general manager, and editor of The Daily Eagle, a Wisconsin newspaper founded by his dad. For reasons lost to time, he became fixated on the intangible world of latitude in 1938 and put up plaques around his home town of Marinette to mark the halfway line.”

There are other such signs, of course, not of Frank Noyes origin, such as at the Montana-Wyoming border, as seen in 2005.

Except for bathroom and gas breaks, the Wisconsin 45th parallel proved to be the last stop of the nearly 2,000 miles around the lake.

SS Valley Camp

Temps hit 100 degrees F. today at O’Hare, reportedly for the first time in more than 12 years. I’d have thought it would have been more recently than that, but no. Still, such heat is transient here in the North: Tomorrow’s forecast calls for only 83 for a high, and Saturday a mere 74.

While atop the 21-story Tower of History, whose only purpose is provide a way to gaze at the scenery below, I spied an ore carrier on the Michigan Sault Ste. Marie riverfront. One of the signs on the tower’s observation deck told me it was SS Valley Camp – a museum ship. The kind of information that raises my eyebrows to an “Oh, really?” posture.

So I paid a visit late on the morning of August 5. Glad I did.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

The best views of the ship aren’t from the outside, but on top.

The view from near the bridge, looking back toward the stern, which permanently points toward the St. Mary’s River and Canadian Sault Ste. Marie.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

The view toward the bow, pointing toward the Michigan Sault Ste. Marie.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

The metal plates – which look like solar panels under the bright sun – are in fact cargo hatches, for the Valley Camp in its nearly 50 years as a working ship carried ore and coal and other bulk goods. Visitors are advised not to go roaming around on the hatches, and I could see why, as they would be first-rate trip ‘n’ fall hazards that would land you on some hard, irregular surfaces.

The bridge complex.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

Displays of various quarters.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

These days the ship is owned by Sault Historic Sites, the same nonprofit that owns the Tower of History. The ship dates from 1917, built for the Producers Steamship Co. as the Louis W. Hill by the American Ship Building Co. in Lorain, Ohio, on Lake Erie. (And I have to say, in those days, company names were nothing if not descriptive.)

State-of-the-art for 1917, at least according to Lorain newspapermen: “As modern as the genius of man can make her,” the Lorain Times-Herald said at the time. A later owner renamed the ship Valley Camp, in honor of the Valley Camp Coal Co. of West Virginia.

“From 1917 until it’s last voyage in 1966, the 11,500-ton ship logged some 3 million miles and carried in excess of 16 million tons of cargo,” says the museum’s web site. “A length of 550 feet, beam of 58 feet, and depth of 31 feet, the Valley Camp [had] a crew of 32 men. Purchased by Le Sault de Sainte Marie Historical Sites Inc. [now Sault Historic Sites], the ship arrived at Sault Ste. Marie on July 6, 1968, during [the city’s] tri-centennial celebration.”

Topside is pretty cool, but the real museum action is below decks. Much of the interior is given over the displays about the history of the ship, other Great Lakes ships, and the industries they served and continue to serve: photos, models, artifacts and more.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

Including a fourth-order, working Fresnel lens.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

It wouldn’t be a Great Lakes nautical museum worth its salt — its freshwater — without something from the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. In this case, one of the doomed ship’s battered lifeboats.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

You can wander around and see much of the original metal and glass guts of the Valley Camp, too.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

Cargo Hold #1, a sign told me, hasn’t been converted into museum space. I didn’t need to be told. The yawning space shows just how large the ship is.SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie SS Valley Camp, Sault Ste. Marie

The hold did have an exhibit, which looked temporary, about the sad fate of the SS Carl D. Bradley, which went down in a Lake Michigan storm in 1958, taking 33 of its 35 crewmen with it.

A load of grain or coal typically filled that space on the Valley Camp; denser iron ore or taconite filled it only about a third of the way to the top, the sign said. Impressive.

The Tower of History & Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church

It did me good today to learn that admission to the Tower of History, in real terms, costs only a little more than it did nearly 50 years ago. Sault Historic Sites, the nonprofit that owns the structure, obviously isn’t trying to gouge visitors. Or maybe that, as interesting as it is, the tower is in out-of-the-way place, and the market won’t bear a higher price.

In any case, a newspaper article from 1975 tells me that admission for an adult was $1.25 that year. When I visited on August 5 of this year, I paid $8. An inflation calculator tells me that $1.25 that year has the current purchasing power of $7.10.The Tower of History

Thus I paid a little over the rate of inflation for all those years, but not much; we can round up the sum to pay for more maintenance, since the tower dates from 1968. Looks like it, too. Concrete all the way up and down.The Tower of History The Tower of History

The tower was the first place I went after returning to the United States that morning. It stands 210 feet over the mostly low-rise city of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. As concrete towers go, it isn’t bad, but I didn’t come just to admire it from the ground. It’s an observation tower, and I’m a sucker for those. You’re paying for the views.

Such as of the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie to the north, across St. Mary’s River, the connector between Lakes Superior and Huron.Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

The international bridge, to the west.Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Part of the U.S. locks. Superior and Huron aren’t at the same elevation, with a difference of 23 feet, so the river has long been site of a canal, and indeed work is still under way enlarging the locks.Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

A docked ore carrier. More about that later.Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

The Michigan city, to the south.Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

In the 1960s, the Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, decided to build a tower to honor the missionaries who came to the Great Lakes once upon a time, and picked the site of a log cabin and chapel built by Fr. Jacques Marquette, S.J.

Shrine of the Missionaries, it was to be, as part of a larger complex that would have also included a community center and a new church building. The ballooning expense of the tower torpedoed the other plans, however, and the Diocese of Marquette acquired the tower, which it eventually donated to the nonprofit that runs it even now. Tower of History, I assume, was a secularization of the name.

St. Mary’s still stands a stone’s throw from the tower. I’m glad the handsome 1880s Gothic Revival church wasn’t replaced by an oddity from the 1960s.Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church

The church is also a pro-cathedral.Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church

We stepped inside. Nice. I was reminded a bit of the smaller, but equally colorful Painted Churches in Texas.Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church

Perhaps there is no air conditioning — I can’t say I checked — but if so, that makes for an interesting array of fans.Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church

It was good to be back in the UP.

Around Lake Superior

Long stretches of the Trans-Canada Highway along or not far from Lake Superior are lightly traveled, even in summer. Driving the road isn’t exactly solitary, but traffic-free enough to allow your mind to wander. And by your mind, I mean mine, a few days ago.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, I thought.

There must be a correct way to address the prime minister of Canada in a formal letter. Who writes formal letters to politicians any more? Still, the formal must exist, and I could look it up. Never mind, on with the letter.

Your Excellency,

I’m about mid-way through an enjoyable six days in your country, traveling from the port of entry at Grand Portage to an exit at the grand international bridge connecting the two Sault Ste. Maries.

I have noticed that very few places in Canada sell postcards, even tourist shops, and especially Parks Canada units. I had to struggle to find cards to send to my friends back in the United States, which is a minor hobby of mine.

Market forces, you might say. An erosion of Canadian heritage is what I’d call it, and I am writing to urge that your government do something to reverse the loss, against the day when – fully dismayed by electronic media — people return to physical media.

I leave the details to you and your Minister of Canadian Heritage (cc’d on this letter). Certainly Parks Canada can be persuaded to stock them again. For private shops, perhaps tax incentives to produce Canadian-content postcards and to stock them, and a public service campaign to encourage their purchase and use.

It might not be Canada’s most pressing challenge, but it is certain worth a little of your government’s time.

Despite the minor postcard annoyance, it was nice to be back in Canada.

Every bit as scenic as the U.S., but a lot cheaper. The current judgment of the currency markets is that the U.S. dollar is strong against its Canadian counterpart (unlike in 2006).

Canada wasn’t the entire trip. Leaving on July 28, I drove from northern Illinois northwestward through Wisconsin, then to the shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota, reaching the border on the afternoon of the 30th. I left Canada yesterday, August 5, proceeding home through the UP and then southwestward back through Wisconsin, arriving home today.

In effect, I went clockwise around Lake Superior: 1,937 miles all together, though some fraction of that was measured in kilometers.

This particular drive has been in the back of my mind for years. Years and years. In September 1989, I drove to the UP and went camping. One day I headed north from my campsite to Munising for breakfast, and then on to Marquette. Somewhere along the way, around the time I first saw Lake Superior, I also saw a sign like this (except not Ontario).

I’d seen Lake Michigan Circle Tour signs in Illinois and Wisconsin. Those were brand new in those days, created to encourage tourism in the Great Lakes region, and if you asked me a brilliant bit of design. Drive around the lake, the sign says. You will be well rewarded.

I agreed: The ’89 trip itself was around Lake Michigan, though I’m sure I would have done it without the signs.

I’d never seen a Lake Superior Circle Tour sign before, but I liked the idea immediately.

The prospect intoxicated: around Superior would be mean driving to Minnesota, through that remote part of Ontario, and the back through the UP. Or vice versa. What was up that way? Exotic boreal territory; small towns; few services; moose? At the time, my experience with Canada was limited to a rewarding but short stay on Vancouver Island.

The actual Circle Tour follows a specific set of roads around, and during this trip I followed them on the whole, mostly because that was often the only option, but in some places I took other roads, usually since they were more convenient. So I can’t claim to be Circle Tour purist.

Even so, now that I’m done, driving around Lake Huron seems like a good idea too – either by way of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitouline Island, or the long way around Georgian Bay. I don’t expect to have another 34 years to get around to that, so it will be have to be sooner, if at all.

(Former) Dead Man’s Curve

Time for a genuine spring break, now that genuine spring has arrived. Back to posted content around May 24.

Returning from Normal on Sunday, I took another short detour fairly close by, in the wonderfully named town of Towanda, pop. 430 or so, originally a central Illinois project of the busy 19th-century businessman Jesse Fell. I’d seen signs for Towanda on the Interstate for years, but never stopped.Towanda, Illinois

Towanda is the home of a massive grain elevator, owned by Evergreen FS of Bloomington.Towanda, Illinois

For a more ordinary tourist, a stretch of the former U.S. 66 passes through town, and has a walking path next to the road. I took a stroll.Route 66 Towanda

Also part of the former highway: Dead Man’s Curve.Dead Man's Curve Route 66 Towanda Dead Man's Curve Route 66 Towanda

The nickname isn’t too hard to figure out, but a sign offers details.Dead Man's Curve Route 66 Towanda

It doesn’t offer a death toll, which may not be known, but does say that from 1927 until a bypass was built in 1954, the curve was the site of “many disastrous accidents,” especially involving drivers from Chicago, “unfamiliar with the road and accustomed to higher speeds.” Oops. Once a hazard, now a minor tourist attraction.

Note the Burma Shave signs. They look fairly new, so I take them to be modern homages, in this case noting the dangers of Dead Man’s Curve.Dead Man's Curve Route 66 Towanda

There’s a rhyme for each direction of travel on the road.

Northbound: Car In Ditch/Driver In Tree/The Moon Was Full/And So Was He/Burma Shave.

Southbound: Around The Curve/Lickety-Split/Beautiful Car/Wasn’t It?/Burma Shave.

South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois

Across the Vermilion River from Chautauqua Park in Pontiac, Illinois, is South Side Cemetery, which predates the town’s Chautauqua activity by some decades, since its first burials were in 1856. At 24 acres, it’s still an active municipal burial ground. I saw at least two memorials with death dates in 2023.

Overall, a nice place for a stroll on a warm day in May, if you don’t mind being in a cemetery. I can’t say I ever have been.South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois

Some older stones, including a scattering of Civil War veterans.South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois

As usual with small towns, not many mausoleums or large monuments, but there are a few.South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois

Lemuel G. Cairns fought for the Union, too, but has no ordinary soldier’s stone. According to Find a Grave, he achieved the rank of sergeant and after the war dealt in cattle in Texas, before moving to Illinois. I suspect he did well in that business in Texas, but maybe got tired of the heat.

The only sizable mausoleum I spotted.South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois

A number of Gaylords reside there, including this fellow, it seems, a doctor and Union veteran.

This is a surname you don’t see much: Hercules. Also, an unusual design for a stone.South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, Illinois

Rare, but not unknown.

“Early examples of the surname recording taken from surviving church registers include those of William Hercules (also recorded as Herculus) at the church of St Margaret’s Westminster, on January 16th 1603, and in the Shetlands, William Herculason who married Christian Harryson at Delting, on January 24th 1752,” says the Internet Surname Database.

A prominent Pontiac family, no doubt. With a name like that, they’d better be. One of them – J.W. Hercules – is mentioned as the designer of the Pontiac Chautauqua pavilion.

Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

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.Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

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

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

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.Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

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:Chautauqua Park, Pontiac Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

And the other.Chautauqua Park, Pontiac Chautauqua Park, Pontiac Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

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.Chautauqua Park, Pontiac Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

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.Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

Not just any memorial, but a fairly unusual one.Chautauqua Park, Pontiac

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

American Standard, Lexington, Illinois

As points of interest go on a map, I’d say this one’s pretty intriguing. 

Crazy Presidential Elephant. Considering that we were going to pass by the exit to Lexington, Illinois on our drive from Normal to the Chicago area on Saturday, I had to take a look at that. For that extra thrill of discovery, before visiting I barely skimmed the two reviews on Google Maps, one of which didn’t say much anyway.

Lexington is a burg of just over 2,000 souls, known for not much, as far as I can tell. On the other hand, Teddy Roosevelt visited as president, and in an example of how the Internet still amazes, with a minimum of research you can read the remarks he gave from the train that day.

The Crazy Presidential Elephant doesn’t have anything to do with TR. Or at least, I don’t think I saw him mentioned on the elephant.American Standard, Lexington, Illinois American Standard, Lexington, Illinois American Standard, Lexington, Illinois American Standard, Lexington, Illinois

Lexington doesn’t have much as a U.S. 66 destination, but it has this elephant shape conjured into existence with thousands — it must be thousands — of agglomerated manufactured metal objects of varying elements and forms and colors. Countless car parts: a fuel tank, hubcaps, bumpers, door handles, tail pipes; but not all car parts. Long chrome and short iron. Wheel shapes and rods and chains, painted or rusted or neither.  The glue holding the multitude of parts must be industrial strength. Or is it? Already the elephant is beginning to lose bits and pieces as the Illinois seasons bake and freeze in turn.

The formal name of the sculpture is “American Standard.”American Standard, Lexington, Illinois

The agglomeration is one thing, but spicing up the elephant is the writing on many surfaces.American Standard, Lexington, Illinois American Standard, Lexington, Illinois

What is this thing? Why is it here?

“This is not your typical roadside attraction — it’s the political platform of artist Kasey Wells, who ran for president as a write-in candidate in 2020. Wells created the piece with Chicago artist Kyle Riley and carted it thousands of miles on a trailer during his campaign,” explains public radio station WGLT.

“The elephant wears a gold crown with ‘Standard Oil’ painted in red, white and blue. Wells ran as a left-leaning independent interested in divesting from the oil and gas industry, transforming the Federal Reserve and putting an end to war, among other things.”American Standard, Lexington, Illinois

It’s a good place to soak in the details. Endless details.American Standard, Lexington, Illinois American Standard, Lexington, Illinois American Standard, Lexington, Illinois

Look closely enough, and you can meditate on impermanence, and not just in the philosophical sense.

“ ‘American Standard’ sits across the street from a Freedom gas station, adjacent to a historical marker pointing out Standard Oil subsidiary filling stations during Route 66’s heyday,” the station says. (How did I miss that? Never mind.)

“The spot is rife with symbolism, but Wells still owns the piece and can move it or sell it at any point.”

A Normal Parade

I found out by chance on Saturday that Normal, Illinois, was holding its St. Patrick’s Day parade this year on that very Saturday, when I happened to be in town to pick up Ann for her spring break ride back home.St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023

Compare with the downtown Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade, a few years pre-pandemic.

Not that the pandemic made the difference. Many more million people in the area to draw from made the difference.

Still, the spirit of celebrating Ireland is there, and maybe the urge to feel alcoholic mirth as the day unfolds. Stereotype has these to be one and the same, but I won’t sully the good name of Ireland by suggesting such a thing, though Eire did come in at number seven highest in liters of alcohol per capita consumed among the nations of the Earth in 2016 and is forecast to be number four in 2025. Erin go Bragh.

Though it was a little cold, I enjoyed the more mellow Normal Irish parade. A few people standing around, a few more were in the parade, mostly in vehicles representing local organizations and businesses, and that was about it.St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023 St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023 St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023

No high school bands or collegiate floats. The parade could have used a few of each, but maybe the Illinois State University administration worried about the possibility of civil disorder.

A few parade-goers were out and about in costume.St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023 St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023 St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023

One more car in the parade.St Patrick's Day parade Normal Illinois 2023

The Space Force is recruiting. The slogan: “The Sky is Not the Limit.”