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On the road
Rory and Luci
Monthly Archives: August 2019
I Want to Hold Your Hand!
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
In camp at Punderson State Park
We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland today. What a mega trip down memory lane! There were tributes to the early artists who laid the foundation of what was to come. They were mostly black performers who were incredibly talented. And of course tributes to the many, many stars of 50s and beyond. A special section was a small theater showing snippets of Dick Clark’s shows. We could have stayed there all day. There were also tributes to the famous disc jockeys, song scripts scribbled out on any kind of paper within reach, contracts, and politicians railing about the evil of Rock & Roll.
Some of the exhibits were very striking like this one of the dresses of the Supremes.
Guitars and drum kit of ZZ Top.
Luci writing this part:
I was in Detroit in July 1965. That was when I first met lifelong friend Sue Nykamp aka Smitty. What could be more bonding than going to Herman’s Hermits concert together? I was 12, Sue was 13. We took the bus home by ourselves from downtown Cobo Hall after the concert.
Remember what you were listening to in July 1968? The record stores all had Top 30 lists, no doubt to encourage you to buy the hot singles……remember 45s? Hot AM stations Detroit WXYZ and across the Detroit River, station CKLW, both published these lists and Sue would send them to me. I treasured them! At night mega-watt station CKLW would come in on my little transistor radio in Maine.
Herman’s Hermits are not in the Hall of Fame but they definitely contributed to the British Invasion. I saw them in concert twice! (I was going to marry Peter Noone! Serious crush!) along with the Dave Clark Five (striped shirt and white pants outfit), Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Freddie and the Dreamers. What my mother put up with!
The three largest exhibits were fabulous tributes for Elvis, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones. It was a great way to spend a very rainy day!
On the road
Rory and Luci
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across the Midwest
Sunday, August 4, 2019
Montpelier, IA to Albion, IN
We started off on I-80 heading East but turned off in Morris, IL. There we found a canal town along the Illinois and Michigan Canal. This was built in 1846 and runs along the Illinois River. The canal originally provided passage from the Chicago River at Bridgeport to the Illinois River at LaSalle. This was the first water passage from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. It has since been replaced by the Illinois Waterway and the Chicago Ship Canal.
After leaving Morris we meandered through the cornfields on good secondary roads. There was a right-angle corner at almost every town due to the rectangular survey system. Eventually we crossed into Indiana and then into the Eastern Time Zone. At one of these corners we found a stack of VW Beatles.
While we always thoroughly enjoy the big well-known places like Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, these 2 moments in our journeys are the moments we live for! Delightful, charming, whimsical, and totally unexpected!
We finally arrived at Chain of Lakes State Park in northeast Indiana and found Steve and Kim Hatt there. This is a big campground. The attendant said that all 500 sites were full the night before but fortunately they all went home on Sunday. It was only about 20% full tonight.
348 miles today
Monday, August 5, 2019
Albion, IN to Newbury, OH
We continued along the secondary roads this morning. It takes longer, but it is so much more enjoyable that the Interstate Highways. The weather grows more humid every day as we proceed East. This CSX freight train did not sideswipe us, although it was a little un-nerving seeing it barreling down on us in Ottawa, OH.
Ninety-three degrees and dry (like in Teddy Roosevelt NP) is much more tolerable than 85 and humid outside Cleveland. As we got closer to Cleveland the traffic picked up as did the traffic lights. Ugh! We stopped for the night at Punderson State Park on the east side of Cleveland. We got a nice full service site with a view of a large pond. School has started or will start soon for many Mid-westerners so the campgrounds aren’t as full.
276 miles today
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Rory and Luci
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on the Mississippi River
Friday, August 2, 2019
In camp at USACE Clarks Ferry Campground
Montpelier, IA
Lazy day! We caught up on rest, groceries, and laundry and enjoyed our US Army Corps of Engineers campground on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Our friends went off to explore and Petey kept us company. Towboats with rafts of nine to fifteen barges ranged up and down the river. The Canadian Pacific Railroad was very busy right behind our camper. There were grade crossings immediately on either side of the campground as well as the campground entrance road. That’s a lot of train horns in the middle of the night very close to your head. Long! Long! Short! Long! We didn’t mind but not everyone hears music in those blatts!
Saturday, August 3, 2019
In camp at USACE Clarks Ferry Campground
Montpelier, IA
Today we were a little more ambitious and went up to the Rock Island Arsenal. The outdoor display of howitzers and tanks was quite impressive. They were prototypes, relics complete with dents and bruises from WW2, and even Russian souvenirs brought home from Desert Storm.
Then we went to the locks and dam in time to see this group of barges lock through. First the blue tow boat pushed the front end around so it would fit into the lock.
The we went to lunch at the Front Street Brewery in Davenport. The we went to the John Deere Pavilion in Moline. They have several huge pieces of equipment you can examine up close. Steve and Kim are checking out their new harvester.
In between we all had lunch on a shady outdoor deck by the river. One shop had brews, one had Italian food, one had a deli…..go get what you like, sip back, enjoy with your friends, your friendly neighbors (you are from Maine!? Really?!!!), and the river view.
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Rory and Luci
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Illinois roadblock
Ok, we turned down this narrow road in Momenz IL to get some sweet corn. This Powder River coal train is stopped apparently waiting for a train of empties to pass going west. The road is too narrow to turn the truck and trailer around so Luci has the slide out and is making lunch🙄
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leaving the mountains
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Bald Mountain Campground to Lusk, WY
We awoke to 45 degree temperature and packed up to leave. But those eager high school kids were on the road before us after hiking to the top of Bald Mountain before breakfast! We began to descend from 9400’ to about 5000’. This herd of cattle was running across the range. I’ve no idea what spooked them.
All to soon we were back down to the plains and heading East.
We got onto I-90 east to Gillette, WY and then took Wy Route 59 south through the Big Thunder National Grassland. There we found the Big Thunder Mine which is the largest surface coal mine in North America. This is the Powder River Basin producing low Sulphur coal. Coal is not dead! We saw dozens of 100+ car trains leaving this region every day heading for electricity plants in the South and Midwest.
This is a little fixer-upper from a bygone era.
The range behind our campground in Lusk had a nice little herd of Pronghorns.
360 miles today
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Rory and Luci
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Nebraska
Monday, July 29, 2019
Lusk, WY to Halsey, NE
We left Lusk on US Route 20. In the wide open, sparsely populated places in the West, they just close the roads in really bad weather. Fortunately, we had bright blue skies today.
The north west quarter of Nebraska is the “Sand Hills” region. This area is not named for the many Sandhill Cranes that migrate through here but rather the rolling sand dunes covered with sparse grass. Where’s the beach? There is none!
And of course, since we were in Alliance, we went to Carhenge. This is hard to explain. It is the brainchild of Jim Reinders who erected the original 25 cars in a replica of Stonehenge during a six day family reunion and dedicated on the Summer Solstice, June 21, 1987. If you build it, they will come!
We followed Nebraska Route 2 southeasterly across the state and parallel to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. This railroad is heavily used by Powder River coal cars heading East and empty cars heading West.
We stopped for the night at the Nebraska National Forest in Halsey. Yes, there are some trees in Nebraska, and this is the site of the largest National Forest Nursery in the country. The campground is on the Middle Loup River. Like many of the rivers in the Sand Hills, it has no real “source”. It is a collection of small streams that are formed by the Ogallala Aquifer bubbling up through the sand. We were able to get sites (The Olsons and the Hatts rejoined us the second night there.) only because we were there 2 days before the Bow Hunters of Nebraska have their annual get together. Then the campground is completely booked. The early arrivals were very friendly and invited us to join in the games and fun! Alas, we “bowed” out!
286 miles today
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Rory and Luci
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North Platte
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
In camp at Nebraska National Forest
Halsey, NE
It turns out that about 75 miles south of Halsey, NE is North Platte, NE. This is the home of the Union Pacific Railroad’s Bailey Yard. We went to the 8 story Golden Spike Tower and Visitor Center. No, this is not where the Golden Spike was driven. That is in remote Promontory, UT. We went there four years ago. However, the Union Pacific was one of the participants in the completion of the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory. 
This is the view looking west from the Tower. There are hundreds of diesel locomotives in front of the shop and thousands of railcars in the yard to the right.
Looking East from the tower. The yard extends to the water tower in the distance. The corn next to the Yard looks pretty good, too! The whole place was pretty a-maze-ing ….. also a-maise-ing!
Bailey Yard is about 8 miles long and consists of about 2850 acres. It has 400 miles of track. It handles about 125 trains and processes about 12,000 rail cars per day. 9,000 locomotives are serviced monthly and they consume 18 million gallons of diesel fuel per month.
In the tower there was also a poignant tribute to the “orphan trains”. This became the unofficial name for trains bearing babies and children who were abandoned or truly orphaned. The children from the East were shipped for adoption. The children faced uncertain fates being sent to families in the growing west. Some were abused and only meant to be child labor on farms, others were cared for.
When we got back to the campsite, we found Karl & Debbie and Steve & Kim had rejoined the wagon train, now officially heading east.
180 miles to and from North Platte
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Rory and Luci
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You really ought to give Iowa a try!
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Halsey, NE to Harlan,IA
Prairie Rose State Park
Nebraska Route 2 is also known as the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway. It was a very pleasant drive as we followed it southeast to Grand Island and the Platte River. Instead of hopping on I-80 we elected to continue to follow the two lane roads northeast to Blair and re-crossed the Missouri River for the last time on this trip and into Iowa. The river was very high as we discovered when we stopped at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge. It was late in the afternoon. However, the Visitor Center contains an archeological collection of over 250,000 artifacts from the buried wreck of the Steamboat Bertrand. The Missouri River was the major highway between St. Louis and Fort Benton, MT during the 1800s. More than 400 steamboats sank or were wrecked by snags in the Big Muddy during the 19th and 20th centuries. On April 1, 1865 the Bertrand wrecked and sank in the mud on the refuge. It lay undiscovered and mostly intact until 1968. The cargo contained all manner of goods needed by the Montana Territory gold mines, logging camps, farmers, and households. Tools, equipment, food, and clothing were all recovered from the wreck and are displayed in the Visitor Center. We continued through the corn fields of Iowa to a delightful campsite overlooking a pond in Prairie Rose State Park.
328 miles today
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Harlan, IA to Montpelier ,IA
We continued to cross Iowa through corn that was getting taller and taller. Now we can’t see much past the roadside ditch, just like snowbanks in Maine! Most of the small towns seem to be making ends meet. The hanging baskets on the street lamps are well watered and the parks are mowed. The County Courthouses are impressive old structures and well maintained.
About mid morning we came to the little town of Winterset (southwest of Des Moines). This is the birthplace of John Wayne and they have a very nice museum and his restored birthplace home here. We didn’t feel we had the time to spend to justify the $15 entrance fee but what we could see was very well done. At least one of the guys bought the gift shop tee shirt saying, “A man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do!”
Many (perhaps all) Iowa counties have a Freedom Rock which they decorate to honor Veterans, POWs, etc. Here we all are next to Madison County’s Freedom Rock.
Yes, THE Madison County and it does have a number of covered bridges.
Not long afterward we passed a village that claimed it was the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. We were glad to reach our destination on the mighty Mississippi in the late afternoon. We are camped at an US Army Corps of Engineers campground on the west bank of Pool 16. The Corps divides the Mississippi River into pools. These are the areas behind the dams and locks. The dams are used only to maintain a 9’ deep channel. They are not used for flood control. It is a very nice campground. Note the train just behind the trees behind the camper! Two longs, a short, and another long ….. all night long very loud train music! 
294 miles today
Iowa Trivia Quiz: No Google!
1. What Broadway Musical is the lyric in the subject line from?
2. What is the next line?
3. Which other Broadway Musical has a song entitled All I Owe Ioway?
If you get all three right I owe you a beer. NO GOOGLING!
On the road
Rory and Luci
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Quad cities
I promise to catch up with the posts tonight.
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Westward Ho! 