Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Detroit Zoo, MI
I am on a zoo kick at the moment and thought I should go ahead and gt my Detroit Zoo pics up!
This is a great zoo that is BIG!
Personal highlights for me included the butterflies (and the very informative staff watching over them) and the sculpture.
Random Thoughts on Friday
Fans of travel and exploration have a LOT to be excited about right now!
James Cameron did his deep sea dive recently. There is the revived interest in finding Amelia Earhart's plane. Close to us in Kentucky, there is the Doolittle Raider's reunion coming up. Oh, and it looks like the engines of Apollo 11 have been located!
Concerning the Earhart search, my gut feels like this is just another wild goose hunt. There is an old over looked photo taken in 1937 of a ship wreck. The picture was taken in the general area where some feel Amelia went down. Well, a couple of researchers think they can make out part of the landing gear of Earhart's plane.
Again, my gut tells me this is nothing, but how exciting would it be if a photo from 1937 held the clues to where to look for her? I am doubtful, but hopeful too.
I plan to keep Owensboro and the western part of the state as the theme for the next month or so. I might hold off on covering neighboring states for April. I have some ideas for May and Jun though, but there I have a lot of old and new pictures of Owensboro to work on getting up for now.
James Cameron did his deep sea dive recently. There is the revived interest in finding Amelia Earhart's plane. Close to us in Kentucky, there is the Doolittle Raider's reunion coming up. Oh, and it looks like the engines of Apollo 11 have been located!
Concerning the Earhart search, my gut feels like this is just another wild goose hunt. There is an old over looked photo taken in 1937 of a ship wreck. The picture was taken in the general area where some feel Amelia went down. Well, a couple of researchers think they can make out part of the landing gear of Earhart's plane.
Again, my gut tells me this is nothing, but how exciting would it be if a photo from 1937 held the clues to where to look for her? I am doubtful, but hopeful too.
I plan to keep Owensboro and the western part of the state as the theme for the next month or so. I might hold off on covering neighboring states for April. I have some ideas for May and Jun though, but there I have a lot of old and new pictures of Owensboro to work on getting up for now.
Cleveland Art Museum
Admission is free, but the items on display are priceless! For a traveler to the area, the Cleveland Museum of Art is a great 
value!
value!The Museum of Art in Cleveland is exhausting too! You will get a work out just walking through all of the rooms here.
They are doing some renovations right now, and one staff person estimated the cost of renovations could come to a half a billion dollars!
This museum holds one of my all time favorite paintings "The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse)". In fact, I was able to buy a print of it in the museum gift shop.
For an art museum, they are actually pretty generous with allowing photos, and the guys standing around keeping an eye on things are friendlier than at other museums. Several told us about the art, and gave us additional information about how the museum acquired certain pieces, the arts' history, etc.
As a former Clevelander, I think this might be the place to go if you only have one day in Cleveland. I would definitely rank it above other over hyped rock n' roll attractions.PLUS, it is in the University Circle area, and it is not far from the Coventry area.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
End of the Commons- Mesopotamia, OH
I bought this postcard recenetly, thinking it to be from about 1910 (it is unused).
Not far outside of Cleveland is the End of the Commons store. I have mentioned it here before. This is a great little place in a very Amish area. The same friendly family has been running it for some time. I love this place!
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
US Post Office Owensboro
Check it out! Here is an old postcard (not sure of the date) and a photo (from 2/12) of the downtown post office building.Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Stadium at Ohio State University
80,000 person capacity according to the back of the postcard! This is where the legendary Ohio State University plays their games in Columbus.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Yesterday's BBQ Metropolis IL
One last quick note about Metropolis. We stopped at Yesterday's BBQ for a quick lunch and we were VERY happy! This is one of those great little places you can't find in a bigger city.
One of us had a fish meal, and one of us had a big bacon cheese burger. We were both very happy.
The price was right too!
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Kent Ohio
I have personally spent a lot of time in Kent Ohio. It is one of those places where the college and the town are pretty much totally meshed
together.I was talking to someone recently about something very negative that happened at another college in the state of Pennsylvania. We were trying to think of a similar situation at a college that will forever be negatively linked to the school.
Well, we could only come up with one other school that had gone through similar trauma.
This region and this institution will forever be linked to the shootings that occurred in May of 1970.
I think a good argument could be made that the 60s figuratively ended in Kent Ohio on that day.I know that several musical acts that I love- Joe Walsh, Devo, Chrissie Hynde had very direct and personal connections to the event. I have heard them mention their connections in interviews, but I don't believe they have ever tried to capitalize on that connection in song.
Anyway, it is a very nice and pleasant little college town. Here are a few random photos. I have some more from years past in my archives somewhere. I will try to get those up soon.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Bee Bops- Owensboro
A great addition to downtown Owensboro is Bee Bops!
I am glad to see that someone is trying to liven the area up! Plus, they are walking distance form my favorite coffee place in town, the Creme!
Food was good, the atmosphere was fun, and the staff was friendly!
Friday, March 23, 2012
Random Thoughts on Friday
We spent a little time in Gatlinburg recently. Man, do I love that entire area.
It had been a little while since the last time I was right in town.
We were there a couple of years ago and had a great time, but I remember one bad thing about the area- time-share salespeople.
We were literally assaulted by probably 10 of them within our first few hours in town. At first, you try to be nice and say "no thanks", but that doesn't work.
They will walk with you, try to harass you in to signing up, and use other aggressive tactics. Frankly, it is the kind of thing that makes a tourist think twice about going there for a second vacation.
It wasn't bad on this trip. In fact, we weren't approached at all!
Also, I noticed that the Gatlinburg of Commerce has taken a bit of a stand on this issue, as noted in their 2012 visitor guide.
In a section on the city map in the guide, they mention a little bit about the fact that you may be approached by someone offering maps or other information to get your attention. Tickets or other incentives may be offered to entice you to attend a presentation about time-shares.
The travel guide write up notes, "The City of Gatlinburg and the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce in no way endorse these methods of enticement or the information utilized to gain the interest of our visitors."
The guide also talks about the proper photo ID badges they should be wearing if they are licensed agents in the state of Tennessee.
They actually apologize in the article for the frequency of such contact from solicitors that you may experience.
Also to their credit, the Chamber of Commerce offers a "Thank you, I've already been asked" sticker that you can wear to show that you are not interested in being harassed by these sales people.
I am impressed with the areas effort to inform visitors of these hassles, and I am impressed with the fact that they are trying to give tourists a quick and easy out.
Again, on this trip, we were not approached at all.
It had been a little while since the last time I was right in town.
We were there a couple of years ago and had a great time, but I remember one bad thing about the area- time-share salespeople.
We were literally assaulted by probably 10 of them within our first few hours in town. At first, you try to be nice and say "no thanks", but that doesn't work.
They will walk with you, try to harass you in to signing up, and use other aggressive tactics. Frankly, it is the kind of thing that makes a tourist think twice about going there for a second vacation.
It wasn't bad on this trip. In fact, we weren't approached at all!
Also, I noticed that the Gatlinburg of Commerce has taken a bit of a stand on this issue, as noted in their 2012 visitor guide.
In a section on the city map in the guide, they mention a little bit about the fact that you may be approached by someone offering maps or other information to get your attention. Tickets or other incentives may be offered to entice you to attend a presentation about time-shares.
The travel guide write up notes, "The City of Gatlinburg and the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce in no way endorse these methods of enticement or the information utilized to gain the interest of our visitors."
The guide also talks about the proper photo ID badges they should be wearing if they are licensed agents in the state of Tennessee.
They actually apologize in the article for the frequency of such contact from solicitors that you may experience.
Also to their credit, the Chamber of Commerce offers a "Thank you, I've already been asked" sticker that you can wear to show that you are not interested in being harassed by these sales people.
I am impressed with the areas effort to inform visitors of these hassles, and I am impressed with the fact that they are trying to give tourists a quick and easy out.
Again, on this trip, we were not approached at all.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Fort Massac, Metropolis, IL
The actual fort replica at this state park was closed on the day I was there, but it is still a nice area for a walk, and to look out over the Ohio River. I would like to go back when it is opened up, or when an event is going down!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
St. Patrick's Day Santa Claus Parade, Gatlinburg, TN
Gatlinburg hosted one of the coolest events I have been to recently! It looks like they have a Santa Claus Convention there, and they host a parade of Santas!!!
Seriously, how great is that? I was pretty excited to hear that the parade would be going on while I was in town!
I took a ton of photos. The photo ops were just too good.
One of my favorites was the bag pipes playing Santa! He marched down the street playing Christmas favorites! Does anyone know if this Santa has a CD? Seriously, I want to hear more of this! It was a lot of fun, and the crowds would cheer as he finished each song.
many Santas handed out stickers or tockens to the kids. Many Santas stopped and took photos with anyone along the way.
One Santa did not participate in the parade, and he and his Ms. Claus stood next to us for much of the show. He got a lot of friendly comments from the parading Santas, who were a bit confused by his not being in the parade.
I have served as Santa's elf more than once, and almost double as the man himself, so I really appreciate this.
It was odd seeing the jolly men, as the weather was great. Still, you can never have too much, or too many, Santas!