Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis

We started the day by attending mass at the cathedral, which is just two blocks from the hotel. When you look at this picture, keep in mind that none of the walls or ceilings are painted. They are all mosaics. They started the cathedral in 1907 and took 75 years building it. The amount of money they must have spent boggles my mind. Our mass had fewer than 30 attendees, in a space that must seat at least 2000.

Cahokia – Monks Mound

After that we circled back to Illinois to visit Cahokia, the largest city in North America (in pre-Colombian times). The museum for this place is phenomenal. What the archaeologists can figure out from some stained soil and a few scraps of wood or pottery is amazing. In this case, they had some help from the Spanish, who encountered Indian towns in what we call the Mississippi culture and gave eye-witness descriptions.  It was still very hot, but we had no problem spending over 2 hours in the museum. Cahokia had 10,000 to 20,000 people in 1100 AD. They built huge mounds. The one pictured here covered 14 acres. In a desperate attempt to make this sound as impressive as possible, the museum mentioned that Cahokia was the largest city north of Mexico. (That’s true, so far as we know.) They said Cahokia was larger than London. (Also true, but in 1100 London was nothing very impressive. It was a semi-civilized filthy backwater.) They said Cahokia was the largest city for 500 years. (That’s when Philadelphia finally got going. Once Philadelphia had 20,000 people, it grew rapidly. Also, Cahokia was totally abandoned long before Columbus arrived.) Still, it was a fascinating look at an advanced stone-age culture.

Cahokia Woodhenge

Afterwards, we found some shade for our picnic lunch. Then we drove across the street to visit Monks Mound. We looked earnestly at the steps leading to the top and admired the people who had the energy to climb them in the 95+ degree heat. We drove down the road a mile and visited “Woodhenge”. This was the Cahokia equivalent to England’s Stonehenge. They built a circle of poles, 24.7 feet apart and placed another pole in the center of the circle. They marked the three poles that marked the equinox and solstice position of the sun, when viewed from the center pole.

We went back to the room early because we were tired of too much vacationing, and because we wanted to change how we will spend our time in Colorado. Danita has a very interesting place picked out for dinner. After that, I have a feeling we might find ourselves back a Jeni’s Ice Cream. It really is the best we’ve ever had.

The only thing for us in Illinois was kitch. But it was really good kitch. The dragon was supposed to be fire breathing, but it was out of order. We got two tokens so that Bryon and Elizabeth can use it, when they come.out west. The other great Illinois landmark was the world’s largest ketchup bottle. There was also the world’s largest golf tee and the world’s largest wind chime, but we passed these up as being unworthy.

Not Fire Breathing Dragon

Disguised Water Tower

Spirit of St. Louis

Fortunately, there is more in St. Louis than there is in all of Illinois. We’re spending 2 days here. It’s a luxury to stay in the same hotel for two nights in a row. There’s no way to do everything in St. Louis in a day and a half — especially with the high temperature over 95. Today we focused on  Forest Park. It’s larger than Central Park in NYC. It has every kind of outdoor athletic activity and museum imaginable. And basic admission to anything is completely free. Some people say the St. Louis zoo is better than the San Diego zoo. You won’t get an opinion from me, because it was just too hot. We visited the Missouri History Museum, which was a baffling mix of the great and the not-so-great. They have Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis Airplane, which was used in the first trans-Atlantic airplane flight from New York to Paris. with no explanation or supporting material. Notice that Charles had no view forward from the cockpit. The plan was for him to have a periscope, bu the gas tank got in the way. You know this because I knew this. Most people visiting the Missouri History Museum won’t have any idea what that airplane hanging from the ceiling is all about.

Dodge V8 La Femme

The exhibit on Route 66 was much more successful. This was the last day this Dodge V8 La Femme was on exhibit. This beautiful automobile was marketed to women. It came with matching purse, scarf, etc. Tomorrow, the car is being returned to its owner. Personally, I think that mating this car  with the Air Stream trailer in another room (no picture — sorry), would make for a perfect life on the road. The Route 66 exhibit was saturated with enough nostalgia to make anybody want to hit the road.

We spent the rest of our day visiting a few other exhibits. The Science Center was two buildings separate by an Interstate highway. Missouri’s solution was to link the two buildings with a pedestrian bridge. The bridge include windows to let visitors see the cars traveling underneath, and radar units to display their speed, and even glass windows in the floor. Only the bravest people would stand on a glass floor and watch cars speed by under foot at 70+ MPH.

Our hotel is a rather long walk (in this very hot weather) from the park. Fortunately, St. Louis offers an air conditioned shuttle bus to take visitors around the park. Still, we were bushed when we got back to the hotel. After a half-hour rest, for dinner, we walked a block to an excellent sandwich shop. With more than 30 other restaurants a short walk away, any restaurant in business has to have something great to offer. We passed up the Edy’s ice cream and walked 3 more blocks to Jeni’s Ice Cream. Jeni’s has what is undoubtedly the best ice cream we have ever eaten. It’s worth the trip to St. Louis just to taste Jeni’s Ice Cream!

Indianapolis Skyline. The Canal Walk is to the right.

We didn’t realize it or even think of it. We’re just not football fans. Our hotel is right across the street from Colts Stadium. You know — Colts, the Baltimore football team that Irsay moved out of town on Mayfower vans one cold December day, literally by the dawn’s early light. Then the NFL wouldn’t let us keep the team name Colts. Baltimore eventually got revenge by stealing the Browns from Cleveland. But the NFL said Cleveland could keep their team’s name. To this day, some Baltimore football fans refuse to call the team the Colts, referring to them as the “Irsays”.

DO NOT look at the flowers!

Other than that, plus more heat and humidity, it was another near-perfect day. Danita wanted to go to an Indian museum, but I didn’t want to spend the day indoors. So we went to the zoo, which also has some aquarium exhibits, and a dolphin show, and a botanical garden, which had some Lego statues, for which this was the last day. So we watched the dolphin show (hurry — it starts in 10 minutes), then saw the Lego statues before lunch. It was funny to see everybody in the gardens focusing almost exclusively on colored plastic. The best thing was, we found some indoor, air conditioned tables where we could have our picnic lunch.

A fountain in the gardens with whimsical water jet figures

After that, we went to the zoo part of the zoo. It was hot, hot, hot. But it is a very nice zoo. We have the feeling it’s smaller than the Baltimore zoo. But it’s fairly new and what they do, they do well. I also got this really cool coffee cup. Of course it says “Indianapolis Zoo” on one side. Of course it has a design of the elephant on the other side. But the way cool thing is that the handle looks exactly like an elephant’s trunk. It’s going in the featured section of my collection for sure.

We had dinner at a restaurant called The Weber Grill. It was good, it wasn’t cheap, and there was plenty of meat. After that we walked part of the canal walk.

Indianapolis Steam Clock (I shoot ’em, I don’t expain ’em)

Turn the crank and push the button to hear some Indiana history

Crane

We had the best gyros we’ve had in years last night. Danita was looking for non-chain restaurants with good reviews. She found a place that was a very easy walk from our hotel. (We didn’t even have to cross a street.) We both ordered gyros and were amply rewarded. They got all the basic elements of a gyro right, plus the lamb was plentiful, tender, and very flavorful. Why can’t we get good gyros in Columbia? I’ll never understand.

Unfolded Crane

It was a short ride to Columbus — 75 miles / 60 minutes. We started out at the botanical gardens. It was a perfect day for walking  around outside and the were beautiful. We eventually went inside, which was just as nice. They had a special origami exhibit that was all full of unfolded cranes and stuff. But I liked my real crane better. There’s more pictures at the bottom of the post. We got an ice cream from the cafe, then headed off to the history museum and village. They were having an old-time baseball exhibit. We ate lunch under the shade of a tree with the sounds of old-time baseball in the background.

Portable TV

The history museum was much more interesting than I expected. I enjoyed the exhibit on Lustron pre-fab houses, both for the house and for the 1950-era furnishings (including cowboy curtains and PJs with a pattern I found vaguely familiar from an early point in my life). Before Lustron went belly-up, they managed to make quite a few houses. About 2,000 still exist, which makes Lustron much more successful than Buckmaster Fuller’s Dymaxion house, which is displayed at the Henry Ford museum. There was also a 1950-something Chevrolet Bel Air pulling an Airstream trailer. Another highlight was an early portable TV from Philco.

Playground

The village was equally interesting and much more photogenic. They had a recreation of 1898 life, with the usual assortment of stores and such; as well as typical houses for lower class, middle class, and upper class families. The playground had toys that are out of style such as teeter-totters. Re-enactors stayed strictly in character. We heard a barbershop quartet and rode a 1903 Ford Model A. One of my favorites was the bicycle shop.

A Real Thank You

We are staying at lowly Holiday Inn Express Hotels. So far, they have been perfectly adequate. But today our hotel offered a service I have never received before. The manager came to our room. He offered us a letter thanking us for our business and offering personal details such as how many loyalty points we have earned so far. Then he gave us a chocolate bar with our name printed on it. We’ve stayed in much ritzier hotels from time to time, but we’ve never received anything like this before.

Crane

Unfolded Pegasus

Origami Frog

Barbershop Quartet

1903 Model A Ford

In 1972, I had a year of work under my belt, plus a second year of Co-Op work experience. This being a Federal Government job (at the Navy lab in Dahlgren, VA), I had earned 6 weeks of vacation. I took them and did an epic cross-country journey in my Datsun 2000. When I returned to work, there was an attractive young lady working in my section as a Co-Op. I was giving hints to one of my co-workers, but he was being dense. Finally, I asked him outright to introduce us.

Now that same young lady is traveling with me on my second, and her first, epic journey. This time, instead of driving to CA and back in 6 weeks, we are driving to Pipe Spring in two (plus a couple of days). So far, this journey has been even more fun than my first.

Barbara Fritchie Restaurant

Barbara Fritchie was born in Lancaster. She famously said “Shoot if you must, this old grey head, but spare your country’s flag.” — or so said John Greenleaf Whittier. Whether the incident is true or not, the poem is popular. Ammon E. Cramer liked it so much that when he opened his candy shop in Frederick in 1910, he called it “Barbara Fritchie Candies”. This business morphed and relocated and eventually became the Barbara Fritchie Restaurant. It is in my story because this is where we had the only restaurant breakfast we will have on this journey. The rest of our breakfasts will be included with our hotel room. This restaurant has everything. Besides the broken sign, it has lots of guys in pickup trucks hanging out and talking, plastic-topped tables, pies and cakes in the display case, a candy display near the register (complete with Necco Wafers – they’re just like I remember them), and of course very good diner breakfast options.

Sideling Hill

We decided to take a short detour from I-70 to avoid the better part of PA, with their eternal infernal road construction and took I-68. This Maryland Interstate is in very good condition. It features ear-popping mountains, the most famous of which is Sideling Hill. There used to be a small museum discussing how it is that the mountain goes up and the strata go down. The museum had placards filled with geological this and billion year old that. The museum was closed during the MD budget cuts. Recently it was re-opened. Unfortunately, the museum material had been donated to the Hancock Museum. The only thing at the stop was brochures, bathrooms, and bottled Coke. But it’s still a very cool place to stop and walk around. The parking court has a nice view of an amazing vista, making it the real Vista View Court (as opposed  to the street we used to live on).

By lunch time, we were at the Salt Fork Park in Ohio. Ohio’s largest state park is a lake with surrounding land. Budget cuts are evident in the grass growing through the asphalt roads, and not many people were at the nature center where we stopped for lunch. But the park is free, the picnic table was in the shade of a tree, the weather was beautiful, and the lake view was very nice. After lunch, we played 18 holes of mini-golf. By 3:30, we were in our hotel in Cambridge, Ohio. This was our longest drive. Hopefully, those roads we ended up taking through PA will be the worst roads we encounter.

The adventure today was a visit to the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge. They are set up for classroom instruction (including chairs reserved for teachers and chaperones). But the exhibits catch enough interest that the kids are constantly in danger of learning something. Everybody had a good time. We’ll finish up with some swimming, reading, packing, and maybe a video. The flight back leaves at 8:15 tomorrow morning. We’ll be having breakfast on the secure side of the airport.

There’s no pics, so here’s some vignettes.

I usually go to Men’s club Monday mornings, where bagels are available for breakfast while we solve the problems of the world. Danita held breakfast until I had left for Men’s club and served Eggo waffles with ice cream. She told the kids, “Don’t tell Grandpop”. (Actually, I hatched the plan.) By dinner time Elizabeth couldn’t stand it any longer, and told me. Danita and I had fun with that. It was a nice way to offer a special treat, while offering a reason for doing it only once. A side effect was that Elizabeth became very alert to my location during breakfast. For example, when I took the recycles out Thursday morning, she asked Danita if I would be gone long.

This morning, I took the kids and a frisbee to “Snowden Lake” (our joke name for the storm water management pond). It has a large grassy area that’s shaded in the mornings. The kids were doing an extraordinarily good job of throwing, until somebody got a little too rambunctious and threw the green frisbee into the brush. How does one find a green frisbee in the green brush? I don’t know, because that’s when my alarm went off, warning me I had exactly 5 minutes to log into Southwest and get my boarding pass. (If you want 3 seats in a row on Southwest, you need a boarding pass with a low number.) I sounded the klaxon and had the kids running to the house. I was taking up the rear, to pick up shoes that literally fell of Bryon’s feet. I got logged in a minute before show time. Oh, well, it was a free frisbee, swag from some Columbia event.

There are some things I forgot about having kids around. For example, they are very good at turning lights on. Turning them off seems to be much more difficult. They are perfectly willing to leave them on until the bulbs burn out.

Monday afternoon, when we were filling time we thought was filled, I offered the kids the opportunity to solve a puzzle on my tablet. Since then, I get at least two requests a day for more screen time to work on the puzzle. I’m an anxious traveler and like to arrive at the airport early. We’ll have lots of time to kill at the airport tomorrow morning. I’m saving the interest for then.

Joke from Bryon: “Grandpop, what’s the difference between eggs in the store and elephants in the jungle”?

Me: “I don’t know”.

Bryon: “Nanna, I hope you don’t send Grandpop out for eggs.” (Actually, she did. I did not come home with elephants.)

The adventures didn’t do as well today. We went to a recycled tire playground in Patapsco Park. The spider eating a butterfly and then encasing it in silk was way cool. The rest of the trip was a dud. An invitation to swim usually is greeted with great enthusiasm and a prompt change into swim clothes. Today neither child was interested. The movie, “Pete’s Dragon” was successful, even if Granddad was grumpy about the increased cost of theater tickets. Much of the day was spent on silliness, including this video — the second video I ever made and the first I successfully posted on the web.

We also made secret messages for Nanna. Here’s how to make your own secret messages. Buy pens with Frixion ink. Buy one set for each child. While Nanna is cooking, have the kids “sneak” Nanna’s hair dryer downstairs. After the message is complete, use the hair dryer to make the ink invisible. Let the children proudly present Nanna with blank sheets of paper and ask her to put them in the freezer. When Nanna serves ice cream after dinner, she will find the papers and be amazed to see the secret message revealed.

There are pics today.

Player Piano

We wrapped up our visit to Lancaster today. The payer piano was a big surprise, and at $1 the best entertainment bargain of the trip. We stopped at the Amish Village to learn about the most famous religious group of the county. On the way home, we visited the Oregon Ridge Nature Center in Hunt Valley. It is conveniently located on the route home, with bathrooms, picnic tables, and plenty to explore. A video and a visit to the pool finished up the day.

Amish Village

There are pics today. We went to Lancaster, PA. We started by riding the Strausburg RR. It has the only place in the US where two steam-powered passenger trains pass each other. It’s as much fun as ever. They haven’t changed their spiel one bit. There is a new entertainment farm near the picnic stop that is very developed. Other than that, it’s the same as ever. Then we went across the street to visit the PA Railroad Museum. It has a much-improved children’s area and is otherwise unchanged. The Red Caboose Hotel is fine. Our caboose is clean and in good shape.

Here’s several pics with a special activity. Cut them out and make your own flip-book!

The key to a good week with the grand kids, at least so far, has been flexibility.

• Unfortunately, Danita broke her foot. It turns out she can hobble around pretty well, but it still eliminated any activity that requires a lot of walking.
• Unfortunately, Elizabeth got an ear ache. Jul was still here, took E to the doctor, and got the meds. But it imposes serious limits on the amount of underwater time at the pool.
• We planned to have Pete, Rebecca, and their girls for dinner Sunday. The girls would stay overnight and be picked up Monday afternoon. That would make it an easy time for us, since all we would have to do to keep everybody happy is offer food occasionally. Unfortunately, at the last minute, they discovered the girls had lice. Plus, it was rainy in the afternoon and evening, and the pool was closed.

At Ft. McHenry

That required us to do some major last-minute adjusting. I pulled out two emergency activities — a computer puzzle and a Spirograph. The kids solved the computer puzzle much more quickly than I though they would. They made it to level 10 in just a few hours. At that point, the puzzle got to abstract for them. It turns out the Reeds already have a Spirograph, but it was enough to get us through Sunday — with the help of Amazon Prime and the movie “Free Willy”. The movie is an oldie (1993) but a goodie (both kids were entranced for the entire movie). And it is free with Amazon Prime.

Bryon and Nanna at the pool

Today, we visited Ft. McHenry. It was a beautiful day — warm, sunny, and not humid. We got there just in time for the flag raising. Unfortunately, the memory card in my camera was not properly seated, and I didn’t get those pics. But you can see them doing a Junior Ranger project in one of the rooms of the fort. The harbor was spectacularly beautiful. After the fort, there was some pool time.

Try to pretend you’re having a good time, please

After dinner, we’ll be packing. We’re driving up to Lancaster, PA tomorrow. We’re staying overnight at the Red Caboose Hotel. When our kids were young, this property was the best idea ever. But the original owner started slacking off on some maintenance as he got older. Now it’s under new ownership, and we have high hopes.