Tag Archives: Kentucky

Small Wonders (And More)

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It was several years ago that I first heard about a collection of miniatures in Maysville, Kentucky. I made a half-hearted attempt to find it one day but that was before smartphones, or at least before I learned how to use one, and I failed completely. A recent online mention again brought the collection to mind and this time there was enough information to easily locate it. I filled a wet and idle Wednesday, perfect for being inside a museum, with a visit. Those trip-triggering miniatures are housed at the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center along with two other major permanent exhibits and a research library.

One of those permanent exhibits is the Old Pogue Experience which provides a look at the area’s bourbon history. That’s where I began my visit. The photo at the top of the page is of the museum’s main entrance. Old Pogue has its own entrance although the two buildings are connected by a second-floor walkway. Production has not quite been continuous (Remember that Volstead Act thing?) but fifth and sixth generations of the family operate Old Pogue Distillery today with tastings available at the museum. The model of the 1910 Pogue Distillery could be considered a preview of coming attractions.

The Wormald Gallery is the other section of the museum I was thinking of when I spoke of two major permanent exhibits in addition to the miniatures. It is a mixture of truly permanent and rotating displays of regional history.  Among the many displays are two devoted to major exports of the past: tobacco and Rosemary Clooney.

Backstage Hollywood – The Photographs of Bob Willoughby is on display in the museum’s Calvert Gallery through March 16. Willoughby is the first still photographer to be invited by movie studios to work behind the scenes. The exhibit features unstaged glimpses of the likes of Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and others from the 1950s and ’60s.

My decision to save the Kathleen Savage Browning Miniatures Collection for last was indirectly validated when a docent I was chatting with remarked that this is where people spend the most time. This model of the Catherine Palace is currently displayed in what might be considered the museum’s lobby area as a bit of a tease. I passed it on the way to the Backstage Hollywood exhibit then studied it closer on my return. The palace and all items in the miniature collection are said to be 1/12 scale.

Spenser House stands just inside the entrance of the main gallery of miniatures.

Local landmarks also get space in the collection. The Russell Theater, where The Stars Are Singing, with Rosemary Clooney, premiered in 1953, and the 1886 Cox Building are both still standing in downtown Maysville. After leaving the museum, I grabbed pictures (here and here) of both.

The whole world of Mother Goose doesn’t take up a lot of space here. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod are quite small and so is that contrary Mary. The pretty maids in a row, and in her arms, are even smaller.

The tinyness of displayed items is not always apparent in photos so I propped a real U.S. quarter up in front of some musical instruments. The diameter of the quarter is 0.955 inches or 24.26 millimeters.  I can only guess at the diameter of the valves on that trumpet.

Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption

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Some things stay on my to-do list for a long time because they are far away or expensive or have very restricted access. Others have none of these issues but still hang around because, I’m guessing, they don’t really fire up my curiosity. Apparently, the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption is in that latter category. It is about twenty miles from my current residence and some places I’ve lived have been even closer, it is free, and is usually open to visitors from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, Monday through Friday. I have heard about the place and how stunning it is for decades but Thursday was the first time I’ve been inside. It was, in fact, the first time I’ve stopped to look at the outside. Not sufficiently curious I suppose. It is not a duplicate or even an attempted replica of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. There are many similarities but there are also differences. The most common phrase used when describing the Kentucky church’s connection to the church in France is “inspired by”. Make that “heavily inspired by”.  

Construction started in 1895 and was suspended, they say, in 1915. I doubt anyone is too surprised to hear that the place has not really been frozen since then. Installation of the numerous, immense, and famous stained-glass windows occurred before, during, and after World War I. Most of the fantastic wood carving was done after World War II. Twenty-four statues of saints were added to the front of the building in 2021. At least one news article said that the cathedral was now complete as the statues were the final piece of what Bishop Camillus Paul Maes, who got this whole project rolling, envisioned. I had no idea whom I was photographing but have since found a spotter’s guide that identifies the fellows in the photo as Pope Pius X, Patrick, Benedict, and Joseph.

Perhaps the single most eye-catching thing in a building filled with eye-catchers is the stained-glass window in the north transept. At 67 feet tall and 24 feet wide, calling it the Great Window is certainly justified. It is the largest in the western hemisphere and second largest in the world. It depicts the Council of Ephesus held in 431 AD. It is even pretty impressive from the other side.

The south transept holds the 1932 Wicks pipe organ and a 26-foot rose window. I’ve included a better view of the organ and a different view of the window. It looks pretty good on the outside too.

The Chapel of St. Joseph contains some of the carved wood I mentioned and there is more behind the Sanctuary.

A bit farther beyond the Sanctuary is the St. Paul Relic Shrine. Most of the relics are centuries old, of course, but the shrine itself was dedicated in August of 2021 so is quite new. Some of the reliquaries are even newer. The reliquary holding the carpal bones of St Paul the Apostle is one of two described as “recently commissioned ” in an article dated March 4, 2023.

In theory, I could have stayed until 3:00 but an award ceremony for students from Covington Latin School was scheduled for 2:00, and as the hour approached a small but increasing number of pews became occupied. I find taking pictures inside an active church to always be a bit uncomfortable and doing it with an audience even more so. With more haste than was truly necessary, I snapped photos of the 1859 Schwab organ, the Duveneck murals, and one of the Stations of the Cross mosaics, signed the guest book, and exited the building just as the bulk of the students were starting up the ramp to the door.

As I headed to my car, I realized that I had not photographed one thing that I had intended to. Not long after I entered the cathedral I had a wonderful conversation with a volunteer named Roger. As we talked about modern additions like the wood carvings and the new statues on the front of the building, he pointed out a painting hanging near the Duveneck murals and told me that it was 500 (or maybe 400) years old but had been hanging there for just a couple of months. I eyed it from afar but forgot it when I was in the area. I also missed photographing the oft-mentioned gargoyles atop the building. That was not an oversight. The terra cotta figures were removed early last year and will be replaced by new ones cast the old-fashioned way. There was a ceremony when the saint statues were added so maybe there will be one when the gargoyles return. If there is, I might attend. I probably would not have attended the one for the statues even if I’d known about it. As Billy Joel sort of said, “I’d rather laugh with the gargoyles than cry with the saints”.

Yippee-Ki-Yule, Y’all

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On Thursday, I got a double dose of holiday hoopla. The first dose was administered at Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati’s Eden Park. The second came at Thomas More Stadium in Florence, KY.

This year’s holiday show at Krohn is called “Golden Days of Yule”. That name, coupled with my improved understanding of Yule (the subject of next week’s post), was one reason I wanted to visit Krohn this month. Another was that I realized it had been ten years since I’d seen the holiday display at the conservatory. All of my visits since 2013 were to see butterflies.

“Golden Days of Yule”, like previous holiday shows at Krohn, has lots of Cincinnati landmarks such as Music Hall in the opening photograph. All are made of locally sourced plant material and most return year after year. New this year is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center pictured at left.

Numerous model trains travel among the landmarks and the conservatory’s normal display of plants. Even though no train has ever crossed the real John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, this version has a double set of tracks so that a train with a Cincinnati Reds boxcar can cross it in both directions.

Other returning favorites include Union Terminal, now the Cincinnati Museum Center, and Findlay Market, which is encircled by Thomas the Train. Procter & Gamble’s Twin Towers and the Tyler Davidson Fountain, featuring The Genius of Water, appear together in the third photo although the relationship between the two is nowhere near accurate in either size or location.

It somehow makes sense that the Krohn Conservatory contains a model of the Krohn Conservatory and there might be nothing more natural for a conservatory to hold at Christmas time than a giant poinsettia tree. “Golden Days of Yule” runs through January 7 with live music on weekends.

Thomas More Stadium, on the other side of the Ohio River, is home to the Florence Y’alls Class A baseball team. Winters here are way too cold for baseball so, for the second year in a row, a skating rink and 2.5 million lights have been moved in for Deck the Y’alls.

There are lights everywhere both inside and outside the stadium. They are impressive to look at from just about anywhere but following a path through the displays at field level is the main attraction.

A family of four was near me during the early part of my walk and the youngest child asked her mother to read the lighted signs that marked each section. As soon as she heard “Dinoland”, she announced that she was not going in there. I’ve a hunch that it was what she saw and not what she heard that prompted her reluctance. The family hung back at the arch but after a few minutes, I saw them move ahead slowly. Before long they were back at their normal pace. Up close, dinosaurs made of electric lights just aren’t that scary, it seems.

And “Ornament Land” just wasn’t scary at all.

Apparently, neither was “Under the Sea” although I lost track of the family somewhere around The Blue Whale of Florence.

Here’s a sampling of the “12 Days of Christmas”. In reality, this whole post is just a sampling.  There’s a lot more here than what I’ve shown.

This is the exit. I hung back to take some pictures — and watch and learn from the people in front of me —  then passed through the maze and headed for a cup of hot coffee.

As I sipped that coffee, I captured a short overview video. Deck the Y’alls runs through New Year’s Day with fireworks on New Year’s Eve.
 
  

For anyone wondering about the team name, it comes from a water tower. The short story is that while Florence Mall was in development, a water tower advertising it was erected nearby. Because the mall did not yet actually exist, that led to some legal issues which were resolved by hastily converting the “M” to “Y'”. This was supposed to be temporary but proved so popular that it remains today even though the mall has now been in operation for decades. A fuller version of the story is here. The team was founded as the Florence Freedom in 2004 but changed its name to Y’alls in 2020.

TG ’23

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At one time, possibilities for Thanksgiving dinner included an Indiana state lodge with an overnight stay and an Ohio state lodge without. I dithered just a little too long, however, and both were completely filled before I made my calls. So I hastily put together a Plan C which involved an overnight stay in a Kentucky state lodge. That ‘C’ could stand for “cave” or “Carter” or both. Carter Caves State Resort Park was my destination as I crossed the Ohio River. 

Most of the miles I drove in Kentucky were on KY‑9 which roughly parallels the Ohio River although it is usually at some distance. It’s a pretty nice-looking drive but the low morning sun and the mostly eastern bearing were no help at all in photographing the scenery. After just under a hundred miles of KY-9, Garmin had me turn south on KY-2 where the sun was less intrusive and the scenery possibly even better as the road ran along Buffalo Creek. After a few miles of KY-2, the GPS directed me onto KY-7 and then, barely a mile later, onto Sutton Road. Sutton Road soon became gravel. With my destination just a few miles away, I saw no reason for concern…

…until I reached a T. The road to the right was marked with a “DEAD END” sign. To the left was a low water bridge with not much that I could see beyond it. Garmin assured me that Carter Caves Park was just a few minutes away on the other side. While I contemplated the situation, I checked the GPS to see if it was really in “Faster” mode and not in “Shorter” or “Adventurous” mode. It was. I have gone straight ahead in similar situations in the past but on this day I wasn’t in adventurous mode either. After turning around and traveling a short distance, I could look back and see a road heading off on the other side of the stream. I was tempted but continued on the prudent path.

I entered the park about half an hour later after a drive of 20, rather than 2, miles. Even so, I was there way ahead of my scheduled dinner time and assumed it was also too early to check in. I explored the park in my car and found every possible parking spot near the lodge/restaurant filled. The feeding frenzy was in full swing. There was a reasonable mix of cars and open spaces at the visitor center so I pulled in to take a look.

Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find that cave tours were taking place that day and even more pleasantly surprised to learn that a tour of X‑Cave was starting in just five minutes. X‑Cave is not very large but it does have a lot of interesting formations. It gets its name from two passageways that intersect to form an ‘X’. Tours travel through one side of the ‘X’, step outside, reenter, and travel through the other side. On the first pass through the intersection, the tour guide shared the cave’s very own Daniel Boone story. It’s extra appropriate on Thanksgiving Day.

While hunting one day, Boone spotted the largest turkey he had ever seen. He inexplicably missed his first shot but saw the turkey enter the cave  He hurriedly lit a torch and followed. Reaching the underground intersection, Boone saw the turkey down one of the passageways and fired. In his haste and weak light, the frontiersman had overloaded his rifle with powder and the blast threw him backward with such force that the imprint of his foot can still be seen. The turkey was missed once again by the shot but was so badly frightened that it instantly turned to stone.

Things were still busy at the lodge but I was now able to find a parking spot. I was even able to check into my room where I relaxed until dinner time. There is a salad bar behind me and a dessert-filled table just beyond the ham carving station. I helped myself to turkey and stuffing and more but decided against the ham when I reached it. I think that was because I had also helped myself to that other traditional Thanksgiving entree, catfish, when I filled my plate. After dinner, as I again relaxed in my room, I decided to get on board with the popular Elf on a Shelf craze.

When I left the lodge on Friday, I was only slightly surprised when the GPS directed me to turn left rather than retrace the way I’d arrived. Even though the road name didn’t register immediately, it did eventually, and as Sutton Road became narrower and more gravely, I knew exactly where Garmin was leading me.

This is the other side of that low-water bridge where I turned around Thursday. On Friday, having seen both sides, I had no qualms about splashing right on through. In fact, I was quite happy to do so and erase some of the guilt I felt about not splashing through the day before.

Flying Day in Cincy

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Redbull has been organizing Flugtags all over the world since 1992. Flugtag is German for Flying Day and the events feature homemade contraptions that generally do not fly as well as their creators expect. Yesterday they brought the event to this city where things not flying as well as expected is something of a tradition. On a cloudy but ultimately dry Saturday, thirty-nine participating teams and thousands of spectators gathered by the Ohio River for  Flugtag Cincinnati.

I reached Sawyer Point Park early enough to snag one of the last open spots on the street and avoid $20 and up parking fees. The event itself was free. The Belle of Cincinnati was moored near the Purple People Bridge for a true VIP experience. The launch deck was anchored at the west end of Serpentine Wall near the Taylor-Southgate Bridge. By launch time, both bridges would be lined with spectators.

And I arrived late enough that the “hangar” area where the entries were being staged was open. Here’s a fuller view of the WKRP turkey in the opening picture plus some of the others that caught my eye. There are some, but not many, that even sort of look like they might fly.

Of course, the crew is every bit as important as the vehicle.

The Hangar had opened at noon with opening ceremonies scheduled for 1:00. As showtime approached, entrants began lining up on the ramp, rescue craft assumed their positions, and skydivers dropped onto the launch deck.

The first launch was an unjudged honorary entry from Kroger. Maximum speed is extremely important and that’s what the crew is for. Kudos to the Kroger crew member who clearly gave it his all. The first competitor followed as soon as the “landing” area was clear.

I had picked a spot with a pretty good view of the launch but my view of the flight (if any) and landing was blocked. I watched a few more launches then backed out of the crowd at riverside, treated myself to a four-dollar bottle of water, and watched some of the action on one of the big screens which naturally had their own crowds.

I eventually moved back toward the river but got a better view of the mayhem by keeping my distance from the launch deck.

I know there are videos out there that most will find much more entertaining than these still shots but here’s one more sequence anyway. If you are really interested and have access to ESPN2, the whole thing will reportedly be shown August 19 at 6:00 PM.

Flugtag wasn’t the only big-time competition happening in the area this week. Over in Erlanger, KY, at the country’s only remaining wooden railed Putt-Putt course, the Professional Putters Association National Championship took place. I stopped by Putt-Putt Golf of Erlanger on Friday to take a look.

I had not seen a real Putt-Putt course in years. There are no windmills, dancing clowns, or other moving obstacles here.

Every hole is par 2 and this is a fairly rare par shot. I don’t know how many holes had been played but as the tournament neared its end, many players were more than 80 strokes under par.

Some of those 80+ under-par players would be taking home a nice trophy and a few thousand dollars cash.

Return of the Dummies

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Just a day shy of two years ago, I attended an open house at Vent Haven in Fort Mitchell, KY. My report on that visit is here. There would be just two more open house events before “the world’s only museum dedicated to ventriloquism” closed for a major expansion in September 2021. When I wrote about the open house, I was surprised and somewhat embarrassed to see that nearly ten years had passed since my one and only previous visit. I resolved to do better and have succeeded in returning almost as quickly as possible. There was a big invitation-only Grand Re-Opening on Saturday, tours for the general public resumed on Tuesday, and I joined the first tour of the day on Wednesday.

This picture of the new building sort of shouts out how one of the museum’s old shortcomings has been overcome in a big way. Previously, very little of the museum was truly handicapped-accessible. Now, not only are the museum’s exhibits accessible with wider doors, no steps, and space for wheelchairs, there is handicapped parking right at the front door. Not only that, non-handicapped patrons no longer have to seek an open spot on the street but can pull into the convenient lot in the back. Another change of at least equal magnitude is the absence of the “go before you get here” warning that used to be given to everyone registering for a tour.  Inside that door is a lobby, gift shop, and PUBLIC RESTROOM.

A couple of figures near the start of the tour were familiar to me. Tommy Baloney was the first dummy museum founder W. S. Berger ever owned. He was purchased in 1910. The McElroy Brothers made Jocko for Mr. Berger around 1940.

Museum exhibits are not, in general, organized by age but it is a fact that some of the oldest dummies on display are among those encountered early in the tour. These are from the Vaudeville period (1880s-1920s) when figures and jokes based on racial and ethnic stereotypes were not uncommon.

Cecil Wigglenose is another museum resident that I recognized. In addition to a wiggling nose, he has eyes, ears, a tongue, and hair that a ventriloquist can manipulate as demonstrated by curator and tour guide Lisa Sweasy. Lisa has been involved in the museum since 2000; first as curator, then as a Board of Directors member, then as both. I met Lisa at that 2021 open house but there were no tours that day. My earlier visit had been during those few years she stepped away from the curator role so today was the first I got to benefit from her knowledge. That knowledge is not just of the items in the collection but of the whole broad world of ventriloquism past and present. It’s pretty obvious she loves her job. I don’t think it is possible to get this good at something otherwise.

This is the second exhibit room. The next room has even more dummies (100+) in shoulder-to-shoulder rows. But both rooms have a fair amount of open space plus the room that precedes them on the tour is not densely populated at all. That’s not the way it used to be. Spaces in the old museum were smaller, more densely packed, and entered directly from the outside. In 2011, I described my first step into the museum as feeling like I was “late to a meeting where a crowd had already gathered”. That was much less the case today. The “walls of dummies” are good. They help convey the popularity of ventriloquism and the variety of figures used but it is nice to approach them without a jolt. This “wall” is organized by builder with color-coded tags. Esky (the Monopoly-man-looking guy in the opening picture) was made by the  McElroy Brothers (yellow bordered tags). He’s near the center of this photo in the second row from the top.

Occasionally a dummy is made to resemble its owner but that old line about “any resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, is purely coincidental” can be applied to the vast majority of them. Notable exceptions at the museum include this group of U.S. presidents and personal favorites Penn and Teller.

Like most museums, Vent Haven has some temporary exhibits although, in light of the recent welcome but exhausting building project, at present “temporary” probably means at least a year and maybe two. One of the current temporary displays features the work of William Kirk Brown who specialized in low-cost entry-level ventriloquial figures.

As might be expected, Vent Haven has displays dedicated to the world’s most famous ventriloquists. Edgar Bergen, Señor Wences, Shari Lewis, Paul Winchell, Jeff Dunham, and others have their own spots. When I was there in 2011, I was able to view but not photograph a temporary display honoring Jimmy Nelson. Jimmy died in 2019 at the age of 90 and now has this permanent display in the new museum.

I believe Lisa said this was about half of the Class of 2023. In the past, I have read that the museum gets 10-15 donations per year. I’m guessing that there might not have been a Class of 2022 but I don’t know that. The picture shows one of many ways that the museum is taking advantage of technology. The archives contain enough photos to cover all of the walls many times over. Large monitors like the one shown here support viewing digitized versions of various large collections without using a large amount of physical space.

On the other hand, there is enough space in the new building to allow using a pretty good chunk of it in a theater. Lisa seemed to appreciate this bit of luxury as much as the parking spaces and restroom. Less obvious but equally important improvements include high-end HVAC to make the dummies feel good and museum-grade lighting to make them look good. Along with this major upgrade to the physical space there are some changes to the museum’s online presence. Tours can still be scheduled the old-fashioned way via telephone or email but they can also be scheduled directly via the museum’s website. That’s what I did and thought it worked quite well. Information and links for personally checking out the museum’s new digs yourself are here.

In my report of that 2011 visit, I told of stopping for breakfast a little less than three miles northeast of the museum so it seems appropriate to describe a stop for breakfast before this visit a little more than three miles southwest of the museum. I had tried stopping at The Hive once before but gave up after three passes through the completely filled parking lot. That reinforced all the good things I’d heard about the place and prompted me to get there a little earlier this time. Now I can say good things myself. In 2011, I had a goetta and cheese omelet at the Anchor Grill. Today I had a goetta and cheese and mushroom omelet.  

Cars for a Cause

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The Butlers made a little money selling bathtubs on the internet. Actually, bathtubs aren’t the only things Matt Butler and his dad Mike sell at Signature Hardware, and saying they made a little money might not be telling the whole truth either. In Mike’s case, he made enough to buy a couple of hundred used cars. All were built in America between 1903 and around 1980. Apparently, Mike has occasionally let groups see his collection of cars and recently started letting the public at large in to see them — for a cause.

I first learned of Collection 21 last month when I saw this Citybeat article. The collection is available for viewing on Fridays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 4 PM. 100% of the requested $15 donation goes to Housing Opportunities of Northern Kentucky. I visited last Friday and the trio at left more or less greeted me when I entered. The red car is a replica of a 1936 Auburn Boattail Speedster built on a modern GM chassis. It was the only replica I noticed in the collection. The pair of 1937 Cord 812s that bracket it are very real as was every other car I took note of.

I had barely moved beyond those Cords when these Lincolns caught my eye. The 4-door is a 1967. I remember seeing a slightly older model in high school and thinking it was one of the coolest cars ever. Lincoln 4-door convertibles still fascinate me. The 2-door should fascinate everybody. The Derham Body Company made two of these 2-seaters in 1962 by drastically shortening full-size Lincoln Contentials. The resulting car is actually four inches shorter than a same-year Corvette. The idea never went beyond the prototype stage and one of the cars was totaled making this the only one of its kind.

This car was factory built and it’s not one of a kind but it sure is strange. It is a 1929 Chevrolet AC International Landau Convertible and there were supposedly about 300 of them made. I guess it’s for people who enjoy open-air motoring just a wee tiny bit.

The cars are not formally arranged although there are clusters of similar vehicles. I’ve clustered three cars with distinctive front ends together in this panel. The 1959 “slant-eyed” Lincoln and 1950 “bullet-nosed” Studebaker were physically side-by-side’ although I can’t say why. The 1940 “sharknose” Graham was several cars away.

The first Ford Ranchero car/truck was a 1957 model. The Chevrolet El Camino would not appear until 1959. Maybe the carlike fiberglass trim on the 1958 Apache Cameo Carrier was intended to fill the gap. Dodge put station wagon fins on their Sweptside pickups in 1957 and ’58 but they never did make a full-size Ranchero/El Camino equivalent.

The 1946 Lincoln Continental and 1939 Packard 1703 were parked next to each other. If there is a need to impress the neighbors, I’m pretty sure that either of these would do the job. That’s a 1931 Ford Model A in the foreground of that third picture but the thing that caught my eye was the shiny temperature gauge on the 1928 Dodge Brothers Victory Six beside it. The next car in line is a 1912 Maxwell Messenger.

When I eventually exited the building, two other fellows were beside me. We all made comments about how impressive the collection was. I mentioned that I had never seen so many split-window Corvettes in one place. They both agreed but when I said I thought there were seven of them, I was corrected. I had forgotten one near the front which made eight. I’d never had to count them before and just didn’t do well. There are five in this picture. The others are scattered here and there.

Among the brass-era cars in the collection is this 1911 Model 30 Cadillac. The Model 30 was manufactured from 1908 through 1914 with the price growing from $1400 to nearly $2000. When this particular car was built, the base price was about $1700. In 1912, the Model 30 became the first production car with an electric starter.

I could have included this 1903 Curved Dash Oldsmobile in the earlier panel of distinctive front ends. No electric starter for this guy. With production starting in 1901, this is generally considered the first mass-produced automobile. By the time production ended in 1907, roughly 19.000 of these one-cylinder wonders had been built.

If I had turned left instead of right when I came in, this 1954 Kaiser Darrin, with its own distinctive front end — and doors — would have been one of the first cars I saw rather than nearly the last. They say there are between 220 and 230 cars here at any time and that all can be started and driven. I have obviously shown just a tiny fraction in this post. Seeing cars as rare as many of those here at way under a dime a piece is a great deal and knowing you’re helping a charity makes it even better.

Some Dixie Highway for Thanksgiving

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The daily rate and a two-night minimum put the kibosh on preliminary thoughts of spending Thanksgiving night at a nearby state park lodge and other things got in the way of even making a reservation for the buffet there. Even so, I went to bed on Wednesday thinking that I would call about a last minute spot in the morning. By morning, however, I was ready to acknowledge that I would rather be driving than eating and set off to cruise some bits of the Dixie Highway that I had not been on for some time. In downtown Cincinnati, I was quickly reminded of the Thanksgiving Day Race that blocks several streets including the Roebling Bridge on which the Dixie Highway entered Kentucky from Ohio. I climbed onto the interstate and picked up the old auto trail on the other side of the river.

One reason the Dixie Highway makes for a good day trip south is that two alignments exist between Cincinnati and Lexington. The original path was pretty much straight south through Dry Ridge and Corinth. At some point, a path through Falmouth and Paris was proposed and recognized as an alternative by the Dixie Highway Association. Plans were to eventually pick one or the other but the Numbered US Highways came along and the DHA disbanded before a selection was made which leaves both alignments as somewhat official.

My pathway south was on the original alignment past the old gas station in Dry Ridge, the tin tepee (with recliner) near Williamsburg, and remnants of Fisher’s Camp near Corinth.

Lexington’s Main Street, which carried the Dixie Highway, is now one way northbound so I briefly left my southbound route to photograph the camel-topped Zero Mile Marker at Main and Limestone. While there, I slipped across the street to photograph just a few of the many painted ponies (actually thoroughbred racehorses) that decorate the city. I also snapped a picture at Thoroughbred Park before leaving town.

I had originally planned to pick up the other alignment in Lexington and head home but it was still fairly early and I decided to drive on to a place I had been interested in for a while. The first picture is of the modern bridge that currently carries I-75 and US-25 over the Kentucky River. The second picture shows the 1871 bridge that carried the Richmond-Lexington Turnpike, the Dixie Highway, and US-25 across the river. The third picture was taken from Clays Ferry Overlook on the south side of the river. Jay and Ashley Webb purchased this about a year ago and the Webbs have removed hundreds of truckloads of trash and cleared away trees to make it a real overlook again. Check out their Facebook page here. I did not prepare very well for my visit and I know there’s a lot of history here that I don’t yet know. I do know that the stone wall was built by the WPA in the early 1930s. This section of the road was relocated shortly before that but after it had become US-25. I believe that this is where the Richmond-Lexington turnpike and the Dixie Highway would have run.

I’d driven to Clays Ferry because of the big cleanup and because it wasn’t much more than a dozen miles from Lexington and I drove on to Richmond because it was only a dozen or so miles farther. In Richmond, I was definitely tempted to drive the dozen or so more miles to Berea but managed to stop myself. I took the expressway back to Lexington and the southern end of that Falmouth alignment. The slightly off-route moves I’d made earlier had not actually been necessary, I now discovered. Not only did my northbound route take me right by Thoroughbred Park, the route to Falmouth begins at Main and Limestone and the Zero Mile Marker.

The Dixie Highway, as I’m sure almost everyone knows, passes right through Paris. At its southern edge, Central Kentucky Classic Cars pulled me in to drool over a 1968 Camaro, lower my sights slightly to consider a ’55 Chevy sedan, then eventually move on with the free digital photos that were a better fit for my budget. Every Paris deserves an Eiffel Tower and this Paris finally got one in the summer of 2021. At 20 feet tall, it is considerably shorter than the original in France (1024 feet), and the replica just up the road from me in Kings Island (314 feet), but it’s still pretty cool. Incidentally, the Edward Shinner Building in the background was declared the “Tallest 3-story Building in the World” by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! which explains why its top got clipped in the photo.

Much of this Dixie Highway alignment has been taken over by US-27 but a few miles south of Cynthiana it moves to the west side on Mark Road then cuts back across the US route, slips through a narrow underpass, crosses a narrow bridge, and heads straight (but not quite level) into the Kentucky countryside on Old Lair Road.

Sunset occurred almost simultaneously with my reaching Punkyville so things were starting to dim when I took this driveby shot. When I first drove this alternate alignment in 2015, I stopped and explored Punkyville and I’ve done that a time or two since but not today.

Despite increasing darkness, I stayed with the Dixie Highway through Falmouth and Independence but encountered a road closure about three miles north of the latter town. By then, even though it was not yet 5:30, full-on darkness had arrived and I abandoned the DH for a more direct route home. I grabbed a shot of the last electric overhead sign I passed so I could share ODOT’s Thanksgiving greeting. 

Got Goetta?

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This is Goettafest. Regular readers of this blog know what goetta is. Others maybe not. A trailer at the festival had a definition painted on its side. Almost all descriptions, including the one at Wikipedia, have the name Cincinnati in them somewhere. It is very definitely a regional food.

Note that the banner says “Glier’s Goettafest”. Glier’s Meats has a near monopoly on the product in the area which, as already mentioned, has its own near monopoly. Some family cooks and a few restaurants make their own and there are other commercial producers as this 2018 article shows. Glier’s, however, is king. They own the goetta.com domain, and they own this festival.

Glier’s is a Covington, KY, company and the festival is held on Kentucky’s side of the Ohio River in Newport. The venue, appropriately named “Festival Park at the Levee”, essentially fills the area between the Taylor-Southgate Bridge and the pedestrian-only Purple People Bridge. The Daniel Carter Beard Bridge (a.k.a, Big Mac Bridge) can be seen in the background.

The festival grew to eight days this year but it avoids those sluggish mid-week days with a pair of expanded weekends, July 28-31 and August 4-7. It’s also something of a music festival with bands performing full time on stages at both ends. I was there shortly after opening on Thursday when Whiskey Daze was on the west stage and What About Jane was on the east stage.

I had to check the food listing to learn that the name of this stand was Original Corn Roast. Its offerings were many and included some goettaless items. I got my Goetta Mac from there and washed it down with Braxton’s Garage Beer.

Goetta Mac is something I’ve eaten before and will again. The Goetta Balls from Goettahaus were new to me. I won’t take extreme measures to avoid them in the future but they aren’t something I have a strong urge for.

I had wanted to try the goetta pizza but my appetite ran out before my choices did. And there were plenty of other good-looking options beyond that.

I once ate a hamburger between a split donut so maybe I could have handled this but I didn’t even consider it.

Goettafest opens at noon today (Sun 7/31) and is back next Thursday for another four-day run. Get there while the goetta getting is good.