Three in a Row

Life seems to always get busier as autumn approaches. That’s no doubt partly pure perception as we try to pack as much as possible into the last days of summer but it’s also partially real. Maybe event schedulers once avoided some conflicts by delaying things but there is a limit to how late in the year outdoor activities can be moved without a high risk of cold weather. This week found me participating in blog-worthy outings on three consecutive days. On Thursday, it was the Open Doors: Camp Washington- The Home of Makers walking tour. On Friday, I made it to the first day of Oktoberfest Zinzinnati and on Saturday, a friend and I attended the WACO Fly-In where the photo at right was taken.

The first stop on the Camp Washington tour was at the Crosley factory. An effort is underway to convert the place where radios and appliances were once manufactured into apartments but it has a long way to go. Camp Washington was once filled with factories, meat processing plants, and some oil storage. The 1937 flood damaged many buildings and most of those on Spring Grove Avenue were destroyed by a fire fed by oil floating on the flood waters. The middle picture is of the tallest building in the area to survive. The third picture is of the surviving office building of one of the meatpacking firms.

The only building we entered on the tour was the former hotel and bank that most recently housed US (Uncle Steve’s) Chili. It is now owned by the Cincinnati Preservation Association and slated for renovation. I’ve eaten breakfast and 4-ways here but had never been beyond the first floor. The tile (Rookwood?) fronted fireplace is on the third floor and I also got a shot of a neighbor from that floor. One of the things I remember about US Chili was a large petition calling for removal of the disrespectful (to George) mural seen in that overhead shot and from ground level here.

The tour had started at the American Sign Museum and would technically end there but it more or less disbanded at Valley Park where a farmer’s market was wrapping up for the day. I have driven by the park quite often and have noted its WW I monument but this was the first time I’d actually approached it.

Besides being the host and an interesting Camp Washington building in its own right, the American Sign Museum pulled signs from a pair of former Camp Washington businesses from the attic and offered up some musical entertainment. As marked by a reproduction sign on a parking lot wall, the museum building was once home to Fashion Frocks. I was well aware of that but had never seen any of their products. Tonight the museum had a frock and some advertisements (“Value Priced $7.98”) on display.


My guess that things might not be too crowded on Friday afternoon proved more or less correct. I grabbed a sausage sampler at Mecklenburg’s, a smoked mettwurst at Mick Knoll’s Covington Haus, and a Festbier from the “World’s Oldest Brewery”.

I caught lots of good German music but I didn’t catch any of the performers’ names.

I didn’t catch this guy’s name either but if it’s not Cincinnato Batman I’m going to be really disappointed.

 
 


My completely unqualified impression is that the WACO Fly-In had fewer total planes than usual and that a higher percentage of them were non-WACO but that a higher percentage of the WACOs were the real thing rather than modern reproductions. I also had the more reliable impression that the weather was perfect for the event.

The fly-in is a wonderful place to get up close and fairly personal — no touching — with some beautiful aircraft.

We had semi-intentionally timed our visit to include the Parade of WACOs which meant we got to see quite a few airplanes take off and land and sometimes pause for directions.

And cruise by at fairly low levels, too.
 
 
The WACO story is definitely an interesting one.  An onsite marker tells an extremely brief version with a whole lot more available at the museum website. Or you could probably learn a bunch chatting with this fellow at his color-coordinated airfield campsite. 

Sub Terrain and Marine

This week my friend Terry and I succeeded in seeing something we’ve been talking about for quite a while. That something is in the picture at right. It’s the USS Cod moored in Cleveland, Ohio. We toured the retired WWII submarine on Tuesday after a leisurely drive to within striking distance on Monday. range the day before. That leisurely drive included a little sightseeing and something of an unplanned adventure.

We drove on “America’s Oldest Concrete Street” (1893) in Bellefontaine, then stopped at Indian Mill and crossed over the Parker Covered Bridge near Upper Sandusky.

I knew absolutely nothing about Seneca Caverns and Terry knew only that we would be passing nearby. Both of us thought it would be a nice diversion which is exactly the sort of thinking that can lead to, as it did this time, an unplanned adventure. The pictures here are of our guide Allie, a fairly rare horizontal section of the cave, and an elegant 1893 done-by-candlelight inscription.

Seneca Caverns is unique among Ohio show caves in being formed by an earthquake crack and by being maintained pretty much in its natural state which explains its nicknames of “Earth Crack” and “Caviest Cave in the USA”. These pictures show Terry and others descending one of the stairways made of natural stones, another natural stone stairway without people, and our farthest penetration (110 feet below the surface) into the cave.

After returning to the surface, we still had time to check out the cemetery for Confederate soldiers on Johnson’s Island and the nearby Marblehead Lighthouse before ending our day. Confederate prisoners, mostly officers, were kept on the island between April 1862 and September 1865. More than 200 died here and are buried in this cemetery. By the time we arrived, the lighthouse was closed for the day but we were not overly disappointed. Having just climbed up from 110 feet below the Earth’s surface, we didn’t feel a burning need to climb 50 feet above it.

Our short drive to the trip’s primary target was fairly wet but the rain was really letting up by the time we got there and we were headed inside anyway. The USS Cod was commissioned on June 21, 1943, and completed seven successful patrols before the war’s end. Following the war, she served a variety of training roles until 1971 when a group of Clevelanders campaigned to save her from being scrapped. The submarine was turned over to the civilian group in 1976.

Entry to the submarine’s interior is through a hatch in the forward torpedo room. Stepping back from the torpedo tubes shows folding bunks where crewmen sleep in the space between torpedos. The aft torpedo room is similarly equipped and there are other sleeping areas midship. Other necessities are nearby. The third picture is of the captain’s quarters showing that one’s concept of luxury clearly depends on perspective.

Red light is used to preserve sailors’ night vision and some sections of the Cod are illuminated in red to let visitors see what this was like. Submariners reportedly ate better than any other members of the military. Meals were prepared in this stainless steel galley and most were consumed here. Note the books and games stored near the tables and other entertainment was also available. Movies were sometimes shown in the dining area. One of the four 1,600 HP diesel engines is shown and there is a 500 HP auxiliary engine as well. These engines generate electricity which is stored in batteries to turn the propellers. Two stills at the front of the forward engine room provide fresh water for batteries, drinking, and other uses.

Visitors normally exit the USS Cod through a hatch in the aft torpedo room but that was closed because of the rain. We traveled back through the ship and where we had entered in the forward torpedo room. I exited first and got a picture of Terry climbing the ladder and another proving he made it out.

The fellow at the gate of the USS Cod suggested we walk over to the International Women’s Air & Space Museum which we took as permission to leave our car in the Cod’s parking lot while we did so. Amelia Earhart and Katerine Wright are among the many women honored with exhibits there. 

A Pair of Zippers

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone else call those who travel on ziplines zippers but it seems reasonable to me. Of course, John and I weren’t all that concerned about what we should call ourselves while we were flying through the air with the greatest of ease. That last phrase comes from an 1867 song titled That Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. Yeah, we weren’t on a trapeze and neither were we all that daring or the least bit young. Plus, to be honest, our flying was not actually done with the greatest of ease — or grace. But it was fun.

The two of us have talked about trying a zipline for a few years. For the last couple of years, our excuse has been COVID-19 shutdowns. I don’t remember what our excuses were before that. When Ozone Zipline Adventures reopened earlier this summer, our last excuse was gone. Last week we picked a date based partially on a ten-day weather forecast.  When we headed to the site on Friday morning, it was quite apparent that the forecast had been right for at least one day out of the ten. It was perfect.

Ozone is operated by Camp Kern YMCA near Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve. Multiple ziplines in the trees provide what is known as a canopy tour. A restored 1806 stone house that once operated as Cross Keys Tavern serves as the meeting place for zipline patrons. We were a few minutes early but a note on the front door assured us that we were at the right place and guides and other zippers began arriving in short order. A small bus carried us up the hill where we were helped into sturdy harnesses and supplied with hardhats. We took a picture because we could.

The group paused for some instruction at the base of the first tower. Two guides accompany each group. KJ, on the left, would be our “receiving guide”. He crossed each line first and unhooked subsequent crossers as they arrived. Jesse was our “sending guide”. She connected participants to each line and signaled when it was time to go. She and KJ coordinated crossings by radio. As part of their presentation, one of them mentioned that, if you were nervous, it was best to go early to avoid watching everyone else. When it came time to climb the stairs, no one moved and it eventually became apparent that all the others were waiting for John and me. We were clearly the senior members of the group but we were also the only zipline rookies. We had been silently elected “Most Likely to Be Nervous”.

So John headed up the stairs and I followed. At the top, KJ pointed out a few things as he was hooking up then zipped off into the trees. Then it was John and then me. Only when I was about to step off of the wooden platform did I realize that the vote at the bottom of the tower had been pretty accurate. Until that point, I had been thinking of this as something very similar to going down the big slide on the school playground. I realized how different it was as I looked out at all those trees and not much else. Maybe I had been nervous before but didn’t know it. Now I knew I was nervous but didn’t have time for it. I also didn’t have much time for pictures. I had my little Panasonic with me but it was usually tucked deep in a pocket and did not get used a lot. The picture at left is of a member of our group crossing after I did. I’m not even sure if it is the first or second line.

The third line is the longest of the tour and one of two that cross over the Little Miami River. Because of its length, zipping to the end is not automatic. At its beginning, KJ gave us some pointers on increasing our likelihood of making it and some instructions on what to do if we didn’t. The advice was essentially to do more of what we had been practicing on the first two lines which was to keep your legs tucked in (called “cannonballing”) and your body in line with the cable. If forward travel ended short of the platform, you were to grip the cable (Ahead of the trolley!) to keep from traveling backward and KJ would come out and tow you in. The second picture is KJ heading over the river to be both “receiver” and “retriever”. No one rolled back to the middle of the river but more than half of our group did require a short tow. This was accomplished by KJ hanging almost upside down in his harness and sort of “walking” with his feet on the bottom side of the cable. Pretty impressive.

The line back across the river is a little shorter. Once there, this swinging bridge leads to the last two ziplines of the tour. We had crossed two similar bridges earlier in the day.

The canopy tour really was fun and truly scenic when I could pull my eyes away from what was directly in front of me. My “nervousness” certainly diminished and would no doubt disappear completely after a few more trips but I’m not sure there will be more. With the possible exception of climbing that first tower, there was nothing really strenuous but neither is it the carefree floating I’ve seen in some photos. There’s a reason that retired folk comprised only 20% of our group and I’m sure that was higher than average.

Trains, Blues, and Automobiles

This was an incredibly busy weekend in southwest Ohio. A list limited to things I was personally interested in includes the Lebanon Blues Festival, New Richmond’s Cardboard Boat Regatta, and Paddlefest on Cincinnati’s riverfront. Of these three, the only one I had never attended was Paddlefest so that’s where I thought I’d spend my Saturday morning. By the time the day arrived, steam engine excursions on the Lebanon Mason Monroe Railroad had been added to the list of things of interest to me, and predictions of rain threatened all four (and actually did in Paddlefest).

Plans to head to the river turned into plans to stay home but I kept an eye on the weather. When it looked like there might be a dry window in the afternoon, I booked a seat on the LM&M. I figured that, even if it rained, sitting inside a railroad car wouldn’t be too bad.

I looked over the engine and grabbed photos of the station and the car I’d been assigned. Then it was time to board.

I snapped a picture of the other side of the station as we pulled out. The station is beautifully landscaped by the local garden club. It does not play an active role in passenger handling, however; a ticket counter and gift shop are in a building across the street.

The route isn’t particularly scenic. A green wall of foliage is often quite close although sometimes farm fields open things up a bit. There are even a few art displays that seem to be for the benefit of train passengers.

There are three passenger cars on the train. The one I was in has cloth-covered seats; the other two have vinyl. They were built in 1929 but the conductor wasn’t sure when “my” car was built. She said she had heard dates from 1926 through the ’30s. I walked through all three cars to get a look down the tracks.

Just before the train reached the station, I could see that Broadway was blocked off for a car show associated with the blues festival. After exiting the train, I walked the one block up the hill to see classic cars parked in front of the historic Golden Lamb and on both sides of the street for a couple of blocks.

Then I turned off Broadway to stroll past the many vendors to the music stage. A last-minute cancelation had resulted in The Bluebirds, a familiar and favorite band, being on that stage.

During their set, I got shots of Marcos (and his guitar), Bam, Mike, and Pete.

I took off after that and stopped to grab a picture of the train on its last run of the day. There are few things that are as obvious polluters as a coal-fired locomotive and I’m glad that there aren’t all that many running anymore. But I’m sure glad that there are a few.

Celebrating

Tuesday was my birthday, and there was a blog post that day more or less announcing it and revealing that I had removed from my body the only thing about it that was getting thinner. This post describes the far-ranging travel and wild celebration that filled the day. The party actually started in early morning when I met my buddy John for breakfast in Wilmington. I left there thinking I might follow US-22 all the way to Steubenville but a prediction of rain prompted me to switch to a shorter path using US-62 at Washington Courthouse, and congestion, as I neared Columbus, nudged me onto a faster expressway route. In fact, I gave myself up to the GPS at that point and Garmin kept me on I-71 until I reached US-30 near Mansfield.

I continued blindly following the voice in the box until a glimpse of a semi-familiar cheese shop brought me to my senses. Shisler’s Cheese House is a place I normally associate with the Lincoln Highway so, after picking up some Swiss and cheddar to munch on later, I sought out a few bits of the old road. I made a side trip in Canton but returned to the old Lincoln and the brick Baywood Street in Robertsville.

The target of my Canton excursion was Fat Head’s newest brewpub at the north edge of town. Fat Head’s started in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1992 and opened this location, their fourth, in 2018. That’s Black Knight Schwarzbier in the glass.

The place that the GPS had been leading me to was the Spread Eagle Tavern in Hanoverton. The picture at the top of this post is of the tavern’s sign. Hanoverton is a Lincoln Highway town so I’ve stopped at the Spread Eagle several times. I have eaten there once but had never stayed there. I corrected that by spending Tuesday night in the Van Buren Room. It’s the inn’s smallest in both space and price but was more than adequate for me.

Between check-in and dinner, I was able to see familiar rooms empty for the first time and make first-time visits to some other spaces. This second group included the lower level rathskeller which is currently open only on Fridays and Saturdays. The tavern first opened in 1837 but had fallen into disrepair until a major restoration took place in the late 1980s. Additions and improvements (such as converting the dirt-floored basement to the brick-lined rathskeller) happened, but all materials came from either the tavern itself or other badly neglected buildings from the same period.

I ate dinner at a table just out of frame on the left side of this picture and breakfast just out of frame on the right. I failed to get a picture of breakfast which is truly sad because it was one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had and it was included with the room. I was just too busy chatting with Kim, my server, about the building and other topics both related and not. I had been better prepared at dinner and did get a snapshot of my wonderful walleye by candlelight

Leo da Vinci and the Forty Machines

I’ve read that, once upon a time, ordinary people rarely needed to count past forty and that forty became another way of saying “a whole bunch”. That implies that Noah and family might not have watched it rain for precisely forty days and nights and that Ali Baba may not have encountered exactly forty bad guys. We have outgrown that, of course, and today use numbers like gazillion when we are tired of counting even though that probably occurs long before we reach forty. That is not, however, the case with this post. The Leonardo da Vinci: Machines in Motion exhibit currently at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton contains exactly forty of Leo’s “machines”.

I took in the exhibit on Friday. It is set against the wall farthest from the entrance which means there is some walking involved. Not only does this provide an opportunity for a little exercise, but there are also plenty of opportunities for getting distracted on the way by the many other, mostly permanent, displays in this wonderful museum. I skipped my favorite gallery, Early Years, and focused on the da Vinci exhibit and still spent at least as much time getting to and from it as I did experiencing it. It’s simply impossible to ignore all those unusual planes and their engaging stories.

A fair number of the displayed machines have to do with flight. That is certainly appropriate for the Air Force Museum although the exhibit’s makeup was not tuned for the location. In fact, this appearance seems to be a recent addition that is not yet listed on the schedule at the Machines in Motion website.

The high ceiling at the museum allows some of da Vinci’s concepts to be suspended overhead as if in flight although they sometimes have to share space with flying things of more recent vintage. The overhead displays include the “parachute” in the opening photograph. The version here is not quite full size. A full-sized version and a description of a real-world use of the design were part of the Da Vinci the Genius exhibit I saw in Cincinnati in 2016.

Leonardo’s flying machines may not have been practical but many of his other ideas certainly were. I don’t believe it is a proven fact that he invented ball bearings but his design of a revolving stage using them might have been their first practical application. His designs for converting one form of motion to another (e.g., rotary to linear) were definitely practical. Check out the kid getting a real hands on education in the background of the second picture. The third picture shows a machine combining several devices to raise heavy pillars.

Seeing this machine for grinding concave mirrors was a real learning experience for me. The sign next to it talks about burning mirrors and mentions that one of their uses was welding. Believing that welding was at best an eighteenth-century concept, I had to look into that and discovered that the welding of soft metals like gold and copper goes back much further and was rather common in da Vinci’s day.

The exhibit runs through May 8 and, like the museum itself, is free.

Benny’s Back

The last Saturday of January 2021 came and went without fireworks or other hoopla in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. That’s normally the day of the Buckeye Lake Winterfest but the event, like so many others, fell victim to COVID-19. Interestingly, the previous year’s Winterfest was one of the last pre-pandemic events I attended. The blog entry is here. A December 2020 newspaper article announcing the postponement said organizers were hoping to hold the event in the spring but that seems not to have happened. What attracted me to the event in the first place was its use of Benny the Bass in a Puxsuntawny Phil style role in predicting the timing of warmer weather. Last year, people were not nearly as interested in when winter would end as when the pandemic would. That may actually be true this year as well, but Benny was back on the job in any case.

I was on my way north long before dawn was even thinking about cracking. In 2020, I parked near the brewery and walked to and from the park where Benny makes his prediction. This year, with snow on the ground and near-zero temperatures, I had no desire to do much walking and drove directly to the park. There were a few cars present when I arrived but not many. Before getting out of my car, I decided to drive to the other side of town for coffee.

By the time I returned, Benny and quite a few fans had arrived. I managed to get the closeup of the real Benny at the top of this post before it got too crowded, and I got a shot of the mascot Benny — but not a very good one — a bit later. Removing a glove to take pictures was something I kept to a minimum and taking pictures with both gloves on was something that kept picture quality to a minimum.

In the predawn darkness, the shadow-based method of predicting that groundhogs employ is useless. Instead, a bunch of minnows is dumped into Benny’s tank and a one-minute countdown begins. If the time expires without Benny downing a minnow, six more weeks of winter is to be expected. If a minnow is gone before the time is, we’ll have an early spring. Either way, we get fireworks.

In 2020, the crowd chanted “Eat it, Benny”. This year they seemed too cold to chant much of anything despite the MC leading the more official “Take the Bait. Spring can’t wait.” cheer. That, plus repeated playings of the new Winterfest song, may have done the trick. All the minnows survived until the thirty-second warning and several seconds longer but then…

I took the picture of Benny’s tank and prediction once the area was sufficiently clear of bodies to get a clear view. Once the park was sufficiently clear of cars that I could get out of my parking space, I drove directly to Our Lakeside Diner for the traditional (It is now!) perch and eggs breakfast. Incidentally, this place definitely knows how to serve coffee.

Then it was down the street to the Buckeye Lake Brewery for another tradition. When I was here in 2020, I delayed having a beer until I had walked around the town quite a bit. This year, despite a fourfold increase in temperature since I’d arrived, I had no desire for a stroll of any length. So the perch was quickly followed by a Winterfest Ale and that was quickly followed by my departure for home.

A Cosmic Reason for the Season — Reredux

The following article first appeared in 2019 then reappeared in 2020 when the Fort Ancient winter solstice sunrise program was canceled. I have seen nothing specifically about the program this year but know that the site will be open between 7 and 10 AM on December 21, the day of the solstice. That’s a Tuesday which is a day that the site is normally closed this time of year. It is clearly being opened for sunrise and a program of some sort seems possible.

The article’s first publication occurred one day after the solstice. The next year, it was one day before. This year it is two days before. That shifting comes from our efforts to make Sol, Luna, and Earth play nice together. Most of this blog’s posts, and all three posts of this article, occur on Sundays. Days of the week usually shift by one each year because seven does not fit evenly into 365. The two day shift between the article’s first and second appearance was because seven is an even worse fit for 366 and 2020 was a leap year. The seven-day week isn’t quite as arbitrary as it might first appear but neither is it an intuitive unit of measure. The moon circles Earth every 29.5 days. The Egyptians divided that into three ten-day periods. Four eight-day Roman weeks or seven-day Babylonian weeks fit less precisely but could be tied, albeit imperfectly,  to the moon’s four phases. The Babylonian seven-day week was spread far and wide by Alexander the Great, and as Rome moved into Alex’s old stomping grounds, it began to think that way too. The western world’s week became pretty much established in 321 CE when Constantine declared that an official Roman week was comprised of seven days. This Sunday post precedes the winter solstice of 2021 by 2 days; 2 days, 4 hours, and 58 minutes to be precise. 


Calendars come and calendars go and Earth just keeps on turning. And it keeps on orbiting, too. The turning bit creates what we call days. The alternating periods of light and dark impact almost all life on the planet and humans adopted the day as a basic unit of measure pretty early on. What we call years comes from Earth orbiting the Sun. There was plenty of time for early humans to stare at the sky and not a whole lot to keep them from doing it. They couldn’t help but notice that things in the sky moved around. In time, some of the more observant among them realized that not all that movement was random and eventually some patterns were noted. I can’t imagine how exciting it was when some smart guy figured out that the sun popped up at the same point about every 365 days. Of course, that “about” would be very important.

The opening photo shows the sun rising yesterday over a “gateway” in the earthen enclosure at Fort Ancient. The photo at left was taken a bit later and includes a small mound inside the enclosure in the foreground. When the mound, gateway, and sunrise align, sunset will follow sooner than on any other day of the year. This is the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice. It is the day when the sun is above the horizon for less time than any other day of the year, and yesterday that amounted to 9 hours, 25 minutes, and 9 seconds. Although we talk about Solstice being a day, it is technically just an instant. It is the moment when the Sun is farthest north or south of Earth’s equator. It happens twice each year and happened yesterday at 23:19 EST.

Serpent Mound, another ancient earthen structure containing solar alignments, is a little more than forty miles southeast of Fort Ancient. The serpent’s head is aligned with the Summer Solstice sunset. Body coils align with Summer and Winter Solstice sunrises. For several years, a modern event known as Lighting of the Serpent took place there at Winter Solstice. It was discontinued in 2017. The picture at right is from 2014 which is the only time I attended.

Long before they knew anything about orbits and equators, humans knew the day of Winter Solstice was special. It is the point where each successive day receives more rather than less daylight. It’s the big turnaround that will eventually lead to the warmth of spring and summer. It is clearly a day worth celebrating and it has indeed been celebrated in many different cultures in many different ways.

During their existence, humans have developed a slew of calendar systems. Several actually remain in use today, but the Gregorian calendar is the one most widely accepted. In the late sixteenth century, this started replacing the Julian calendar which had been around for all of those sixteen centuries and then some. The Julian calendar had been created by folks who calculated that a year was 365 and 1/4 days long which was a lot more accurate than an even 365. They came up with the rather clever idea of adding an extra day every four years to balance things out.

We now know that a year is 365.2422 days long. A year is the length of time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun, a day is the length of time it takes Earth to rotate, and neither is adjustable. When the Julian calendar was first adopted, the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice fell on December 25 but it slowly drifted away. Someone in authority thought to put an end to this nonsense by declaring December 25 the official solstice. But those non-adjustable orbits and rotations kept doing what they were doing and the official solstice and actual solstice just kept getting farther and farther apart.

The Gregorian calendar, which we have used for roughly 400 years now, put an end to that. Like the Julian calendar, it considers most years to be 365 days long but has a more involved system of “leap years” that add an extra day. The result is that over a long enough period our years will average 365.2422 days in length. Not only did the new calendar eliminate future drift, it tried to correct for some of the previous drift by throwing away ten days. The calendar’s namesake’s full-time job was as Pope of the Catholic Church. Ditching those ten days moved the solstice to December 22 which is where it had been in 325 when the church was founded. Of course, some holidays that had been tied to the official solstice (which hadn’t been anywhere near the actual solstice for some time) would continue to be celebrated on December 25.

Anyone wanting a more complete discussion of calendars, solstices, and holidays will find one here. Additional information on Fort Ancient is available here.

Another Covered County Covered

When I took in Preble County Covered Bridges a couple of weeks ago, there was actually another Ohio county in the running for the “honor”. Fairfield County rivals Ashtabula County for the number of covered bridges and is much closer. Of course, Preble County is closer still and I decided to save Fairfield for a day when there was a chance that the trees would be more colorful. Friday was that day but, even though there were some mighty colorful trees here and there, I never did find that picturesque little bridge framed with orange and gold that I envisioned.

Unlike the rather spontaneous Preble County jaunt, I actually did some advance planning for this outing. I started at the Charles Holliday Bridge (#1) on the Millersport Lions Club Sweet Corn Festival grounds. This happens to be bridge #1 in the Fairfield County Covered Bridge Trail Guide but I did not visit the bridges in the sequence they are numbered in the guide. I started with the bridge farthest from my home then hit the rest in a very crude horseshoe pattern. The numbers following each bridge name are from the guide, however.

My second stop was at the R.F. Baker Bridge (#12) behind the Fairfield Union School. It’s not visible from the parking lot but directions from a friendly student got me there. This is the closest thing I found to that bridge framed by autumn colors in my mind’s eye. You have probably figured out that this is the bridge in the opening photograph and you may have also figured out that it is my favorite.

The John Raab Bridge (#8) is on private property and some distance from the road. I think it was possible that I could have gotten permission from the owner for a closer look but I just settled for a shot from the road with a longer lens mounted. That lens was still on the camera when I started to pull away and spotted a fox scurrying across the open field.

I made my Preble County bridge post a member of the My Cabbodles series but not this one. The reason is that two of Fairfield County’s listed bridges are inaccessible inside a park that is temporarily closed. I believe the address I had matches that of the pictured house although I saw nothing that indicated a park. Nonetheless, I think Mae Hummel Bridge (#9) and Shade Bridge (#14) are around here somewhere.

Only four of Fairfield County’s seventeen covered bridges remain at their original locations and three of them are pictured here. At first glance, I thought all three might have had the same builder but that’s not so. The Johnston Bridge (#7) was built by Augustus Borneman while the Mink Hollow Bridge (#11) was built by Jacob Brandt. No builder is identified for the Hanaway Bridge (#3).

Both of these bridges have been moved, but they still cross water and they are still in use although traffic is now pedestrian-only. The George Hutchins Bridge (#2) serves foot traffic in Alley Park while the McCleery Bridge (#10) helps folk cross Fetters Run on the Lancaster Bike Path.

The John Bright #2 Bridge (#6) has also been moved, still crosses water, and serves pedestrians. Like the McCleery Bridge, it is on Fetters Run and the Lancaster Bike Path. Its description states that it is the “gateway to Lancaster Festival concerts at Ohio University”. I’m guessing those concerts take place in the large open field beyond the bridge.

Rock Mill Bridge (#13) is the fourth covered bridge in Fairfield County surviving in its original location. The mill after which it is named also survives right next to it. The Fairfield County Covered Bridge Trail Guide claims that “At one time, every U.S. Embassy in the world displayed a photo of Rock Mill Bridge.” I haven’t yet found anything online to explain or confirm that so I’ve sent a query to the Fairfield County Ohio Visitors and Convention Bureau and will update this with any information I receive.

Here’s a bridge that has been relocated to a spot that once had water but no longer does. The Hartman #2 Bridge (#4) now sits astride what was once the Ohio & Erie Canal between Lock 11 South and Lock 12 South. The stone walls of Lock 12 South can be seen beyond the bridge in the third picture.

The Shryer Bridge (#15) is on private property with no obvious place to pull over so I really did grab a driveby shot of it. Inside Sycamore Creek Park, the relocated Zeller-Smith (#17) serves as the entrance to an arboretum. The Stemen House Bridge (#16) was relocated and shortened from 72 to 36 feet in length. Damaged and decayed parts were discarded during the move but the half that was saved was so good that now stands as the only public covered bridge in the county open to vehicles.

I had to add the word “public” to the previous sentence since this privately owned bridge is open to vehicles driven by the owner or friends. The Hizey Bridge (#5) once crossed Poplar Creek but has been moved to form part of an impressive private driveway.

If that park is ever opened and those two other bridges become accessible, I suppose I might go see them. Then I can republish these pictures as a caboodle. But the truth is that I was a little disappointed in the covered bridges of Fairfield County and it had little to do with the two hidden bridges or not finding the perfect wall of orange and gold leaves. It had to do with there being only two drivable bridges (one if you’re me) in the lot and so many that weren’t actually bridges at all anymore. By that, I mean those sitting in fields that don’t cross over anything that needs crossing. By contrast, six of the eight Preble County bridges were drivable and all nine of the Ashtabula County bridges I visited in 2019 were drivable. There are ten other covered bridges in Ashtabula County that I have not visited and about which I’ll make no claims.

On the other hand, even those that were sitting in someone’s yard, crossing nothing and accessible by no one, had escaped destruction. I’m reminded of something Tod Swormstedt of the American Sign Museum often says. According to Tod, the best way to preserve a sign is in its original setting doing what it was designed to do. Preserving them in museums and private collections isn’t nearly as good but is better than the scrap heap. I guess that applies to bridges, too. I prefer my historic bridges in the wild carrying vehicles over some body of water just like they were designed to do. Parks and private settings aren’t nearly as good — but they’re better than the scrap heap.

More Smooth As Glass

About a month ago, a visit to Jack Pine’s Glass Pumpkin Festival yielded a blog post in which I lamented losing an SD card containing “phenomenal photos”. That card has reappeared and, even though my claims of phenomenality will suffer for it, I’m super happy to share some of its contents. For those who missed it or want to refresh their memories, the original post is here.

In my lament, I mentioned ice cream and music, and here is proof of both. The ice cream was quite good. Perhaps because it wasn’t overly pumpkiny. So was the music, but, sadly, I don’t know the name of the fellow entertaining us. If I heard it at the festival, I’ve forgotten, and, while the online schedule is still accessible, it shows a gap between 2:00 and 4:30. The picture was taken about 3:25.

Numerous artists were offering items for sale at the festival and not everything was made of glass and resembled a pumpkin. There were also some vendors selling food at the festival but none that made me want to take a picture.

But, yeah, glass items dominate the festival. It is, after all, hosted by a glass studio. At first glance, things that resemble pumpkins might also seem to dominate the festival, but I’m not so sure. Outside of the Jack Pine Pumpkin Patch, there sure are lots of non-pumpkin pieces.

Several artists were at work inside the studio making glass pumpkins. They would frequently hold out their work as it progressed and explain what they were doing. These non-stop demonstrations alone were easily worth the drive and the price of admission, and the items produced really are phenomenal even if these pictures aren’t.