![]() |
|
|
|
Super Jenius
|
Road Trip Pix (I'm No Ansel Adams...)
Dave and I stopped to see Brian Bell in Akron, and Bell shared with us some of the haute cuisine for which Akron is so famous:
![]() Note: this is the same joint -- a bar in OHIO and I bleed Blue. Nothing like starting a cross-country road trip with a little provocation: ![]() And I followed that up with singing/screaming "Hail to the Victors" out the window of the car over and over again during our trip through Columbus, OH --- home of the Southern Ohio College of Doing Stuff (a/k/a Ohio State). Continuing our OHadventures was a stop in Canton; we figured there was about zero chance we'd be in this area again, so why not try the Football Hall of Fame: ![]() If you ever have a chance to go the HOF, don't. It is what it is and all, but it's not worth a detour. The best part, though is Steve Largent's exhibit, which contains a plaque that says "Seahawks inducted into the Hall of Fame" and has his name and 5 inches of blank space underneath as testimony to hope springing eternal in professional sports. The World's Largest McDonald's (as far as I know): ![]() God, I Love Middle America! More to come...
__________________
2003 SuperCharged Frontier ../.. 1979 930 ../.. 1989 BMW 325iX ../.. 1988 BMW M5 ../.. 1973 BMW 2002 ../..1969 Alfa Boattail Spyder ../.. 1961 Morris Mini Cooper ../..2002 Aprilia RSV Mille ../.. 1985 Moto Guzzi LMIII cafe ../.. 2005 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 Last edited by Overpaid Slacker; 07-08-2005 at 08:43 AM.. |
||
![]() |
|
Super Jenius
|
After an evening in Cincinnati (one of my new favorite towns -- and for which I have no non-incriminating photos...) we went on to Loretto, KY.
![]() ![]() The joint: ![]() Running 24/7/364 it will produce 75,000 barrels/year of sweet, sweet nectar of the gods. The shutters that will adorn my home: ![]() Your humble narrator and Bill Samuels, Jr. President of Maker's Mark: ![]() The history of bourbon is really written on about a square block's worth of real estate in Bradford, KY. The Samuels family lived right next door to the Beams (as in Jim Beam), across the streeet from the Willets and adjacent to two other whiskey dynastic families. Mr. Samuels literally burned the 4 generations old family recipe and took bourbon from the cowboy drink it was (corn base w/ rye flavor) and made a premium bourbon (corn base w/ winter wheat flavor). Bill tells a story of being in Jim Beam's kitchen as a child, playing Lincoln Logs on the floor w/ Mr. Beam himself as Jim converses with Bill's parents. Bill's grandmother walks in and Jim offers her a drink of his spirits. Bill's grandmother says "Hell no! That stuff will blow your god-damned ears off!!" More to come...
__________________
2003 SuperCharged Frontier ../.. 1979 930 ../.. 1989 BMW 325iX ../.. 1988 BMW M5 ../.. 1973 BMW 2002 ../..1969 Alfa Boattail Spyder ../.. 1961 Morris Mini Cooper ../..2002 Aprilia RSV Mille ../.. 1985 Moto Guzzi LMIII cafe ../.. 2005 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 |
||
![]() |
|
Registered
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Linn County, Oregon
Posts: 48,535
|
love it...keep 'em coming.
__________________
"Now, to put a water-cooled engine in the rear and to have a radiator in the front, that's not very intelligent." -Ferry Porsche (PANO, Oct. '73) (I, Paul D. have loved this quote since 1973. It will remain as long as I post here.) |
||
![]() |
|
Super Jenius
|
What was going to be "just" lunch w/ Bill turned into a 2 1/2 hour discussion of the history of KY -- into which the Samuels family is pretty tightly woven. His great aunts (I might have that wrong by a great or two) married brothers that were in the James gang. This is the pistol Frank James turned over to his great aunt Ora when the gang first surrendered:
![]() The reason for its surrender to Ora was in part b/c Bill's great uncle was Sheriff. The inset photo in the upper left is of Ora and Bill (as a child): ![]() Bill is one heck of a nice guy and a marketing genius. He'd been a physicist before getting into the family business, but decided, after putting one of his rocket engines through the Executive Office Building at Lockheed (I think) one afternoon that a career change might be in order. With that kind of a rap sheet his pop didn't want him around the stills and so set him to finding customers for the whisky. Next, on to ... well, you should be able to guess: ![]() Here's a more traditional view: ![]() I've gotta say that, yeah, it's "just" an arch. But it is majestic in a very powerful way. I'm glad I've seen it, but I didn't have time to take the ride up. I went and watched the Rockies have their way with the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. That's a place that needs tearing down. While their team was getting shellacked, some of the bizarrely-vacant-staring Cardinals devotees were trying to get the wave started. Yeah, it's 90 degrees/90 % humidity at 9 at night and you're trying to get a half-drunk crowd to do aerobics? While your team is being absolutely pasted...? Call me a cynical New Yorker but you're freaking nuts. On to Paddy O's after the game, ultimately winding up at Buca's (?) at which some Canadian Amazon started in with me about how much America sucked (where she had come to live and was studying...) I must have some kind of pheromone signature that attracts and incenses non-ego formed Canadians with inadequacy complexes. To break up the trip to Tulsa, we stopped here in Springfield, MO. : ![]() I coulda spent an entire day (and a boatload of ducats) in that place. Of all the goodies and devices to kill fuzzy creatures available, I bought socks b/c I'd forgotten to pack them. Other than the Arch and the Bass Pro Shop, I'm not sure why we need Missouri. More to come...
__________________
2003 SuperCharged Frontier ../.. 1979 930 ../.. 1989 BMW 325iX ../.. 1988 BMW M5 ../.. 1973 BMW 2002 ../..1969 Alfa Boattail Spyder ../.. 1961 Morris Mini Cooper ../..2002 Aprilia RSV Mille ../.. 1985 Moto Guzzi LMIII cafe ../.. 2005 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 Last edited by Overpaid Slacker; 07-08-2005 at 09:07 AM.. |
||
![]() |
|
Super Jenius
|
Tulsa was essentially vacant w/ everyone getting out of town for the holiday weekend, but I managed to find some distraction at 1974 and Arnie's Bar. Nice town, Tulsa. Good people. Well, the locals, anyway.
The long, looong haul from Tulsa through OK City and Amarillo Texas ended in one of the strangest, eeriest (word?) I've ever been. Figures that it's in New Mexico: ![]() This place evidently had been one hip, happening joint back when Route 66 was the major E-W thoroughfare through that part of the world. When I-40 was built, it took all the wind (and the traffic and the $) out of this berg. It looks like a Hollywood set for a modern ghost town: ![]() ![]() ![]() I've got a bunch of photos of this kind of thing, all on Main Street/Route 66 through town. And it's not like there's a higher, better use for this land that would incentivize someone to tear down these fossils and do something else with the properties. So they sit there and fade in the bright desert sun. We stayed at the Pow Wow, which has just enough kitsch and charm to survive and even flower in that harsh climate: ![]() ![]() Now, I'm not recommending that anybody make the Pow Wow a vacation destination, but if you're in that area of the world, it's got good food, a pretty good bar and comfy accommodations. Final chapter just ahead...
__________________
2003 SuperCharged Frontier ../.. 1979 930 ../.. 1989 BMW 325iX ../.. 1988 BMW M5 ../.. 1973 BMW 2002 ../..1969 Alfa Boattail Spyder ../.. 1961 Morris Mini Cooper ../..2002 Aprilia RSV Mille ../.. 1985 Moto Guzzi LMIII cafe ../.. 2005 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 |
||
![]() |
|
Super Jenius
|
I can't say that I was impressed with Albuquerque -- BUT I'm withholding final judgment. All we had time to see was "Old Town" which was a disappointing, thoroughly predictable, DisneyWorld-esque collection of shops and restaurants. I'd give the ol' Alb another chance in the future. I think they have some kind of dinosaur museum there, but Dave didn't want to stop by. My guess is b/c he doesn't like to see his old friends in that condition.
Spent the night in Gallup, which gave me a chance to see a high school buddy I hadn't seen in a decade: ![]() Pete is a town planner for Gallup, which is an excellent job for a Marxist. (hmmmm... Superman?) Most of the town is trailer homes from what I saw ... and Pete tells me that last month, in the entire city of Gallup, there were eight (8) houses for sale. Yikes. The City of Gallup also voted recently to adopt a quaint antique Blue Law -- the whole freaking city is dry on Sundays. This as part of an effort to curb Indian alcoholism. Well, needless to say it doesn't achieve its stated goal and it made my life damned inconvenient. Though, frankly, all I care about is the latter. On the bright side, I did get to see a whole lot of the surrounding area while we went on our booze scavenger hunt. It's pretty countryside and, given the choice, I'll take the high desert over the low desert every day of the week, at least every day from April through October. Pete is buddies with a fellow Pelican and publisher of 9 Magazine. Sorry we didn't have a chance to meet, but we highwaymen gotta keep rollin'. Now, the following pictures do no fraction of the justice the scenery deserves, for 2 reasons: I suck with a camera and the wildfires in Arizona had hazed up the air as far East as Amarillo (no shyt). So imagine these pictures if I'd photoshopped some of the vividness back into the color. I'm too damned lazy to do it as just posting these pix is going on a 2 hour marathon right now.... Some of the typical New Mexico mesa countryside: ![]() Yep, there's an exit for the Continental Divide... 7400 feet ASL: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() To answer your question -- yes, doing nothing but sitting in a car for 5 days, eating White Castle and McDonald's and POOF! you're a fat bastard: ![]() So from then on, I only posed in wide-angle stuff: ![]() And, yes, I asked a Ranger if it was OK for me to get out and just head off into the fields like that. He said yeah, but the NPS wasn't responsible for the actions of indigenous rattlesnakes, scorpions, etc. Better than that picture would've been a video of me crossing the terrain trying not to have a foot anywhere near the ground the whole time, arms up like I was some kind of scarecrow. ...
__________________
2003 SuperCharged Frontier ../.. 1979 930 ../.. 1989 BMW 325iX ../.. 1988 BMW M5 ../.. 1973 BMW 2002 ../..1969 Alfa Boattail Spyder ../.. 1961 Morris Mini Cooper ../..2002 Aprilia RSV Mille ../.. 1985 Moto Guzzi LMIII cafe ../.. 2005 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 Last edited by Overpaid Slacker; 07-08-2005 at 10:12 AM.. |
||
![]() |
|
![]() |
Super Jenius
|
![]() This area is called the "Tepees", or a "mini badlands". Well, I gotta tell you, of all the places in the world I've seen, the Badlands is the coolest. This is nowhere near what the Badlands is, but it could have been Slartibartfast's rough draft/sketchpad area. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() For the petroglyph fans out there (you know who you are...) First, Newspaper Rock: ![]() The glyph on the left is an equinox marker. At noon on the equinox, the light from the crack in the adjacent rock hits the squiggle dead center. Ooooooh... ![]() This is a freaking train that I didn't get all of in the photo -- the LIRR doesn't make 'em this long, though with a load full of drunk Rangers fans heading home after a game, they probably weigh about the same: ![]() EDIT -- Hmmmm, it looked good on my 22" monitor, but you can't really tell anything by this picture. Use your imagination... Too many pictures ... gotta add another post.
__________________
2003 SuperCharged Frontier ../.. 1979 930 ../.. 1989 BMW 325iX ../.. 1988 BMW M5 ../.. 1973 BMW 2002 ../..1969 Alfa Boattail Spyder ../.. 1961 Morris Mini Cooper ../..2002 Aprilia RSV Mille ../.. 1985 Moto Guzzi LMIII cafe ../.. 2005 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 Last edited by Overpaid Slacker; 07-08-2005 at 10:16 AM.. |
||
![]() |
|
Super Jenius
|
Remember the wildfires I was telling you about -- here's Dave's attempt at a shot of the aftermath (it's all about product placement, baby):
![]() Another: ![]() And finally, my cousin, the newly-minted West Point grad Lt. (whose car we were delivering) and her father Dave, sporting the memento of our trip I got him: ![]() It was 118 in Phoenix ... remember that high desert/low desert thing I mentioned. There you go. Well, I gotta go .. gotta get on the road for my 4 hour trip to Bell's cabin getaway. Do yourself a favor. Drive around our country ... at least once. This was my 2nd time and I'm already planning the 3rd. Just take better pictures than I do. Best, JP
__________________
2003 SuperCharged Frontier ../.. 1979 930 ../.. 1989 BMW 325iX ../.. 1988 BMW M5 ../.. 1973 BMW 2002 ../..1969 Alfa Boattail Spyder ../.. 1961 Morris Mini Cooper ../..2002 Aprilia RSV Mille ../.. 1985 Moto Guzzi LMIII cafe ../.. 2005 Kawasaki Brute Force 750 |
||
![]() |
|
Registered
|
I didn't know Lance Armstrong has a double cycling in Europe at this time
![]() great pics OPS. They definitely move me to get off my ass and do that x-country drive. Just have to get done w/ that oil cooling thing.... |
||
![]() |
|
Registered
|
JP are you coming up to Las Vegas?? let me (us) know
__________________
Jordi Riera '84 930 (modified) |
||
![]() |
|