What’s Happening?

My curious marmot advisor and Internet coach is as baffled as I am… He does have a better head of hair than I do though, and he’s kind of cute.  He looks to me like he’s saying “What?”  I’ve named this particular marmot “Herb”.  He just looks like a "Herb" to me, but I'm open to alternate monikers.  

We’ve only seen marmots in the wild twice during all of our travels.  I couldn’t resist just a little research.  Marmots are really large ground squirrels.  There are 15 different species living in Asia, Europe and North America.  The largest of them can weigh as much as 24 pounds in the fall before going into hibernation

In any case, my lack of computer savvy and photo related problem/program solving continues.  At the moment, I'm a lot like Herb...What?  Hopefully I’ll be back and active in the blogging “Universe” by this coming week.  So much blogging ‘material’ waiting to be ‘released’!

In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying posts that I regularly read.

Thanks for checking in to see if I’ve solved my problem…   

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

A Pause in Blogging…Lack of Computer Savvy…Help!

I’ll be taking a short break (hopefully) from posting anything new to my blog site.  Combine Google’s latest upgrade with my computer ineptitude and I’m no longer cruising along at ‘full steam ahead’, but rather I'm at a ‘dead stop’.  If I can’t edit/improve the photos I take, then I just don’t want to post them…

I’m hoping for help with my issues via our local computer club in the near future.  If it all works out as I hope, I won’t miss more than a couple of publication dates, normally twice a week. 

In the meantime, here is a blast from the past…I’m holding David III and Laurie is holding onto Emmett Lee… David III was about 5 years old and Emmett was a little past 2 years old.

By way of comparison, here are recent photos of David III and Emmett Lee with our son David II and their mom, Amy, while on vacation in Hawaii.  The ‘boys’, are now 22 and 19 respectively.  They are 6’ 4” and 6’ 5” tall… Time does fly!

Thanks for stopping by...

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Dinner at Bill and Bonnie’s Home plus a Familiar Local Breakfast

After our two day backroads roundabout route from our home in East Tennessee, to St. Louis Missouri and a visit with Laurie’s family, we finally made it.  It was an interesting and mostly stress free, traffic wise.  Still, we were looking forward to staying in one place for a few days while we enjoyed some family time. 

Of course, this part of our trip started with food!

Bonnie and Bill always serve nice upscale meals…something that we look forward to!  In this case Bill had prepared a nice Caprese salad for each of us.  It’s hard to beat heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil leaves with a nice balsamic glaze… 

Bonnie knows that I can’t eat greens due to one of my medications.  So she roasted some colorful and tasty carrots as our hot vegetable for dinner.  They were excellent…and I went for a third helping too.

The entrée was simple but luscious.  The garlic butter shrimp scampi with pasta hit all the high notes for us!  I had two large helpings and it was so good that I was tempted to go for a third, but common sense took over.

This was Laurie’s plate.  She is so much neater and her plate is almost always more photogenic than mine tends to be… Another welcome side to our meal was a nice crusty loaf of fresh bakery bread with some quality butter.

So…next we have more food!

Ah, memories!  Laurie and I moved from the St. Louis area to Chicago over 40 years ago.  But when Bill and Bonnie took us to “The Original Pancake House in St. Louis, it was like old home week.  This always was one of our favorite breakfast spots when we lived in the area. 

After we moved to Chicago, we enjoyed dining at a couple different “Walker Brothers Pancake House” locations.  We’ve been living in East Tennessee for 14 years now…  Sadly “The Original Pancake House” or it’s more upscale “Walker Brothers Pancake House” franchises are not anywhere to be found in our area.  I was hopeful when I checked Tennessee and Nebraska (our son’s family home) for either of these restaurants… No luck!

Bonnie isn’t a big breakfast person…so she was happy to learn that she could order from the Kid’s menu.  She went with the “Simply Perfect Breakfast”. ($9.25) It features a scrambled egg, a slice of bacon and either French toast or pancakes and Bonnie opted for the latter…  For her, it was a ‘right size’ breakfast.

Bill does like a full breakfast.  In his case he ordered the “Sausage Lovers Breakfast”. ($17.75) It included 3 over-easy eggs, 2 sausage patties, 2 sausage links and hash brown potatoes.  Oh yes, it also comes with 3 buttermilk pancakes.  It certainly was a filling morning ‘starter’.

Despite being a fully committed carnivore, I decided to stray from my usual egg and meat breakfast.  I ordered a stack of “Blueberry Pancakes”. ($11.25) These blueberry filled buttermilk pancakes are dusted with powdered sugar and are served with a homemade blueberry compote.  I decided that the compote would be just too rich for my taste, so I skipped it and went for lots of butter and maple syrup.  I rarely have pancakes, so these were a treat. 

Laure decided to order one of her favorite breakfasts…the “Eggs Benedict”. ($15.95) The 2 basted eggs were placed on top of a slice of Canadian bacon and a toasted Wolferman’s muffin.  Then it was covered with Hollandaise sauce and plated with a large order of hash brown potatoes.  I did have to help her with a bit of one of those muffin halves…

The Original Pancake House was founded in Portland Oregon in 1953 and today it has more than 150 locations in 28 states in the USA, as well as locations in Canada, Japan and Korea.

The Original Pancake House continues to be a solid if not spectacular breakfast venue.  If we were on the road and one was available, we would stop by for breakfast.  It may not be fair comparing breakfast prices in a large metropolitan area like St. Louis with the prices for comparable breakfasts in East Tennessee, but I thought that the meal pricing was a bit high.  FYI, coffee was $3.75 and a medium orange juice was $4.75.

To locate an Original Pancake House or Walker Brothers Pancake House near you, just go to The Original Pancake House Home Page.  If you have a really big appetite, try their famous baked Apple Pancake.  It is big and it is rich…but very tasty indeed.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

Eating at Home – Mostly

…continuing with my break from chronicling our adventures from our St. Louis trip in June, I decided that I should ‘catch up’ on some of the food choices I’ve (sometimes we’ve) made in the last month or two.

In general, but not always, simple is better and minimal clean-up is a key factor for many of our meals.  This is not an essay about creative cooking…

Over the years, I had grown a bit tired of Spam…probably because of my age and the fact that most Spam is so salty.  I’d never tried Low Sodium Spam but recently I perused the Spam display at our local Food Lion grocery store.  I was stunned to note the variety of Spam products on display.  At first I was drawn to the Low Sodium variety, but then I spotted “Spam Lite”.  It has 33% fewer calories, 50% less fat and 25% less sodium, so I bought it!

Of course I had to have a Spam and eggs breakfast, just like they do in Hawaii… I paired 3 slices of fried Spam with leftover mashed potatoes that I liberally coated with shredded sharp cheddar cheese.  Then of course I added 2 easy over eggs and toast.  It was an excellent breakfast.

Spam Lite did not have that ‘heavy’ Spam flavor that could overwhelm the eggs and potatoes and yet I could enjoy the ‘porky’ flavor of the meat.  FYI, a couple of the varieties of Spam that are available is “Spam Maple” and “Spam Hickory Smoked”.  I admit I almost gagged when I spotted the “Spam Flavored Macadamia Nuts”.  To review the entire Spam line up, go to The Spam Shop at Varieties - All Products (spam.com).

We do like Barbeque, although technically, what I’ve always created on the grill is grilled ribs, pork steaks, etc., as I don’t smoke any meats.  In any case, our grill has been down for the year due to squirrels eating their way through our propane hose for the 3^rd or 4^th time.  Our grill is connected to our underground propane tank…and a 6’ to 8’ flexible metal hose is the answer…if I could find one.

So, without the grill our Barbeque options are limited.  In this case we bought some ‘country pork ribs’…called ribs despite there being no ribs involved… Laurie seasoned them with a BBQ rub and we cooked them low and slow adding BBQ sauce a little later in the process.  It made for a nice ‘BBQ meal’, sided with yellow squash and a little bread.  Laurie added pickled beets to her plate.  Nevertheless, we both miss the char that we would have if the grill was operational.

As the title of this post said, “Eating at Home – Mostly”.  These 2 photos are the exception to our dining at home.  But they are included for a reason.  We had planned to eat elsewhere in the area but that restaurant was closed.  We ended up at Aubrey’s Restaurant in Lenoir City Tennessee, a favorite of ours and a very reliable dining destination.

Laurie’s Asian Chicken Salad, ($15.00), was made up with grilled chicken, fresh greens, roasted peanuts, mandarin oranges, crispy wontons and sesame seeds in a Thai vinaigrette.  Her salad was huge and she ended up taking about half of it home for dinner the following night. 

My Fish and Chips entree ($18.00) was huge too.  It consisted of panko crusted Pollock over thick cut potato ‘chips’ with lemon caper sauce.  My meal also came with a nice large cup of Tomato Bisque. (No photo) By today’s standards, it seemed like I got a lot for my money.  Both the fish and those thick potato slices were excellent.  In any case, I took a couple of those Pollock filets and some of those potatoes home with me.

To view the menu from Aubrey’s Restaurant in Lenoir City, go to Aubrey’s Lenoir City (aubreysrestaurants.com).

Of course, bringing those fish filets and fried and seasoned potatoes home from Aubrey’s, just had to result in a breakfast treat.  I reheated both the potatoes and fish in a frying pan with a little butter, mixed up some cocktail sauce using my horseradish and Heinz Tabasco Ketchup, and I was ready to feast!

This is an example of either ‘too much of a good thing’ or the combination just doesn’t have a future.  We had some leftover Macaroni and Cheese.  I heated it in a frying pan with a little butter, adding more shredded cheese and hoping for a bit of fried cheese around the edges.  Then I dropped a couple of over easy eggs on top.  The result was underwhelming.  The eggs were lost in the cheesy pasta and hot dog flavors.  Not to be repeated…

When visiting Costco recently, we browsed the coolers and shelving, looking for simple shortcut ‘no effort’ meals that we could use whenever the impulse overtook us. 

We noted this package containing “12 Petite Belgian Waffles” from Le Chic Patissier”.  We do like waffles and it can be a drag pulling out the waffle maker and cleaning up afterwards so we decided to give these a try.  They are individually packaged and aren’t refrigerated.

We heated a couple of them up in the microwave for each of us.  Then we added butter and maple syrup.  Sensory overload!  These little waffles are quite sweet and sugary and adding maple syrup was too much for our taste buds.  Laurie didn’t like them at all.  Since our initial try, I have eaten one of these sugary creations right out of the package… an OK sweet snack.  Another time I buttered a couple of them and then layered on the cinnamon.  Better if not great.  This product is not our favorite. 

Le Chic Patissier does offer other items in addition to these mini waffles.  They include macarons, Stroopwafels (a Dutch cookie) and 2 different varieties of brioche bread.  Learn more at Le Chic Pâtissier - High Quality Baked Goods (lechicpatissier.com).  

Our next Costco “temptation”, or at least my temptation, was this bag of pre-packaged mini-pancakes made in France from “Le Marie Patissier”.  Laurie doesn’t like pancakes but I do.  None of the frozen varieties I’ve tried were close to real/fresh pancakes so I ‘had to’ buy this package which contains 25 packets, each with 2 little pancakes.

To prepare them, all I have to do is remove them from their little packets, apply butter, and then nuke them in the microwave for 30 seconds.  Then apply maple syrup as desired.  I had 6 mini-pancakes/3 packets.  They were pretty darn good too!  I will buy this product again…

Le Marie Patissier is a commercial bakery located near Paris France.  They have been in business since 1933.  In addition to the plain pancakes, they offer strawberry or chocolate filled versions.  Other items include Rum Babas and a variety of cakes (shaped like pound cakes) that include a wide variety of fruit options.  Website: Lemarié Patissier | Un site utilisant WordPress (lemariepatissier.com).

My final easy meal style food, at least in this edition of my blog site, is this package of 15 Chicken Melts from Sandwich Brothers.  Once again, this was a Costco purchase.  As you can read on the box, these small pita ‘sandwiches’ consist of a ‘white meat chicken patty with American cheese”.  They are fully cooked and they are reheated in the microwave.

To be honest, we had low expectations.  The terms ‘white meat chicken patty’ and ‘American cheese’ do not usually denote much flavor…and the combination is usually pretty bland.  But, as you can see from the pair of Chicken Melts on my plate, Sandwich Brothers did add seasoning.  We actually thought that these chicken and cheese pita creations were pretty tasty!  We both liked them and we will buy them again. 

Sandwich Brothers is a Wisconsin based division of ConAgra.  ConAgra bought the company from the original owners in 2018.  The company produces 4 different breakfast sandwiches in addition to 5 different ‘melts’.  Of particular interest to us is the “Spicy Chicken” version of the standard Chicken Melts that we’d enjoyed.  To learn more about these products, go to Sandwich Bros.| Really…Really Tasty Sandwiches. 

That’s all for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Local Happenings and Updates

…taking a break from our early June road trip to St. Louis Missouri via Owensboro Kentucky.  Taking it easy on this post, just covering happenings in the neighborhood.

When we left for our backroads adventure, this is what the new house across the street from us looked like…a long way to go!

This photo was taken of the same house on the evening we returned from our road trip…10 possible work days after the first photo.

Laurie took this photo of the house 6 days after the previous photo.  Once the framing is up and the trusses are installed, basic construction seems to move at lightning speed!

We’ve met the both the builder and the owner of the property who’s having the house built.  This is an investment for the property owner and he’s planning to sell it early this fall.  Our new neighbors will be a mystery until that happens…

As for the builder, we had a knock on our door one day recently and it was the builder/contractor.  He told us that he’d backed into our mail box and he wanted to let us know that he’d have it properly repaired asap.  In the meantime, he’d made it usable.

Repairs were completed as promised!  It’s been hard to find anyone willing to do smaller jobs in this housing market, but Laurie took matters into her own hands and walked over to the building site and asked if anyone working was an electrician.  It turned out that the builder’s brother was an electrician and he’s already fixed one of our electrical issues for us.  He also provided us with another fellow who is going to do some minor structural work for us. 

Conclusion: There are some tangible advantages to having a home built across the street!  It’s not all bad…

Very recently we headed up US Hwy 411 to visit a nearby nursery and landscaping company.  Just north of Vonore at the intersection with TN Hwy 72, we came across this serious looking accident.  Anytime a motorcycle is involved, it can easily be deadly…although it didn’t appear to be the case in this incident.  As you can see, that old pickup truck took quite a hit and that black car in the first picture looks like it was totaled!  In the last photo, the gentleman sitting on the guard rail doesn't look too happy...

It’s been a long time since either of us has been in an accident but this is a cautionary tale…especially given our penchant for road trips.

After working our way past the accident, we arrived at our destination, the Tellico Landscape and Garden Center at 7300 US Hwy 411 in Greenback Tennessee.  A couple of our boxwoods had ‘bitten the dust/croaked’ with the severe freeze/cold weather sequence that took place here in December.  The boxwoods lasted for almost 14 years… In any case, we ordered our replacement bushes, installation still to be determined. 

While I didn’t take any photos of the nursery, I did take a photo of the owner’s handsome dog.  This is a Shiba Inu, a breed not seen too often in the USA.  While there are 600,000 Shiba Inu in the world today, these dogs almost became extinct during World War II due to a combination of a post-war distemper epidemic and food shortages.  The Shiba Inu was declared to be a National Treasure in Japan back in 1936.  Here in the USA, it is ranked as the 42^nd most popular breed.

To find out more about the Tellico Landscape and Garden Center, to go Tellico Landscape and Garden Center | Greenback TN | Facebook.

Although construction has slowed down a bit, homes are still going up all around us.  It appears that as long as a patch of woodland is close by, the flocks of turkey haven’t abandoned the neighborhood.  This group of Toms or Gobblers appeared to include both mature birds and a number of ‘young fellows’.  They worked their way across the road in front of us and then partook of whatever they could find in that relatively new lawn.

More wildlife!  Laurie was out in the backyard when she spotted this little fellow.  He/she is a box turtle.  Box turtles are characterized by having a shell that’s shaped like a dome.  It’s hinged at the bottom, which allows the animal to close its shell tightly to escape predators.  These turtles commonly live over 20 years with some verified cases when their lifespan exceeded 40 years.  They rarely exceed 6 inches in length.

Box turtles are omnivorous, eating such things as snails, insects, berries, fungi, slugs, worms, flowers, fish, frogs, salamanders, rodents, snakes, birds and eggs.  Apparently, this particular box turtle also liked the red grapes that Laurie provided for a snack.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

The Last Bit of Backroads Before Arriving in St. Louis Missouri

…as we moved through Illinois on two lane roads and highways, following IL Hwy 34 north from Elizabethtown, I realized that it was time for lunch.  Harrisburg Illinois turned out to be our final lengthy stop before we made it to our final destination in the St. Louis area.     

As we drove through Harrisburg, we spotted Morello’s Restaurant.  It was really busy, and even finding a parking place was a challenge.  Morello’s was opened in December of 2005.  The main dining room will seat 110, a side room will seat another 20, the bar area can handle 55 more customers, there is a banquet area that will seat up to 300 people…and there is a heated and covered patio as well.

Harrisburg was founded in 1853.  It was built on a 60-foot high sandstone bluff overlooking the Saline River valley.  The bluff was referred to as “Crusoe’s Island”.  The valley around the town tends to flood when the Ohio River floods and backs up the Saline River. 

Between 1900 and 1937, the city was one of America’s bituminous coal-mining distribution hubs.  Initially, the area boomed when the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad came to town.  Surface mining around the city produced a landscape, (roughly 172 sq. miles), that is named the Harrisburg Coal Field.  It completely incased Harrisburg.  Near the mines were ‘gob piles’ that spontaneously combusted.  The horizon around town flickered for years with the burning coal residue.  By 1930, the city’s population was 15,659 but today, it has only 8,219 residents.

As previously noted, the interior of Morello’s is expansive, although my photos really don’t capture the expanse of the dining areas.  We did think that the dining area was too dark and it would benefit from more light.  Updates in the décor would also kick the restaurant up a notch or two.

We were pleased when our waitress brought us this warm and cheesy loaf of bread.  It was a great start!

Then things went downhill.  Our server disappeared when we told her that we needed to look over the menus…and it took her 10 – 15 minutes to return.  Other customers were finishing up and leaving so that may have been part of the problem.

When our server returned, we placed our orders…and then the true ordeal began.  We waited…and waited…and waited.  Perhaps the kitchen staff took a break after the lunch rush, our waitress forgot to turn in our order, or the kitchen messed up the order.  It took about 40 minutes to get our food…

Laurie stepped out of her normal comfort zone and ordered the Salmon Patties with Grilled Asparagus. ($11.50) It was plenty of food for Laurie, especially after that cheesy bread, but those patties seemed pretty small.  She reported that they tasted fine though… Plating those patties with packets of tartar sauce on plate certainly wasn’t the best visual…

This item doesn’t appear on Morello’s on-line menu so it must have been a lunch special.

I ordered Morello’s Spicy Italian Beef Sandwich. ($9.99) It is described as ‘tender beef, slow cooked in a secret combination of herbs and spices, then served on a Hoagie bun and topped with Pepperoncini.  I opted to have it topped with mozzarella cheese.  It came with potato chips and a seasoned au jus for dipping. 

Once again, the presentation certainly was lacking something.  However, the sandwich itself was pretty tasty and satisfying.  There was plenty of beef, enough to satisfy the carnivore that I am.

After we finished…once again our waitress was nowhere to be seen.  Waiting for our bill for an extending time waiting for our food was just one more disappointing experience, one that would force me to alter our back roads route in order to arrive at our destination as needed.

Morello’s menu is extensive and offers everything from Italian food, to burgers and steaks.  Obviously, we just sampled a tiny portion of the menu and our experience is probably not the norm for most diners.  Check it out for yourself if you ever find yourself in Harrisburg Illinois.  Website: Morello's Restaurant & Catering (morellosonline.com).

Time was now an issue so I skipped along, bypassing various historic landmarks or places.  However, skipping another old railroad depot is not something I’d do lightly. 

The Illinois Central Railroad began service to Carbondale Illinois on July 4, 1854 with a wooden passenger depot.  This ‘new’ depot was built by the railroad in 1903.  Just prior to this, in 1898, they’d built a roundhouse for locomotive repairs and servicing, a water tank, office buildings, a bandstand and a park.  At its peak, this depot serviced 33 passenger trains every day and the roundhouse had 18 ‘stalls’ where locomotives could be serviced.  The depot served passengers until 1981 when a new (and ugly) depot was built.  Currently, this old depot houses the offices of “Carbondale Main Street” and the Chamber of Commerce as well as a Museum.  See Station Carbondale.

The diesel locomotive on display next to the historic depot is an Illinois Central GP11.  Fifty-four of them were built between 1978 and 1981 and this one was completed in 1979.

Construction is planned for a new and improved depot that will serve Carbondale.  Two Amtrak routes from Chicago terminate at Carbondale, and both of them operate daily.  A third Amtrak route, “The City of New Orleans” also stops at Carbondale every day… The current active depot served almost 41,000 passengers in 2021.  A lot of the traffic along the route to Chicago is provided by students and visitors for Southern Illinois University as well as from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Ubana.

It seems like a century ago when Laurie and I last laid our eyes on the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds in Du Quoin Illinois.  The fairgrounds, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, are located just north of town along US Hwy 51.  These fairgrounds opened in 1923 under the leadership of a horse breeder.  He created the Du Quoin State Fair as a parallel event to the Illinois State Fair.  The latter had banned gambling on horse races. 

This fair traditionally began immediately after the Illinois State Fair so as not to compete for visitors.  The organizers promoted this private sector enterprise as short duration series of harness racing.  Eventually, the track was a mile long.  It hosted the Hambletonian trotting event from 1957 – 1980 and the World Trotting Derby from 1981 – 2009.  Today the racetrack is used for motor sport events.

To learn more about this September’s Du Quoin State Fair’s events, just go to duquoin illinois state fair schedule - Search (bing.com).

This old theatre in Du Quoin Illinois isn’t listed on the National Register for Historic Places, but the façade itself deserves a listing. (Sorry for the fuzzy photo)  The Grand Theater opened in 1914 with 900 seats.  It is one of the last small-town Art Deco style movie palaces remaining in the state of Illinois.  The interior has been modified many times.  A second screen was added in the former balcony.  By 2008, it was advertised as having ‘3’ screens.  The Grand Theatre finally closed in January of 2016. 

The current owner plans to keep it going for as long as possible but it needs a lot of work.  As he has said, the interior is hidden under a couple of layers of “improvement and renovation”.  Many of its most eye-catching assets are covered by a drop ceiling and several layers of paint.  The marquee is still an attention getter but it needs major restoration.  The Art Deco style concession area is still in good shape.  There is hope that this old theater can be restored.  If you would like to learn more, just go to Grand Theatre - Du Quoin (grand-duquoin.com).

From Du Quoin, we continued north on US Hwy 51, turning west on IL Hwy 154 toward my next photo opportunity.

If this look like a nice old home, it is…sort of.  This is the front of the old Perry County Illinois Jail in Pinckneyville Illinois.  It was built in 1871 and it cost $14,150 to build.  It looks like a home because the front section was the sheriff’s residence.  This allowed him to oversee the jail at all times. (I should have taken as side view photo as well)

Perry County used this jail for 116 years, until 1987, when it was replaced by a new facility.  After that, the building housed county offices until 1993.  After that, the Perry County Historical Society leased the building to serve as the Perry County Jail Museum.  To learn more about this museum, go to Perry County Jail Museum | Pinckneyville IL | Facebook.

Pinckneyville is the county seat for Perry County.  The city was named after Charles Pinckney, a Founding Father and signer of the US Constitution.  Pinckneyville became a “Sundown Town” ca. 1928.  That was based on the premise or story that a black man had raped a white woman.  Allegedly, the white city fathers loaded the town’s black population on a bus, driving them out of town and dropping them off in East St. Louis Illinois. 

After the suspect was hung, the town remained a sunset town, with signs posted at the city limits stating “No Coloreds After Dark”.  There was a town ‘hanging tree’ and at least 3 African Americans were hung in the city.  The ‘sundown signs’ weren’t removed until the late 1960s or early 1970s.  Today Pinckneyville has a population of about 5,100, of which about 25% are black.

From Pinckneyville, we continued due north up IL Hwy 127.  Our last stop before timing forced me to get on the Interstate was in the city of Nashville Illinois.  This small town with a population of about 3,100 is the county seat for Washington County Illinois. (Population 13,761)

The old Louisville and Nashville Railway Depot is located at 101 East Railroad Street.  This station was built in 1885 as a part of the railroad’s expansion throughout southern Illinois in the 1880s.  The design is simple or functional, rather than elaborate.  Not only did the station handle a lot of freight in its boom days, but it also served as an information center for the town.  The telegraph station was located here and the daily newspapers from St. Louis arrived by train.

At the peak of service, 7 daily passenger trains stopped at this little depot.  In addition, students from other parts of the county used the trains to attend Nashville’s high school.  The depot remained in service as late as the 1950s and all passenger service on the Louisville and Nashville Railway was discontinued in 1971.  The depot was renovated in 2015 and it is very well maintained.  From what I could tell…the Washington County Historical Society occupied the building after it was renovated.

That’s all for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Across the Waters into Southern Illinois

From Marion Kentucky, we turned north on KY Hwy 91 and headed for the Ohio River.  I love to take ferry boats and there are fewer and fewer in operation as the years pass. 

The longest ferry boat ride that we ever took was from Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, British Columbia along the coast to Prince Rupert, British Columbia.  We’ve also taken a couple of the big ferry boat in Puget Sound as well as one that crossed Sidney Harbor in Australia.  Of course, we’ve taken others where the river was so narrow, it only took a couple of minutes to cross…

KY Hwy 91 dead ends at the Ohio River.  As you can see from the photos, the river is a big and busy commercial highway.  Despite the fact that those big boats push…and don’t pull their loads up and down the river, in the USA they generally referred to as towboats.  Other names sometimes used…more appropriately…are pusher, pusher boat or pusher tugs.  These ‘towboats’ are characterized by having a square bow, a relatively shallow draft and typically they have ‘knees’, which are large plates mounted to their bows for pushing barges of various heights.

The Ohio River runs for a total of 981 miles from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania to Cairo Illinois, where it joins the Mississippi River.  The Ohio River is part of the Mississippi River System which includes the Missouri River, Illinois River, Arkansas River, Tennessee River and others.  In all, the United States has more than 25,000 miles of inland navigable waterways…

The Cave-In-Rock Ferry is one of 4 passenger ferry services that cross the Ohio River into the State of Kentucky.  In these views, we are looking across the river to the ferry landing in the town of Cave-In-Rock Illinois.

The ferry can hold up to about 12 vehicles per trip and it takes from 20 to 30 minutes for a round trip.  About 500 vehicles use this ferry each day.  This is a free ferry operated by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and the Illinois Department of Transportation.  It operates 7 days a week from 6 AM until 9:50 PM Central Time.  Note: Ferry service was suspended for a time this spring due to flooding along the river.

The ‘MV Loni Jo’ was built in Paducah Kentucky back in 1966.  She was originally named the ‘Candy H’ but in June of 1979, she was renamed the ‘Ida L’.  In 1994, she was renamed again, this time as the ‘Loni Jo’.  She is about 45 feet long and she’s powered by a 250 HP Cummins Diesel Engine.  She is a roll on – roll off ferry but the ‘Loni Jo’ swivels alongside the attached vehicle ‘barge’ to change directions for each trip.

I don’t think that it is a coincidence that the ‘Loni Jo’ is owned by Lonnie Lewis.  To learn more and to plan for this relaxing way to cross the Ohio River, go to Cave-In-Rock Ferry | Cave-in-Rock IL | Facebook.

I captured this photo of the ‘MV John Wepfer’, a large 82 foot long ‘pusher’ or towboat passing downstream across the Loni Jo’s route across the river.  With one new base of operations at Metropolis Illinois, the ‘John Wepfer’ most commonly calls at that city plus Paducah and Cairo but sometimes also gets to St. Louis on the Mississippi River.  Look how long her 'tow' is.  We had to wait until she passed...

Multiple barges lashed together or a towboat/pusher with barges lashed to it, is referred to as a ‘tow’.  These tows can included dozens of barges.  A large ‘tow’ or group of barges, not including the towboat, can easily be over 1,200 feet long and 200 feet wide.  The largest operating towboat is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers.  She is the ‘MV Mississippi’ and she is 241 feet long and is powered by 3 caterpillar diesel engines developing 6,276 horsepower…

Each year, more than 184 million tons of cargo move along the Ohio River along the borders of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  The top 3 cargo types are coal, crude materials such as gravel, petroleum and grain.  In 2020, 2.4 million tons of grain passed through one of the lock on the Ohio River.  In total, America’s inland waterways move over 630 million tons of cargo every year.  This represents about 17% of all intercity freight and its value is about $73 Billion!

The town or village of Cave-in-Rock Illinois (population 228) was named after this nearby cave.  This 55-foot wide cave along the Ohio River was formed by wind and water erosion and enhanced by the effects of the 1811 – 1812 New Madrid earthquakes.

I 'borrowed' this photo from the Internet... As early as the 1790s, the cave became a refuge or stronghold for outlaws.  The assortment of outlaws included river pirates, highwaymen, serial killers, a series of counterfeiters and even post-Civil War bandits.  Samuel Mason was one of the worst of them.  He created a combination tavern, gambling den, brothel and a refuge for other criminals.  His men would lure in gullible river travelers, rob them and then kill them… In the Walt Disney movie, “Davy Crockett and the River Pirates”, Davy Crockett and his companion fight Sam Mason and his pirates.

To learn more about Cave-In-Rock Illinois and the history of its infamous cave, as well as the names of many of the miscreants who operated in the area, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave-In-Rock,_Illinois.  The cave and the area around it are now part of the Cave-in-Rock State Park.  To learn more about this park and what it offers, just go to Cave-in-Rock State Park (illinois.gov).

Once we arrived in Illinois, we followed a very quiet IL Hwy 146 west to the little town of Elizabethtown.  This little village is the county seat for Hardin County Illinois.  With only 220 residents, Elizabethtown is also the least populated county seat in the entire State of Illinois.  Of course, having a population of 3,649, the county itself isn’t too crowded either. (20 people per square mile)

The Historic Rose Hotel in Elizabethtown sits on top of a beautiful bluff overlooking the Ohio River.  It is one of the oldest structures in the entire state of Illinois.  The earliest portion of the hotel was built in 1812, with the east addition being added in 1848.  Originally it operated as a tavern and boardinghouse.  In 1891, Sarah Rose Baker, a widow who had worked at the hotel for 7 years, purchased the hotel from the previous owner. 

The hotel remained in the family in the family until the State of Illinois purchased the property in 1988.  A major restoration project was completed in 2000 and the hotel once again opened for business.  It is owned by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and it is leased to an innkeeper who operates the hotel as a bed and breakfast.  The exterior has been restored to its 1889 appearance.  It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  To learn more about the Rose Hotel and to book a room here, just go to Hotel | The Historic Rose Hotel | Elizabethtown.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave