An Early Dinner – The Best Kind of Dining Experience!

Anyone who follows my restaurant commentaries is well aware that we generally dine at local establishments or at small regional chains.  Waffle House is certainly an exception as we usually grab a bite to eat at one of these iconic restaurants when we’re on a lengthy road trip.

On this occasion we had a great reason to dine at another restaurant chain, one that has 659 locations in 45 states.  Its almost omnipresent along the Interstate Highway System across the USA.

Yes, I’m talking about Cracker Barrel…Laurie’s older sister Glenda’s favorite roadside restaurant and rest stop!  Every Cracker Barrel features a big front porch lined with wooden rocking chairs…

The country or general store theme hits you as you enter any Cracker Barrel location.  This retail element sells snack items, basic toys representative of earlier days, toy vehicles, puzzles, woodcraft, cookbooks, novelty kitchen décor, CDs and DVDs, clothing and much, much more. 

In the 6 months ending on 2/1/19, retail sales were over $316,000,000 or 21% of total revenue.  I suspect that given relatively tight restaurant profit margins, retail sales must be a major contributor to the company’s bottom line.

The dining rooms at Cracker Barrel are large and roomy.  The theme is based on a traditional Southern general store.  Items use to decorate the space are authentic everyday objects and typically include items related to the local area.   Old tools, wall calendars, advertising posters, old photos and a plethora of other decorative items are centrally stored in a Tennessee warehouse where they are cataloged and retained for future use.  Cracker Barrel is headquartered in Lebanon Tennessee…

Service at Cracker Barrel is almost always pleasant with employees and management striving to please their customers.  In this case our waitress repeatedly served up their quality coffee and gave us this basket of biscuits and corn bread…readily providing jelly when requested even though we didn’t order breakfast.  She brought my Tabasco too!

We both had the same meals…the 10 oz. Rib Eye Steak dinner. ($15.69) As per the menu, their thick-cut USDA Choice rib eye is aged 28 days for exceptional tenderness and flavor, then lightly seasoned and grilled to order.  We could either order 3 country sides or a house salad and baked potato as accompaniments… We went for the 3 country sides.

I just took a photo of my meal as we basically ordered the same thing.  Sorry about the ketchup on the hash browns.  I added it before I remembered to take the photo…

The sides…seasoned green beans, hash browns, steamed seasoned broccoli and fresh seasonal fruit were all quite tasty.  The steaks had decent flavor but they weren’t very tender nor were they very thick.  They were cooked medium rare as requested.  Based on the price, I’d rate them as average.   

So what made this dinner the best type of restaurant meal?   We didn’t have to pay for it!  My nephew Nathan and his wife Janice sent us this Cracker Barrel gift card for our fortieth wedding anniversary.  Thanks to ya’ll!  ...and we have $10.37 left for our next visit!

Note: In 2017 Cracker Barrel Restaurants employed 73,000 people and had revenues totaling $2,926,000,000!  I think that the company has found its niche in America’s dining pantheon…

This particular Cracker Barrel Restaurant is located near the intersection of US 321 and I-75 at 325 Ft. Loudoun Medical Center Drive in Lenoir City Tennessee.  Phone: 865-988-5677.  The company’s website is at https://crackerbarrel.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Old Postcards – A Variety For Sure!

Included among my collection of old postcards are a small number of specialty or novelty cards. 

Cards with messages have been created and mailed since postal services began.  However, the earliest known picture postcard was created in England in 1840, with its author mailing it to himself.  It was probably a practical joke on the postal service as the image on the card is a caricature of postal workers.

Note: This earliest ‘picture’ postcard as described above, complete with a ’penny black’ stamp, was sold in 2002 for 31,750 BP, or approximately $48,000 US.

This postcard showing a loving couple at the beach certainly reflects the times when it was printed.  Both subjects are modestly clothed and the male is even wearing a suit!  The woman’s eyes appear focused elsewhere… The card was mailed from Keokuk Iowa to Kahoka Missouri on 12/3/1912.

The first American postcard was developed in 1873 by the Morgan Envelope Factory in Springfield Massachusetts.  They depicted the Interstate Industrial Exposition that was held in Chicago that year.  

This is one of my earliest postcards.  It was mailed from Philadelphia Pennsylvania on 7/24/1903.  Love the fashionable beachwear, don’t you?

In late 1873, the US Postal Service introduced the first pre-stamped “Postal Cards”.  Postcards were developed because people were looking for an easy way to send quick notes…

I generally avoid buying postcards that weren’t mailed and which lack a postage stamp and postmark.  This undated card must have been included in an envelope as on the reverse it states “Velma from Glen” and “He says this is an ‘auto-bile’.  Humor and/or a critique?

The first US postcard that was printed as a souvenir was created in 1893 to advertise the World’s Columbian Exposition that was held in Chicago Illinois.  

Many collectors specialize in greeting card style postcards.  Cards for birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, illness and other important life events were printed.  Most of them were very colorful…many of them were a bit ‘over-the-top’ from a decorative viewpoint.  This postcard was mailed from Ottawa Kansas on 9/19/1910.  It was a birthday greeting from a sister to her brother.

Note: Initially only the US Post Office was allowed to print postcards.  It maintained its monopoly until 5/19/1898, when Congress passed the ‘Private Mailing Card Act’.  This legislation allowed private publishers and printers to produce postcards.

Postcard ‘humor’ was a popular theme… This hapless Romeo smooching with his love, got dunked in the water barrel, no doubt cooling his ardor… The postcard was mailed on 5/26/1907 from Kansas City Missouri to a single gal in Hot Springs Virginia.

Note: Even after the Post Office and Congress allowed private companies to print postcards, at first they were prohibited from using the term, so they were known as ‘souvenir cards’.  Officially they were labeled “Private Mailing Cards”.  This prohibition was rescinded on Christmas Eve 1901…

Here’s another example of early twentieth century humor.  It was sent from and to Jersey Shore Pennsylvania on 5/17/1907.  Although women used postcards more than men, this card was sent to a man and all evidence suggests that it was sent by another man.  The ‘proof’…no written message!

Note: Initially postcards could not have a divided or split back.  Any message had to be written on the front. (As illustrated on my ‘bathing beauty’ postcard) This was the ‘undivided back’ era of postcards.  After 3/1/1907, private citizens could write on the address side, hence the ‘divided back postcards that we have today.

This early postcard is another one that was never actually mailed.  Since it has a ‘divided’ back, we do know that it was printed sometime after March 1907.  I acquired it for 2 reasons.  First, the images are raised or embossed.  Secondly, the play on words/humor is so bad, I couldn’t resist it!

Note: The official term for postcard collecting is ‘deltiology’.  This hobby is thought to be one of 3 largest collectable hobbies in the world after numismatics (coin collecting) and philately (stamp collecting). 

You can tell that this postcard was prior to March of 1907 in the ‘undivided era’ of postcards.  This humorous card includes the line “Drop a Nickel Please”.  The card was mailed from one local post office to another in Monticello Iowa on 11/14/1906.  I can think of a number of other punch lines that could have been for this scene!

While these ‘varietal’ postcards are interesting and fun to collect, I still prefer those depicting city or 'townscapes', historical sites, early transportation, old buildings and other scenes which depict life and circumstance in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  They provide a pictorial record of life as it was at the time.

Just click on any of the picture to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Little Italy of Tellico LLC

Little Italy of Tellico recently opened in Loudon Tennessee.  It was previously called Classico Italian Restaurant and it was located at a different address a few blocks away from the new location.  Little Italy is owned and operated by the folks that ran Classico.  The old location (same owner) is now called Mama’s Grits and it just serves breakfast and lunch…

So…one restaurant has now morphed into 2 restaurants… Little Italy has retained the same chef who was at Classico Italian and the new restaurant’s location occupies a bigger space so they can handle larger parties.  The menu 

Little Italy is located in a small strip shopping center that is about a half mile from the center of Tellico Village just off TN Hwy. 444.  This center has been fairly quiet for the last couple of years and the restaurant should boost traffic considerably. 

The center is also home to the Tellico Community Players theatre, (https://www.tellicocommunityplayhouse.org/), and a large home furnishings store named Premier Consignments. (http://www.premiereconsignment.com/)

We almost always eat an early dinner.  The dining area is spacious and seating is never an issue for us!  We ate here twice in the last week or so and business always picked up before we were done.  In addition, the large back room (not pictured) was hosting a group event on one visit.

Both of our dining experiences at Little Italy involved choices from the long list of ‘Entrees’ or from the portion of the menu entitled ‘Pasta Specialties’.  In either case, our meals came with salad or soup and bread.  So far we’ve gone with the side dinner salad…nothing special but with fresh ingredients and decent salad dressing.

On our first visit, I ordered the Chicken Romano. ($16.95) It consists of Romano and Asiago encrusted chicken breasts with Alfredo sauce on a bed of linguine.  I was a very happy and satisfied diner!

FYI… We recently ordered a large thin crust Pepperoni and Italian Sausage Pizza for pick up at Little Italy. ($19.95) It was one of the 2 – 3 best pizzas that we’ve had here in East Tennessee.

On that first occasion, Laurie opted for the Veal Marsala. ($17.95) Her veal was sautéed with mushrooms, garlic and Marsala butter sauce on a bed of linguine.  Veal and mushrooms…plus garlic and butter sauce…a definite winner in Laurie’s book!

For our second visit, we thought about one of the 15 appetizers but decided that it would be just too much food with our entrees.  One of these days…perhaps when dining with another couple…we’ll try an appetizer.

In any case, this time Laurie decided to order the Fettuccine Carbonara. ($14.95) We knew that the Alfredo sauce was tasty so there was little chance that she’d be disappointed with the addition of smoked ham and bacon to her linguine…  It was very good indeed!  The portion was large enough that Laurie brought some home.  Thanks for the lunch honey!

I was going to go for the Spaghetti Marinara with Sausage or Meatballs ($11.95) just to try something other than the Alfredo sauce.  But then I spotted the Sausage Alfredo Skillet. ($14.95) This entrée is served in a hot iron skillet with grape tomatoes, thick slices of Italian sausage, with Cajun seasoning in Alfredo sauce with a grated Parmesan cheese topping.  Good choice!  I would order this again without hesitation…

We like this restaurant!  FYI, they have applied for a liquor license which will boost business even more… Little Italy of Tellico LLC is located at 316 Lakeside Plaza in Loudon Tennessee.  Phone: 865-657-6224.  For an article written on the background for this Little Italy of Tellico, just go to http://www.tellicovillageconnection.com/news/article_5e7a95a1-7f2d-5c32-af3f-621e795269bd.html.  They are open for lunch and dinner.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Leisure Time in the Early 20th Century

So before television, computers, smart phone or even radio, how did people live, entertain themselves…and communicate?  Once again I’ve pulled a few items from my postcard collection in order to revisit life in the first 10 years of the twentieth century.

But first an explanation for ‘relatively limited’ verbiage you’ll note accompanying each of the postcards… A bit of surgery was required to correct an issue with De Quervain’s tenosynovitis impacting my left and dominant hand.  Couldn’t write notes from research and I’m not great at the ‘hunt and peck’ method of typing!

Website: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/de-quervains-tenosynovitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20371332.

Postcard dated 9/4/1903 from South Haven Michigan.  With its beaches on Lake Michigan and its location at the mouth of the Black River the city has always been a port and resort town.  These folks were posing on either a hotel or commercial baggage wagon.  Summertime clothing sure is a lot more comfortable these days!

Note:

Daniel Keith Ludwig was born here.  He was a billionaire shipping magnate who was #1 on the first Forbes 400 "Richest Americans" list, published in 1982.

Another summertime postcard from Michigan…this one dated 2/2/1910.  Belle Isle is a 982 acre island park located in the Detroit River between Michigan and the Province of Ontario Canada.    The park is owned by the city of Detroit Michigan.

The Detroit Yacht Club, shown above, was built in 1905, replacing another structure that had burned down.  According to one claim, this was the first all concrete building in the USA.  Originally it was actually a rowing club.  Sadly, since the club left Belle Isle in 1996, this historic structure has severely deteriorated.  Estimated cost for repairs/refurbishment are more than $20,000,000.

I have great memories of Belle Isle as I spent an abundance of time here watching both giant Great Lakes and ocean going freighters passing close to shore.

This postcard dated 7/20/1904 was sent to Chicago from Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin.  Fort Mackinac, located on Mackinac Island, was built by British forces in 1781 in order to control the strategic Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.  The British didn’t give up the fort until 15 years after American independence.

   

I didn’t realize it but from 1875 to 1895, Mackinac National Park was America’s second National Park, after Yellowstone National Park.  In 1895, it was turned over to the State of Michigan.  Today it's operated as the Mackinac Island State Park.  In addition to the fort, now a museum, the town of Mackinac Island includes many hotels, restaurants and shops.  Motorized vehicles are forbidden on the island which can be reached from either Michigan’s Upper or Lower Peninsulas.  It’s a great place to visit!  

                                         

For more information:

·       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Mackinac and

·       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island,_Michigan

Not everyone enjoys the crowds flocking to parks and beaches as their ideal holiday… This postcard dated 3/12/1907, displays a plethora of hunting trophies from Dowagiac Michigan.   This town is located in the southwest corner of the state.

The name of the town comes from the Potawatomi word meaning “fishing near home water”.  Dowagiac is the headquarters of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians…and the town is actually located in the reservation.  The Pokagon Band currently operates 3 casinos in the area.  In 2011, the Chicago Tribune reported that if the largest of these casinos were located on the Las Vegas Strip, it would be the second largest one there!

To learn more about these 3 casinos, you can go to https://www.fourwindscasino.com/newbuffalo/.

  This next postcard featuring Minnehaha Falls is dated 9/1/1908.  The falls are the key feature of this city park located in Minneapolis Minnesota.  The Minnehaha Park was designed in 1883 and it was part of the popular steamboat Upper Mississippi River “Fashionable Tour” in the 1800’s.

The falls are located on Minnehaha Creek close to where it flows into the Mississippi River.  Although he never visited Minnehaha Falls, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow helped spread its fame when he wrote his poem, The Song of Hiawatha.

Today the park preserves historic sites that focus on transportation, pioneering and architecture.  One of the preserved structures is the Minnehaha Princess Railway Station.  The Victorian style station was built in the mid-1870s and it is now a museum.  Roughly 850,000 people visit Minnehaha Park every year…

For more about the railway station, you can go to http://transportationmuseum.org/minnehaha-depot-museum.  For information about the park and Minnehaha Falls, go to https://www.minneapolisparks.org/parks__destinations/parks__lakes/minnehaha_regional_park/.

Dated 6/7/1909, this postcard shows ‘The Field Columbian Museum’ in Chicago’s Jackson Park.  This impressive structure was built for Chicago’s 1893 World Columbian Exposition and it was called the “Palace of Fine Arts’.  As such during the Exposition the items on display included paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture and metal work from around the world.

Unlike the other buildings built for the World Columbian Exposition, the Palace of Fine Arts was constructed to last.  With the financial support of Marshall Field and others, the building was reopened as the “Columbian Museum” and then it evolved into “The Field Museum of Natural History” displaying artifacts focused on anthropology, botany, geology and zoology. 

When the Field Museum moved to a new building near the center of downtown Chicago in 1921, this building in Jackson Park was left vacant.  With the support of Julius Rosenwald (Sears, Roebuck and Company), who eventually donated $5,000,000 of his own money, and The Commercial Club of Chicago chaired by Sewell Avery (Montgomery Ward and Company), the old but completely refurbished Palace of Fine Arts was reopened as ‘The Museum of Science and Industry’ in 1933.  In 2016, this museum welcomed 1,500,000 visitors while The Field Museum recorded 1,650,000 guests… They are both great museums!

Website - Museum of Science and Industry: www.msichicago.org.

Website – Field Museum of Natural History: www.fieldmuseum.org.

Now we’re off to the west coast of the USA!  This postcard, dated 10/2/1907, is a view of the Redondo Beach pier from the Hotel Redondo.  I found an earlier photo (ca 1900) on-line with the same view where the trees weren’t as tall.  It also showed a railroad depot between the hotel and the pier.  In 1887, Redondo Beach was described as “The Gem of the Continent” in the Los Angeles Daily Herald.

The Hotel Redondo opened in 1890.  It was built in the high Victorian style, was 3-stories tall and it had 225 rooms with all the then current conveniences.  To provide comfortable and easy means to travel to the hotel, 2 rail lines were constructed and serviced by first class train service that ran throughout the day.  This was a busy place.  In addition to the train service, steamships stopped by one of the 3 piers 4 times a week.

Sadly, the Hotel Redondo burned down in 1925.  To view a good photo of this stunning hotel and for a glimpse of the grounds, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Redondo#/media/File:The_Hotel_Redondo,_ca.1900_(CHS-2131).jpg.

The last postcard in this grouping provides an early view of Pasadena California.  The card is dated 8/29/1910.  It was sent to Blountville Tennessee, which is located a couple of hours from our home... There wasn’t much smog in the Los Angeles basin in 1010!

The postcard is titled “General View of Ford Place, “Pasadena California”.  It turns out that ‘Ford Place’ was an exclusive subdivision.  To quote an ad from an issue of the Pasadena Star, “Destined to be the most desirable and residence of Pasadena.  A perfect park in itself.  From nowhere within our city limits can such a view of the glorious mountains be obtained…”

Pasadena was incorporated in June of 1886…  The area was quite scenic and very popular.  After it became a stop for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, there was an explosion in growth.  Exclusive neighborhoods were built and so were great tourist hotels.  The city became a winter resort for wealthy easterners and business boomed.   By 1910, when this postcard was sent, Pasadena had 30,000 residents.  Today it has a population of about 143,000.

That’s all for now… The hunt and peck method of typing (with one hand) made this post quite a project!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

American Inland Waterways

As previously mentioned and demonstrated through my posts on Jackson Michigan, my hometown, I’ve accumulated a sizable collection of old postcards.

I like ships and boats as well as lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean.  So I thought that I’d copy a few of my old postcards featuring ships and large boats on North American waterways… There was a lot of history that is shown via this old form of ‘snail mail’ communications.

This first postcard features the Pere Marquette on the Milwaukee River in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  It is postmarked 9/5/1907 in Wisconsin and then again on 9/24/19 just before delivery to an address in Cuba. 

Although the Pere Marquette is labeled as an excursion vessel on the postcard, she was actually a steel cross-lake railcar ferry that also carried passengers.  This ship, (and several others with the same name), was designed to carry up to 30 railcars from Ludington Michigan across Lake Michigan to Kewaunee, Manitowoc and Milwaukee Wisconsin.  She had 4 railroad tracks on the main deck and there were 50 staterooms for passengers.  The various Pere Marquette ships were all built for the Pere Marquette Railway and they were all numbered in order to differentiate them from each other.

Using a magnifying glass, it appears to me that this is Pere Marquette 18.  She was built in 1902 and she sank near Ludington Michigan on 9/15/1910.  At the time, she was carrying 29 railroad freight cars and 62 persons including the crew.  Fortunately, the Pere Marquette 17 was nearby and she picked up the distress signal.  Despite the best efforts, 28 lives were lost.  The captain did go down with his ship…

If you’ve ever been to Niagara Falls, on either Canadian or American side, you’ve seen the “Maid of the Mist” tourist boats in action.  This postcard is dated 8/11/1910 and based on the bridge location, it shows the boat departing from its dock on the American side of the Niagara River.

Back in the 1830s and early 1840s the only way to cross the Niagara River was via small boats.  The Maid of the Mist I, a ferry boat, was launched in May of 1846.  The first international bridge was completed over the Niagara Gorge ca. 1850 and the Maid of the Mist became a tourist sightseeing boat out of necessity. 

Several Maid of the Mist Boats have been built over the years.  I believe that when I was about 10 years old, I rode on either the third or fourth vessel of this name.  One of the boats in use at that time…the early 1950s…was built in 1855 and the other had been launched in 1892.  My voyage may well have been on the boat shown on the postcard.  Both of these boats were lost in a fire on 4/22/55 while being prepared for a new tourist season. 

Today the two Maid of the Mist boats in service are much larger…carrying up to 600 passengers up to the base of Niagara Falls.  FYI, passengers on the Maid of the Mist are given a transparent plastic poncho as protection from the mist during the ride.  When I had my Maid of the Mist adventure, they provided old style slickers and separate hoods to cover your head.  I managed to lose my hood overboard!

Niagara Falls, on the border of the United States (New York State) and Canada (Province of Ontario) has over 30,000,000 visitors per year!  To see a short video of the awe inspiring American and Canadian sides of the falls, just go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB6gHz8XHDI.  To learn about Maid of the Mist boat rides, go to https://www.maidofthemist.com/.

The Hudson River has been a major inland waterway ever since Henry Hudson sailed the Half Moon up the river in 1609 looking for a northwest passage to China.  He sailed all the way up to where New York’s Capital, Albany is now located.  The river is navigable for 135 miles for ocean going vessel bound for the Port of Albany.

It was only natural that the Hudson River serve as a ‘superhighway’ for the movement of people and commerce in the early days of the United States.  Traffic on the river greatly increased after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1835.  The passenger side wheeler New York, as shown on the postcard above, was one of the ships that plied the river under the ownership of the Hudson River Day Line.  This postcard is dated 8/23/1905.

While I was unable to find out any information on the New York, there was plenty of history available regarding the Hudson River Day Line.  The beginnings of the Hudson River Day Line were in 1855.  There was regular Day Line Service between Albany and New York City.  Six days a week, one boat left Albany every morning and another left New York City.  Traveling along the river was far more pleasant than taking the railroad, especially in the summer.  A ‘Night Line’ with sleeping accommodations also plied the Hudson River.   Some of these river boats were more than 300 feet long!

Note:

·       In 1876, the Hudson River Day Line alone carried 173,000 passengers.

There were plenty of passenger steamers on the Great Lakes as well.  This postcard dated 6/8/1909 shows the Goodrich Line Steamer the S.S. Christopher Columbus en-route from Chicago Illinois to Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The S.S. Christopher Columbus was in service on the Great Lakes between 1893 and 1933.  This was the only whaleback design ship ever built for passenger service.  Her first mission was to carry passengers to and from Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.  She is reported to have transported between 1,700,000 and 2,000,000 visitors to and from the Exposition! 

After the Exposition the Christopher Columbus provided general transportation and excursions to various great lake ports… At 362 feet, this was the longest whaleback ship ever built and she was the largest vessel on the Great Lakes when she was launched.  She could carry 5,000 passengers!  The S.S. Christopher Columbus was retired during the Great Depression in 1933 and she was scrapped in 1936. 

Technically, “American” inland waterways include Canada as well…given that we are all in North America.  This postcard dated 9/5/1910 shows ships waiting to ‘lock down’ from Lake Superior to Lake Huron via the locks at Sault Ste. Marie Ontario Canada.  The ships aren’t identified…

The “Soo” Locks are built on the Saint Mary River which connects the two aforementioned Great Lakes.  On the Canadian side, the Sault Ste. Marie Canal is now a National Historic Site managed by Parks Canada.  It includes a lock suitable for smaller boats and pleasure craft.  However, the first canal opened here in 1798 but it was destroyed during the War of 1812.  Rebuilt in 1895, it formed part of the shipping route from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Superior.  One of the walls of this lock collapsed in 1987 and a smaller lock was opened within this canal in 1998.

There are 4 locks along the 1.6 miles of canal on the U.S. side of the river. (The official name of the canal is the St. Mary’s Falls Canal) The longest lock is the Poe Lock.  It was completed in 1896.  It was rebuilt in 1968 in order to accommodate larger ships after the Saint Lawrence Seaway opened and large ocean going ships began plying the Great Lakes.  This 1,200 foot long lock is the only one that can handle the long lake freighters that are used on the upper lakes.

About 7,000 vessels pass through the locks each year…and the locks are closed for repair every year from January 15 until March 25.  That works out to be over 23 ships per day for about 300 days of operation.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave