Through Ohio and into West Virginia, and Pennsylvania

Staying as much as possible off the main Interstates we are managing to see a fair bit of the back roads of the US.

We arrived in Ashland, there's not really much of international excitement and importance.   Apparently every city and town in the US can (and does) claim some connection with the life of Abraham Lincoln.  Apparently he stopped at Ashland for a quick visit to the rest room and continued on his way to something or other.  Or we might have made that up to make Ashland seem exciting.

But we did find this in the bible at Ashland, so we completed it and posted it back to jxg...we were hoping to find $$$.

Went to a true University town, in Athens Oh.  There is certainly money in these towns.  The grounds of the university is dotted all through the town, making it one big campus and every second building has Greek writing on it, from what look like doss houses through to six star mansions.

Athens Oh. Street paved with bricks..horrible to drive on.

The fancy accommodation at ohio university at Athens 

Really facinating and different memorial to fallen soldiers in Zanesville Oh. With each helmet having a soldier's name 

McDonald's is good for two things....clean toilets and wifi.  We didn't have wifi in Amritsar, but it was clean.  Zanesville turnpike store, was grotty...a first experience.. So don't go there.  Andrew has sent them an email.

Crossed into West Virginia at a place where A.L apparently stopped a traveller and asked directions.  This is were they later built a bridge

The bridge built on the spot where Mr Lincoln asked directions. Wheeling WV.just to the right of Ohio.

There is an island in the middle of the Ohio river, which West Virginia claims...the question is why would you want to....

The flood markers on the island in the river...

There is a building sitting pretty high along the Main Street across the island which shows flood markers.  Seems that more often than not the island is under water, which may be why so many of the houses are in such a poor state of repair, many falling over, and the ones fixed up, clearly costing big money.

Bad fair and good

Representative of many of the houses on the island.

Pennsylvania 

After leaving Wheeling, we spent much of the day driving around a relatively small area, the Washington  county.  Just over the border from West Virginia, this little area has all the charm of ...the charm of...of Pennsylvania.    The covered bridges, thick oak forests, and windy roads were great.  Nothing spectacular....

Covered bridges....near Prosperity PA.

Stopped for the night at Uniontown PA, where Geroge C Marshall (ww2 general and formulator of, surprisingly, the Marshall Plan) was born.

George is the one on the right.

Tuesday 2nd June..starting from Uniontown.

Really foggy and of course we had decided to go to the local cave/cavern attraction, about 15 minutes out of town.    By the time we got here through the 20 metre visibility, it was about 30 minutes out of town.    The vermin around these parts is pretty scary...being the end of the school year there were several busses of them.....

The vector for the vermin- those yellow things in the car park.

As caverns/caves go, we have been somewhat over exposed.  The Laurel Caverns  were at best, average. The type of rock formation did not permit the formation of  tites and mites therefor it was just really a dark hole...

The cavern with no flash or lights.

.we have been spoilt.  The schoolkids were supposed to have been on holidays by now but because this last winter has had so many 'snow days' where everyone stays at home because of the snow...the days have to be made up....the teachers must love that!!! And the children were ratty.

It was really good that we got the car with the fixed air conditioning because it hasn't got over 20 deg since Lexingon.

Warning signs -bit strange round this county.

Had our meagre lunch out of the boot (nay trunk) of the car, at a place called Ohiopyle  (my goodness they have strange names here) which is the white water rafting capital of the county.  

 We do, however, think that they lead the field in safety, when all their rafting is done in a wet car park...the risk of drowning is very small.

But those wood chips could splinter.

Flight 93- 9-11

Having been unable to locate the Fallingwaters House, built by the world famous architect Frank Lloyd-Wright, we moved on to a place called Shanksville.

Before the 11th of September, 2001, this was an unknown place.  But for the crashing of flight 93 into a field close to this town, it would remain so.  Arriving  here makes one ponder the fate that brought the passengers, the plane, and this place together.  Whether their actions were any more altruistic than seeking to save their own lives, the result of their actions on this day, undoubtedly brave, prevented this plane from possibly taking thousands of  other lives in DC.   

Rock showing impact site

Flight 93 memorial.

Unfortunately as it is this is a very respectful and appropriate memorial to what happened and what these people did...the 'unfortunately' refers to the super mega duper visitor and interpretavie  center that will shorthand open here.   It will be a memorial to the financiers, architects and builders of an enormous building not to what these poor 40 poor people represented.

Nathalie doing her...stop stop stop, I want to get a photo of this....

Unfortunately we were not quick enough to get our photos in Chambersburg city square.

Small world..

Stoping for the first time at a place called Arby's we were surprised that some one knew where Melbouren was.  It turns out the manager of Arby's in Chanbersburg PA,  spent 14 years in Geelong, whilst her husband, a kiwi, worked at Avalon, and her two sons still live in Australia, one of whom is a plod in Geelong.  Small world.....

Mt Vernon, Vincennes, Frankfort. Proof read by Nathalie

Out relatively early from Mt Vernon Illinois.headed a bit north, then turned right towards Salem, Flora, Olney, Lawrenceville.  This journey gave Nathalie a great opportunity to dry some clothing rinsed the night before...  And Andrew took a photo of the said items on the dashboard...however when this blog was being written the said photos had been deleted....that is a lesson.  These undies were removed when the Flora Sherriff's car was behind us.

A representation of the said item.

We then stopped for a bite of bratwurst cheese and dry biscuits (known in local parlance as crackers) at a place called Vincennnes.   But before this we had the honour of listening to the local country radio station.  The most memorable lyric noted was;

I'll take you for a tide Ride on my big green tractor 

We can go slow we can go faster.

Now whether this was an allegory for something more sinister..I suppose we'll never know.

Vincennes  is just over the Wabash river into Indiana, and a bloke who is real famous( who we hadn't heard of before today) put it up the British in this town, and basically began a process that was to bring on the war of independence.  (I think).  Anyway this town is particularly pretty, with the National Park on the banks of the Wabash and a huge monument dedicated to George Rogers Clark.

The bloke in question 

The monument

Once again the National Park guide was garrulous, loquacious, and wanted to know if the Nullabor was really as big as it is alleged, and did people really live underground in Coober Pedy (we supplied the name of the town and White cliffs).  This took another hour and a half, but was well worth picking up all this useful information about which we will have great use.

Further journey towards Kentucky, took us to a town in southern Indiana, called West Baden Springs, and its sister town French Lick...

This town hosts a hotel built in 1909 which is enormously ornate and noted as the Carlsbad of  America.  In the early days it was popular due to the alleged curative powers of the saline and mineral springs.  Now it hosts a hotel and casino,where the cheapest room (tonight) was $200USD for the broom cupboard not currently being used by the janitor...so we didn't stay there.

The grounds.

  

The roadside.

As we travel, we have noticed that the billboards have become no less ultra conservative nor no less religions...today's theme was the 'Right to life',  adoption and the evils of alternate views.

There was one place, by the very billboard Andrew wanted to visit...'Singing Hill, Holiness  Camp' in Natchez Indiana ...

The roadside..if you are  bleeding to death in Frankfort, and need to decide which ER you want to go to we found this roadside billboard would be very handy in the decision making process

You will only have to wait 22 minutes.

We travelled around Louisville (loooeeeville) and into the capital of Kentucky, Frankfort, where we stayed for the evening, and the night.

Buffalo Trace Distillery.

Can't go to Kentucky and not visit a Bourbon Distillery.  It was the Buffallo Trace Distillery...apparently well known.

Fifty six gallons in each

White oak, Charred for thirty sixseconds 

Store house for one Barrel of bourbon- admittedly the 6 millionth barrell they've made. 

Did you know. Bourbon (to be called bourbon)must be;

At least 51% corm

No additives

Stored in charred white oak barrels (one use only)

Made in the USA

Broke one car now.

The ford focus we got in San Francisco needs a clean so we changed it over for a new one in Lexington, at their international airport.  Seriously, the air conditioner was bung.  Rang Alamo yesterday and organised a like for like swap....they just didn't tell the folk at the airport.  But except for an hour delay it was all sorted and we got a brand new Chrysler 200.  Apparently 2/3 the size of a Chrysler 300 and twice as big as a Chrysler 100.

Goodbye Focus -3811 miles

Hello Chrysler 82 miles on the clock so far

And no key.....press button...

But....silliness reigns.....you are given two key fobs and a tag saying the average cost of key replacement is $225.   But both keys are on a secured un openable cable....there is no logic.  You loose one key you loose both...go figure, so we will try to get the cable cut tomorrow.

All the way to Ashland, in Ky.  near on the border of Ohio and West Virginia.  Then....?

 

Jefferson City; skirting(going around not the name of a place) St Louis, to Mt Vernon Illinois

After checking into our hotel just out of town, we drove to the Capitol building, which is a very fine looking building on the (high) banks of the Missouri River.  Just walked around and being about 25 deg at 8.00 pm is very plesant..

Missouri Capitol building Jefferson City

Missouri River

The receptionist at the place we stay, could talk the leg off an iron pot,but in the forty or so minutes she had us captive, we gleaned a few ideas as to tomorrow's plans also think we got a good room too.

Missouri Highway patrol museum

The metal 'gloves ' were used as handcuffs

One if the Q cars.

Then after that exciting adventure, we went back to the Capitol Building, in Jefferson City for one of their guided tours, and it was well worth the hour and a half the one hour tour too. Joe the guide, knew the building inside and out.  

Inside looking up into the dome.

The nature of these paintings being in the arches creates illusions that the picture changes...(altered three point perspective?)

In the members lounge, there is a mural that covers three of the walls.  It is painted by a bloke called Thomas Hart Benton.....in 1917 he painted this in 6 months ish...the detail basically takes in the history industry and personalities of Missouri .  It is still vivid, and detailed 

Thomas Hart Benton- the black smoke indicates the Civil War and bottom left.....

Showing all the politicians in that place that they all had their bums wiped by the most important people in the community..their mothers...

Finally escaped from joe, and headed generally east...off the track.   Ended up at a little town called  Herman.  It was initially settled by German immigrants.  Went to the candy shop and managed to get Australian Licourice...if you can believe that....US apples in Haldwani (India) and now this...the lady in that shop said we should visit the worst house.....and gave us directions

Holding 'Australian Licorice '

When we got to the worst house this is what we found.

The 'wurst haus' bratwurst etc.....

Stopped in Mt Vernon Illinois , for the night.  Fortunately we sorted out 'Julia ' the GPS machine, because after an illusion of travelling in the wrong direction we found that we were heading to Mt Vernon, British Colombia, Canada.a mere 9 hours distant.

Nothing really exciting in Mt Vernon except for the Walmart, across the road....always an adventure...

Tulsa, Ramona, Skiatook, Bartlesville (Ok)and Coffeville (Kansas), then to Joplin Mo.

The highlight of the day for Nathalie was reading the blog and realising how much angst Andrew's exaggeration must gave caused everyone at home about the last two night's lodgings, however the real highlight for Nathalie was the Tulsa 'Whole Food Market'.   Andrew believes a food shop is a food shop is a Food shop,however to   Nathalie this this is the most amazing supermarket she has ever seen.

...they have (organic, it goes without saying)  peanut butter makers, 

Freshly cooked bacon, eggs and other foreign foods

bins of chia seeds, and so many other useful things.....it is a shop for some, a tourist attraction for others...we only needed some coffee...$57.00 later....for those who are expecting souvineers , 100 grams of chia seeds are looking good for you.

Then went for a walk around downtown Tulsa...very pretty and clean, but horribly quiet....

A bit of toilet humour

Either Nathalie is shrinking or that is a stupidly big pick up.  Tulsa 

Most of the big money in town seemed to have been spent of making the First Baptist Church take up a whole enormous block of the Tulsa area.

Actually the car park is theirs too.

There were notices placed around this grand building threatening loiterers (read for 'loiterers' homeless and indolent people) with having the police called to move them on.....curious...

Offend  whom I may, but religion over here seems to be BIG business. I was always lead to believe that it is not  about how big or grand the church is.....  The most expensively huge and disproportionately ornate, well kept and opulent buildings in otherwise depressed, abandoned, and bankrupt areas are the church buildings.....  Every town has at least one 'First Baptist' one 'Crossroads Church' and several other evangelical type churches.   Leaves me with a question....if there are so many believers, and members of evangelical churches in these parts, to whom do they evangelise?  There is no one left....

Still very wet and  flooded all through this area.

Joplin

Just over the State Line from Kanss, is the Moussouri  town of Joplin. Frankly not famous for much, but has a very sad recent history.  In May 2011 a tornado struck a swathe of the town and killed 161 and injured thousands of people, destroying a substantial part of the town.  It was still very noticeable four years after one area, all new houses and not one tree over four feet high.  A modern five  story hospital was so badly damaged that it had to be demolished.   Storm shelters and cellars are foreign to we Australians, but bush fire shelters are emerging now.   

There is a lovely park we visited and left a message in the book.

The memorial wall in 33 segments, representing 33 minutes of the tornado, the seventh (from the left) segment representing the time the tornado hit this park.

Did we go to Kansas City or Springfield (Mo)?

Well we decided to do neither....

The highlights of Springfield were just too overwhelming....

Coming in at number five:  the Explore Passages Museum. We thought speology...or caving nup

I could see Andrew purchasing a seasons pass for this bible passages museum...have a read.

Or the next exciting place, with ONE review, the world's largest fork

Nor that

So we headed a but west and north through Kansas, to a place called Fort Scott, which was a marvellous National Park preserving an army outpost/fort of the 1830 s through the civil war to the 1870s...

So well kept, and the static displays were very detailed....got to chat with the head ranger, who, seeing we had signed the visitors register sought us out and wanted to talk about Australia....and he knew it wasn't near Germany.  He clearly runs a good show at Ft Scott.

General overview of a small part

Gun carriage room

Fort hospital

Then east through El Dorado Springs, past the Lakes of the Ozarks, and then to the capital of Moussouri Jefferson City......where we will stay...