Indiana to Tennessee...with a squirrel chase to Colorado

We've now wandered down to Tennessee and are spending a few extra days in Memphis than expected, but I'll leave that story to the end of today's entry.  So stick around, it's an interesting life.

While still at the American Coach repair facility in Decatur, IN we took a tour of the Fleetwood RV factory (sorry, no photos allowed).  It was interesting, but as Heinz says, it made us appreciate the quality of our 12 year old coach even more.  The Fleetwoods are certainly good products, but a lot of the little things left me loving my older home more and more.  Little things like real wood instead of pressed lumber, rich varnishes instead of thin coats of varnish with lots of lacquer on top, evenly spaced and flat floor tiles instead of uneven tile placement, and I'm sure Heinz noticed lots of things in the "innards" of the coach.  I kept remembering the gentleman who told us that our model year coach was from "when we knew how to build them".  I agree!

As long as we were hanging out in the middle of Indiana, we took an afternoon and drove up to Auburn, Indiana to check out the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum.  It is housed in a beautiful, fully restored Art Deco building that originally served as both the former Auburn Automobile Company's national headquarters and it's dealer-only showroom.  The collection contains vintage Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs from 1925-1937, other Indiana made automobiles of the era, and automobiles of what the museum calls "special interest"--automobiles that represent the best examples of luxury, styling, performance, or engineering.  In addition, the museum has artifacts of automobile manufacturing such as design concepts, blueprints, full-scale drawings on aluminum sheets, wooden bucks for beating/shaping the panels, promotional materials, etc.  If you make your way to Indiana, be sure to stop in at this great museum - we spent hours!

The Auburn Automobile Company started in 1900 with a design for a one-cylinder car that reached showroom floors in 1903.  By 1905 the company was making two-cylinder cars and by 1912, six cylinders were the norm.  In 1904, E. L. Cord joined the company as general manager and purchased the company from the owners in 1926.  That same year Auburn bought out Fred Duesenberg and commissioned him to build the world's finest motorcar.  1928 brought the introduction of the Duesenberg Model J (the nation's most expensive luxury car).  The Cord motorcar, America's first front-drive production car, was unveiled with Auburn's 1929 models.  Despite the Great Depression, Auburn broke all previous sales records in 1931 with over 32,000 luxury units sold (average price $15,000 when the average worker made $4000 annually).  Manufacturing ceased in 1937 due to changing tastes, hard economic times and internal corporate turmoil.

Reflections

Reflections in car fender

Sitting in an early automobile

1929 Auburn

A prototype for a post-WWII American sports car that featured the world's first T-top roof.  Gordon Buehrig designed the car and patented the T-top idea.  He later sued GM when they used the design on the 1968 Corvette.

Clay model for an early Auburn.

Painted aluminum design panel.  These were recycled - when no longer needed, they painted over the metal, and scribed new lines for the next design - so very few exist today.  Designs were drawn on the panel at full scale and used on the production line.

Painted aluminum design panel.

1932 Auburn.

Art Deco showroom floor.

As long as the motor coach was having some maintenance work done, we decided to chase a squirrel and head over to Colorado for an impromptu reunion of Heinz's family.  The event was planned around the Scots Festival in Estes Park, but we were having so much fun hanging out with each other, that no one ever made it to the Festival!

Maureen and Annelee checking out the family shots.

Reunion over, it was back to Indiana to pick up the rig and head further south.  Plans were made: Memphis, TN for two nights, followed by two nights in Little Rock, AR, then back to Shreveport and some time with my family.  We stretched the drive to Memphis over two days simply to avoid a long 12 hour drive.  

Memphis held a few too many sights to see for only a two night stay, so we extended by a night and mapped out our agenda.  Day one: Graceland, STAX Records Museum, and the Gibson Guitar Factory.  Day two: National Museum of Civil Rights, Rock-n-Soul Museum, and Sun Studio.  Both days: killer BBQ.  Success!!  For once, we actually completed all points of interest as planned!

Neither one of us are big Elvis fans, but really, we're in Memphis... home of the King... you gotta go to Graceland - right?  So we did!  Graceland is considered a "mansion", but compared to today's houses, it's kinda small - and decorated in vintage over-the-top 1970s.  If you listen well, you can hear his ghost wandering around, singing the songs you've heard all your life.  Oh, sorry... that's not his ghost... that's the sound system playing Elvis non-stop everywhere you go.  We bought the Platinum ticket that lets you into six sites/events, from Elvis' house and gardens; to his airplanes; to his cars; to a walk up the street to a strip mall containing a gift shop showing a movie about his '68 tour, and another cubicle  containing some of his costumes.  If you make it to Memphis, by all means, you can not NOT go to Graceland - for crying out loud... it's a cultural icon.  But consider only doing the house and garden tour - the rest was (to us) somewhat underwhelming.  It is however, still immensely popular - 35 years after his death, 600,000 people still travel annually from all over the world (we followed a group from Portugal) to visit Graceland.

The King

Graceland 

Living Room

Pool Room

Gold records on display in an outbuilding behind the house.  It's estimated that there have been greater than 1 BILLION Elvis records sold worldwide.

More gold records on display.  In the U.S. alone, Elvis had 150 different albums and singles with gold, platinum, or multi-platinum sales.

Elvis' grave.  He is buried on Graceland's grounds along with his mother, father, and grandmother.

For a different view of early Rock and Roll, we headed across town to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.  Stax Records was founded in 1957 as Satellite Records and the name Stax adopted in 1961.  The label was instrumental in the creation of the Memphis sound, a mix of gospel, funk, jazz, and blues.  Some of the labels best known artists were Booker T. and the MGs, Otis Redding, and Issac Hayes.  In 1975 the label went bankrupt and the studio closed.  Over the years the building deteriorated and was finally torn down in 1989.  In 1998, a group of concerned citizens and anonymous benefactors spearheaded a community revitalization effort.  Construction began on the Stax Museum and the adjacent Stax Music Academy in 2001.  The Museum is a replica of the Stax recording studio and houses more than 2,000 videos, photographs, musical instruments, stage costumes, and other memorabilia.  The museum is one of only a handful of museums in the world dedicated to soul music and celebrates the legacy of Stax Records along along with featuring other soul music labels such as Motown, Hi Records, Atlantic Records and Muscle Shoals.     

The Stax Music Academy is a state of the art facility where primarily at-risk youth are mentored through music education and unique performance opportunities.  The building also houses the Soulsville Charter School, an academically rigorous, musically rich school.     

Kind of says it all, doesn't it:)

Reconstruction of Stax Records facility

Heinz checking out the guitar of Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the MGs.

Hallway lined with albums recorded at Stax Records.

After rocking out for a couple of hours at Stax Records, we headed a few miles over for a tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory, Memphis.  We got a behind the goggles look at all the shaping, binding, neck-fitting, painting, buffing, and fine tuning that ends up as an electric guitar.  Sorry - no photos were allowed on the factory floor itself.

Factory store, choose your fun.

We ended up day one in Memphis with some knock-out BBQ at The Pig on Beale.  This restaurant specializes in pork shoulder and ribs and their motto is "Pork with an Attitude".  The menu has around 15 BBQ awards listed for last year alone (not like the restaurant across the street that won something back in 1991) and the front windows are filled with trophies.  My take on the place--yum!!

Trophies in the window of The Pig on Beale, in lieu of pictures of the baby back ribs.

Late afternoon on Beale St., home of Memphis blues.

Day two and we were up and running again.  First stop: The National Civil Rights Museum.  The museum is located in the Lorraine Motel, site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The museum also encompasses the rooming house across the street where James Earl Ray stayed and from where he fired his fatal shot.  The museum is devoted to chronicling key episodes of the American civil rights movement and its impact on human rights efforts globally.  The main focus of the museum is education.  

February 1st, 1960, Greensboro, NC.  Four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a "whites-only" Woolworth's lunch counter and ask to be served. This action ignited a wave of student sit-ins and protests that flashed across the South.  This is the actual counter.

Lesson plan from a 1960s Freedom School.  Still important concepts today.

You can spend all day in the Civil Rights Museum - but we didn't have that long... so off we went to the Rock-n-Soul Museum.  This museum was created by the Smithsonian Institution to tell the story of "musical pioneers that created the music that shook the world".  It offers a comprehensive look at the Memphis music experience from the rural field songs of the 1930s, through the explosion of the 1950s and, on to the heyday of the 1970s.  The museum has a digital audio tour packed with information and music.  You stroll the galleries and look and listen (and perhaps dance) at your leisure.  There's approximately 5 hours of information and music on the audio tour, so kick back and roam to your heart's content.  We opted out after about 2 1/2 hours and headed off to our next stop.

Heinz groovin' to the sounds on a 1947 Wurlitzer "bubbler" jukebox.

After rocking out for hours to the Memphis sound, it seemed only appropriate to finish up at Sun Studio.  The recording studio was opened by Sam Phillips in 1950.  Over the years it was the recording home of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Ike Turner, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich, among others.  In 1969, Sam Phillips sold the label and there was no recording-related activity in the building until the September 1985, Class of '55, recording sessions with Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash.  In 1987 the studio was re-opened as a recording label and tourist attraction.  A tour stop in the daytime, the studio is still an active recording studio at night, by artists as varied as U2, Def Leppard, Bonnie Raitt, and Ringo Starr who come to get the vintage sound caused by the original ceiling tiles that are still in place.

Sun Record, remember those days of partying to your 45s?

Heinz in the studio, recording home of Elvis and the rest.  Check out those ceiling tiles, circa 1954.

We ended up our day with more stellar Memphis BBQ at Germantown Commissary.  Commissaries were small country stores located throughout the South.  They sold everything from horse collars to hamburger.  The original Commissary in Germantown, TN was a store for over 90 years, until it was bought by the present owner in 1981.  He turned it into a dynamite BBQ joint.  We enjoyed some wonderful hickory-smoked ribs to top off our time in Memphis.

Or at least we thought that meal would top off our time in Memphis.  After getting back to the rig Heinz decided to run a late evening errand and headed off to the store.  An hour or so later he returned home, in a police car.  Seems that on his way home he was hit broadside at an intersection by a woman who ran a stop sign.  Luckily there were no injuries, but here we sit, waiting on the auto body shop to report give us a heads up.  The accident happened on Saturday night and with waiting to communicate with the insurance company on Monday, taking a day to move the car to the auto body shop, taking a day to assess damages, and getting it fixed, it's now Thursday night, we're watching a lame Giants/Panthers game, and hoping the car will be ready by close of business tomorrow.

Oh well, here's our friends of the day from Colorado:

Mule deer at Rocky Mountain National Park

Elk at Rocky Mountain National Park

Dinner time

Oscar, King of the Marsh household

Boston to Indiana

It's September!  Where'd the summer go?  The nights are getting nippy, the trees are starting to change colors, kids are back in school, and we've started to drift south.

After leaving Boston we drove over to Seneca Falls, NY.  We camped out for a couple of nights at a very nice little camp called Camp in the Woods.  This is a family owned/operated RV campground now run by the 3rd generation of the Frankish family.  The night we arrived the camp was in the midst of a bonfire and corn roast to commemorate the end of their season.  We were invited to join in and met several of their annual campers and had some nice eats.  

Camp in the Woods, flares around the pond during the Corn Roast

The next day we popped up and headed into Geneva to meet a cousin of Heinz's dad.  Tom grew up in the area and gave us a wonderful tour of all the family landmarks.  We certainly hadn't planned on sucking up his entire day, but nine hours later we finally shook hands, exchanged hugs, and climbed back into our cars.  What a local historian!  Heinz and I had a blast learning about the area, the family, and the truths and myths of the Marsh clan.  

Seneca Falls Bank.

Frederick Marsh (great-great-grandfather) was bank president.  

In 1870 the bank accepted deposits of $1 and upward and paid interest of 6% semi-annually.

Heinz and Tom.  What a tour guide!

Trinity Episcopal Church, Seneca Falls.  

Lavinia Marsh (great-great-grandmother) played the organ here,

and forced all descendants to take piano lessons.

Following our whirlwind tour of Seneca Falls and Geneva, along with conversation that ranged from family stories to world politics, we said our goodbyes and headed off to Niagara Falls.  We camped at the Grand Island KOA, a very nice park as all the KOA's seem to be.

We've both been to the falls before, but it's been 43 years for Heinz and at least 20 for me, so this was a treat for us both.  We took my father's advice and booked ourselves on the Maid of the Mist boat tour, along with taking in the Cave of the Mists walk.  Heinz kept trying to figure out why the Canadian side was highly developed and the U.S. side had very few buildings along the cliffs.  Then we both had a "Duh" moment... the U.S. side has been a state park since 1885!  Words are inadeqate to describe the falls, so I'll let photos help tell the story.

American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls

American Falls and Bridal Falls

Length of brink:  1060 feet /323.08 meters

Height:  176 feet / 53.6 meters (due to rocks at the base actual fall is 70 feet/ 21.3 meters)

Volume of water: 150,000 U.S. Gallons / 567,811 Liters per second American and Bridal Veil Falls from the Cave of the Mists Walkway. Horseshoe Falls from the Maid of the Mist boat. Horseshoe Falls from the Maid of the Mist boat. Length of brink: 2600 feet / 792.4 meters Height: 167 feet / 50.9 meters Volume of water: 600,000 U.S. gallons / 2,271,247 liters per second Unfortunately we only had one day to spend at the falls because we had a appointment at the Fleetwood factory for a coach inspection.  So we're now in Decatur, Indiana at the Fleetwood American Eagle facility.  What a great bunch of people: knowledgeable, friendly, eager to share information about the coach, and willing to go the extra mile to make sure their customers are satisfied.   Our friends of the day (held over from Maine):  There were four in total, and all were probably not as thrilled with our relationship as we were :)

Halifax and the Bay of Fundy

Halifax is quite a nice city.  It is relatively small, with a population ­­­­around 300,000, and young, 51% of the residents are under 40 with almost half of those under 20.  The architecture is an interesting mixture of old and new.  It has a very cosmopolitan feel, not surprising as it has the second largest harbor in the world (number 1 being Sydney, Australia) with worldwide shipping occurring daily, and over 130 Cruise Ships transiting every year.

The south end of the city is rich in houses from the 1800’s, with wide streets, lots of Victorian style “painted ladies”, and old trees.  The northern end is much more modern in style, with a lot of cement-block houses and industrial areas.  We both wondered why, and then we heard about the Halifax Explosion.  Seems like this is a well known event in Canadian history, but neither of us had ever heard of it.

On Dec. 6, 1917 at 9:05 AM, Halifax experienced the largest man-made explosion in history (until atomic bomb testing) when two ships collided in the channel leading into the Halifax harbor.  One, the Mont Blanc, was a French ship loaded with munitions destined for the war front in Europe.  The other, the Imo, was a merchant ship.  Fire broke out in barrels of benzol stored on the deck of the Mont Blanc, quickly spreading to the picric acid, gunpowder, and TNT stored below.  According to records, the barrel of one of the Mont Blanc’s guns landed 3½ miles away, while part of her anchor shank, weighing 1,140 pounds, flew more than 2 miles.  Windows were broken more than 50 miles away and the shock was felt in Sydney, Nova Scotia, around 270 miles northeast of Halifax.  The north end of town was completely demolished.  The blast killed more than 1,600 immediately and wounded more than 9,000 additional people.  Ships in the harbor were tossed up on shore by a tidal wave that immediately followed the explosion.  Fires then began on shore as coal-fired ovens and heaters were tossed around - all together, over 6,000 were left homeless. 

The city rebuilt over the next few years, using “hydrostone”, a type of cement block molded under pressure, for much of the construction.  This choice in building material was for its fireproof nature.  A 10 square block of housing made of these blocks is known as the “Hydrostone District” for the building material.  Though intended as temporary structures, the buildings still exist today, just as built in 1918. 

The southern end of the city was spared much of the destruction.  In the middle of the city is a high hill, site of the fortress Citadel,  that protected that end of town from the blast.  On this end of town are most of the Heritage Houses (read old town) of the city.

We spent quite a bit of time exploring the rebuilt waterfront boardwalk, checking out the shops and sights.  There is a crystal shop with artisans making hand blown vases and other items, a pewter shop with demonstrations of pewter casting, several galleries selling art by students and alumni of the local College of Arts, and of course, the obligatory t-shirts and souvenir shops. 

We also stopped in at two museums on the waterfront: the MaritimeMuseum of the Atlantic and the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

The Maritime Museum covers the maritime history of Atlantic Canada, with exhibits on shipwreck treasures, pirates, the Navy, the Titanic (150 of the bodies recovered are buried in Halifax), the Halifax Explosion, and boats from the eras of sail and steam.  Included in your admission price is a tour of Canada’s longest serving hydrographic vessel, CSS Acadia.  (A hydrographic vessel is one that is used to plot coastline depths.)

Sounding rope used to chart coastal waters from the CSS Acadia.

Sounding were taken and recorded every six feet around the coast of Canada in order to chart the coastal waters.

Plating model.
The construction of steel-hulled vessels involved the riveting and welding together of plates to form the hull.  The exact shapes of all plates were obtained by projecting to full scale the lines taken from plating models such as this.  Each plate was marked and numbered to correspond with its numbered position on the model.

The Immigration Museum, located at Pier 21, exhibits the history of immigrants that arrived through Halifax.  Pier 21 is Canada’s equivalent to the U.S.’s Ellis Island.  Approximately 1.5 million immigrants, mostly European, were processed through here between 1928 and 1971.  If you are interested in genealogy, there is also a documents center where you can research your family roots.

We spent an afternoon exploring the Citadel in the middle of the city.  The current version of the Citadel was completed in 1856 and has an excellent view of the harbor.  It is representative of 19th century bastion fortification design with ramparts, ditches, and signal masts.  Its main purpose was as a defensive fortress against American aggression which might occur.  It was turned over to the Canadian military in 1906 and was used by them during World Wars I and II to house troops on their way overseas.  The fortress was turned over to Parks Canada in the '50's.  The 78th Highland Regiment is still associated with the Citadel and demonstrates what life was like in the fortification a century ago.  

Moving the cannon after a demonstration.

Tour guide in 78th Regimental uniform of 1860.

Citadel walls

Interestingly, Canada and the Citadel are celebrating the bicentennial of the War of 1812.  I remember studying this war years ago.  As I recalled, it was fought over British privateers attacking US shipping and the impressment of US sailors into the British Navy.  I also remember studying the burning of the White House, the saving of George Washington's portrait by Dolley Madison, and being from Louisiana, Andrew Jackson bringing troops to defend New Orleans at the Battle of Chalmette (anybody remember Johnny Horton singing The Battle of New Orleans?).  I had always had the impression that we won that war.  It was kind of interesting seeing the Canadian version of the war and then checking out what historians had to say about it.  

In Canada the war is seen as an act of aggression by the US in an attempt to expel Britain from the North American continent and expand US territory northward, by invading and occupying Canadian territories.  In fact, I found a quote from Thomas Jefferson that seemed to sum up the US thinking of the time:

"The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighbourhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next and the final expulsion of England from the American continent."

Wow, quite a bit different from the history I was taught years ago.  According to historians, the U.S. is considered to have actually lost the war as there was no change in the status quo of relations with Britain and Canada by the terms of the Treaty of Ghent that ended the war.

Re-enactor in British infantry uniform of 1812.

The Old Town Clock.  

Constructed as a garrison clock in 1803 on the orders of Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America from 1799-1802, to help improve the tardiness of the soldiers.  Still one of the most recognizable landmarks of historic Halifax.

Our last event in Halifax itself was attending a performance by Shakespeare by the Sea.  This is a theater company that delivers nightly open-air performances of plays by Shakespeare and others in Pleasant Point Park.  There are no formal ticket sales, but they do ask for donations.  The audience can bring their own chairs, rent one for $2 or sit on blankets (our choice).  This summer they were performing The Merry Wives of Windsor, Titus Andronicus, and Alice in Wonderland.  We decided on Titus Andronicus.  Neither one of was familiar with the play, but what the heck, it's Shakespeare, right?

Well, I read a tongue-in-cheek summary of the play and thought again, what the heck, it's Shakespeare, right?  The plot summary is: Titus Andronicus returns to Rome after 20 years fighting the Gauls and gets caught up in Roman politics.  Over the ensuing acts there are 14 murders, three hands cut off, one tongue cut out, an assortment of rapes, gougings, stabbings, slicings, bloodlettings, and cannibalism.  Whew!  Apparently this is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy and between the convoluted plot and a huge cast of characters, it is rarely performed.  But the weather was perfect, the actors excellent, and a great time was had by all.

We took a day also to see some of the surrounding area.  We started with the town of Lunenburg, a short drive down the coast.  The town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 due to its unique architecture and design.  Originally founded in 1745, it has been cited as being the best example of planned British colonial settlement in North America.  The town has a long history of building wooden ships, the most famous being the schooner Bluenose.  The Bluenose was a fishing and racing schooner launched in 1921.  The boat won the Fisherman's Race for 17 straight years.  The Bluenose II is a replica of the original and is based in Lunenburg.  This schooner is currently in dry dock having the keel rebuilt by local shipbuilders.  

Bluenose II in dry dock

Lunenburg from across the harbor.

From Lunenburg we drove north along the coastline to Peggy's Cove, a fishing community of less than 50 residents that is one of the most visited sites in Canada.  The community's lighthouse sits on top of huge granite outcroppings and marks the eastern entrance of St. Margarets Bay.  The current building was erected in 1916 and is still operated by the Canadian Coast Guard.  The town has existed since 1811, but at its peak had only 300 residents, mostly fishermen and their families.  There is not much there, but the surroundings are stunning.

Peggy's Cove Lighthouse

Peggy's Cove

After four days in the Halifax area we hitched up the toad and headed off for Fundy Bay National Park in New Brunswick.  This park is in southern New Brunswick and rises up from the bay to the Caledonia Highlands.  It has been a national park of Canada since 1948.  The oldest known red spruce in the world lives in the park - a 450 year old tree.

We spent most of our time here wandering around the bay, exploring the area during both high and low tides.  At Alma, the town just outside the entrance to the park, the Salmon River empties into the Bay of Fundy.  At low tide you can watch the water flowing out of the river.  A few hours later you begin to see driftwood floating upstream as the tide comes back in.  At low tide, fishing boats rest in wooden cradles on the muddy ocean floor.  Once the tide begins to rise, fisherman have to rush back to their boats to be sure that the lines don't foul as the boats begin to rise with the tide.  Tides levels range from 11 feet at the entrance to the bay to 53 feet at Minas Basin at the head of the bay.  

Low tide

High tide

We headed over to the Hopewell Rocks to explore the ocean floor.  The rocks are formations caused by tidal erosion.  Due to the extreme tidal range, the base of the formations are covered in water twice a day.  However, at low tide it is possible to walk out on the ocean floor.  We made sure we got there both during low tide and high tide.

Low tide at the rocks.  You can walk out on the ocean floor.

Or if you're as graceful as me, you can slide across the ocean floor.

Two hours after "high tide" (we overslept)

Top of the dark line was high tide.

We've crossed back into the United States now and have spent a couple of nights outside of Boston, getting caught up on chores.  Tomorrow we head west and will be stopping off in Seneca Falls and Buffalo, New York.  

Stay tuned:)

Our friends of the day are a bit more unusual:

Porcupine on the side of the road.

Black and white swans in a small town park.

Monarch butterfly feeding on knapweed.