250- Kind of a Big Deal!

I am aware that some folks are having a hard time celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the USA with all the tension in the political climate. However, I think it's a big deal. And I can say with a great deal of certainty that I won't be around for the 300th, so I'm making an effort to be a bit more celebratory than I often am on holidays.

The church that's near us had a fireworks display on Wednesday night. I'm not a big fan of fireworks. But I went out and watched some of theirs.

Today, White Pine Village had a day that was free to the public. This is a local living history musuem that has all buildings of local historical significance that have been moved to the site. It's really well done, with quite a lot of buildings now, but I hadn't seen it in a long time because it's also a bit pricey.

The entire village is built around this house, which is the first frame house built in the county in 1849. And it was in this location. All the other buildings were moved to join it. This was also used as the county's first courthouse, jail and general store.

I spent a bit over two hours there. A lot has been added since my last visit, and it was excellent. They were also giving away free ice cream! West Shore Bank, locally owned, sponsored the free day, and House of Flavors donated the ice cream.

I didn't show you any pix from the Patriotic Concert on Sunday, but I'll show you one now (that was taken Sunday) because the choir was also at the village today and sang their selections.

This is a lady dipping candles. The wiggly ones on the right are recently begun, and the ones on the left and the one she is dipping are nearly done.

I managed to catch one of the sawmill demonstrations. Of course, a huge part of the local history is tied up with logging and mills.

One of the local industries that operated into the last part of the 20th Century was Star Watch Case. And here is where I learned something new. I already knew what a pantograph is, and you probably do too if you've done any wood routing, or perhaps even some experimental kinds of art. It's basically a jointed quadrilateral frame that you can use to trace a design from one surface to another and make it a different size.

So, I did not know that this is how they made those detailed and fancy engravings on gold watch cases. The large flat disk on the left is a metal plate which has the design cut into it. Of course, it is large enough that you can see the lines. The watch case is at the other side of the pantograph. When the design is traced on the big disk, it is reproduced on the scale of the case at the other side. It's sort of like how micro-robotic hands work-- where you move your own hand a couple of inches, and the robot hand moves only a tiny increment.

And to end the day, David came to visit. Yes, the David that lives in Philadelphia. As a reminder, his wife is originally from Grand Rapids, so he tries to pop up here when they make the trip to Michigan. And the summer trip is even closer, since they all stay in a cottage only about 35 minutes from me!

The day started with a Zoom call, but it mostly improved after that. It was a good meeting, but I just am not a fan of virtual meetings. I'm glad I made the effort to get over to White Pine Village (and I saw a LOT of people I know). David helped me fix a computer thing, and also to clean the vacuum filter. I don't expect him to work when he shows up here, but it just sort of happened. And if someone mentions a computer problem around Dave he can hardly keep from fixing it! Then he showed me pictures from a recent trip he and Rachel took to London.

My tomorrow guests will not be here till evening, so I still have a little time to do the last bit of cleaning that is going to happen.

See Big Boy

Tustin and Potatoes

What does the village of Tustin have to do with potatoes, you ask? The Pine River Museum is located in Tustin, in a former potato warehouse. The building is 200 feet long, but narrow so that it had multiple bays that fronted on the railroad.

And surprisingly, it has a basement that was also filled with potatoes at harvest time. They cut through the floor in one place and added crates and fake potatoes to show how that would have been used.

The primary agricultural product of the area was potatoes. Actually, there still are a lot of potatoes grown in the area. This is a field of them in blossom just a little south from there. (another year, another month)

This is one display of hand tools used in the ag business of 100 years ago. there are potato and corn planters on the left, along with a number of itmes that were used in other farm pursuits- a fruit picking bag, shearing scissors for sheep, wooden grain shovels, corn knife, hay rake, hay knife, and more.

I was especially surprised at this. These are hand-carved yokes for carrying two buckets. I have one of these that belonged to my grandfather. I guess I sort of thought these were an eastern thing. But, nope! Here are four more. Mine is most like the second one down. I'll show you some day.

I worked on various projects today including starting to get materials collected for Confidence Camp. It was cold outside, and I was a little sore from yesterday, but I did stuff.

See When I first saw the museum building

Ice Age Trail

We mainly wanted to put a good number of miles under our tires today. But I had one planned wish, and that was to at least put my feet on the Ice Age Trail. We chose Janesville, Wisconsin, because it was on the way to where we were staying for the night.

I did a total of 0.7 mile. But my 20 minutes had just about everything a trail adventure can provide. Some was dirt, some was paved. A turn wasn't marked and I ended up at a dead end in a golf course. I needed a bathroom (but did find a porta-potty- Lon's Jons, actually). Once I went back and found the turn, I saw this. The Ice Age Trail has yellow blazes.

I followed the blazes down some beautifully made rock steps to the Rock River.

So now I have at least put a foot on 4 national scenic trails. Am I trying for all 11? Probably not; my chances of getting out west are low. But if the opportunity arises, I'll take it.

The day started with a fast look at a place called End-O-Line Railroad Park. We were not there when it was really open. That's probably good, or Diane and I would have seriously wanted to take the tour. It was much more than a village park with an engine. Basically, they are recreating a small village from the past. As far as I'm concerned, the key feature is an old turntable. I've seen some old ones, but never one that still has the rail down in the pit that allows the table to turn.

Here are some of the buildings in their historic village.

I was sadly thinking I was not going to see white pelicans on this trip. But we found some!

And just a quick shot out the window as we crossed to the east side of the Mississippi "where we belong."

Staying with friends for the night. Didn't have to set up the tents!

Hiked 0.7 miles, some of it on the Ice Age Trail.

Miles hiked in 2025: 350.3

See Dignity of Earth and Sky

Paleontological Research Institute

First of all, we are safely at Bill's house. Long day in the car. I'll use the blog time tonight to tell you more about the big event of yesterday with Elaine.

We had a private tour of the Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca.

Here's the deal- one of Elaine's first jobs was as an assistant to the director of the institute. That woman was apparently their most influential director ever, and when the current director (Warren Allman) learned that Elaine knew Dr. Palmer well, he really wanted to talk with her.

This is in the research library- getting acquainted.

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Dr. Allman was a wonderfully gracious host. He gave us a tour of all the behind the scenes parts. This is the type specimen collection. The PRI has the largest collection of fossils in the world, and they have over 16,000 type specimens (keyed out without ambiguities, as perfect as possible, organized and labeled, etc)

They have millions of fossils in their complete collections. They aren't even all in their database yet.

These are micro-specimens. They have been mounted for viewing under a microscope.

And we got a private tour of the public part of the musuem. I'm only going to show you a few things that were unusual to me. Remember, I grew up in this part of New York where we would fill our pockets with fossils every time we went outside.

These are crinoids with the heads attached. Very ususual to find the heads. The "stems" break up into little segmented tubes and they are some of the easiest fossils to find. But they are animals in the same family as starfish. The heads are rarely preserved as fossils.

These are impressions of sea urchins.

And this is a book printed in 1684. It is the oldest book in the PRI collections, and is devoted completely to mollusks and shells.

We spent two hours there, so obviously saw lots more than this. The private tour was great. They were really interested in hearing personal memories of Dr. Palmer, and we got to ask questions like you never would on a self-tour. Not to mention seeing the labs and collections.

There is one more thing from the PRI that I want to share, but it needs to have its own post. I'll catch that one another day.

IF you are ever in Ithaca, and this sort of thing interests you, it's definitely worth a stop.

Tomorrow, final stop for this trip... home.

See A Day with Elaine

Stop 12- David, and Koteewi

  Here I am back in Indiana. I'm spending the night with another of the blogger friends, David aka Vanilla.

He often visits people in the local nursing home, and he particularly spends time with this lady, Heide, who is a shirttail relative of his. She followed my blog during the hike, and hoped to meet me. I found her own story fascinating. I do not have permission to share details, but she grew up in Germany before and during WWII. It would make a fantastic book! She is in her 90s.

My hike for the day was at the Koteewi (say ko-TAY-wee) Park in Strawtown, Indiana. This is a huge park with miles of trails, a Nature Center, and museum. (Also many other activities that I didn't pursue today). I did a 3-mile hike. Pictures from the trail mostly look brown and blah because of the season, but there are some views of the White River. The trail goes through woods and prairie. In the other three seasons, I'm sure it's lovely.

There is a large room for nature activities with turtles, snakes, frogs, etc in aquariums, skulls, skins, posters, things to explore. I liked this set up... it looks like it belongs in a fantasy adventure game.

I thought this was fun. It's a stuffed beaver posed as if it's chewing a tree. I haven't seen one displayed that way before.

The museum included Native artifacts found on the site of the nature center grounds. There were three Native American cultures represented there. This dugout (actually burned out) canoe was found.

Remains of at least two villages were found on the site. Some examples of parts of them have been recreated. Here is a bark house.

The inside has low bunks/benches.

If you live anywhere near Indianapolis, IN, this is a wonderful resource. You can play, learn, probably volunteer... there was even a book trail for kids (where pages of a book are displayed along a pathway and kids can walk and read). There are 9 miles of trails. I only did one loop. From the looks of the facility, I'm sure that the nature activities for kids are outstanding.

There were some other trails closer to the middle of my drive, but I turned them down because I prefer a loop to an out-and-back, so I chose this. What a great find!

Total miles hiked in 2024: 64.7 of which 1.2 is North Country Trail.

Koteewi Park, IN. North Loop and spurs, 3.0 miles

See Jim and JoAnne See Koteewi Park

A Day with Elaine

  Today, Marie and I spent the day with my friend Elaine. You can see why we used to be called Mutt and Jeff if you are old enough to remember that cartoon.

Our first activity was to go fossil hunting for a couple of hours. Around here, that is usually a sure thing to find a few fossils. We didn't find anything spectactular, and I forgot to take pictures because it was just run of the mill stuff. But we had fun. In this stone, there is the round end of a horn coral impression, and the impression of some worm. We also found crinoids and brachiopods, and some other small shell impressions.

"Look over there," Elaine instructed. It's like the grass on the other side of the fence... you always think the best ones will be just around the bend.

Then we went to a small public garden and musuem. It was really nice. Even though it's September, there were still quite a few flowers in bloom.

We spent about two hours there, but I would gladly go back again. We didn't really see it all. There is an extensive stamped brick collection.

There are a number of buildings filled with old tools. One building is a working mill. This is just a small bit of some of the farm tools on display.

The most amazing thing is a fossil he found on his property. It's been called one of the most significant fossil finds of New York State. You need to understand that each half of this rock is bigger than I am, and is filled with these fossils of Glass Sponges. A fossil colony had never been found before. They are Uphantaenia chemungensis

Finally, we made a visit to Ithaca Falls.

Dinner out and it was time to say goodbye. Nice day.

See Crystal Hills