48stateroadtrip.com

I used to love doing headlines. That seems like a long time ago. Now? I’m all about second paragraphs.

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I dunno. Something about the Civil War, big armory, company town, Confederates making sure it was destroyed all the time, John Brown, railroads, a trans-continental canal, lots of floods, then someone deciding to move the town somewhere so that it wouldn’t keep getting destroyed all the time. Oh well.

Main Street.

Raised railroad tracks. No, really! They run between Main Street and the river. I think Shenandoah (River). Eventually they cross the Potomac (eventually = a few hundred yards later).

The scaffolding around the church tower adds a uniquely European touch to the scene.

Bridges have interesting lines.

Episcopal church.

Episcopal cloud.

It was a nice half-day place. Had lunch at one of the taverns or whatever in the non Parks Service part of town: pulled pork sandwich. Was pretty good, but hilariously overpriced. I also ordered (tap) water.

Also of note: the drive from my campsite in Western Maryland (nice showers!) to Harpers Ferry marks the last time I’ll use my GPS. Garmin’s not very good at giving directions. She dropped me off in the middle of a country road in Maryland and told me it was the Harpers Ferry Visitors Center in West Virginia. Essentially. Probably not as dangerous as the time she dragged me up into the maze of unmarked logging roads in pursuit of Mt. St. Helens, but still. Also probably not as bad as when she told me the speed limit was 70 when it was, in fact, 25. Or the multiple times she’s told me to enter the freeway via the offramp. Plus she’s so smug about it. But anyway. Hopefully REI will still take it back. I still have the box, I think. Moral: don’t buy Garmin.

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I liked Ft. McHenry better than Freedom Hall in no small part because it wasn’t entirely swarmed with people. I’m guessing having to figure out how to drive through the huddled masses of Baltimore thins out the crowd a little. Certainly the lack of useful signage doesn’t help a lot either.

Nice fort, though.

15 stars, 15 stripes.

It was at half-mast because it was national dead firefighters day or something. I think the flag’s at half-mast more often than full-mast these days.

All cannons should be this black.

Outside the fort — on the land side.

I guess early 19th century forts are more exciting to run around than look at pictures of. (Yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition. It was easier that way.) Still, it’s a cool fort. It’d have been even cooler if they’d preserved the truce ship out in the harbor that Francis Scott Key was sitting on when he wrote the poem. And the flag they have there only had 15 stars on it even though there were like 18 states. Looks good with 15, though — maybe we should go back.

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The horrible part is that these dopey posts about big, unfriendly east coast cities are keeping me from blogging about Antietam, which I actually liked. I mean, in a solemn, respecful way: “liked”. Or anyway, I like the photos I got there.

Problems with Philadelphia:

• Badly planned streets.
• Expensive parking.
• Bad signage.

Otherwise seemed pretty nice. The downtown penitentiary was an unusual touch, but… Nah, I wasn’t all that impressed with Philadelphia. The historical area seemed overrun with tourists, but there wasn’t all that much there to hold anyone’s (anyone’s = my) interest. I would’ve been more excited by a memorial to Santa Claus booings or something that I more readily associate with modern Philly.

Chillin’ at Freedom Hall.

I’m guessing if Benjamin Franklin were alive today he wouldn’t live in Philadelphia. He’d live tax-free in the Caymans.

Oh, I also looked at the Liberty Bell, but I decline to post a photo since, well, it’s a bell with a crack in it and it’s not like you can get a clean frame showing the bell and less than fourteen tourists. Eh. Plus I was over Philadelphia by then so I wasn’t into trying real hard. I paid a total of, like $27, to park during the total of 2.5 hours I was there. Sort of my bad, but sort of Philly’s bad also. That never would’ve happened in Bemidji.

I’ve also noticed that the entire eastern US is a usability nightmare. No helpful signs anywhere. At Liberty Hall, the first corner I approached had a sign saying “No Entry”, but it didn’t say where I *could* enter. So I walked around the building counter-clockwise finding “No Entry” signs at everything that looked like it should have been an entrance until I got almost all the way back to the spot where I started. Once there, I saw the sign saying “Enter Here — Ticket Required”. No, the tickets were not available there. You had to walk two blocks away to the Visitor’s Center. And don’t get me started on the road signs.

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I’d been warned before going to Palmyra that there wasn’t much to see and you know what? There’s not much to see. (For non-Mormons, this is another Mormon history site — sorry/you’re welcome/meh, depending on your attitude.) That said, the woods behind the Joseph Smith farm did seem peaceful (though there were more mosquitoes than I’d figured on) and was a nice, flat place for walking around and occasionally pausing to look into the trees and ponder.

Grove, trees. Joseph Smith may have prayed *right here*. And I’m surprised more people don’t get lost roaming around this place.

And then the trees, being looked up into.

And with that, the only prime LDS history site I haven’t been to is Jackson County. Suppose I ought to go to Israel some time also. Maybe next year. Seriously — maybe.

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Wendesday, Telkontar and I went out to Nauvoo, Ill. If the name’s not familiar, then you’re probably not Mormon. (You can check out Nauvoo Mormon history separately if you want or here’s the two-sentence version:

Nauvoo is a city on the Mississippi River in Illinois to which the Mormon church relocated in 1839 after the state of Missouri legalized exterminating them. After eight years, mobs forced the Mormons to leave Illinois for, well, Mexico (present-day Utah), leaving behind a bunch of pretty cool old brick buildings and the sites of some key events in the church’s history, some of which have since been re-acquired and restored.)

Anyway: I gotta figure out how to take better architectural photos. Maybe next trip.

Seventies Hall, grass, fence. Back in the 1840s, there would’ve been a bunch of out-buildings on the grass.

My great-great-great-grandfather’s porch. And house.

My bro and I posing in front of our own grandpa, who started the restoration of Nauvoo back in 1960 (or so) and ran it for a couple of decades. Our great-great-great grandpa is in the portrait in the room behind us.

The re-built Nauvoo Temple.

Joseph and Hyrum Smith ridin’ home with the temple tower straight ahead.

Same statue, other direction.

Illinois sky, ground.

It was a fun trip. My bro drove the whole way, which was a very welcome change. The missionaries in the homes seemed like they all had just gotten yelled at by the mission president that morning. I figure someone spouted space doctrine to a local journalist or something. It was kind of weird. Made a rope, though, which was cool. Got another prairie ring. They always seem like a good idea until you realize they don’t really fit. Oh well. Also got to introduce someone to the paradox of choice, which may or may not have been appreciated.

Nauvoo is my favorite part of the church’s history. It’s the time in church history that I best identify with — “we’re sick of getting treated like crap, so we’re going to do something about it — we don’t need you”. I kind of wish more (any?) of that spirit showed up at church on Sundays.

I also get a little choked up at seeing a portrait of my grandpa in a place that doesn’t belong to one of my relatives. And one day I’d like to claim my 1/24th of that house.

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The Tillamook Air Museum wasn’t foggy. Instead, it was a small, local air museum. The most interesting thing about it was that it was housed in an old WW2-era blimp hangar. Also noteworthy were the numerous signs explaining to people that, in fact, the Spruce Goose is not housed there — it’s in McMinnville. I knew that ahead of time.

One photo:

The hangar door with an A-7 looking on.

Basically, it was like the Chino Air Museum minus 30% of the aircraft but housed in a much-cooler facility. And hopefully I figure out something to photograph at air museums before I get to Dayton.

And then Fort Clatsop, which has nothing to do with the Tillamook Air Museum, is where Lewis and Clark’s expedition holed up for the winter of 1805-06. Very tiny, unphotogenic fort btw (thus: not fort photos), but still it was a pretty cool historical place to be and made me think I ought to read something about Lewis and Clark some day. And, similarly, right now I should probably read something about the Revolutionary War so I can feel all informed when I stop in Trenton on my way down to Philly in a month or two.

The place where Lewis and Clark landed their canoes — they probably just tied on to one of those regularly spaced, vertical posts in the water there.

Ende.

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