WINTER WHITE--Trip 2

The color would have undoubtedly been spectacular along Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania if we could actually have seen it. Hardwoods still held their leaves, creating a mottled patchwork of yellows and browns that covered the hillsides. But today clouds muted the landscape--big dreary masses, thick sheets of grey, wispy fingers of mist reaching downward--and all of it brought a raw drizzle to dull the world. Even the top of a cell tower near Corsica caught a murky glob of grayish white as it drifted overhead and disappeared in the mist.
Predictions warned of a Nor'easter up the coast for the weekend, a hurricane churned in the Gulf, and snow buried parts of 14-degree Colorado under an all-time early eight inches last night. Here, a few degrees colder and the rain could freeze, but forecasters said sunny, warm and beautiful tomorrow. That's hard to believe. For now, dreary prevailed. The farther east we drove, the harder it rained and the more the temperature dropped.

"It's cold here," said Andy, stepping out at a Pilot station to gas up in Mackeyville, Pennsylvania, "and you don't need to wash the windows."

Sheets of rain spewed across the adjoining roadway and sprayed in white gusts from passing semis. Drops hit the puddles and bounced up in multiple spatters. Fog moved in over the rooftops, blanketing taller trees in ghostly draperies.

White clouds of fog covered the hills around Hazelton. We couldn't see 75 feet from the roadside. "It's even thicker here," said Andy. "Pea soup!"

"No," I corrected. "Clam chowder!"
The temperature in Blakeslee, Pennsylvania, read 45 degrees, but the motel clerk said to expect 29 degrees by morning. "At least the rain has stopped," said Andy, after he checked in. But he spoke too quickly. No sooner had he unloaded the suitcases than the grey skies opened again.
By dinnertime heavy white flakes filled the air. "I can't imagine it will stick," said Andy, "even if the predictions are for a cold morning tomorrow. It's too early to snow. This is still October."

But stick it did, in spite of the warm ground. By 7:00 p.m. White Haven, our Pennsylvania world, truly was white.

WALKING THE LINE--Trip 2

"I don't think we will see the sun today," said Andy, as we headed east from Perrysburg, Ohio. The 8:00 a.m. skies, totally overcast, dribbled lightly as we left the Toledo area.
At Brandywine Falls, 108 steps led down to overlooks of a bridal veil waterfall. A thriving town based on water power existed here in the first half of the 19th century. The town died as Akron and Cleveland grew along the rail lines. Only some foundations and the 60-foot waterfall remain.
The falls formed after the last Ice Age as Berea sandstone protected underlying softer deep red Bedford shale. The base of the waterfall exposed rocks that had formed 300-400 million years ago.

The Frazee House, built in 1826 on Canal Road and preserved in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park as one of the older homes in the valley, exemplifies the essence of Federalist-style architecture. Stephen Frazee bought 600 acres of Connecticut Region land and left the East to be a gentleman farmer and landowner in what became the state of Ohio.

The Ohio and Erie Canal on the Cuyahoga River, completed in 1827, linked Cleveland to Akron by a water transportation system. By 1832, the Canal connected to the Ohio River and offered cheap and easy access for marketable goods. A total of 44 locks along the Cuyahoga River raised and lowered boats 395 feet to and from Lake Erie. The Federal government has preserved 20 miles of the Canal with adjoining historical points of interest along the Towpath where mules pulled canal boats. What a different world we live in today!

The lock at Hell's Half-Acre probably attracted tired boatsmen who wanted beer at the tavern. The big white house served as tavern, home and supposedly the lockmaster's headquarters, but no records indicated a lockmaster ever lived or worked here. Regardless, the colorful name stuck.
Sixty-two steps led to Bridal Veil Falls. We strolled along the wooded path and boardwalk, following the stream downhill. A memorial stone read, "Ancient saying--You can't tell how far a frog can jump by looking at it." I thought, what a great quote for a college essay.
Tinker Creek Gorge Overlook inspired gasps of awe, but oh how much more beautiful the colors would appear with blue sky and sunshine.
Workers in the 1820's cut sandstone blocks to build Lock #29, an aqueduct that carried canal boats right over the Cuyahoga River. Enterprising businessmen constructed a grist mill on the riverbank in 1832 to utilize water power to grind the corn and efficiently load the flour right onto the boats to transport it to market. Charles Thomas and Chandler Moody bought the mill in 1885. They renamed it, expanded it and kept a thriving business going until 1931, when it burned to the ground.
Peninsula Depot, built in 1879 in Peninsula Village, was restored to its 1925 appearance when the Ohio and Erie Canalway Towpath and later the railroad carried goods and passengers along the Cuyahoga River. Today it serves the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad seasonally for tourists. In this low-key, quiet countryside, it's hard to believe that life teemed less than a hundred years ago. Everett Covered Bridge on Everett Road is the only remaining covered bridge in the county. In 1800, Ohio boasted 2,000 such bridges, the most of any state in the country at that time.

A school group of third graders stopped for a break near the bridge. "Find a separate spot and do your writing," ordered the teacher. "You may eat your fishy crackers, but you may not talk to each other. You have ten minutes to write."

"I can follow those rules," I told Andy, and I put pen to paper. That was without fishy crackers.
At Beaver Marsh we walked a mile along the old Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath, stepping where boatmen and their mules trod in the 1800's. Beavers took over when the canals were abandoned, and eventually the beaver dams swamped an old auto salvage lot to create a massive pond and marsh. We would never have known that the area was ever "civilized."
Nearby, Lock #26, decayed and green with algae, preserved the reminders of days gone by. Here, a massive flood in 1828 stalled the canal boats. The only thing left to eat for canal travelers was corn meal for pancakes, earning this lock the nickname Pancake Lock.
Two pair of mallards nibbled on algae greens on the canal surface. "Bottoms up," I joked as in unison they dipped their heads under the water.
"They mate for life," Andy reminded me.

A large turtle posed on a sunken log. "Look," I pointed, but only some ripples marked the spot where he disappeared in the bog. A large goose preened itself in the marsh, and farther on a blue heron stood silently at the river's edge. But no beavers swam out to greet us.
The park is as varied as the landscape and history. Since it encompasses 33,000 acres along the Cuyahoga River Valley between Akron and Cleveland, it includes forests, meadows, streams, lakes, waterfalls, rock outcroppings, farm fields, historic villages and canal resources. Every turn provided spectacular photographic opportunities. But it would never have been preserved if it had not been for the efforts of John F. Seiberling, the grandson of the founder of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and the Akron Metropolitan Park District. Starting in the 1920's, Seiberling promoted the idea of a comprehensive park, supported by the Federal government.
He wrote, "We will never see the land as our ancestors did. But we can understand what made it beautiful and why they lived and died to preserve it. And in preserving it for future generations, we will preserve something of ourselves... There is no more worthwhile cause."
In 1996, Congressman Ralph Regula sponsored legislation that expanded the park vision. Through his work, the national park has become physically connected to local parks and 40 communities along the old Ohio and Erie Canal.
Remnants of the Conrad Botzum Farmstead reminded visitors of life along the Towpath in the 1800's, but Botzum was luckier than most with a ready transportation system for his produce.
At 4:45 p.m., without a ray of sunlight on a totally overcast October day, Blue Hen Falls blazed with color. We descended the steep trail across a foot bridge amidst a fiery understory of orange, yellow and red.
"The tree tops are bare," said Andy. But the camera lens saw only the brilliance of autumn foliage.

"I'd say we lucked out today," I told Andy.

"You got that right," he agreed. "Not a drop of rain all day once we left Perrysburg, but water, water everywhere."

INDIANA AND OHIO HIGH--Trip 2

Cowles Bog Trail sounded like an impossibility when we listened to the weather forecast last night. "Clouds moving in with rain by early afternoon or before" precluded any chance of walking 4.1 miles through bog and across sand dunes. But by the time we checked out of the motel at 8:00 a.m., the sun had burned off any morning dew and a brisk breeze cleared the skies.
"They are saying 70 degrees by early afternoon, but it's in the low 40's now," said Andy, as we loaded the car and headed 12 miles back to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Cowles Bog Trail, named after Dr. Henry Cowles, who conducted initial studies of plant ecology here, circled the bog for 4.1 miles, according to the trail map, but designated parking .2 mile away added another .4 mile to the loop.
We set out along the oak savannah path with wetlands to one side. The trail, leaf covered, skirted green pools with downed trees and marsh grasses. "We have to come back this way," said Andy, when we reached the first junction, a mile in from the parking lot.

The consistent rumbling increased. "That can't be trains," I told him, "because the rumbling doesn't stop. But locomotives sound all those toots and whistles, and the crunching crashes have to be diesel engines picking up rail cars."

Andy agreed. "But the steel companies create that rumbling," he said. "It's the roar of the furnaces. I guess when people live here, they don't even notice it any more, because it is ceaseless."
The trail edged gently uphill another half mile toward the lake; then it climbed the dunes. Up, up, up we trudged, using the tree roots as steps in the sandy soil. Then down, down, down the other side. "But oh what a dirty trick this is!" Andy said. Another dune, higher than the first, separated us from Bailly Beach and Lake Michigan. Up, up, up, again. This time the down proved more daunting with larger roots entangled a foot out of the ground. But at the base stretched a bunch grass plain, the sand beach and beyond it the endless water of Lake Michigan, touching a blue horizon.
Two tenths mile down the beach, we scanned for a trail back. Easy to spot, it climbed an un-vegetated portion of dune, straight up. "You'll burn off your breakfast muffin now," said Andy.
"No kidding!" I gasped. Focusing on my feet, I trudged up the loose sand.

"Try to follow my footsteps," Andy called back. He breathed deeply too.

Right, left, right, I stepped, but with each foot forward, I slid down nine inches, as the loose, dry crystals gave under the weight of my heels. "I'm using your footsteps," I puffed back, "but your stride is longer than mine."

I caught my breath at the top, pausing to take in the view of Lake Michigan, waveless and calm, the power plant puffing clouds of pure white steam, the steel mill glistening in the morning sun, the oaks and maples, still shedding leaves of brown and yellow and red. Andy said he wasn't out of breath at all, but he waited for me anyway.
"It's all downhill now," said Andy, and he was pretty much correct. A few rises, a couple boardwalks and leaf-covered paths through wooded acres took us back around Cowles Bog. I shed my jacket, and we sat on the boardwalk, emptying the sand from our sneakers. It had been a pleasant way to spend a morning.
There were more trucks than cars on Interstate 80/90. That probably makes sense since it stretches from New York to San Francisco. UPS and Fed-Ex piggy-backs passed us both directions, all the three-trailer-pull variety. Truckloads of automobiles hauled both directions, as well, carrying bright blue Mazdas, black Ford trucks, silver Chryslers, and red Toyotas. I read names like Western Express, Patriot Transport Inc., USXL Worldwide, Covenant Transport, Pegasus Transport Inc. and M.S. Carriers. From the looks of the Interstate, it was hard to believe there was any slow down in production or any recession in the economy. The monster trucks just zipped along at 65 m.p.h., dominating the highway and outnumbering the passenger cars.
The Fallen Timbers Monument on the Maumee River paid tribute to the Indians and colonial militia who battled here over territory in the early 1790's.

"The Indians got screwed again," said Andy, as we walked around the bronze statue.

He was right. After failed military campaigns in 1790 and 1791 to crush the Indians who resented the white man's encroachment and settlement in the Ohio Territory, President George Washington turned to Anthony Wayne. Wayne assembled troops in Cincinnati, disciplined them for months as an army, and marched on 2,000 Indians in 1794. He found them here in what is now Maumee at a grove of trees downed by a tornado. Defeated not far away at the gates of Fort Miamis, the Indians signed the Treaty of Greene Ville, surrendering most of Ohio to the United States. Peaceful settlement of the frontier followed for 15 years. We walked around the statue, enjoying the unseasonable warm and knowing that the forecasted rain would soon be overhead.
The army broke ground to build Fort Meigs in February of 1813. Operated by the Ohio Historical Society, the earthen breastworks and log stockade with corner two-story parapets defended the Maumee River against the British and their Indian allies. The fort stood at the center of American military operations in the Northwest Territory and was intended to serve as a temporary supply depot and staging area for an invasion of Canada. Named for the Governor of Ohio, the garrison housed 2,000 U.S. regulars and militia from Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The British laid siege on May 1, 1813, but after a four-day bombardment when Kentucky militia reinforced the fort, the British gave up, lifted the siege and returned to Canada. The Indians who had accompanied them were bitterly disappointed by the British failure to take the fort. They had hoped a British victory would drive out the American settlers and discourage any more newcomers.
In July the British besieged Fort Meigs again to appease their Indian allies, but American forces saw through the initial mock battle to lure them out of the garrison. The second siege failed, as well.
By December 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, the war ended. Abandoned, Fort Meigs burned to the ground. The Ohio Historical Society restored it in 1974. Even though the museum was closed, the grounds remained open for visitors. We walked around the inside and outside of the Fort, admired the sunset and marveled at the history resurrected and preserved.

DUNED IN INDIANA--Trip 2

A thunderstorm last night cleaned the air for another brilliant autumn day. "It's late October and suburban Chicago hasn't had a hard frost yet," said Andy, as we loaded the car in Mount Prospect. Mom watched from her front porch.
Six days with family in Illinois had given us time to winterize Mom's house... storing the garden stakes and fencing, cleaning the gutters, trimming the trees, packing up the lawn furniture, raking the leaves, setting up a compost pile. It was a busy six days.

Then suddenly it was time to leave.

"Where did six days go?" asked Andy, as we climbed in Little Red and drove toward the Tri-State.

At West Beach of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, we followed the Succession Trail up and down the wooden stairs, along the plank boardwalk and over the dunes. "A lot of the leaves are off here," said Andy, "but the sumac is still beautiful." Oaks along the dunes rustled dry and brown, but the maples still retained some yellow and green.
Inland Marsh Trail, a mile walk through oak savannah into shallow lowlands, showed us plant succession as clusters of oak trees gave way to shrubs and grasses. The boardwalk skirted blowouts, climbed 250 stairs to forested dunes and offered a spectacular view of the Chicago skyline far in the distance.

Another mile-long trail took us to the old Bailly Homestead, an 1820's fur trading post, and the Chellberg Farm, a 1900's Swedish farmstead.
The Bailly Homestead, settled by the family of Joseph Bailly in the 1820's, enabled Joseph Bailly to operate a modest fur trading business with the Pottawatomie Indians. They brought him beaver pelts in exchange for blankets, knives, metal hatchets, fabric and clothing. He shipped the pelts to Mackinac, and from there they traveled to Montreal and eventually Europe for a fashion industry that was intent on producing beaver felt hats.
Bailly chose the trading post site in 1822 because of its location on the Little Calumet River. Pottawatomies, gathering and trapping, spent their summers here in dome-shaped wigwams built of bent tree saplings and cattail mats. In the winter they separated into small family groups and moved south into the Kankakee Marsh. We read that women collected hazel nuts, hickory nuts and black walnuts. All these lined the clearing of the Bailly Homestead.
A woodpecker pounded on the front of the Bailly house. "Get out of there!" yelled Andy, running toward the bird and waving his arms. The woodpecker flew off, only to land on one of the log fur trader buildings. He left a baseball size hole in the front carrying post of the Bailly house. "It just shows that those little pilliated woodpeckers are not discriminating when it comes to color," said Andy. The light tan trim didn't look like wood at all. We read the sign. Joseph Bailly never had a chance to live in the house. He died before it was finished in 1835.

Chellberg Farm, .3 miles farther, had been farmed until a few years ago when the volunteer who operated it for the National Park Service passed away. Now the house and barn were locked up tight.
In the distance we could hear reminders of today: the rumble of the steel mills some miles up the lakeshore, the tooting of a train whistle, and then repeated crashes as the engine picked up additional cars and finally the chugging growl as it moved on. But at Chellberg Farm, the year was 1900.
We pulled into Kemil Beach Access Road--no parking any time--right on the tip of Lake Michigan. "It looks just like an ocean," said Andy, "with the waves coming in and the sea grass bending in the wind. And you can't see a bit of land anywhere." We followed the narrow two-lane Lake Front Drive, water on one side, homes perched above us on sand dunes on the other.
Lake View, a small park on the water at Beverly Shores, offered shelters and picnic facilities with beach access. We walked on the sand along the waterfront... a power plant far in the distance on the Michigan side, steel mills dotting the horizon on the Indiana end, and out over the water, maybe 30 miles distant, the Chicago skyline with its Willis Tower pointing a shadowy finger at the heavens. A gull dared us to come closer, bobbing its head to the steady slosh of the incoming waves.
Dune Ridge Trail climbed to the top of an interior sand dune ridge for views of the oak savannahs and lakeshore dips. Cattails swayed in the marsh below as the 4:00 p.m. sun glimmered off pools of water in the low-lying bogs.
The newest trail, Great Marsh Trail, cut through an old thousand-acre marsh about a foot above the water level. We spooked some mallards that took off in hurried flight.
Far in the distance a train whistled repeatedly; then the steady rumble of steel on steel broke the stillness.

"Did you read the sign at the Joseph Bailly house that explained why this area was slow to be settled?" asked Andy. "It said there was a hundred thousand-acre swamp. I'll bet this is a remnant of it."

Cattail puff blew around us and clung to the sides of the tall green stalks. Most of the dark brown cigars had gone to seed. "I'd take some to start fires in the winter if they weren't so far gone," I told Andy. But they looked beautiful in the wild.
Our last stop, Mount Baldy, towered over the surrounding landscape, a 126-foot tall shifting monster of a sand dune. Looking serene and calm after last night's rain with the 5:00 o'clock p.m. sun casting long shadows, Mount Baldy is anything but placid. It is the tallest moving sand dune in the national lakeshore. Without vegetation, it continues its deliberate march inland, burying mature trees in its path on the south slope.
We climbed to the bald knoll and breathed in the cooling air of sunset from the top of one of the only national park areas to have "inspiration" as part of its stated mission.

"BEAR"...ING IT ALL IN CHICAGO--Trip 2

"Go Bears!" We cheered in unison for the Chicago football heroes in their match-up in London, England, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

"We probably won't see Kyle," explained my sister Jean.

"He'll be in the spectator section with the drumline," added her husband Jim.

Their son, a member of the Chicago Bears Drumline, had performed the night before in Trafalgar Square and again in front of the stadium for all the tailgaters before the Sunday game.

"It's too bad they couldn't play at halftime or during the game," added Jean, "but the Buccaneers are considered the home team."

We all watched with Mom on the big screen TV at Jean and Jim's house as the Bears scored twice and then stalled. "They do this all the time," said Jean, "look great early on and then fall apart."

But this time the Bears held on for three more exciting quarters and edged out the Buccaneers 24 to 18. Unfortunately, we never did spot Kyle or the drumline.

MORE LINCOLN COUNTRY--Trip 2

Early, we headed for Springfield, Illinois, but it wasn't bright. Heavy grey clouds hung low, threatening rain. "I'd say those were snow clouds, if I didn't know it was 44 degrees outside," I told Andy. But 44 felt frigid when two days ago the thermometers read 85 degrees.
The Visitor Center at the Abraham Lincoln Springfield Home National Historic Site offered a film about Abraham Lincoln's life in Springfield, the years between his beginnings as a lawyer and his departure for Washington, D.C. as the 16th President of the United States. And Lincoln had every intention of returning to the comfortable upper middle-class life in the Illinois capitol. He asked his partner not to remove his shingle from their office in town, just as William Herndon was unhooking the placard from the front of the building.
"I'll be back to take up where we left off," he told the partner.

Lincoln had come to Springfield as a young, self-educated country boy. He rented a room from Joshua F. Speed, the general store owner, and ultimately they became lifelong friends. He arrived on horseback from New Salem in 1837, with all his worldly possessions in two saddle bags. To him Springfield was the big city; it was really just a village of 400 inhabitants with mud streets and livestock running at large. Regardless, it was a lonesome place for a young man emerging from grinding poverty. He broke off his engagement with a girl from New Salem, because he felt uncomfortable in the Springfield world of social flourish and felt she would be out of place in "big city" society.

But by rubbing elbows with the political elite, he met upper-class Mary Todd and was instantly enamored by her charm. Before their marriage, he had saved enough to have a modest sum of money in the bank. In 1844, they purchased their Springfield home for $1,200 from Reverend Charles Dresser, the minister who married them in 1842. The purchase also included plots of land.

Lincoln's biographer wrote, "From an ill-trained fledgling lawyer, compelled by his poverty to share a bed in a friend's room above the store, to a leader in the Illinois bar," Lincoln improved his status in society through his hard work, his honesty and his wits.

The Lincoln-Herndon Law Office flourished between 1843 and 1852, in great part because of Lincoln's diligence, hard work and honest, forthright manner. When he served in Congress from 1847 to 1849, his partner maintained the practice.

Abe and Mary lived happily in the Greek Revival-style house for 17 years. The family spent many hours together in the sitting room, but the chairs were not built for a man who was six feet two inches tall.

Because of his height, Lincoln needed a special bed. "This bed really IS six feet nine inches long," said the ranger stationed in the bedrooms. "You can see that Mary's bedroom is much fancier. It was common practice to have separate bedrooms in those days," said the ranger, "and with four boys, she would retreat to her room for privacy."

Mary's niece wrote that the 1860's house was irresistible. "Their little home was painted white and had green shutters. It was sweet and fresh, and Mary loved it. She was exquisitely dainty, and her house was a reflection of herself with everything in good taste and in perfect order."

I asked the ranger if the busy wallpaper, carpeting and accents were a reflection of the "daintiness" of Mary. He just said it was a sign of the times and that once she had ordered something from the East or from abroad, she couldn't very well return it.
Andy and I listened to one ranger who was stationed in the kitchen. "Mary loved to entertain," she said. "She did all the cooking in this little kitchen. One description of a party said she fed 300 guests from this stove and we know she planned birthday parties with as many as 40 or 50 children for her sons, a highly unusual practice in the 1800's."
Mary's sister Frances Todd Wallace came often to plant flowers in the front yard. Neither Abe nor Mary planted trees, and, unlike their neighbors, they only had a garden one year. They were busy raising four boys, who were described as "rambunctious and undisciplined," since both Abe and Mary were lenient parents.

In 1856, the Lincolns enlarged the house to two full stories to accommodate a growing family. Three of the four Lincoln sons were born here, and one son Edward died here in 1850 of what was probably tuberculosis at the age of four.

We walked the gravel and crushed stone streets and the wood plank sidewalks. "That's so the women with their long skirts wouldn't get all muddy," said the tour guide. Other houses in the neighborhood have been rebuilt and renovated to their 1860's appearance.
When Lincoln won the Republican Presidential nomination in 1860, he received the delegation of party officials in his parlor. In 1861, when he left for the White House, he held a farewell reception and then sold most of the furniture and rented the house. A neighbor kept the Lincoln family dog. When Lincoln was President, Springfield drew visitors like a magnet, and the area became a focal point for parades, rallies and other political festivities. But the family never returned.
Robert Todd Lincoln, the only son who survived to adulthood, donated the home to the National Park Service with two stipulations: that it never be sold and that all visitors could tour free of charge and see the "real" Abraham Lincoln.

Finally, as the raw wind brought in rain, we stopped across town at the Lincoln Tomb.

On April 15, 1865, the day President Lincoln died, a group of Springfield citizens formed the National Lincoln Monument Association and spearheaded a drive for funds to construct a memorial or tomb. It wasn't until 1871, three years after construction started, that the bodies of Lincoln and his three youngest sons were placed in crypts in the unfinished structure. After temporary burial sites and at least one attempt at stealing the body, Lincoln was permanently interred here in 1887, more than 21 years after the assassination. He was reburied with his wife in a brick vault beneath the floor with remembrance to honor his service to America and his greatness in preserving the Union.

The Tomb, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.