Chapter 45 - Michigan, Ohio, Rochester
Dave and Helen Damouth
www.damouth.org
October 28, 1999
Eight Point Lake, west of Clare, Michigan, is fairly typical of hundreds of small lakes in the northern half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The shore is solidly lined with summer cottages, some with beach frontage as narrow as 50 feet. In some places, there is a second, newer, multi-story, cottage behind the first on the same property, and an apartment over a garage across the road, all, sharing 50 feet of beach. This can result in half a dozen boats at each dock - jet skis, specialized fishing and water skiing boats, restored mahogany Chris-Craft speedboats, even an occasional cabin cruiser. Non-motorized boats - rowboats, sailboats, canoes, and windsurfers - have practically vanished during the past decade, with only a few on shore and these few rarely used. The population density (and the noise level) here is much higher than in a typical big-city neighborhood, particularly on warm summer weekends, when everyone in Michigan cities drives to their cottage for the weekend.
This "summer cottage" phenomenon has existed for many generations and extends broadly through the middle class - not just affluent professionals, but also shopkeepers, tradesmen, teachers, blue-collar factory workers, etc. Originally, many of these cottages were originally quite primitive, built with little money and lots of manual labor from an extended family. Over the years, and over several generations as the cottage is handed down through the family or sold to new owners, many improvements and extensions have been added. The original cottage disappears under progressive layers of additions and improvements until the final result may be quite large and ornate. In contrast, a few families still maintain their cottage in its original form (with the exception of having installed indoor plumbing), and a tiny weatherbeaten log cabin may be incongruously located right next to a modern mansion.
A few of these places are used as year-round homes, but jobs within commuting range are scarce, so most of these people live in the "big" cities further south and drive here on weekends and for their 2-week annual vacation. Sometimes most of the family will stay for an extended period, and only the wage earner will return to the city to work during the week. Some of the occupants are retirees, but the winter is harsh and winter social activities around the lake are almost non-existent, so few of the retirees will remain for the entire year. Before the snow flies, they either move back to the city or migrate to Florida with the other snowbirds.
For the majority of these people, the annual routine is rigid - travel to the cottage on Memorial Day weekend to spend a weekend of hard work cleaning the cottage, raking up the winter's debris, installing the docks and boat hoists, putting the boat in the water. Then entertain mobs of relatives on the 4th of July. On Labor Day weekend, the cottage is closed and winterized, the docks are disassembled and stacked on the lawn, the boat hoists are dragged out of the water. The docks are a community effort, generally requiring 4 to six strong bodies. For some families, this means a group of men from neighboring cottages collaborating to get everyone's dock in or out. For others, strong-backed friends and relatives are invited to drive up and spend a working and partying weekend.
Undeveloped lake property within a day's drive of the big cities has become quite scarce and property values have increased dramatically. The character of some of these lake communities is changing, as modest cottages with frontage on a nice lake sell for a quarter of million dollars.
Surrounding these lakes are thousands of square miles of forest. Almost none of it is wilderness. Some is State Forest, managed for game and timber production, and laced with dirt roads. Much of the forest land is privately owned by individuals, or increasingly, by hunting clubs. This private land is posted and often fenced and gated. This land is managed almost entirely for white tailed deer habitat - cutting trees to provide areas of good deer browse, bringing in truckloads of sugar beets or cord for winter feed, etc. This has become competitive - property owners endeavor to offer especially attractive food and habitat on their property, to lure the deer away from their neighbor's property, improving their own hunting success.
Deer hunting here no longer involves any actual walking around "hunting" (in the sense of "searching") for deer. Rather, one builds a comfortable platform in a strategically sited tree, dumps a truckload of deer feed nearby, and then sits and waits for the deer to come to dinner.
At the moment, this has resulted in an oversupply of deer, which are overrunning the area and invading the cities. New (and controversial) laws restrict the feeding of the deer herds. Large numbers of special hunting licenses are being issued to reduce the deer population.
It's not unusual for a Michigan family to have a big chest freezer jammed full of deer meat - enough to supply a substantial percentage of their meat for a full year.
Michigan Travel
Most of the period covered in this report was spent in visits with relatives in Michigan and Ohio and friends in western New York. In this multi-purpose narrative, we need to apologize, on the one hand to our relatives and old friends for leaving out much of the details of interesting personal interactions, and on the other hand, to the rest of our audience, for including so much mention of family detail.
The trailer was parked at Eight Point Lake, in the driveway of Merrill and Merne Hutchins (Helen's brother and sister-in-law), from Sept. 11 through Sept. 15. We mostly relaxed, enjoyed visits with Merrill and Merne, and worked our way through almost a month's snailmail which was waiting for us when we arrived. ("Snailmail" is a common term referring to those archaic paper documents sent to our mail forwarding service (very slowly) via the U.S. Postal Service, and then forwarded to us sporadically. We call the forwarding service and request the accumulated mail to be sent to us (again usually through the U.S Postal Service) on those occasions when we can specify an address where we'll be sure we'll be a few days in the future, when the mail is expected to arrive).
We (of course) enjoyed the traditional circumnavigation of the lake on Merrill's pontoon boat. One afternoon, we drove to Midland to see the Dow Gardens, and enjoyed walking through the 100 carefully landscaped acres. Informal plantings of shrubs, annual flowers, and green lawns are woven through forest glades of ancient native trees. A stream winds through the property, feeding several artificial ponds. At one point, an acre or two of ground had been formed into whimsical mounds and valleys of neatly mowed grass - unusual and fun. Along one side of the gardens, we caught occasional glimpses of the gigantic contemporary (1950's?) home of Alden B. Dow, a noted architect and student of Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the gardens as well as the house. The home and immediate grounds are not open to visitors.
On Sept. 16, we towed the trailer to Walnut Hills Campground, near Durand, Michigan for a two-night stay. On the way, we stopped at Saginaw Art Museum, which is housed in an interesting 1904 Georgian-revival mansion. We were disappointed to find much of their permanent collection in storage, to make room for special exhibitions - of origami and of a local artist which we found only moderately interesting. The period garden behind the house was nice.
Parking our 55-foot-long rig at these relatively small museums has always been a concern. But we've never actually had a serious problem. In this case, the parking lot looked a little tight, so we turned up a side street, and parked along the curb on a residential street, only a block away. The big nationally-known tourist attractions aren't usually a parking problem since people come to them in busloads, and there is generally a large and convenient parking lot for the big busses.
Walnut Hills Campground is aptly named - liberally supplied with walnut trees, ranging from large mature specimens to whole groves of relatively young trees. We could have collected nuts by the bushel in the area immediately around our campsite. When we arrived, on a Thursday evening, the large campground was nearly empty. Early Friday evening, a steady stream of campers began to flow in, and shortly after dark, the park was nearly full. Amazing! Even in mid-September, the local people tend to go to a campground for the weekend.
Sept. 17: Helen spent a long day visiting her brother Ronald, catching up on family news and visiting places remembered from their childhood in the Flint area. They found the cottage on Byron Lake where the family spent the summer of 1941. And Ron found the stones of a campfire ring in the woods, from a horseback camping trip he and his brother took there over 50 years ago.
Sept. 18: Hooked up the trailer and headed west this morning, along Interstate 69, bypassing Lansing and continuing west on Interstate 96. On the north edge of Grand Rapids, we detoured to Meijer Gardens for a couple of hours. This place is quite new, and still under development. A huge modern, aluminum-framed greenhouse towers five stories high, and contains interesting, well-designed, and well-maintained plantings from many parts of the world. The outdoor gardens are still limited in scope. We followed a pleasant path through the woods and along a marsh that was busy with noisy ducks. Periodically, we came across a little clearing containing a modern sculpture. Some 70 pieces of sculpture are displayed, from quite a few contemporary artists. Most are realistic, representational art, with only a few abstract works.
Continuing west, we followed I-96 to the outskirts of Muskegon, then went a few miles south to Hoffmaster State Park, located in the edge of a band of forested sand dunes which extend up to a mile inland from the shore of Lake Michigan. Arriving late on a Saturday afternoon, we found the large campground nearly full, but with a handful of campsites still available. Many of the sites are very large, easy to back into, and would handle the biggest rigs, although the interior roads are narrow and twisting and require careful driving for a long rig. The campground is lovely - in a mixed forest of mature oak, maple, ash, pine, spruce, hemlock, etc.
We made the mistake of parking with the back of the trailer under the canopy of a tall red oak. Each little gust of wind dislodged a couple of heavy inch-long acorns, which after falling 50 feet or so, hit our roof with a resonant boom that sounded like fireworks going off. Fortunately, there were only occasional gusts of wind, and none at night.
Sept. 19: In the morning, we drove over to the Dunes Visitor's Center, expecting to learn more about the unique dune ecosystem, but were disappointed to find the Center closed for renovations. Dave returned to the trailer, to catch up on writing and on trailer maintenance.
Helen drove to Windmill Island in Holland, Michigan, a 30-acre park with canals, a drawbridge, and a miniature Dutch village. The park's main feature is a 1780's operating windmill, brought from the Netherlands in 1964. Dutch law now prohibits the sale of windmills since they are considered national monuments. Called De Zwaan, the mill produces a fine graham flour. The entire cap (roof) of the mill rotates to get the 40' blades facing directly into the wind. This place should, of course, be visited early in the summer, when the extensive tulip plantings are in bloom, but even in autumn, the gardens were colorful with annuals in bloom. The 'village' was about five buildings with shops. Enjoyed watching the multicolored candle dipping/carving and bought some homemade fudge.
Helen then went on to The Holland Museum, housed in a restored 1914 Classical Revival building. Exhibits included local history and Dutch decorative arts collections - Delft pottery, pewter, furniture, a hand-carved carrousel, paintings and the Volendam Room, an 18th-century Dutch fisherman's cottage. The founding of the city of Holland is yet another story of religious freedom. In this case the conservatives immigrated to America to get away from the 'free-thinking' reformers. The story is well told in this museum.
We are camped as close to the beach as practical - perhaps half a mile. The space in-between is sand dunes - a maze of forested hills where trees and grass have stabilized the dunes, steep-sided little valleys leading between the dunes, and true dunes of loose sand, extending inland where the wind-driven sand has overpowered the stabilizing foliage and buried the trees. We can hear the surf at the trailer, and there are several pleasant paths leading to the beach.
Dave took a long hike through the dunes and along the beach, miles and miles of beautiful sand between the dunes and the water. Occasionally, the dunes are breached by a little stream coming down to the lake from inland. The beach is "singing sand" - when dry, it whistles and hums as I slide a foot or a hand over it. We read an article in Scientific American about this kind of sand - it is relatively uncommon, and there is still no good physical explanation of the phenomenon.
Sept. 20: Hooked up the trailer and headed south down the lake shore. The drive along Lake Michigan was somewhat disappointing since we rarely had a view of the lake. Most of the shoreline is protected by sand dunes, and roads are rarely built in the shifting sands of the dunes. Along the way, we detoured inland to the Shelby Manmade Gemstones factory. No factory tour is offered, but there is a visitor's area with explanations of the manufacturing process and displays of huge synthetic rubies, sapphires, etc. They claim that jewelers can distinguish their synthetic stones from naturally occurring stones only by the lack of flaws in the synthetic stones. They also able to synthesize a much broader array of subtly colored gems than are found in nature.
At Benton Harbor, we turned inland and followed US 31 to Spaulding Lake Campground, a few miles southeast of Niles, Michigan. We were surprised to find that we were sharing our campsite with a family of mourning doves, nesting in a small spruce tree about five feet above the ground and only about two feet from the picture window of our trailer. Mother was still trying to sit on two chicks, which were so big that they were almost pushing her out of the nest. They seemed remarkably undisturbed as we walked around the campsite, just sitting in the nest quietly, watching us.
Spaulding Lake itself turned out to be just a pair of small artificial fish ponds. We can't really recommend this campground - it is run by religious fanatics, who have cluttered their office with religious symbols, and have cluttered the campground with an incredible number of signs telling us exactly how to run our lives while in the campground. Among the signs: No firewood may be brought in from outside the campground ("we don't want to infect our trees with foreign disease"); No alcoholic beverages anywhere in the campground.)
Niles, Michigan is almost a suburb of South Bend, Indiana, and Elkart, Indiana, is only a few miles away. There is a sense of community, transcending the state border, among these cities, and the surrounding region is known locally as Michiana
Sept 21: We visited Copsaholm, a 38 room stone mansion in South Bend, built in 1895 by Joseph Doty Oliver, founder of the Oliver Chilled Plow Works. The home is very expensively built, with leaded glass windows, parquet floors, 9 bathrooms and 14 fireplaces. Unlike most historical mansions, this one remained in the Oliver family, and was occupied and carefully maintained by family members right up until just a few years before it was donated as a museum. So most of the original furnishings remain intact, including porcelains, glass, silver, prints and bronzes, family photographs on the tables, family portraits on the walls, etc. It looks like a home, not a museum. The 2.5 acres of gardens are less well preserved, but still interesting and attractive.
An adjacent modern museum building presents the history of the area and of the Oliver Chilled Plow works. Also on the grounds is Dom Robotnika, the Worker's Home Museum. This furnished two-story, front-gable house built around 1870 represents the working-class heritage of the community. It is furnished as it might have been when occupied by a factory worker's family (and several boarders) in the 1920's. We were surprised at how much the furnishings reminded us of our own homes as children in the early 1940's. Apparently, very little change occurred during the depression years of the 1930's and the war years of the 1940's.
The Shiojiri Japanese Garden in Mishawaka was a small, pleasant oasis in an urban area.
Sept. 22: Helen drove off to Elkhart, Indiana to visit Ruthmere Museum, a French Beaux Arts/Prairie School-style mansion built by yet another of the many turn-of-the-century industrial millionaires. There cannot be another mansion anywhere in the country with this blend of architectural styles! Even in its day, the mansion was a sensation with its lavish use of gilt, mahogany, silk, etc., still in good condition today. On display was a player piano, connected to a full set of organ pipes that play in the library through floor vents. I heard the sound turn from piano to organ back to piano as I walked from the front hall into the library and back. The walls of the underground tunnel to the greenhouse were painted with lush tropical jungle murals which obliterated the feeling of being below grade level.
Later, Helen visited the Midwest Museum of American Art - in a restored old bank building - with art even hung behind massive doors inside the claustrophobic vault. The collection is small, but includes one or two good examples from most of the better-known 19th & 20th century American artists.
This area is in the middle of a drought and Fernwood Botanical Garden, with its emphasis on native, natural, no pesticides, and, apparently, a no watering policy, was a sad place. The drooping leaves on plants alongside the trails were not pleasant. They called out to me to water them, an impossible task in so large an area, but I would have tried anyway, if I owned the property. The herb garden with it's drying house and sitting patios was interesting.
Sept. 23: Hooked up the trailer and drove straight up US 12 to Coldwater Michigan, camping in the driveway at Dick and Mary Hutchins - Helen's brother and sister-in-law. Their lovely home is a few miles out of town, surrounded by fields of corn and soybeans. The soybean harvest is in full swing in this area, with gigantic machines grinding back and forth across huge fields, separating beans from plants, and raising massive clouds of dust in the process.
Sept 24: Helen and Dick went off to see more local sights: the Mann house in Concord, MI and the Honolulu House in nearby Marshall, MI. This area is rich in well-preserved houses built the middle and last half of the 19th century, when it was very prosperous. Halfway between Detroit and Chicago, it was the ideal stopover place on the two-day trip. It was a likely candidate for the state capitol in 1837 and contains a 'Governors Mansion' built in anticipation of that event. But the capitol was set up elsewhere, travel speeds increased, the railroad yards were moved to Jackson in 1872, and the town went to sleep. So the humble cottages and grand old mansions were pretty much left alone, unmodified by progress. As prosperity slowly returned they were ready for preservation. Nowadays, the National Historic Home Tour is held each year the first weekend after Labor Day. I was sorry to have missed it this year. But the walking tour lists 114 structures built between 1832 and 1900, with most of them predating 1872. Ten houses are National Historic Landmarks making it the largest district in the country in the "Small Urban" category and the few recent houses are almost all copies of older styles.
If you are from Michiana, you have probably heard the exclamation "What in the Sam Hill?!! " Well, Sam Hill was a surveyor and state legislator whose extensive vocabulary of profanity was so exceptional that his own name became a euphemism for profane words. He is buried in the local cemetery and his house is on the walking tour.
Honolulu House, built in 1860, is probably the most atypical, bizarre, beautiful house in this area of classic American Greek Revival buildings. Built of sandstone blocks and faced with vertical board and batten, this Polynesian/Gothic Revival/Italianate structure faces the town square. It was designed to resemble the Executive Mansion in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), complete with two detached pagoda-like bedroom wings reached by connecting but open to the weather breezeways, 15' ceilings, and a grand staircase which goes up to nowhere since there was only a tiny open-air lookout on the second floor. Completely impractical for the cold Michigan winters, the house has been extensively modified. The restoration is to the 1880's when those 15' high ceilings were painted (freehand and stencil) with over 150 different colors still intense today with vivid metallic highlights (for example, on the fake 1" slotted screw heads painted into the design). The furnishings included two melodious music boxes, a folding bathtub, and faux marble fireplaces which replaced the real marble fireplaces years ago, (That's right, someone took out real white Italian marble fireplaces and replaced them with gold veins painted on black slate!)
The Mann house was a complete contrast. Built by a sheep farmer in 1883 its front and back parlors were full of furniture original to the house, even to the family books in the bookcases. So, while I looked at the china, the American made furniture, the lace curtains, and the flocked wallpaper, Dick examined book titles and visited with the guide, and we both enjoyed the tour.
Sept. 25: Ever since arriving at Dick's, we've been occasionally hearing strange noises from somewhere across the corn fields. My initial reaction was that a farmer was sporadically using some piece of rusty farm equipment that he forgot to grease. But the almost random and sporadic cadence suggested a very large unfamiliar bird. This morning, I grabbed the binoculars and hiked down the road toward the other side of the cornfield, hoping to solve the mystery. Beyond the corn was a soybean field, recently harvested. And on the far edge of that field I indeed saw large birds, which the binoculars showed to be sandhill cranes.
I walked partway across the field and got close enough to get a good look through the binoculars, without getting close enough to disturb them. Four birds are in view, and there may be more out of sight in the undergrowth at the edge of the field. Magnificent birds - as big as a great blue heron, but heavier bodied. The voice is very loud. A flock of these birds puts a flock of Canadian geese to shame in terms of noise level. These are the first birds of this species I've ever seen.
Helen saw a few sandhill cranes in the Upper Peninsula a couple of weeks ago - but just a brief view at a distance while we were driving. Apparently, the reason that we've never seen these large, conspicuous, birds is that they breed in the far north (the arctic islands), winter in very limited areas on the Gulf of Mexico and California coasts, and spread out across the rest of the continent (except the east) only during brief spring and fall migrations. (The book also shows an isolated non-migratory population in Florida.)
In the afternoon, we went looking for a hog farm (!). Large pig farms have been in the local news lately, because of a court battle between the farmers and downwind residents who didn't like the smell. We indeed located two of the large farms - but there's not much to see. The pigs are inside long low barns. The barns and the surrounding area are neat and well kept. The smell is indeed unpleasant.
Later we stopped at the general store in the little settlement of Algansee. Mary, who is in charge of the library system for the County, wanted to visit one of her branch libraries. The library is a single small room, entered by squeezing around the end of a counter in the general store. I hardly knew such places still existed. It's open for a few hours on three afternoons per week. A few shelves of books, and absolutely no electronics. No computers, no microfilm readers, no CD-ROMs. Circulation records are entirely manual.
Both the store and the library are at least partly an informal museum. The library circulation desk is an antique, originally used by the locally famous lady who ran the store and the library for many decades. A computer for circulation records and catalog, and another computer, for general public Internet use will soon be added - which is causing considerable controversy. Is it sacrilege to put a computer on the venerated old desk? Can a modern electronic library comfortably exist in the midst of a living history museum? The store is now run by the aging daughter of the lady who ran it for many decades, and who seems to keep it going primarily as a memorial to her mother.
The store still sells a limited range of merchandise, which is stacked haphazardly in the ancient cabinets originally designed to hold other things. The upper shelves are full of artifacts of an earlier life. A classic old glass-fronted oak counter still held antique containers of one-cent candy (and you can actually buy a piece of candy for one cent!). Several flavors of locally made ice cream were available - hand-dipped, into classic sugar cones.
Sept 26: While Dave fixed assorted problems with Dick's home computer software, Dick, Mary and Helen drove into Battle Creek to drive through the Leila Arboretum - 72 acres of mature ornamental trees and shrubs with an impressive fountain surrounded with colorful flowers. The entire time we were there, perhaps a half hour, two men were carefully posing their shiny black and chrome motorcycles in front of the fountain and flower beds and taking many photos.
In Battle Creek in 1894 two brothers named Kellogg developed a flake cereal. From this modest beginning, Battle Creek has become the breakfast food center of the nation with Kellogg, Post, and Ralston Purina Co. all based there. I was disappointed that they have no tours of cereal making operations. I would have liked to see puffed wheat "shot from a gun", even though they haven't used that in advertising since the 1940's.
Sojourner Truth, an eloquent black ex-slave who spoke out against the injustice of slavery and sexism, was a resident of Battle Creek. A huge brand new statute is prominently displayed in a custom designed park, along with a few of her succinct quotes. Lots of people were in this park, perhaps because it is new.
Sept. 27: Hooked up this morning to move on to Columbus, Ohio. Except for 30 miles of Interstates 69 and 80 near the beginning, we identified an almost straight-line route along the narrow, sparsely traveled, state highways. Actually, it only looks straight on the map on a coarse scale. When we zoom in to look at the details, these back roads wander around following the topography. Our route is southeast, and many of the original roads followed section boundaries - east/west or north/south. There are areas where the diagonal state highways still follow the old routes, zigzagging east for a mile, then south for a mile, then east for a mile again. The turns are very sharp - often posted at 25 mph or less. These are not roads to drive while sleepy!
Originally, we had intended to detour to a couple of tourist attractions that were not too far from this route. But Helen is nursing a sore back and needs to avoid walking for a few days. So we aborted the stops and drove straight through - about 210 miles. We stopped at Alton Campground - by far the closest campground to central Columbus and even closer to Helen's sister's home in Upper Arlington. It's not an attractive place - a jumble of RV's crowded into the large yard surrounding a large old brick house in the decrepit little village of Alton. In spite of this, the place is fairly expensive and is full (no competition - it's the only campground close to town). But the people are friendly and we're comfortable - can't complain.
The next three days were spent quietly - Helen nursing her sore back and visiting with her sister Joy. Dave made one shopping expedition into Columbus, but otherwise puttered around the trailer.
Sept 30: We hitched up the trailer and drove leisurely about 100 miles down Interstate 71 to the Paramount King's Island Campground, northeast of Cincinnati.
The next day, our daughter Leata arrived at the Columbus airport in the afternoon and rode to Cincinnati with her Uncle, Aunt, and four cousins. We hung out in the Marriott Hotel lobby, a few miles from our RV Park, and greeted relatives as they drove in for the festivities of a family wedding.
Oct: 1: was mostly occupied by the wedding and reception. Helen's nephew Ronald Merritt was married to Michelene (Mickey) McDaniel in an impressive and slightly unconventional ceremony. The bride's sister and brother-in-law, both professional musicians, provided the music, she an excellent country/western singer and he a pianist. The reception provided a rare opportunity to chat with relatives from all over the country, who we usually get to see as a group only at weddings and funerals.
Oct: 2: Leata's ride (again with cousins) back to the Columbus airport was leaving at noon, so Dave and Leata got up early to see a bit of Cincinnati. We drove up to viewpoints on the hills just west of city center, and then through the downtown area (unfortunately, the historic 1871 Tyler Davidson Fountain had been reduced to a pile of parts - apparently disassembled for renovation). We also walked along the Ohio River, which in the downtown area intermixes parkland and walkways with a huge football stadium and a convention center.
Running out of time, we dashed across the river for a quick look at Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, KY, which is modeled after Notre Dame in Paris. The basilica has 82 stained-glass windows, including what is reputedly the largest stained-glass church window in the world. Because of the large amount of glass (and the relatively light tints of much of the glass), the cathedral has a bright, airy, feeling, unusual in these very large old churches. We'd have liked to spend longer enjoying the place, but had to hurry to meet Leata's ride to the airport.
Later in the day, Dave and Helen drove back to Cincinnati and covered some of the same ground again, spending more time in the Cathedral. Later, we drove to Union Terminal - a huge and unusual art deco building built as a train station in the early '30's, and now renovated and housing several museums. The main concourse has huge murals, nicely restored, on the walls. We didn't have time to visit the museums, but greatly enjoyed the building itself.
Oct. 3: Running on adrenaline left over from the festivities, Helen ignored her sore back and decided we should tour the Cincinnati Art Museum. Their small impressive Damascus Room was made from intricately painted and gilded panels from an Egyptian or Syrian 16th or 17th century residence. The room was saved from "urban renewal" after WWI by importing it for a private residence in Cincinnati. Later donated to the museum, only the marble floors are modern.
One of the few Maxfield Parrish works on display anywhere in the USA is here - Portrait of a Tree dating from 1924. Apparently his works are fragile and in poor condition and so not often shown by the museums who own them. Several works by John Singer Sargent were handsomely displayed, including a rare scenic (his familiar work is mostly portraits) titled Two Girls Fishing.
Notes beside "Winter Landscape" by Aert van der Neer c1640 said the paint for the blue sky was made from ground up lapis lazuli! Indeed, the sky was still vivid, 250+ years later.
We saw a kit fiddle in the music instrument cases. Dating from the 18th C, it looked like a short violin without the sounding board or body. Nothing to amplify the sound, just a stick with strings attached and a short bow. I am still puzzling what it was good for.
A nice smattering of ancient (all BC) artifacts, bronze, silver, and rock crystal from the Middle East rounded out the collection.
The building was an interesting blend of Roman columns, Norman arches, and art deco wrought iron railings. But it had plenty of light and good display spaces, - a pleasant tour for us.
Oct. 4: Hooked up the trailer and headed back to Columbus. We detoured north to Dayton, Ohio on Interstate 75, then took Interstate 70 east to Columbus. The truck traffic on both of these expressways was incredibly dense - often more trucks than cars, and sometimes solid strings of trucks, following each other closely, for as far as we could see ahead of us. The truck speed limit in Ohio is only 55 mph, meaning most of the trucks were actually going about 62 mph. This is close to our own preferred expressway speed, so we matched their speed and just drifted along with the pack. The 55-mph speed limit signs apply to "vehicles over 4 tons unladen weight". We're still not sure whether that applies to us (our truck by itself is under 4 tons, and trailers aren't mentioned).
The Dayton Art Institute would be impressive in a big city. It is remarkable to find a museum of this quality in a city with a population of around 200,000 (the MSA - metropolitan statistical area - is about one million). The collection is housed in a large, attractive 1930 Italian Renaissance building, which was extensively renovated in 1996. The collection seemed to be spread evenly across nearly every era and genre. Dave particularly enjoyed a small collection of contemporary art glass.
In Columbus, we settled back into Alton Campground to spend another few days seeing the sights and visiting Helen's sister Joy and brother-in-law Bob, in Upper Arlington. One evening, we drove east to Granville, Ohio, for a delightful dinner and a few hours of conversation with niece Sharon, a professor at Dennison University, and her sister Linda, visiting from San Jose, California.
Oct. 5: Helen spent the day with Joy, mostly reclining on a sofa babying her back. A short excursion to the Upper Arlington City Hall for the Linda Fowler Contemporary Quilt and Basket Show was eye-opening. The drama of bold slashes of texture and color in the quilted wall hangings was new to Helen. It was a long way from the traditionally made quilts usually displayed.
Dave stayed at the trailer, and took a long walk through the surrounding farm country. There is an amazing variety of shrubs and trees growing in the fence rows between farm fields. Although some of these fields have been under cultivation for 150 to 200 years, the narrow strips of land between fields may have never been plowed, and could have been growing undisturbed since prehistoric times.
In one area, the dominant tree was hickory, and I was puzzled to find the ground covered with hickory nuts. My previous experience has been that squirrels pick up hickory nuts as fast as they fall, making it difficult for humans to even see an intact nut, much less collect a quantity. The mystery was solved when I returned to the trailer and got out the field guide. These were bitternut hickory. The attractive-looking nuts are very bitter and spurned by animals as well as humans
Oct. 8: Hooked up the trailer and headed toward Rochester, N.Y. We only made it as far as Erie, PA, stopping at Hill's Family Campground, just off Interstate 90 on Sterrettania Road (we wonder where that name came from).
Oct 9: On to Rochester, New York, or rather to Farmington, 20 miles southeast, where we had made reservations at the Canandaigua KOA. This turns out to be one of only two RV Parks which are within an easy driver of Rochester and will remain open through the end of October. Fortunately, it is a very pleasant place - well away from major highways, quiet, surrounded by farmland, with reasonably large grassy campsites. Since Farmington is just at the outer edge of convenient commuting to Rochester, the farm fields are beginning to sprout new houses here and there - foretelling a suburban future.
In the evening, we drove in to Rochester to spend the evening with Kat and Andy Nagel. Helen semi-reclined in a nest of pillows on the living room sofa, and didn't even move for dinner.
Oct 10: Finding regular dental care on the road has been a problem. We did manage to visit a dentist during our long stay in Seattle, but that was a year ago. So as soon as we knew when we'd be arriving in Rochester, we called the dentist's office we'd used while living here and begged to be fitted into their schedule. They fitted us into cancellation slots, and we were able to get a routine cleaning and exam in familiar surroundings. No fillings needed for either of us. Hallelujah!
Oct 11: Upon arriving in Rochester, we also asked around about a doctor to look at Helen's back. Our previous doctor was exclusively associated with an HMO of which we are no longer a member. We ended up calling Dr. Jeff Harp, an old friend and fellow singer, who couldn't fit Helen into his own schedule, but arranged to squeeze her in without appointment, seeing another doctor in the Group with which he is in practice. Turns out to be the familiar lower back problem - not much treatment available other than painkillers, rest, and muscle relaxants. But it was reassuring to hear that there was no evidence of nerve damage and that the pain does eventually go away - after 8 weeks! Helen had visions of being almost bedridden for the rest of her life.
Coincidentally, Jeff was singing the following week in a trio with two other singers with whom we were acquainted, so we attended a wonderful concert of 15th century Spanish music which we otherwise might not have discovered.
Oct. 12: The autumn leaf color is at peak in the Finger Lakes. And surprisingly, the color is excellent - some say the best in years, even though other areas of the Northeast are having a very disappointing autumn color display because of the drought. We spent all day driving a meandering route through the Bristol Mountains (actually modest hills barely over 1000 feet high), circumnavigating Canandaigua Lake, passing through the wine growing region around Naples, NY, and stopping on the hilltop at, Hi Tor - a state game management area with nice views in all directions. Dave spent an hour hiking the trails while Helen napped in the car.
Oct 14: The Nagel's threw a party and invited all of our singing friends from the two groups in which we both participated in the past. Many people shared their back pain stores with Helen, who was again ensconced on the sofa, propped up by pillows. Amazing how many people have had back pain. All agreed that the pain can be intense. The evening passed quickly as we caught up on the happenings of the past two years and the future plans in the lives of many of these old friends.
There was much exchanging of e-mail addresses as several have retired and set up home access. Lots of talk about who is doing what at the next concert(s), the next CD they'll be recording, etc.
We spend the next two weeks doing very little, relaxing, enjoying the beautiful weather, and letting Helen's back recover. A few things worth mentioning: We finally got to meet Ken Cerrah after corresponding by Email over the past two years. Ken stopped by the trailer, with a list of questions about RVing. We also had another pleasant dinner with Andy and Kat before the Musica Transatlantica concert.
We had lunch with Lew Ward and Arvid and Margaret Lakeberg. Our friendship with these folks goes all the way back to when we all sang in Rochester Oratorio Society, about 1964, although the exact beginning is lost in the mists of our aging memories. Later, we all sang in Madrigalia, a Rochester-based chamber choir which now has released two critically acclaimed CD's and is beginning to receive national recognition.
Dave toured a solar home in Mendon on Oct. 13, National Solar Home Tour Day (or some such name). A very worthwhile expedition, where I learned a lot about the reality of living in an energy-efficient, solar powered house. Much of the electrical equipment was very similar to what I've installed in our trailer, although on a much larger scale. Other things were quite different - a tall windmill, and a massive heat-storing airtight masonry fireplace aren't quite practical in an RV.
Helen enjoyed a long lunch with Ruth Maltz. We spent a delightful dinner and evening with Bill and Betty Wayman and their two daughters Claire and Sandra, at their lovely home on the shore of Lake Ontario. Dave had worked with Betty and down the hall from Bill for many years at Xerox. Bill is living proof that one can never have a big enough garage. He has a two-car attached garage and also a free-standing four-car garage, and one of their cars still has to be parked outside. One garage bay contains a 1928 Reo automobile which he is in the process of restoring. Another contains a small 20-year-old battery-powered electric automobile, which he has restored and in which he commutes to work (but not in winter - it has no heater).
We reacquainted ourselves with the Memorial Art Gallery, a modest-sized museum with an excellent collection, built around a nucleus willed to the University of Rochester by George Eastman. The collection contains many good works by "old masters", as well as numerous 19th century American paintings, including works by Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Bierstadt, etc,. all attractively hung in pleasant surroundings. Our favorite room, the Fountain Court, has been renovated, and we were disappointed with the result, particularly in that most of the old tapestries have been removed from the walls.
Helen visited Rose Hill Mansion, near Geneva, an imposing Greek Revival mansion dating from 1839. It has been nicely restored and is furnished in the Empire style popular during this period. And for those who like unusual museums: Located nearby in another historic house is the Mike Weaver Drain Tile museum, containing hundreds of examples of agricultural drain tiles from all eras and material about the history of drainage - an important but little-known part of the history of agriculture. We didn't visit the museum - but were tempted.
After being away from Rochester for two years, and seeing a large part of the rest of the country, we are realizing that Rochester compares very well to any place we have seen, in terms of an overall ranking of desirable places for us to settle down when we stop traveling. The overcast, grey, winters are a negative, of course. But in terms of year-round climate, there are eight months of the year with a high probability of reasonably pleasant (neither too warm nor too hot nor to humid) weather. Except for the Pacific coast, there are few places which can equal this. The presence of several universities, the Eastman School of Music, and a lot of high-tech industry, provides interesting people and interesting activities. We've put Rochester on our short list of candidates for a retirement site. Actually, we might choose to live an hour or so south of Rochester itself - perhaps on one of the Finger Lakes, or perhaps high up in the hills surrounding these lakes, with a long view out over the lakes and forest.
Our Rochester visit ended with a final visit to our storage locker, dropping off a few odds and ends and picking up boxes of books and some small pieces of furniture to deliver to our daughter in Delaware (our next stop.)