Rust Belt Road Trip: Revisiting the Midwest by Rail Fan

[dlgoff]

This one is amazing IMO.

View attachment 205967

 

[jtbell]

On Thursday I started my return trip by driving south along the Ohio River. I've done this many times, in both directions. It's one of my favorite drives in the eastern US. The northern part from Pittsburgh down to about Wheeling WV has (or had) a lot of industry. Then it becomes mostly rural.

My first stop was a geeky landmark by the side of the road along the north bank, where Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia meet. This was the "Point of Beginning" of surveying the Northwest Territory in the 1780s, which produced a checkerboard grid of townships covering what we now call the Midwest.

The Ohio River has a series of dams and locks to provide a consistent depth for the barges that haul coal, grain, etc. This one, Pike Island, is just north of Wheeling WV.

In Wheeling is the first bridge built across the Ohio River (1849). It's also the oldest vehicular suspension bridge still in use in the US.

It gives a nice view of the river, too.

I continued along the WV side to Sistersville, and crossed the river on one of the handful of ferries that still operate.

Someday I'd like to drive all the way to Cincinnati along the river, but that would take at least two full days and I wanted to get to Cincinnati that day. So, late in the afternoon I left the river a bit south of Marietta and headed west on a semi-expressway. I still didn't get to Cincinnati until late evening.

 

[jtbell]

I arrived home last night, but I still have two days of pics. I'll post them when I get a chance, after stashing all the stuff I unloaded from the car, doing laundry, catching up on snail mail, etc.

The previously-posted pictures don't look nearly as crisp on my desktop computer as they do on my phone. My quick-and-dirty resizing method must have optimized them for phones. I emailed them to myself, letting Apple's Mail app resize them to "Medium" quality. This produces file sizes similar to what I get in Photoshop on my desktop computer. Then I saved the images from email and uploaded them to PF.

I'll do the final two batches in Photoshop so you can see the difference.

[added on June 24] I've now replaced all the old pictures with better versions, processed from the originals from the phone.

 

[davenn]

You have had an awesome trip. I and I am sure many others have enjoyed your photo adventure through a number of states,
their towns and cities.

Thankyou for sharing

Dave

 

[jtbell]

Time to finish this trip, belatedly! As I promised in my previous post, these pictures are from my phone, but downloaded to my desktop Mac and "processed" in Photoshop. (Not the first one... I found that on the Web.)

I'm embarrassed to admit that even though I grew up in Ohio, I nefer vas in Zinzinnati except to drive through on the Interstate on my way to somewhere else. This was my first real visit. The main purpose was to visit their new streetcar line which opened last fall. It connects downtown and the sports stadiums on the riverfront with the Over-the-Rhine district to the north, which is redeveloping with restaurants, renovated townhouses, etc.

After riding down to the riverfront, I walked across the Roebling suspension bridge to Kentucky. This opened in 1867 and was built by the guy who later designed and started construction on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

Cincinnati claims this as the first bridge across the Ohio River, instead of the one in Wheeling that I visited upstream. Their excuse is that the Wheeling bridge doesn't go all the way across the river; it goes to an island which is separated from the other side of the river by a narrow channel.

If I had stayed in Cincinnati another night, I probably would have headed for a German Biergarten in Over-the-Rhine for dinner. However, I wanted to get home the following day, so I had a hotel reservation down the road in Lexington KY so as to get a head start, and left late in the afternoon.

Instead, for lunch, I sought out Cincinnati's best-known culinary specialty: chili! Specifically, the five-way chili at Camp Washington Chili:

Going upwards from the bottom you have (1) spaghetti, (2) chili, (3) beans and (4) diced onions, and finally (5) shredded cheese. The two packages of oyster crackers are for crumbling into the leftover chili sauce and soaking it up when you're finished.

Camp Washington Chili is a local landmark. Their original location dated from 1940. I visited it once, years ago, making a quick detour off I-75 while driving through town. In 2000 they had to move to a new location a short distance away because of a street widening project.

Another common place to get Cincinnati chili is Skyline Chili, a chain with parlors all over the area, and even a few in Florida to cater to homesick transplanted retirees. I've eaten at their parlors in Dayton OH and Fort Lauderdale FL.

One more day, coming up...

 

[dlgoff]

Instead, for lunch, I sought out Cincinnati's best-known culinary specialty: chili! Specifically, the five-way chili at Camp Washington Chili:

Going upwards from the bottom you have (1) spaghetti, (2) chili, (3) beans and (4) diced onions, and finally (5) shredded cheese. The two packages of oyster crackers are for crumbling into the leftover chili sauce and soaking it up when you're finished.

Man does that look good. Question. Did you manage to get to the oyster crackers point.

 

[jtbell]

Did you manage to get to the oyster crackers point.

Yep, I ate the whole thing. Another reason why I didn't look for a German restaurant for dinner.

 

[jtbell]

On the final day of the trip, I headed down through Kentucky and Tennessee to the Carolinas, mostly on I-75 etc. I made one detour from the Interstates: US-25E from Corbin KY to Newport TN. This is mostly four lanes with easy driving, and bypasses the traffic near Knoxville TN and along I-81 which is a major truck route.

Going past Corbin I saw a billboard for the Harland Sanders Café and Museum, the "birthplace" of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Unfortunately I missed the turnoff. I didn't feel like stopping and turning back to look for it, because I'll almost certainly go that way again.

[added: I did visit there a year later.]

Eventually I turned off for lunch in Pineville KY, and found myself in the middle of a street festival.

This was where I found the T-shirt that I posted in the Lame Jokes thread.

A bit further on was Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, where the far western tip of Virginia meets Kentucky and Tennessee. Settlers poured through here across the Appalachian Mountains into Kentucky beginning in the late 1700s, following the Wilderness Road blazed by the legendary Daniel Boone.

At Pinnacle Overlook (which is in Virginia but whose parking lot is in Kentucky) you can look west towards Middlesboro KY, with the Cumberland Gap passing in front of you.

Then you can turn to the left and look south towards the village of Cumberland Gap TN. Traffic no longer goes through the gap. US-25E and a railroad (behind and to the right of the village, respectively) both use tunnels. The highway tunnel opened in 1996. I'm pretty sure I remember driving through the gap in the mid 1980s on the old two-lane version of US-25E.

Down in the village, you can look upwards towards the gap, hike a short distance up to a trail that was built through the gap after the old road was removed, and see the railroad tunnel entrance (built in 1897) near the trail parking lot.

From here I drove pretty much straight home to South Carolina, with a stop in Asheville NC for dinner.

 

[jtbell]

I've now replaced all the older pictures (through post 32) with new versions processed from the original photos in Photoshop. I also added a few new pictures here and there.

I saved one of the old versions so you can see the difference below. Before I go on my next trip, I'd better look for a good photo-resizing app for my iPhone.

Old version, reduced to "Medium" size (640 px wide) in the iPhone's Mail app:

New version, processed in Photoshop (800 px wide):

 

[jtbell]

When I did this trip, nearly a year ago, I had no idea that I was anticipating a trend. This morning I saw on TV an interview with Priceline's CEO which mentioned their "top emerging travel cities" in the US. In positions 2 and 4 are Cleveland and Detroit, respectively!

I should have posted more pictures of Detroit. Instead, here's a video that I posted on YouTube showing a trip around downtown Detroit on the elevated peoplemover system.



Geographical trivia, easily answerable with a glance at a map: when I'm heading towards the Detroit River after about 8:10, looking towards Canada, in which compass direction am I heading?