Autumn on the Road

We recently took our first family vacation in over two years. We tried to take side roads whenever possible. The above picture is of Norris Dam in Tennessee, just a few miles off of I-75.

Just a few weeks before we had a day-trip to Burt's Pumpkin Farm in Amicalola, Georgia.

We visited the Creation Museum in Florence, Kentucky. If you have not been to here, you really need to go and see what Answers In Genesis has accomplished with this great museum.

Here, Levi is a little scared of what he sees above him...

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...a very life-like dinosaur munching on the plant life in the museum.

Everything in the Creation Museum is very professionally done and very realistic.

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Ella isn't sure if this is safe or not.

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Even though it was still very green when we left Georgia, in northern Ohio it was Fall at it's peak. Everywhere we went was extremely colorful. This is the town square in Milan, Ohio; the birthplace of Thomas Edison.

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A monument to homeschooling.

This is called "Young Thomas Edison being taught by his mother".

Thomas Edison figured out early that structured schooling served only to hold young minds back. He became bored with the slow pace of public school and ended up being branded as "addled" because he wouldn't sit still and conform. As a result, his mother pulled him out of school and taught him herself; the rest is history.

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The Edison home is now a museum.

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Kim and Olivia spent a lot of time here in Milan...

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A street in the very small town of Milan.

.The copious amount of leaves falling from this Maple are blotting out the sidewalk and the curb.

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A huge Victorian house in Milan.

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We traveled to South Bass Island on Lake Erie, which happens to be one of our ancestral homes.

Here Emily shows Levi the lake and the ferry. The very small island in the background is Mouse Island, which was once owned by President Rutherford B. Hayes, who erected a small house for a retreat on it.

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A tri-colored Sugar Maple, dockside.

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This was the last tourist weekend for the island and we were the only 'tourists'. The only other folks going over were island residents. This made it nice since we basically had the island to ourselves.

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Of course there are the few reminders that you are in Yankee territory.

This ain't Texas by any stretch.

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Levi watching his sister Ella watching the ferry approaching.

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Emmy on the chilly ride over.

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Too chilly for Ella.

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Golf carts are necessary for the one-mile trip to the little town of Put-In-Bay on the island. This one seated eight. .


Levi admiring the view at 13mph. His great-great-great Grandfather was a fisherman, slave-runner and Indian interpreter on this island.
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Main Street in Put-In-Bay is pretty much a ghost-town this time of year; ...but the playground in the park is always open.
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The vineyard of the Heineman Winery on the island. These are Catawba grapes and South Bass Island is famous for them.
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The island cemetery. Our great-great-grandmother is buried here.
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Three sisters.



Each time we travel to Ohio we make a trip to Lehman's. Our first time was in 1999 and the store has tripled in size since then.
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Lehman's still caters to the Amish and they still have their own 'parking lot' complete with stables and hay.

The Edmund Fitzgerald

Thirty-four years ago on November 10th, 1975 an event took place on Lake Superior that is still being talked about and debated today. A violent storm, of hurricane proportions, moved across the lake and trapped two ships in it's path.

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The Arthur M. Anderson and the Edmund Fitzgerald were both ore freighters on the Great Lakes. Iron ore is mined in the Mesaba Range in northern Minnesota and then shipped to Duluth where it is turned into Taconite Pellets, (basically marble-sized pieces of iron ore). The Taconite is loaded onto ore freighters in Duluth and shipped to steel mills throughout the lakes, but especially to mills in Michigan, Ohio and Ontario. The Edmund Fitzgerald was loaded with 26,000 tons of Taconite, (about 900 tractor-trailer loads).

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The weather on Lake Superior can equal any of that at sea, and the waves that evening were 30 feet (high as a three story building) and the winds had gusts over 90mph. The Arthur M Anderson was trailing the Fitzgerald by a few miles and was tracking it on surface radar when the Fitzgerald notified them that they had begun to take on water and were listing. A white patch appeared on the Anderson's radar which they knew to be a white-out, a severe area of weather within the storm. The white-out moved over the Fitzgerald and when it passed, the radar was blank.

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The Arthur M. Anderson at Huron, Ohio in 2008.

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It's estimated that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in as few as 15 seconds. None of the 29 crew members were ever recovered. For years the entire loss was a mystery, as know one could believe that something of that size could disappear that quickly and with no trace to be found.
The answer lies in a number of factors.
The main reason is that the ore freighters were expensive and time consuming to build and so throughout the 1960's the steel companies requested re-vised permits from the Coast Guard that allowed the existing ships to carry more and more iron-ore, which led to the ships riding lower in the water than they were designed for.

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The second is that there was a design flaw in this particular style of ship. Metal fatigue would begin to show around the center of the ship, especially after having been through a major storm. This metal fatigue had already split one ship in two and crippled another several years before.

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The third was a discrepancy between the Canadian version of the official Lake Superior chart and the American version. This discrepancy was in relation to where Six Fathom Shoal was actually located and how shallow it actually was. Over the years, ships captains had their choice as to which chart they believed to be correct. The night of December 10th, 1975 the captain of the Fitzgerald simply picked the wrong one. As they traveled through the area of Six Fathom Shoal, a massive wave apparently brought the bottom of the ship into contact with the shoal, cutting a gash in the hull. This accounted for the list and the taking on of water.

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Already riding low in the water, in the middle of a massive storm and experiencing metal fatigue, all that was needed was one last blast of wind and waves to break the 729 foot ship in two and send it to the bottom in over 500 feet of water.

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We live in a world that is fearfully and wonderfully made. Nothing that man can devise will ever equal or control the awesome nature of our created universe. This type of event drives that point home and reminds us of the short time span that we actually spend here on Earth. These 29 men had probably less than 15 seconds to either tremble in fear; call upon the name of Christ; or be glad that they already had.

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The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,

that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early.

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The ship was the pride of the American side, coming back from some mill in Wisconson.

As the big freighters go it was bigger than most with a crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms when they left fully loaded for Cleveland,

and later that night when the ships bell rang, could it be the North wind they'd been feeling?

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The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound and a wave broke over the railing,

and every man knew, as the Captain did too, t'was the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait when the gales of November came slashing.

When afternoon came it was freezing rain, in the face of a hurricane West wind.

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When supper time came the old cook came on deck saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya,

at 7pm a main hatchway caved in, he said fellas it's been good to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had water coming in and the good ship and crew was in peril,

and later that night when his lights went out of sight, came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

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Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay if they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized, they may have broke deep and took water. And all that remains are the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

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Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings, in the rooms of her ice water mansions.

Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams, the islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below, Lake Ontario takes in what Lake Erie can send her. And the iron boats go, as the mariners all know, with the gales of November remembered.

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In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed in the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral.

The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

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The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.

Superior, they said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early.

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Lyrics by Gordon Lightfoot

© 1976 Moose Music, Inc.

When Beauty Still Mattered

We have just come back from our annual trip to the North country (Ohio). My ancestors and family all came from the area around Lake Erie.
On the way home, just outside of Savannah, Ohio we spotted a large old victorian house on a hillside about a mile away. We took a side road to investigate and this is what we found.
A sign on the barn said "Castle Hill Farms". When we returned home I did some research and found out that this house was built in 1878 by a farmer named Charles Crittenden on 660 acres.

This house was built when architecture was still taken seriously as a form of art and beauty.
The man who built this house knew that it would be used by multiple generations of his family, and it still stands over 130 years later.
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Inside the home there is a 3-story spiral staircase made of walnut that goes from the ground floor to the top of the tower. You can read more about Castle Hill Farm here.

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As we were getting back on the main road, Kim spotted this Amish gentleman putting out his hand-made baskets. We stopped and talked with him for a while and of course, came away with a couple of very nice baskets (and an apple pie).

October 31st, 1917

At first glance these two photos look very odd, (well actually they are very odd), but 92 years ago today this apparently was normal attire for a halloween party in rural Ohio. Even for good Methodists.

The caption on one states that this was held at "Gregory's barn", while on the other photo it says "October, 1917".

My grandmother and her two sisters are all present, but I will leave that be for now at the request of my spouse.

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Halloween has become a bigger and darker event each year as our culture slides ever away from the light of His word. Now people celebrate it as much or even more than they do Christmas, which itself is returning to its roots as just another pagan celebration of humanism and materialism.

The Return of Patriots

Here is a campaign video for Ray McBerry, a candidate for Governor or Georgia. This is just the kind of response that is needed for what is happening to this country at a Federal level.

Find more videos like this on GeorgiaFirst.Org

Home Movies

One reason we haven't blogged much lately is because we have burned through about 3 digital cameras. I have a new appreciation for film cameras, (after I have sold all of ours).

Anyway, here are a few videos that have been laying around the hard drive for a while.

This is a Live-Fire Exercise/Public Participation Day at Ft. Benning. They do this about twice a year. First they put on a live fire demonstration for the audience who is sitting in bleachers directly behind them. This will involve tanks, armored personnel carriers, mortars, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, etc. Then they park all of the weaponry along a firing line and let the audience members come and fire everything. The soldiers guide you along and show you the proper way to shoot everything. It's pretty neat stuff. You can see Mike exit a Bradley there at the end.

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This is the Saturday buffet at the Menger Hotel in downtown San Antonio, directly next to the Alamo. The Menger has been there since 1859 and has hosted a number of people including Robert E. Lee and Teddy Roosevelt. In fact, Roosevelt used the Menger Bar to recruit his Rough Riders who fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. We try and go there each time we visit San Antonio.

The second clip is crossing Alamo Street by Pat O'Briens. There's a guy who stands out front (24 x 7 it seems) and barks at everyone that goes by, telling them about the specials of the day. He always tells us about the childrens specials and then asks if those are all ours.

The third clip is eating with great friends from Georgia at Casa Rio on the Riverwalk. Believe it or not we do more than eat in S.A.

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This is us enjoying a lazy day at Callaway Gardens in a remote inlet off of Mountain Creek Lake.

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Under Judgment

People have been comparing America with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire for some time now. It's one of those things that you think about and then conclude that it 'can never happen here'.

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And yet as you look around you can get a sense that, not only is our country in a state of decline, but that that decline is accelerating at an astonishing rate.

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When government becomes a group of people whose only goal is to suck the life-blood out of what is left of the people and the tax-base, the beginning of the end has begun.

There are examples of this taking place right now in cities like New Orleans, Atlanta and probably most of all, Detroit.

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Detroit is a city that has been collapsing for 50 years due to a host of issues. In 1967, a riot that left almost 50 people dead was the last straw for many citizens and businesses who left and never returned. In the 1950's Detroit's population was 1.8 million. Today it's 900,000.

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Some have also said that this is just a pre-cursor to what will happen if enough of America embraces Socialism the way that these three cities have.

Pray that never happens.

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I came across a website recently that puts all of this into clear view. Take some time to peruse this site, it is both astonishing and incredibly creepy at the same time. You will wonder how this could happen in America. Two of the tabs of particular interest are "Decay" and "Steam". More detail is given anytime that you click on "Explore".

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Only N Detroit . com
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Then look at the attached video and see a government (the Detroit City Council) that has lost complete control of the city, and themselves.

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