Shameless Opportunism in the Marketing of a City - Galena and Ulysses S Grant

The city of Galena, IL, former major Mississippi river port and lead-mining frontier boomtown, makes a big deal of its connection to Ulysses S Grant. For example, it hypes: 

• The Ulysses S. Grant Home, a national landmark 

• A statue of his wife, Julia Dendt Grant 

• Grant Park with an impressive statue of Ulysses S Grant

• The Galena and U.S. Grant Museum 

• U.S. Grant Memorial Highway, U.S. Route 20

So, what is the connection? Was Ulysses S. Grant born in Galena, or did he live there most of his life, or what?

It turns out that Ulysses S. Grant came to Galena for the first time in April 1860, when he was 38 years old to work in a family owned tannery. He was married with 4 children.
A year later, April 1861, he enlisted in the Civil War.
After the war, August 1865, he returned a hero and was presented with a new, fully furnished home which is now "The Ulysses S. Grant Home, a National Landmark".
A little over a month later, in October, he left for a tour of the US.
From there, he went on to political positions in Washington, DC, eventually serving 2 terms as US President from 1869 - 1877.
The Grants then went on a world tour for 2 ½ years, maybe returned to Galena for a short time in 1880, before moving to NY for the rest of their lives.

So by my calculation, Grant lived in Galena a little over a year, and in The Ulysses S. Grant Home, a National Landmark, at most two months

Still, it is absolutely worth visiting Galena, which has transformed itself into an adorable tourist destination with nearly 80% of the city’s homes and commercial buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and the requisite upscale lodging, restaurants, craft breweries, wineries, handmade gift shops, ghost tours, zip line, and goat yoga.

An Abundance of Cuteness

This is not a baby owl. It is a tiny full grown saw-whet owl.  

We were extremely lucky to find out about an owl banding program that was being run by the Indiana Audubon Society last moztei Shabbos at Indiana Dunes National Park, where we were for shabbos.

It was part of a study about the saw-whet owl which is one of the smallest owls, only about the size of a beanie baby.

Saw-whet owls pass through the area from October to November as they migrate between Canada and (maybe) Georgia for the winter. 

Owls captured were banded, then measured for beak length, wing length, tail length, and weight. Their feather patterns were examined to determine the owl’s age, and their eyes were checked for shade of yellow. A guess was made as to gender.

This data was recorded for each owl as well as the date, temperature, wind, moon phase, time of capture, and place of capture. At the end of the season the information is entered into a national data base. From there if an owl is recaptured, the data will tell when and where the owl was banded.

Researchers are tracking population numbers, how long they live and where they actually migrate as well as other data. One of the owls banded in the Dunes was recaptured at Arcadia National Park in Maine and another in Saskachewan.

First owl, one year old

Posing for a glamour shot

Second owl, also one year old

Owl 3, three years old, another glamour shot

A barred owl was also captured. Because barred owls were not part of the study, he wasn't measured. 

But he was brought out to be admired. 

The owls were surprisingly good sports through all the indignities of being measured. Including being placed headfirst into a cup to be weighed.

Life Imitating Art Imitating Life - The Wabash Cannonball

We did some biking on the North Fork of the Wabash Cannonball rails-to-trails trail in Ohio. The trail is named for the Wabash Cannon Ball Express train that ran between Detroit and St. Louis starting in 1949. There is also a song about a train called "The Wabash Cannonball".

Now you would think the song was written about the train, but you would only be partially right.

There was a Cannon Ball express train which ran for a number of years from Chicago to El Paso in the late 1800s. Then a song about a fictional Wabash Cannonball train came out in 1932 (based on the Cannon Ball), and was covered by numerous artists. The song became so popular, that the Wabash Railroad Company named its Detroit and St. Louis express train the Cannonball, after the song. (The train ran under that name from 1949 until 1971.) The land was bought for the rails to trails in 1994.

Two interesting facts about the song:

• The group The Carter Family (the first of the famous country/bluegrass Carters) were the ones who released the song in 1932.
• "The Wabash Cannonball" is the first song of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"  

“From the great Atlantic ocean to the wide Pacific shore
She climbs a flowery mountains o'er the hills and by the shore
She's mighty tall and handsome she's known quite well by all
She's a regular combination on the Wabash Cannonball”

Listen to  "The Wabash Cannonball"

On the Shores of Lake Erie: East Harbor State Park and Kelleys Island

If one sees a bald eagle and doesn't get a photo, was it there? 

We camped for two nights at East Harbor State Park, OH, which is on a peninsula on the shore of Lake Erie (see red dot above), and although we didn’t get a picture of the bald eagle, we managed to get quite a few photos of the scenery.

   

East Harbor Park. 

Taking a work call

Cedar Point Amusement Park, off in the distance, extreme telephoto 

The second day, we took a ferry to Kellys Island (see blue dot on map at top), 4 miles offshore, and biked around there.

There is a lot of construction happening on Kellys Island, based on the trucks which were on the ferry with us. In case the ferry sank, my plan was to build a raft out of all this lumber.

The great lakes were gouged out of bedrock by glaciers during the ice ages. In a few places offshore in Lake Erie, the limestone bedrock was harder than the rest. The glaciers scraped over these areas leaving behind what are now islands, one of which is Kellys. Another is Pelee Island, 8 miles further north, which is in Canada. 
Verizon thought Kellys was also in Canada. 

I mentioned gouging by the glaciers. These were gouges in the rock in Glacier Grooves Natural Natural Landmark. Due to their large size and ease of accessibility, these are the most famous glacial grooves in the world.

Tons and tons of limestone were quarried on Kellys Island. These are some remains of that industry.

And one of the old quarries

Random views on Kellys

A summary

Marblehead lighthouse back on the mainland 

Cuyahoga Valley National Park - Part III - and Graupel

I learned a new word yesterday - Graupel.  It is defined as soft hail or snow pellets. Fortunately, the graupel didn’t start until late in the day, but together with scary high gusts of wind, it made for an interesting drive from Cuyahoga Valley National Park to East Harbor State Park on the shore of Lake Erie.

Finishing up Cuyahoga Valley National Park -  

Because of Covid, there are signs instructing people to “Hike Clockwise” at every loop trail. This is to reduce the number of people you pass while hiking.

Now I don’t know if people don’t know how to tell time, or maybe they were just confused because of the time change, but on the Brandywine Gorge Trail on Sunday, there were an awful lot of people going counterclockwise on the trail. 

This was a weird sign: 

Signal when passing? On a hiking trail? Were we supposed to send up a flare?

Brandywine Gorge Trail

 

Other stuff to see in the park:  

Ritchie Ledges:

The Tinkers Gorge area

Tinkers Creek Gorge Scenic Overlook

Bridal Veil Falls

Great Falls of Tinkers Creek at Viaduct Park

Graupel west of Cleveland