Midwest Guest

Handy travel apps for road trips

Yelp.com

We traveled across the state to Grand Rapids, Michigan earlier this month to take Tim's dad to lunch. Tim's dad only recently moved to Grand Rapids, so none of us were totally familiar with exactly what restaurants were nearby.

Tim's dad remembered the name of one place he liked, although he wasn't quite sure of its exact location.

I logged onto my mobile Yelp app as Tim drove and I was quickly able to find the restaurant's location.

I often use my Yelp app on the road this way to find the specific location of a restaurant, drug store, coffee shop, hair salon, art galleries, mechanic, museums or any other business that I want to, or need to, visit.

 

Recent reviews by Dominique K.

What's this?

 

I originally thought of Yelp as mostly a source of restaurant reviews, but I've found so many other useful categories represented on Yelp. The fact that I use Yelp a lot on the road is the biggest reason that I often post my own reviews on the site, making a conscious effort to review things other than restaurants, to help others the way previous reviewers helped me along the way.

Yelp bills itself as an "urban city guide", although I've found it useful in cities large and small.

Reviewers referred to by what strikes me as a cutesy term "Yelpers", have generated over 47 million reviews over the years. The site averaged about 117 million unique views during the third quarter of 2013.

Yelp encourages reviewers to write about those things that they honestly like, discouraging the needlessly vicious negative reviews that can plague too many crowd-sourced review sites. Yelp is cognizant of the perils of excessive bias and monitors the site regularly to cull out obviously biased (pro or con), vindictive or fake reviews with their propriety software algorithm that vets reviews based at least partially on quality and reliability or activity on the site by the reviewers.

Yelp's latest review of ratings at the site for the third quarter of 2013 shows that 4- and 5-star reviews make up the bulk of reviews, with a much lower proportion of 1- and 2-star reviews. Most of my reviews are 4-star ratings as I spend most of my time at Yelp reviewing things I believe are most helpful or useful to others using the site.

Many local chapters of Yelp have their own community managers and schedule of events to encourage potential reviewers to try new places and experiences for themselves. We've attended a couple of these events held at local bar/restaurants and attractions like Detroit's Scarab Club, an artists' club, studio and gallery in the city's cultural center.

You can download the free Yelp app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, iPad and other mobile devices at Yelp's Web site.

GasBuddy.com

GasBuddy is another free app that I've found particularly useful on the road.

 

 

Gilmore Car Museum, Kalamazoo, Michigan

 

This site, like Yelp, also relies on user-provided data, but I've found it pretty reliable for finding the lowest gas prices wherever you happen to be traveling.

We quickly located the corner in our local area where we consistently seem to save 8 to nearly 20 cents for each gallon of gas we purchase with Gas Buddy.

I've also used it to find the cheapest available gas in various locations as we travel, again saving as much as 5, 10 or 15 cents per gallon when we gas up the car.

It's also easy to update a gas price at the site when you've found that the price is higher, or a little lower, since its last posting.

GasBuddy tracks gasoline prices at over 140,000 stations across the entire U.S. and in Canada. The site reports fuel prices based on reports from the site's users and via relationships with gas stations and credit card companies.

GasBuddy's main site also offers more tips for saving money on your fuel bill, like publishing the results of a recently released survey by Gas Buddy tracking gas prices over the past four years that shows the best days to fill up your tank is the late week or weekend in many states. The site also has tools like a trip cost calculator and a list of fuel and money saving tips.

You can download free mobile Gas Buddy apps for Android, iPhone Blackberry and other devices.

Do you have any other useful travel apps to recommend that I check out?

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Favorites at The Henry Ford

What to do in the Detroit area when the weather gets cold and snowy and you're yearning for a nice walk?

One great solution to that dilemma for us, especially when the temperatures dip below zero and the wind chill dives to unmentionable sub-zero readings as it's doing here this month is to relieve a bit of our cabin fever by talking a stroll through history at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.

Regular readers at Midwest Guest know that we have memberships at The Henry Ford and we often enjoy visiting to photographing its outdoor living history facility, Greenfield Village. We also enjoy checking out the cool artifacts in the warm environs of the indoor museum, making full year-round use of our museum memberships.

Over the years, Tim and I have amassed quite a collection of images of our favorite historical objects and exhibits in the museum, and I'm sharing some of our favorite artifacts and exhibits here in hopes that it may encourage you to visit The Henry Ford or help support your own local museum by visiting and purchasing a membership:  

 

 

Driving America-It should come as no surprise that automobiles play a starring role at a museum named after one of America's best known automotive pioneers. Gear heads will find plenty to admire at The Henry Ford. "Driving America" covers 80,000 square feet of space in the museum with 130 vehicles, more than 60 showcases of automotive-related artifacts and a 100-seat "drive in" theater that plays films, as well as hosting special theatrical events or musical performances. The museum closed most of their automotive exhibit for nearly a year before re-opening a re-imagined version of the exhibit in early 2012 that featured museum goers' favorite cars and roadside artifacts, as well as many new interactive features designed to encourage guests to delve deeper into the history of America's love affair with cars and their impact on American popular culture and everyday life.

 

 

Rosa Parks bus-The Henry Ford commemorates February as Black History month in a big way each year with events and special exhibits, but one of the most prized artifacts it proudly displays year-round is the Montgomery, Alabama city bus that Rosa Parks rode into history after refusing to relinquish her seat to a white man in December of 1955. The bus sat, sadly neglected in an open field, for several decades before The Henry Ford acquired it to loving restore and display at the museum. Museum visitors can board the restored bus and sit in the place that Parks refused to vacate in 1955.

 

 

Lamy's Diner-Experience a meal in a 40-seat 1940s-era roadside diner. I loved this artifact when the museum first included it in its exhibit about the car and how it affected American culture, but I was overjoyed when the museum reworked the classic roadside diner to allow visitors to enjoy a quick meal. We love stopping to sit at the counter and ordering retro favorites like a sandwich and a quintessential Detroit beverage like Faygo Rock & Rye.

 

 

McDonalds sign-This 1960s McDonalds 26-foot-tall sign is one of my favorite pieces in the museum because of the personal attachment I feel to it. This particular sign stood at its original location on John R in Madison Heights long after many of the chain's locations replaced the neon version of this sign with more modern versions of their famed "Golden Arches". I loved driving by this sign featuring McDonalds' original Speedee logo for many years on my way to work, so I was happy to see it find a new home in the museum when McDonalds finally replaced it at the restaurant with a more modern sign.

 

 

Wienermobile-This 1952 vehicle is reportedly one of the museum's most photographed artifacts and often draws a crowd of kids on their way to the museum's Wienermobile Cafe where they can grab a quick hot dog or other snack. The modern versions of the famed hot-dog-shaped vehicle are larger and plusher, but I like this classic version of the Wienermobile just fine.

 

 

Made in America-This exhibit has some cool machinery, engines and other manufacturing artifacts highlighting the work of American innovators and inventors from the 18th to 20th centuries whose work powered the country's development through the Industrial Age. Tim and I both appreciated this mid-nineteenth century steam engine's Gothic design. You can see echoes in Tim's photo of the Gothic-style arches that I remember seeing in ornate churches and other buildings of that time period, although the beautiful lines of this steam engine spent much of its lifetime hidden inside of a lead processing factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

 

 

Dymaxion House- I love the circular  and streamlined architecture of this cool home designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, who was an architect, author, inventor and more. This home is a 1946 prototype of a Fuller design for an aluminum house. The two-bedroom home is about 1,100-square-feet with a design meant for easy shipping of the light-weight aluminum parts and easy assembly. The Henry Ford acquired the home in 1991, taking ten years to restore its 3,000 component parts and reassemble the structure before opening it to the public in 2001.

We've also enjoyed many of the temporary exhibits at The Henry Ford in recent years, including: Lego Architecture: Towering American Ambition that included Lego models of some cool Midwestern landmarks; Rock Stars' Cars & Guitars 2; and a special showing of the Emancipation Proclamation that drew 21,105 visitors to the museum for a 36-hour vigil showing of the famed document several years ago.

I'm looking forward to the "Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power" exhibit coming to The Henry Ford in May, 2014. I've seen some of the 250 items featured in this show at Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame + Museum in the past, but this looks like a fun show with a leather jacket from Joan Jett, a bustier from Madonna, a Fender guitar from the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, and Lady Gaga's infamous meat dress, which I've yet to see!

This post is part of the inaugural Best of the Midwest blog hop. Have a post that fits this month's theme? Join in the fun below!

We'd love to see where you've been visiting!

Please read the following guidelines for sharing:

    
• Share posts related to the monthly topic.
    
• By linking up, you are giving me permission to share your post including one photo in any feature posts and on social media channels.
    
• Visit 2-3 other posts that have linked up, find some new places to visit & meet new friends!

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Check out my wintertime lighthouse images at Wandering Educators

I love sharing my memories and images of Great Lakes lighthouses here at Midwest Guest.

It's a real thrill for me to also be able to share some of those memories with readers of Wandering Educators as that site hosts a collection of images from some of our wintertime visits to Lake Michigan lighthouses.

I especially enjoyed seeing the title "slide" Jessie created for the piece using one of my images of the lighthouse at Grand Haven, Michigan.

Wandering Educators is an online travel resource for global educators published by Jessie Voigts (whose byline you may remember seeing here at Midwest Guest in the past) and her husband, Ed Forteau.

Check it out at Visiting Lake Michigan lighthouses in the winter!

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Where I live: The healing power of photography with Monte Nagler

I looked forward to seeing the image of one of my favorite lighthouses every day for nearly a month several years ago.

Some of those days, I could almost feel the warm sand between the toes of my bare feet, feel the cool water of Lake Michigan as it lapped up on the beach and hear the cry of gulls as they swooped down to catch a fish in the waves on a sunny Northern Michigan day.

Of course, I was walking into a hospital cafeteria each of those days, but a floor-to-ceiling image of one of my favorite places on the planet posted at the cafeteria's entrance would give me at least a moment of cheer me as I headed to the hospital's deli counter or salad bar.

I don't know what photographer captured that Point Betsie Lighthouse image I so admired in the hospital, but I was grateful for its presence every time that I saw it.

It is a pretty place, isn't it?

Photographer Monte Nagler has a real understanding of the healing and cheering power he can create for others in a stressful hospital setting with his beautiful images, so it was a special treat for me to see a recent presentation from him about his photography for the Motor City Camera Club at PROCAM in metropolitan Detroit.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time at hospitals over the past five years. I've often sat in a drab waiting room, perched on a hard chair in a patient's room or, as during my hospital adventure early last month, slumped for 12-plus hours on a flimsy folding chair in the middle of an emergency room hallway.

One thing I've learned to do over these recent years is to appreciate the work of photographers who create the peaceful images that seem to increasingly fill the walls and other spaces in newer medical facilities.    

Nagler works with many medical facilities to create spaces aimed at providing a more relaxing environment for patients, visitors and overworked medical staff. His scenic images of waterfalls, gardens, wooded paths and mountains grace hospital lobbies, exam rooms, procedure rooms, hallways, cafeterias and other places where a soothing image can create a bright spot in an otherwise stressful and dreary day.

His camera club presentation featured slides of many of his installations at medical facilities around town, and around the country. The images never ceased to amaze me with their beauty and Nagler's readily apparent care and compassion for those who will see his images most frequently.

Nagler seems to have a special gift for matching his images to the needs of his viewers, and many of his installations go well beyond being just a few pretty pictures on a wall. His images seem to draw you into the soothing scenes, and his installations represent some new and imaginative ways of showcasing them.

Nagler's use of installations like floor graphics and ceiling panels, images that curve around walls and equipment, banners and panoramic images help surround viewer with beauty that can momentarily make them forget the more sterile and cold aspects of their surroundings.

Be sure to check out Nagler's PhotosforHealing site and the page featuring his installations for inspiration spurred by his understanding of the healing power of photography.

Better yet, check out his main photography site to learn more about his fine art photography and to see if he has a gallery show, workshop or photography workshop in your area.

Nagler, a fine art photographer who began his serious study of photography with Ansel Adams, lives in metropolitan Detroit. You can find his work in museums that include the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the Grand Rapids Art Museum, as well in many public spaces that include corporate offices, commercial buildings and medical facilities around the country. He teaches classes and seminars around the country, writes a nationally syndicated photography column and is the author of six photography books. We particularly enjoy his beautiful collection of black-and-white images from around the state, Michigan: The Photographs of Monte Nagler, which we bought last year as we traveled around northern Michigan.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Hang on Sloopy: Ohio's Official State Rock Song

Ohio legislators named "Hang on Sloopy" as the state's Official Rock Song, and as far as I can tell, Ohio seems to be the only state officially rocking out!

Official as it is, there is still plenty of mystery about the history of this seemingly simple song.

Who wrote the song? Did Sloopy actually exist? Can you imagine if the song actually became a hit for the Dave Clark Five, rather than a struggling band of teenagers from the Fort Recovery area near the Ohio/Indiana border?

There are so many questions, and no official answers for a lot of them.

Wes Farrell and Bert Russell owned the rights to a song originally titled "My Girl Sloopy". Notice I said "owned the rights" and not "wrote the song".

Russell made his name as a Brill Building songwriter and record producer during the 1960s. Songs bearing his name as a songwriter include "Twist and Shout", "Piece of My Heart" and "Hang on Sloopy".

Wes Farrell also amassed an impressive record of songwriting and producing credits throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Songs bearing his name as a songwriter include "Boys" (a hit for the Shirelles covered by the Beatles), "Come a Little Bit Closer" and a bunch of songs for a little 1970s group called The Partridge Family that included "C'mon, Get Happy", and, of course, "Hang on Sloopy".

Charles J. Givens had a band as a young man in Illinois and claimed he bought the song's rights. This story seems unlikely given Given's subsequent track record of losing his recording business in an uninsured fire, becoming a multi-millionaire as a financial advisor and becoming the target of numerous lawsuits as a result of that advice.

Then there is also the un-sourced story that an anonymous St. Louis teenager wrote the song about a fictitious girl.

But did Sloopy actually exist?

A story circulated around Columbus, Ohio about a waitress/singer who used Sloopy as a stage name.

Several sources say that Sloopy was actually singer Dorothy Sloop of Steubenville, Ohio, who used "Sloopy" as a stage name.

The Steubenville Sloop was a pianist known primarily for performing in mostly all-female jazz bands in the New Orleans area from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Brett Ruland of Columbus, Ohio says that his late great aunt "Dottie" was actually the inspiration for the song.

Ruland says his great aunt was born in 1913 and learned to play piano from her father, who honed his skill by playing piano to accompany silent movies in the theaters. Ruland repeats the legend about how Bert Russell saw Dottie Sloop play in New Orleans once and wrote the song about her. Russell was born in New York in 1929, so I imagine the story is barely possible, but I tend to take it, and Ruland's speculation about the origin of the phrase "Hang on Sloopy" with a very large grain of salt.

Flash forward to the mid-1960s when a group called the Strangeloves had a hit with "I Want Candy".

The Strangeloves began performing "Hang on Sloopy" in concert as they toured with the Dave Clark Five. They wanted to record it when they got word that the DC5 wanted to record the same song with a similar arrangement. The Strangeloves, who in reality were three New York producers, weren't yet ready to record a follow up single to "Candy" and figured that a DC5 version of "Sloopy" overshadow any version they could do.  

The Strangeloves recruited a band called Rick and the Raiders to record the song. The Raiders were a band based in Union City, Indiana fronted by teenager Rick Zehringer from just over the state line in Fort Recovery, Ohio.

Rick's Raiders changed their band's name to avoid confusion with Paul Revere and the Raiders, recording "Hang on Sloopy" as The McCoys.

The song went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on October 2, 1965, staying there a week before the Beatles' "Yesterday" knocked it from that perch.

The McCoys became very popular throughout the Midwest and opened for the Rolling Stones during that group's 1966 U.S. tour. They recorded "Fever" and a cover of the Richie Valens tune "Let's Go" as follow ups to "Hang on Sloopy" without much chart success.

Rick Zehringer, who was just 17 when he hit the charts with the McCoys, took Rick Derringer as a stage name after the logo from the Bang record company that released their one hit.

The McCoys ended up trying to adopt a more progressive rock sound as the 60s came to a close without much success, however they spent some time performing as the house band at a popular New York nightclub called the Scene. It was there that Derringer met and played with Johnny Winter, which started a run of success for him as a solo artist and working with numerous big acts over the years.  He continues to record and perform today nearly 50 years after that first McCoys hit.

Meanwhile, "Hang on Sloopy" became a hit with Ohio's athletic teams over the years, starting when a member of the Ohio State University marching band convinced the band's director to let them perform the song at a football game. The student band member, John Tagenhorst, arranged the song for the band as the McCoys' song still rode the top of the charts.

The song made its sports debut at a game on October 9, 1965 to a huge crowd reaction. The marching band continued playing "Hang on Sloopy" at every Buckeye home game, and it's now a tradition to play the song before the start of each home game's fourth quarter.

The OSU band included the song on a CD it issued and you'll find it as a free audio download or as a ring tone at the OSU Web site.

The Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Cavaliers are among other Ohio athletic teams also adopting the song as an anthem.

During the 1980s, Joe Dirck, a columnist for the Columbus Citizen-Journal, read a story about an effort to make "Louie, Louie" the official rock song of the State of Washington.

That effort was more of a jest, but Dirck wasn't kidding when he advanced the idea that "Hang on Sloopy" should become Ohio's official State Rock Song. He knew of the song, he knew of its sporting success, and he knew about Derringer's Ohio background.

He thought the idea made perfect sense, and the Ohio State Legislature agreed with him!

"Hang on Sloopy" became the state's Official Rock Song with the passage of a House Concurrent Resolution on November 20, 1985.

The resolution reads, in part:

"WHEREAS "Hang on Sloopy" is of particular relevance to members of the Baby Boom Generation, who were once dismissed as a bunch of long-haired, crazy kids, but who  now are old enough and vote in sufficient number to be taken quite seriously; and..."

"WHEREAS, Adoption of this resolution will not take long, cost the state anything, or affect life in this state to any appreciable degree, and if we in the legislature just go ahead and pass the darn thing, we can get on with more important stuff..."  

I can't make this stuff up!

You can read the entire text of the resolution on the Ohio Historical Society's Ohio History Central site.

And what of the campaign to give the song "Louie, Louie" similar status in Washington State? It seems that Ohio may have the better official sense of humor as "Louie, Louie" only retains the title as Washington's "unofficial" rock song!

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Midwest music mix list #9: Ohio, Volume 2

I'm back with yet another Midwest music mix list, which is a second list of great tunes from and about The Buckeye State:

• Crazy Blues-Mamie Smith became the first African American artist to make a vocal blues recording with the release of Okeh Records' recording of "Crazy Blues" in 1920. Most online sources cite her 1883 birth as being most likely in Cincinnati, but Smith began traveling around the country as a dancer with a vaudeville act at the age of 10. Smith was an all-round performer as her performances grew to include blues and jazz singing, but she wasn't a true blues singer in the classic sense. Still, her recording ushered in a new era for classic female blues singers as record companies rushed to make more blues recordings in the wake of Smith's million-seller success. "The Queen of the Blues" Smith soon found herself joined, and often overshadowed by other blues performers like Bessie "Empress of the Blues" Smith.

  Smith retired from singing and performing in 1931, returning to the stage and appearing in several movies during the late 1930s and early 1940s.  She died in 1946.

   

   

• Bloodbuzz Ohio-Cincinnati also gave us The National. Founding members of the band, Matt Benringer and Scott Devendorf met as students in the University of Cincinnati's graphic design program. Their band became The National and moved to New York's Brooklyn by 1999 and began evoking comparisons to groups like Joy Division, Depeche Mode and, probably on the strength of Berninger's prominent baritone vocals, Leonard Cohen.

  Bloodbuzz Ohio comes from their 2010 album High Violet with a video of Berninger singing and wandering around Brooklyn and featuring a cameo by famed documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker as a bartender.

  The band has a reputation for moody songs with difficult-to-interpret lyrics. Bloodbuzz is no exception to this rule with lyrics like a refrain that reads "I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees, I'll never marry but Ohio don't remember me".

  The band released its latest and sixth album, "Trouble Will Find Me", in May of 2013.

   

   

• Ohio-The alternative-country-rock band Lambchop offered up this song as the title track and single for their 2008 album OH (Ohio). I'm not entirely sure what this song or album has to do with Ohio, a question that at least one other reviewer also had difficulty answering.

  Lambchop is a Nashville, Tennessee based band consisting of front man Kurt Wagner with an ever-evolving style and ever-evolving cast of musicians. Wagner's band started as a more traditional country outfit in 1986 and has since moved through, and combined, various musical genres like post-rock, soul and lounge music, of which this particular track reminds me.

  The album's cover features a painting called "New Orleans Police Beating" by Wagner's grade-school mentor Michael Peed that depicts a mutually self-absorbed nude couple in the foreground and a scene of the police through a window in the background. I'm not sure what any of that has to do with Ohio, either!

  This is the band's 10th album.

• Whip It-This tune gained much of its popularity with its ubiquitous video airplay during the early days of MTV. The band Devo made an indelible mark on the music world with its unique image, synthesized music and quirky tunes. "Whip It" rose to number 14 on the Billboard charts in 1980.

  The classic Devo lineup consists of two sets of brothers (Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh plus Gerald and Bob Casale). The 1970 Kent State shooting is often credited with sparking the band's formation in 1972. Devo's music, generally categorized as New Wave, Post Punk or Art Rock features kitschy images with science fiction or social satire themes.  As the band explains, the name and image comes from the idea that mankind is devolving or regressing and that Devo "dramatized conformity, emotional repression and dehumanization in order to attack them..."

  The band's Web site also explains the "energy domes" they sometimes wore on their heads, saying that the domes, often mistaken for flower pots, are "holy totems" designed after ancient mounds to collect energy and re-circulate it, resulting in increased mental energy for the dome wearer.

  Be sure to check out the band's weird take on the Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.  The band continues to record and perform today.  

• Ohio-No one could ignore Crosby, Nash, Stills and Young's outraged take on the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970. Neil Young wrote and composed this song in response to the incident that left four dead and nine injured on the campus of Ohio's Kent State University after 28 National Guardsmen opened fire on student war protesters.

  Students Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder and Sandy Scheuer lost their lives and photographer John Paul Filo's image of student Mary Ann Vecchio's anguished horror over Miller's dead body symbolized the social turmoil of the time and questioning of this country's increasing escalation of its involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia under President Nixon.

  CSN&Y quickly recorded the song just weeks after the shooting, rushed it into release and just as quickly became the voices of a generation. The recording sessions were intense and Young later said that David Crosby broke down in tears after one of the takes.

  The song captured much of the anger, shock and disbelief following the Kent State shootings.  Many AM stations refused to play the song because of its stark challenge to Nixon, but FM stations, especially in larger cities and college towns, gave it plenty of airplay.

  The song appeared on several CSN&Y albums, as well as on a few of Neil Young's solo releases.

   

   

• Hang On Sloopy-I always viewed this cut by The McCoys as just another mid-1960s pop song, but I soon found that it is much more than that in Ohio.

  The Ohio State Legislature actually named this song, which served for many years as the unofficial song of many of the state's professional and college sports team, as the official State Rock Song in 1985.

  There is much more to this fascinating story, so I've decided to share that story later this week here at Midwest Guest.

• Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo-Born in the Fort Recovery area as Rick Zehringer, Rick was a member of The McCoys when they hit the charts in 1965 with "Hang On Slooopy". The recording came out on the Bang Records label, and Rick took his "Derringer" stage name from the label's logo of a Derringer pistol.

  Derringer was just 17 when the McCoys had their big hit in 1965, but he had a real run of success as a solo artist, worked with numerous big acts over the years and continues to record and perform nearly 50 years after that first McCoys hit.

  Many folks best know Derringer as a solo artist for his 1973 hit, "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo".

  Over the years, Derringer's collaborations include his (mostly guitar) work with Edgar and Johnny Winter, Steely Dan, Alice Cooper, Todd Rundgren, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Kiss, Cyndi Lauper and Ringo Starr.

  Derringer wrote and recorded "Real American" for a World Wrestling Federation album, a song perhaps best known as an entrance theme for wrestler Hulk Hogan. Derringer also did the entrance theme for the WWF's Demolition tag team, and that song appeared on the WWF's Piledriver album. President Barrack Obama also used "Real American" as an entrance theme for a comedic entrance at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.

  Derringer also recorded a gospel album with his wife and children in 2008 and ventured into smooth jazz in 2002.

   

   

Be sure to check out previous posts in this series that include music mix lists for Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, North Dakota, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan again.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Along Ohio's North Coast Inland Trail

The hiking and biking trail running alongside the restored railroad depot in Elmore, Ohio is part of a much larger network of trails running through the Buckeye State.

We spotted several walkers and bicyclists along the trail as we stopped at Elmore's Walter Ory Park to check out the depot and a restored log cabin. We crossed and re-crossed the trail as we drove through the area to do some research for an assignment and do a little geocaching, which had me wishing I'd had my bicycle with me and had time that day to explore the trail some more.

The portion of the trail running through Elmore continues on through northern Ohio farmland through the towns of Clyde, Fremont, Lindsey and Bellevue. The route runs within a half-mile of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center and Library at Fremont and within a block of downtown Elmore with its bike shop, eateries and stores.

This 28-mile stretch is part of the developing 65-mile North Coast Inland Trail. The Elmore-to-Bellevue section is a mostly paved rail-to-trail route using the roadbed of the vacated rail line and a few miles of a marked route on city streets through Fremont.     

The trail, open year round, draws walkers, runners and inline skaters. It is not open to motorized vehicles, with the exception of wheelchairs or other handicap assistance vehicles.

 They do plow this section of the trail when it snows, so it unfortunately isn't really a cross-country skiing route.

The trail is open from 8 a.m. until dark and there are multiple access points along the way.

Check out this online map for the Elmore to Bellevue portion of the trail which shows the locations of parking, restrooms, drinking water, picnic areas and other trail amenities.

The 10.5-mle section of the trail from Fremont to Elmore opened to the public on October 12, 2008. Planning for this section of the trail hit high gear in 2005 when Ohio's Department of Natural Resources reported that the Sandusky County Park District received a $375,000 grant toward engineering and constructing the trail from Fremont to Elmore.

 Development of the North Coast Inland trail continues in sections with the latest completed 5-mile stretch between Clyde and Bellevue opening to the public on October 11, 2012.

The North Coast Inland trail is one of two ambitious cross-state trails in the works (the other one is the Ohio-to-Erie Trail, which is a planned 325-mile route from Cincinnati to Columbus and Cleveland.

Future plans for the North Coast Inland Trail call for continuing the trail northwest to Millbury, where it will connect with the Wabash Connector and then head west to the Wabash Cannonball Trail in Lucas County. The eventual goal is to have an approximately 270-mile east-west trail span the width of Ohio, connecting it to Pennsylvania and Indiana, with possibly a connector running north into Michigan.

The North Coast Inland Trail would also be part of the larger Buckeye Trail, a more than 1,444-mile network of trails criss-crossing Ohio in a nearly endless loop that began evolving in the late 1950s.

Find out more about the North Coast Inland Trail and compare notes with other trail enthusiasts by going to the Friends of the North Coast Inland Trail Facebook page.

Want to learn more about Ohio's network of bike trails? Check out Biking Ohio's Rail-Trails: Where to Go, What to Expect, How to Get There by Shawn E. Richardson.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Visiting Ohio's historic Elmore Depot

Passenger trains ceased to travel through Elmore, Ohio long ago, but the town's lovingly restored train depot still gives visitors a taste of Elmore's history as a bustling stop along the Toledo, Norwalk & Cleveland Railroad line.

 

 

The railroad played an important role in the development of this little town about 20 miles southeast of Toledo, Ohio.

The railroad line running east from Toledo to Norwalk via Elmore, Fremont, Bellevue and Monroeville started rolling in September of 1852. The line merged with the Lake Shore Railroad in January of 1859 and later that year with the Michigan Southern & Indiana Railway to extend the route to Cleveland.

Workers completed the Elmore train depot in December of 1869, allowing freight shipping all over the country from in and out of the area, thus boosting Elmore's economic growth in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Westward expansion further fueled growth along the railroad corridor as more and more people emigrated to the western states via the rails.

 The twentieth century saw a decline in railroad traffic, and passenger service at the Elmore station ceased on December 16, 1949.

 

 

Freight trains continued to run through town, but those trains stopped rolling through Elmore sometime in the early 1970s.

The fate of the depot remained in doubt as townspeople wondered about the best use for the building and the property surrounding the vacated railroad tracks.

Elmore's former long-time mayor, Lowell Krumnow, rallied citizens to action, spearheading an effort to form the Elmore Historical Society, which, in turn, purchased the depot building with the surrounding property from the railroad in 1981.

The group worked hard to save this piece of Elmore history, setting forth to preserve the landmark and help develop a beautiful park and recreation area for the town.

In 2001, the group repaired, renovated, restored and repainted the classic depot building for use as a museum.

The building has all of its original rooms like the waiting room, ticket office, freight room and station master's office. The depot's original freight room houses a collection of Elmore memorabilia. The building also serves as headquarters to Elmore's Historical Railroad Club, which holds regular meetings, maintains an HO-scale model train layout and occasionally stages model train demos for the public.

 

 

You can book the depot for private tours or photo-shoots. The depot is also open for tours during special events, and folks who were lucky enough to run into Mayor Krumnow in town might score a spur-of-the-moment tour.

People knew Mayor Krumnow for his devotion to Elmore and preserving its historic character, but our visit to Elmore unfortunately happened about a week after his death, so things were understandably quiet in town and we didn't get a chance to see the inside of the depot.

 Still, Krumnow's legacy lives on in a nicely maintained depot and other historic structures like a log cabin and a car man's shanty, used by switchmen  at the railroad yard of U.S. Gypsum in neighboring Genoa as shelter from the weather in between the work of switching railroad cars.

 

 

Small white car man's shanty is at the right of the depot

The park land surrounding the depot also has a playground area, a banquet/meeting hall and serves as an access point for the North Coast Inland Trail (read more about the trail in a post later this week).

Want to learn more about the history of the Elmore area? Check out Elmore and Genoa (Images of America) by Jennifer Fording.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Midwest travel links for December 2013

Check out some great Midwest-related stories I found online this past month:

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum: Baseball history gem-I loved this look at a very cool museum in Kansas City, Missouri from Lisa and Tim at the Walking Tourists blog. I've heard a bit about the NLB Detroit Stars, and I wrote an article about Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first African American to play Major League baseball (in Toledo, Ohio) a few years ago. I also recently read a book about an integrated baseball team originating in North Dakota during the 1930s (the excellent Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball's Color Line by Tom Dunkel). So, this museum is definitely on my Midwest bucket list.

 

 

Fifth Third Field in Toledo, Ohio

 

A Visit with Harry Truman: The Truman Library and Home Site in Independence, MO-Shanna stops (along with the buck!) at another Kansas City must-see, President Truman's presidential library and boyhood home. Check it out at A Midwest Travel Companion blog.  

 

5 Things you just can't miss in St. Louis-Check out St. Louis with Sarah as she give us this list of essential stops in her hometown on her self-titled page.  The city's art museum sounds like another place I should put on my Midwest bucket list!

 

The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD-We saw  Mitchell's Corn Palace in 2007, a year after a severe drought that caused them to curtail their yearly update, and we got a glimpse of several panels in progress. I really enjoyed seeing this post from Visual Lingual that shows a more complete and nicely lit-up facade from this year than the version we saw.

 

 

 

 

Nebraska: A Pivotal Route 6 State Often Overlooked By the Rest of the Country Is In National News Big Time-Malerie takes a look at the effect that a recent movie featuring Nebraska and actor Bruce Dern, in an "Oscar-worthy performance", is having on the state's image as somewhere worth visiting. Check it out on Malerie's Stay on Route 6, dedicated to promoting her guidebook of the same name. I've got the book and taking at least a good portion of this 3,652-mile road trip is another Midwest bucket list item for me!

 

Hiking Starved Rock State Park in the Winter-I've read about this park in Illinois many times. Pictures I've seen of its vintage-1930s lodge built by the Civilian Conservation Corps definitely helped this place earn a place on my Midwest bucket list long ago. Connie's story at her Midwest Wanderer blog about hiking the park during the winter shows the park in an especially beautiful light.

 

Chicago's Columbian Exposition Comes to Life at the Field Museum-Regular readers of Midwest Guest know that architecture is a frequent theme of posts here, so it should come as no surprise that I'd love to see this exhibit at Chicago's Field Museum. The 1893 World Fair in Chicago featured the work of famed architects like Daniel Burnham and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (who created New York's Central Park and had a major hand in designing and improving Detroit's park on Belle Isle). The Chicago fair also provided the setting for author Erik Larson's thrilling The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. Check out Bill's report on the museum's exhibition at the Chicago Architecture blog. The exhibit runs through September 7 of this year.

 

20 Reasons Why Cleveland Does, in Fact, Rock-This list from Keph on The Viator Travel Blog includes several of my favorite Cleveland sites like the Cleveland Museum of Art, Terminal Tower, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum and the city's famed West Side Market, as well as other places I'd like to go like the International Women's Air and Space Museum, Millionaire's Row and the Great Lakes Brewing Company.

 

 

 

West Side Market, Cleveland

 

City Market-I'm a big fan of city markets featuring the best in local produce and culinary treats, so this feature by Whitney on the Indiana Insider blog about the market in an historic city market building in downtown Indianapolis caught my eye. It's yet another entry on my Midwest bucket list!

 

That's it for this month's Midwest travel links list. Do you have any favorite Midwest stories or blogs to share?

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© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved