Tag: The Peace Bridge

Mission: Cross Some Items off “The List”

Fall came, and I decided that I needed to get the T@b out for another trip in calendar year 2018. I checked out my list of things I had to put on The List for “next time.” I decided to aim for Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas and see what else might fill in along the way.Hmm…Just how close to Chicago do I want to get? I mean, if that is the most logical thing to do, I will drive the Interstates to get around Chicago. I towed Flo the Airstream on I-94 through Chicago once. Once. That was enough to persuade me of the wisdom of avoiding it – especially with a trailer in tow.

Since the trip is 13 hours at a minimum, I decided to take the Indiana route and ,stop for the night at the Cracker Barrel near Effingham.I love the welcome Cracker Barrel extends to us “nomads.” I have to admit, though, that their definition of “comfort food” is not mine. I was thrilled to find this bowl of beans on the menu. Beans are more my speed. I hope they leave it on the menu, because it is going to be my “go-to” dinner when I stop at Cracker Barrels to spend the night.

I got going early-ish in the morning and headed west on I-70. I stopped to take a break at this rest area near, Marshall, Illinois. (Never pass up a restroom!)What do you know? Cumberland!

It was a decent rest area. While stretching my legs, I spied this bridge and decided to check it out.It turns out that it is what is left of the Fancher Pony Truss Bridge.

The Trout brothers, Hiram and Everett, were born in the area and the operated a machine shop in Shelbyville, Illinois in the late 1800s. They invented and patented this design for a pony truss bridge.

“What is a pony truss bridge?” I can hear you screaming this at your screen. Well, I imagine you know what a truss is on a bridge, right?

Well, in case your education on bridges was lacking, according to my Preferred Source, a truss is: “an assembly of beams or other elements that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that “consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assemblage as a whole behaves a a single object.”

Essentially, it is material fastened together into a bunch of triangles that work together to hold up the bridge.I’m sure you’ve seen bridges like this before…and this.

My beloved Peace Bridge is also a truss bridge, albeit a bit fancier than the previous ones. I am sure I drove my folks nuts asking them why it had that hump on top. They told me that it held the bridge up. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the concept that something on top could hold something up. Why wasn’t it underneath?
It took teaching shapes by building with toothpicks and marshmallows that I finally got it. (Personally, I preferred building with toothpicks and gumdrops, but I didn’t have a photo of one of those activities in my files.
Okay, so that’s what a truss is. So what is a pony truss?
A pony truss is a short truss that doesn’t connect overhead, like the other examples I showed you. That explains (to me, at least) why they call short walls in houses “pony walls.”

Anyway, our friends, the Trout Brothers, built about 150 of these bridges between 1892 and 1897. That’s about 30 bridges a year! They must have been churning them out at a rate of a bridge about every week and a half.

According to the sign that was at the bridge, what makes these bridges unique is that they used round pipe in construction, instead of the usual rivet-connected channel plates and angle iron. I guess that’s why they were awarded a patent on the bridge.

This bridge was in use for 88 years, from 1895 until 1983. It was reduced in width from 15 feet to 8 feet and moved 70 miles to this location for preservation.

And that’s all I have to say about that.
The reasons for the stop having been satisfied, I set out again. My next destination was Jefferson City, Missouri. But first, I had to go through St. Louis.
It was raining. (I hate rain!) The traffic was dreadful, thanks to construction. At least the stop-and-go traffic gave me the opportunity to snap this water-logged photo of the Arch. (I’ve been there before, so it is not on The List.)
My purpose in visiting Jefferson City was to see the capitol. I booked a site in the closest campground I could find. I pulled in and signed their two page (TWO PAGE!) list of rules and they gave me my site for the next two nights.
If they need a two page list of rules, they must have some rowdy customers at times. At this time of year, though, the campground was largely empty. I settled in for the night and got ready to visit the capitol on the morrow.
Stay turned!

 

Family Fun

The other important component of my first adventure with my new trailer was family fun.

I’ve already mentioned getting together with my sister.

Later, I got together with sister Amy and brother Craig’s families. Food and fun!

and games!

Here’s Craig’s daughter, Mariel, and Amy’s husband, Steve, playing Connect Four with stuffed animals as proxies.

Here are two-thirds of my nieces, Sarah and Mariel. I wonder where Katie was?

The next day it was time for me to break camp at Evangola State Park. I got hitched up and headed to

It was my first border crossing with the T@b, but hardly my first crossing. With family on both sides of the border, I’ve been back and forth across the Peace Bridge thousands of times.

I took this photo of The Bridge a few years ago when I was on the top of the Buffalo City Hall.

My destination was Long Beach, Ontario.

My cousin, Bill, and his wife, Lori, have a site for the season at Long Beach Conservation Area and Campground. We’d been talking about camping together for a few years. It was time to finally get it done!

It was a very popular campground!

I got my T@b wedged in. More people packed in around me after I got set up.

Lori and Bill had a primo site – right at the shore.

I like this close up photo better. I am really big on cropping!

Amy and Katie came over to spend some time with our cousins, Bill and Wayne. After snacking and hanging out a bit, we went for a little drive. I asked if we were near our Auntie Lo and Uncle Bill’s cottage. We were!

The neighbor on the right was outside, and I got out and engaged her in conversation. After a bit, the current owner came up, and we chatted with him, too. He had just finished renovating it and he insisted us up to see what he had done.

He did a really great job! The floor plan was the same as I remember, except for the bedroom that was to the right of the door.  Well, actually, the floor plan of that room was the same, but the amazing bunk beds were gone. Auntie Lo and Uncle Bill had triple decker double sized bunk beds! They could really cram a lot of guests in the house!

They even had couches on the porch facing the lake that people couple sleep on. There were changes. For instance, the beach.

The beach was gone!

As I remember it, there was a good sized yard that we played games on. For some reason, I think we played Jarts. But, I could be mis-remembering it.

The beach was wide. There was a black rubber conveyor belt to make it easier to walk across the rocky beach. The idea was great, except that – boy – did it get hot in the sun!

Really, the beach was absolutely gone! If the owners who came after Auntie Lo sold it in 1976 hadn’t put in a restraining wall, they cottage probably would have tumbled in the lake.

After our trip down memory lane, Amy and Katie needed to be getting back. We had a photo taken by my trailer and said our goodbyes.

That evening, The rest of us, headed to a beachside restaurant in Lowbanks.

A good time was had by all. The sign made me giggle.

In the morning, I got myself ready to hit the road. We thought it would be a good thing to take a photo of me and my cousin, Bill, to commemorate the visit. The wet hair makes me wonder if it really was a good thing.

But, there’s a photo and it so it happened.

Time to hit the road.

Destination: Kalamazoo.