DennyG

Nope. You explained it quite well. I just didn't read the two-blues part. I'm certainly curious as to how they describe it. Particularly what they call the road they say it is from. Yep. Found those and clicked through several in my home state. That's how I knew you didn't have Indiana or Illinois. That storage space comment was made with tongue firmly in cheek but, as we all find, one of the few time people are likely to take you seriously is when you're trying to be funny.

A most impressive collection of photos. Strictly speaking, markers east of Cumberland were not on the National Road but that doesn't make them less interesting. I was aware of (and have visited a few of) the markers near Baltimore. Adam Paul covers some of them here. They pre-date the National Road by several years. I'm guessing that most of the stones between Frederick and Cumberland (which I haven't seem) are from the Cumberland Turnpike which I believe was built about the same time that the first phase of the NR was being built. Of particular interest are the two stones just east of Cumberland (5MtoC & 6MtoC) which are a different shape then the other MD state stones. Possibly a different turnpike company. You've touched on the large number of reproductions in Pennsylvania. I recall being truly impressed by what I took to be a long string of preserved and consecutive markers only to find that many were fiberglass reproductions. As you compile your catalog, noting which are original would be quite useful. I'm not sufficiently familiar with either Flickr or Google Maps to access coordinate information. Is this possible? I believe there are only two original NR markers left in Indiana and none in Illinois so it won't take a whole lot of storage space to document the last two states on the road.

...and there have been over 400 more applied in the fourteen months since this thread was started. Guess who did 20430.

Whoa!! Another prime example of the old "miss a day miss a lot" rule. I've only been connected sporatically since Friday and am only online briefly now but do want to welcome Chris. And I'm even thankful for the additions he's made to my to-do list. I'll eventually get to that blog and those maps and that bridge thread and the other stuff that is sure to pop up before I get home. Good looking stuff, Chris. I'll be back.

You didn't tell me that Tony owned the joint. I may have to reconsider. I've actually been to one IRL race in Florida and I've even visited Tony's home once post-CART for an F1 race. I've never been to a NASCAR race but my one IRL experience was in the early days when the cars sounded like NASCAR so I figure that was close enough.

Well, I'm committed now. Reservations at Lanes & the Crossing and over a week ahead of time, too. I'm getting to be one itinerary-solidifying schedule-adhering book-em-in-advance kind of guy.

Very cool! That opening drive-by in the Sonora clip is a really nice "professional" touch. That doesn't appear to be a campfire that's being attacked by the ax, unless, of course, you built your campfires inside hollow trees. If that's the case, the film shows two reasons that camping is now off limits. Thanks.

You say that like it's a bad thing. I sense that there are actually two sources for your not entirely joyous reaction. One is that it takes time to check up on web offerings that might have something of interest and the other is that it is something other than the American Road Magazine Forum. It's quite natural that some of us here have an ARMF-centric view (I certainly do.) but it's a big web out there. As for the time and effort (and memory:-) required to keep tabs on multiple sources, I might have something useful and I'll once again point to RSS. RSS is not the universal panacea but it is quite handy for this sort of thing. This morning, I added an RSS fee from LincolnHighwayNews to my Yahoo portal page. The page now has short summaries of eight handpicked RSS feeds. At home, I see this whenever I fire up my browser. At work, I have to actually select the page from my favorites list because I have an internal company oriented page as the home page (and my boss likes it that way). I've attached a snapshot of the relevant portion of the page. The feeds aren't instantaneous and they don't show subsequent topic postings or blog comments and I do have to visit the associated site to see what's behind a headline of interest but I've got a lot of headlines at my fingertips. I happen to use My.Yahoo. My.AOL, iGoogle, My.MSN, and a bunch of other guys offer similar capabilities. I can't say for certain that this will help any particular person track more stuff, but it might.

I hope I'm not stealing any planned thunder from Brian by "announcing" a great new blog here. As far as I know, Glenn Wells was the first to let the blog out of the bag when he told RoadsideFans about Brian Butko's days old LincolnHighwayNews. Brian mentions Ron Warnick's Route66News as inspiration and I imagine his new blog will soon play a role similar to Ron's but for a different highway. This will be good!

Oh. Is that what that was? I thought you must have been driving around with a constantly running teletype in the seat beside you. Good stuff from places I've never been but a time I remember well. Thanks.

Wonderful stuff. I've had some similar experience with my great-grandmother's letters from 1920/21 (They drove through D.C. about four months before Albert & Laurine were there.) but I was blessed by my grandmother having at least produced a typewritten version of the handwritten original. My first thought involves the photos. Ginny's comment that she couldn't get reprints hints that she might have the original prints. If so, and I were you, I'd quickly drag my scanner to Brunswick and digitize the lot ASAP. The second thing I noticed was the mileage. 300+ mile days in a 1918 Dodge. Either your granddad wasn't much of a sightseer or Ida was really hot. They mention the National Road being their "main road" and they also mention going through Dayton. So they were, like just about everyone else including the National Old Trails Road, following the Dayton Cutoff. The National Road twixt Richmond and Springfield didn't amount to much back then. I sure hope you can preserve the photos. The thought of West Virginia "scenery/road/hills/telephone poles" is certainly enticing and I'm dieing to know what that last photo of the tunnel opening shows of the Grand Concourse ("About a half a square from here."!!!) Big thanks for the post.

The family of my best friend in high school had nothing but Olivers; Three or four of various ages. An often heard line was" "Got my wife and my first Oliver in '32 and haven't had a bit of trouble with either one of them." Dad and the farm are gone and Mom's just hanging on, but I believe Dale still has Old Faithful, that '32 Ollie, in storage somewhere.

I've never put together a favorite's list but this weekend I was on a couple of roads that I'd probably include if I made one. At least they would be in the "fairly close to home" section. I'm talking about OH-763 and Old US-68 but there are many roads in that area (hilly tree-covered southern OH/northern KY) that can get quite pretty. My drive - with mostly green leaves - is posted at Ohio Barn Dance. I also put up some pictures from a parade I attended on Saturday. It has nothing to do with "Awesome Autumn Drives" or any other sort of road trip. In fact, the featured vehicles are much more at home off road than on. I'm simply attaching it here as a rider - something I learned from CSPAN. Greenville Tractor Parade

From the guide: The Hobbs Guides are "independent" and not official DH Association publications. Also from the guide: Some things never change Until recently I was only marginally aware of the Hobbs guides but I'm becoming quite impressed with them. A number of other guides, such as The National Old Trails and Connections, are mentioned in the Dixie scans. Are some of these others included in the KtSotR collection?

Sounds like a KipTrip. DeLorme says it's about a four hour drive for me but I can handle it. Of course, it routes me right through Dale, which is on IN-62, which will be fearsomely tempting, which would be longer than four hours. It might just be weather that makes that decision.

I was out and about in southern Ohio this weekend and a high percentage of trees were still green. I'm thinking that we might be fairly lucky regarding color in a couple of weeks. Yep, it is somewhat noticable that your new hobby has you hanging out in cemeteries a bit more than usual. Do you anticipate any group travel on Sunday or will it be strictly a "headin' home" day?

What a great way to start the day. Your pictures brought back memories of my one visit to Clarksdale. I made it to some of the places you pictured (Ground Zero, Reds) but not some others (I just GOTTA get to Cathead) and I've yet to see the inside of Helena. Your well commented album sure makes me want to head for the delta. Besides the great shots of blues landmarks and the festival, I really liked the next to last shot in the album with the road heading off past the US-61 & 49 signs and the big bale of cotton. Bummer about the car. I take it that the last photo is of Natalie's new chauffeured limo. Lookin' good.

A former co-worker from Youngstown used to tell of a drive his family took back in the '40s or '50s. They all piled into the car and, without giving the kids a clue as to where they were headed, Dad drove for at least a couple of hours. He eventually pulled over and had the kids get out of the car and look straight up. "That," he told them, "is what sky looks like." The story was set in Youngstown's heyday as a sooty smoky steel town but, even so, I don't think I'd swear to its absolute truth in a court of law. Good story, though, and there's no doubt more than a grain of truth in it. Yesterday, we got our first significant rain in quite some time and several daily temperature records have been broken this year. Cincinnati has had fifty some days this year with temperature over 90 and five over 100. Our last 100 degree day had been in 1999. On Sunday, the temperature reached 80. October! Indiana!! Eighty!!!

...and quite nicely. Zoomify continues to impress as a good tool for this sort of image and the site itself is both attractive and usable. A very solid base from which to grow when, how, and if you see fit. It's lookin' good. Regarding the eBay comment, I've bid on a few and bought a couple so clearly resemble that remark. I've neither the desire or the means to corner any market but I'm pretty sure your tongue was firmly planted in your cheek when you said that. In Springfield, Pat mentioned seeing my not very obscure handle in some auction and we both stated our intention to not bid against anyone we knew. This was a pre-existing decision for both of us. When considering entering an auction, I try to check any previous bidder's name, location, etc. for clues. To date I don't believe I've run into anyone from this forum (or other online groups). I suppose it's possible that someone I know is registered in a manner that trully hides their identity in which case I wouldn't feel particularly guilty in bidding against them.

Ever since I learned that, had I turned left in Corydon, I could have driven one of Car & Driver's "Best Driving Roads in America" last April, I've had it in the back of my mind. Mobilene's recent post on the road pushed it halfway forward and a sunny seventies Sunday brought it all the way to the front. "Stuff" interfered with my posting but it's there now. Click here for the report on a Sunday drive on bits of US-42 and IN-62. The trees can't be more that a week or two from going Technicolor.

No. I haven't quite got geocache research blended into my pre-trip planning yet. I'll probably note a few locations when I do have a destination in mind and some time to scan the online inventory but I doubt I'll get into it too deep. If I know I'm near a county I've never visited, I'll detour a few miles to add it to my count but I've not organized any trips with that in mind. I see my relationship with geocaching as something like that. It does seem like a great way to get to interesting spots you might otherwise not know about and I bet climbing around under the bleachers brought back some memories for Pat. It was a bummer to miss a connect (and a chance to eat at Pompilio's:-( but the weather just wasn't conducive to turning around. I don't have time to post yesterday's drive before going to work but should get it tonight.

Ooh! Ooh!! Those are superb.

OK. Now you've done it. First this geocache thread and the geocache puzzle from my coworkers then my resistance was weakened by an onslaught of American Roadies. On Thursday, RoadDog was in town, and, although we didn't get in much of a road trip, he did help our table nail a third in the nation finish in a Buzztime trivia game dealing with celebrity gossip. I, of course, knew none of the answers but I did enjoy the Britney Spears pictures. That same night I got a phone call from Baby Boomer Bob who is visiting a friend in Maysville, KY. He suggested we meet for lunch in Ripley, OH, then check out a festival in Augusta, KY, and that gets me back to the geocache thing. I had visited geocaching.com a few times while playing with that puzzle and had poked around the site a bit, noting several more caches in my neighborhood. As I was preparing to head out to meet BBB, I took a look to see what Ripley had to offer in the way of geocaches. Nothing there but Augusta showed one right by the river side. Everything so far had been rather stealthy but getting the coordinates for that Augusta cache required me to set up a free account. I hesitated a moment but was soon signed up and plugging the GPS into the laptop. The site includes a button that pushes location info to Garmin units without requiring the typing of a single digit. Like drug dealers, these guys make the first hit as convenient as possible. So my first geocache will not be the ammo box in the woods behind my office. I've already tasted geocaching on the banks of the Ohio and it was pretty cool.

In the first video I spotted a couple of stretches without a corn field on either side of the road. Are these naturally occurring or are they mandated by the state to attract tourist?

What experience I've had with IN-62 certainly supports your pick as a favorite. On the way home from our Wigwam Village trip in April, I had a great drive on IN-62 from Corydon to Louisville. Even though it's usually several miles from the river, this section is signed as Ohio River Scenic Byway. I've not been on the road west of Corydon but intend to be someday. Car & Driver lists the section between Corydon & Dale (which I suspect is what you meant when you typed Dana) as one of the "Best Driving Roads in America". In their description, they call Corydon an "Interstatitis healing pill". Good phrase, that.