The Kewpee

Following the Johnson Wax tour, we asked the employees at the Golden Rondelle, which functions as the visitor’s center, for recommendations for some good places to eat in Racine. “Not a national chain and somewhere that had been there for 50 years" we said. Two people said “Kewpee.” The third turned up her nose. After a short discussion (and some other places named as well) , we knew we had to check out Kewpee.

The Kewpee was part of a national chain founded in 1923. At its peak, there were over 400 locations. But the depression and beef shortages during World War Two were not kind to the Kewpee and today only five are left including the one in Racine.

The Racine Kewpee is the third one on the very location in downtown Racine. The first was built in the 1920’s. The second in 1939. The current one was built in 1997.

The burgers at Kewpee are fantastic. The patties are hand-made each morning. The guy who makes them is a retired Navy cook who clearly likes his job.

One last piece of Kewpee history. In a 2001 interview, Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, said that as a child he lived near the Kalamazoo, Michigan Kewpee. He said that Kewpee influenced him when he founded Wendy’s in Columbus, Ohio in 1969.

Johnson Wax

We left Indiana and hurried to Racine, Wisconsin for a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax Building. Tours are given only on Fridays.

The shorter building on the right is the Administration Center housing the "Great Workroom." It opened in 1939. The tall building in the rear is the Research Tower, opened in 1950.

The entrance is around and under the Research Tower. Photography was not allowed inside. To see some interior photos of questionably legality, click here.

The Golden Rondelle was originally built as the SC Johnson Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1964-65. To see how it looked at the fair, click here.

Smokey’s

We try to find places to eat where the locals dine. One evening on the beach we met a man who turned out to be the manager of the Westin Hotel in Chicago. He recommended that we try Smokey's Southern Barbeque. He said it was small but good.

He was right.

Indiana Dunes State Park

We left Ohio and headed west to Indiana. We stayed at Indiana Dunes State Park, an unexpected surprise. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan just east of the steel mills in Gary, Indiana, it is a pristine shoreline with large sand dunes. It looks much more like an ocean beach than a lakeside.

Our site backed up right to the dunes.

Bix makes a new friend on the beach

Adjacent to the state park is the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Between the state park and the NPS land, there’s about 10 miles of remarkably pristine beach, lakeshore and sand dunes.

Blossom Time in Chagrin Falls

We left Catawba Island and headed east to Chagrin Falls, Ohio. “Shaggy Falls” as the locals call it, is the home of Jill’s sister Erin and Erin’s oldest son Chris and his wife Theresa.

The “Blossom Time Festival” is held every Memorial Day weekend in Chagrin Falls. There’s a race, concerts, a carnival with rides and a midway. But for Glenn, the highlight is the parade on Sunday.

The parade starts in the center of town and heads about a mile to the town cemetery. The town folks line the parade route and then follow out to the historic cemetery where Memorial Day speeches and prayers are held. Then the parade marches back to town.

Glenn with Theresa and Clyde, Erin’s friend (and Master Gardener), who invited him to participate.

Kelleys Island

A short ferry boat ride from the mainland is Kelleys Island. It is less than 5 square miles and most visitors get around by golf cart.

We went to the island to see the glacial striations or “glacial grooves” in the Glacial Grooves State Memorial. They are 400-foot long scratches in the bedrock cut by glacial abrasion. These are considered the largest and most easily accessible in the world.

When Jill heard that Geoff and Nike were going to take their dog Ben to the island, she decided that she was going to take Bix. He especially enjoyed the golf cart ride.

Dinner at the Kelleys Island Brewery. Nike, Ben, Glenn, Jill and Geoff. Bix is not visible but is by Jill’s feet. Bix is totally not perturbed by dogs, a fact that irritates some of them.

And as the sun slowly sets over Lake Erie, we say good by to Kelleys Island.

Glenn's K3 is on the air!

Geoff helped Glenn rig an antenna on the coach for Glenn’s Elecraft K3 shortwave ham radio.

Note the similarity to this picture taken at WREK Radio at Georgia Tech 41 years ago in the summer of 1968. This was Geoff building the now-famous “Goatmitter.”

The antenna is a half-wave 20-meter inverted-V dipole. It’s supported by an 18’ painter’s pole clamped to the hitch on the back of the coach. It's removed when driving.

We fired up the radio. The first contact was with a station in Tenerife on the Canary Islands! Pretty cool for 100 watts and a little antenna.

Catawba Island

Catawba Island is a beautiful area of Ohio on Lake Erie. After a storm many years ago, it’s not really an island any more. Glenn’s friend Geoff and his wife Nike have a summer home there. Geoff’s younger daughter, Merideth, had just graduated from Notre Dame in South Bend.

Merideth, Nike, Jill and Glenn on the shore of Lake Erie.

Fallingwater

In Mill Run, Pennsylvania, we visited Fallingwater, the Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1934. We had the “In-depth” tour which included all the rooms, including the kitchen and an optional visit to the basement. Photography was permitted on the tour, but unfortunately the rules prohibit posting them on a website such as this blog.

There are nice photos of the house on a website here. We doubt if they are legal.

Kentuck Knob

Overshadowed by its more famous and older neighbor Fallingwater, Kentuck Knob is another Frank Lloyd Wright house.

Completed in 1956 for Bernardine and I.N. Hagan, it was one of the last homes Wright designed.

Photography is not permitted inside the home, but Jill took some great photos outside.

Note the red tile set in the stone wall. It is Wright's "Signature Tile."

Johnstown

Johnstown Pennsylvania was a major steel producing city. But it may be best known for the “Great Flood of 1889” which killed over 2,200 people and destroyed the town when a dam upstream failed.

Following the flood, an inclined railway or funicular was built to carry people, horses and wagons to the new hilltop community of Westmont on Yoder Hill. The incline still carries people and automobiles (one car at a time) up the hill.

The view of the city from the top.

Altoona, still a railroad town

Altoona has been an important railroad town since it was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849. Even the RV park had a railroad theme.

A major tourist attraction is Horseshoe Curve. Completed in 1854, rail fans have been visiting it ever since. The curve is a tight arc of approximately 220 degrees with a radius tightening to nearly 600 feet. It is still a major east-west rail line, now owned by Norfolk Southern Railway.

The curve was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. There is a park, visitors center and a small funicular railway to save climbing the hundreds of steps up from the parking lot.

Later we went to the Railroaders Memorial Museum in downtown Altoona. Located in the former Master Mechanics Building of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Altoona Works. The Altoona Works were once the largest railroad shop complex in the world. A total of 6,783 steam, diesel and electric locomotives were manufactured in Altoona between 1866 and 1946

The museum is unique in that it focuses on the railroaders, not the equipment. Exhibits demonstrate life in Altoona and “working on the railroad.”

The next day we went west of Horseshoe Curve, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad main line crosses the summit of the Allegany Mountains through a set a tunnels.

These tunnels have long been a popular train watching spot.

The Allegheny Tunnel, the original 1854 bore, was rebuilt in 1993 to provide clearance for “double-stack” container trains.

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg has a fine collection of equipment representing the railroad history of the state.

Glenn in a Conrail GP30, built in 1963.

In addition to locomotives, there were old cars including this Fruit Growers Express “reefer,” built in 1928 to haul fruit and vegetables from Florida to northeastern cities. This full-size exhibit shows the back-breaking work of filling the bunkers with ice.

Lancaster County

We headed west to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania’s “Amish country.” Horse and buggies are still a common sight.

We thought that Dienner's Country Restaurant in Ronks was so good that we went back for breakfast the next morning.

Employees switch the buffet line from breakfast to lunch.

Jill lived here!

We drove by two of the homes where Jill lived from the 5^th grade through college.

Reading Terminal Market

We had breakfast at the Down Home Diner in the Reading Terminal Market. The Reading Terminal was built by the Reading Railroad (one of the four “Monopoly Railroads”) and opened in 1893. It was built on the site of a open air market that had been in continuous operation since 1653. There was a tremendous outcry over the plans to build the train station on the site. To mitigate criticism, the railroad agreed to raise the trainshed and all the tracks one story above street level and to place the market underneath. Even during renovation of the trainshed into the Philadelphia Convention Center in the 1990s, the market remained open.

Soft Pretzels

Jill's brother brought us some soft pretzels from the Pretzel Boys. The were great, but we needed more. So we drove to Phila. Soft Pretzels, Inc. in North Philadelphia. Years ago we had seen them on a show on the Food Network. Here they are coming right out of the oven. We had some and froze the rest. Hopefully the will last for a while!

Center City Philadelphia

On Friday, we moved the coach to the most improbable place we have ever parked. It was the Campus Park & Ride, just minutes from center city Philadelphia. Located at an old Consolidated Freightways cross-dock, it is used as a parking lot for the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, a V.A. Hospital and the 30th Street Train Station. RV Parking is available. There was no water, sewer or electric service so it gave us an opportunity to exercise our seldom-used diesel generator.

A bunch of Glenn’s buddies from his college radio days met for a reunion.

Later we had lunch at Geno’s Steaks. Geno’s is a Philly tradition. It is located across the intersection from Pat’s King of Steaks, the place that claims to have invented the Philly Cheese Steak. The rivalry between them has been featured on many travel and food TV shows. Practically everyone in Philadelphia has eaten at one or the other and has a preference and will voice it when asked.