Colorado Flatland Drives

Posted on November 18, 2025 by admin

Go east, old man.

That was the goal about two months ago now, after I left Colorado Springs for a solo drive back to Illinois. The fastest way would be to link with I-70 while still in Colorado. I wasn’t inclined to do that, though I did take that Interstate route through much of Kansas. Instead, I wanted to start remote and stay that way for the length of eastern Colorado.

So east on Colorado 94 it was, which passes through such hamlets as Yoder, Rush and Punkin Center. Mostly, though, there are few signs of people.

I noticed the Front Range growing smaller in my rearview mirror. I wondered at what point they would vanish from sight, and decided to keep track of their shrink, and note the last time I could see them. Naturally, I forgot about that resolve, and next thing I knew, the road backward and forward stretched to both horizons.

This is looking back west, a mountain barely visible, and is also an image illustrating that the eastern Colorado terrain isn’t completely flat.

Eastbound Colorado 94 ends near Aroya, where it meets US 40/287. I took that road southeast to Kit Carson (pop. 255).

The railroad still comes through Kit Carson. It’s safe to say that without the railroad, the town might be no larger than Punkin Center. The Kit Carson Railroad Depot is now a museum.

Closed. Till Decoration Day. Really?

In any case, it was closed on September 22.

Across the street, metal works. The pump jack is one thing, but the other is a — tower?

The Kit Carson town web site has a few things to say about itself:

The town of Kit Carson had two locations. The original site was located near the site where Kit Carson traded with the Arapahoe and Cheyenne Indians. The present site was determined by the arrival of the railroad. Destroyed by fire three times, twice by the torches of Indians and once by carousing cowboys, the determined citizens of the town showed their desire to survive by rebuilding.

I can’t help but think those carousing cowboys were actually a gang of rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

Also of note, according to the town: The railroad brought in foreign dignitaries, such as the Grand Duke Alexis [Alexei Alexandrovich] of Russia. The Grand Duke hunted in Kit Carson and was accompanied by his military escort, General George Armstrong Custer on January 20, 1872. [Custer was a lieutenant colonel at the time, but never mind.]

Grand Duke Alexis was on his 1871-72 tour of America. Sounds like he had a fine old time. Could have been the subject of an episode of Death Valley Days, but I don’t think it was. Dom Pedro, emperor of Brazil, made an appearance, as did the Emperor Norton, but I digress.

From Kit Carson, I headed south to Eads, still in Colorado, and then east on Colorado 96. I had the idea that I wanted to see the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, which isn’t too far from that road. Just before the turnoff to the historic site, I noticed something odd near the highway.

A wrecked train. A long wrecked train. The cars toward to back.

Toward the front.

Nary a clue as to how it happened, or when, except that the cars don’t seem rusted or overgrown. I stayed on the road to take my pictures. The cars are lined up as if they were dumped off the track on purpose. No. Why? Or could it have been some odd accident in which the train essentially fell off in place? Or is that how derailments work? Why are front cars especially mangled?

It didn’t take too much research (later) to find some answers. The Kiowa County Independent reported in August: The heavily laden train was navigating a significant curve and elevation change west of Chivington when 16 covered hopper cars derailed. Each was filled with thousands of bushels of wheat, spilling tons of grain onto the ground along Highway 96, which runs parallel to the rail line.

Oops. Guess everyone would have heard about it if the cargo had been more volatile or toxic.

At the turnoff to the historic site, I got a view of the tracks (again, from the road). Far enough away that the mangled train cars aren’t visible.

On to the historic site, via an unpaved road.

Turns out the historic site closes at 4 pm. I got there just as the rangers were leaving, and one of them, who had a remarkable collection of snaggled and bent teeth, told me so politely. I didn’t argue with him, but I also wondered why a site so remote closes at all, except maybe for the visitors center or small museum. Rules is rules, I guess.

That was pretty much it for Colorado. I got to the border with Kansas not long after, and looked back.

Colorful Colorado. I’ll go along with that.

Colorado Mountain Drives

Posted on November 17, 2025 by admin

Metro Denver is enormous, much larger than I remembered, even as recently as 2017. Or so it seemed. To the south, Colorado Springs is fairly large, but some orders of magnitude less than the monster metro to its north. Further south, Pueblo doesn’t seem that big, but even so it has 111,000 residents, give or take.

Then you come to Walsenburg. Who has heard of Walsenburg, Colorado (pop. 3,035), even though it too is on I-25 and on the irregular line where prairie and mountains meet? Colorado’s brisk growth over the last few decades seem to have passed it by. Its peak population was in 1940, when more than 5,800 people lived there.

I wish I could say I’d formed an impression of Walsenburg, but we stopped only for gas, and to get off the Interstate.

US 160, Walsenburg to Alamosa

Walsenburg has few people, and when you go west on US 160, that dwindles to practically none. The road crosses the Culebra Range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at North La Veta Pass, elevation 9,413 feet, into the San Luis Valley. I enjoyed writing that sentence almost a much as I enjoyed the drive itself.

Enjoyable at least until dark. Wish we’d gotten to see more of it. We’d futzed around in Colorado Springs much of that day, September 13, including a fine lunch at Edelweiss German Restaurant. So the sun went down before we got to our destination, Alamosa. But we did stop for a few minutes on US 160 before we lost the light. A chilly wind blew clouds along at quite a speed, and for their part the clouds were catching the sunset in luminous patches. Until I can see the aurora, that will more than do.

Wolf Creek Pass, Way Up on the Great Divide

Follow US 160 west from Alamosa and eventually you’ll get to Four Corners. We didn’t go that far on the 15th, just to Durango. The road passes through much of the San Luis Valley, which is wide – the largest alpine valley in the world, they say – so the way is flat until you reach South Fork, Colorado. Then you climb into the San Juan Mountains, until you reach Wolf Creek Pass. Way up on the Great Divide.

Woof Creek Pass, Way Up on the Great Divide

Yuriko had been driving on the ascent to Wolf Creek Pass. Usually she doesn’t care for mountain roads, but she focused on a wide-load vehicle ahead of us, and we followed it up, though not at too close a distance. She thought better of driving down the other side, even though she’s never heard it immortalized by C.W. McCall.

Wolf Creek Pass, Way Up on the Great Divide

So I drove down. Truth be told, it’s not that bad on a clear day. In our time, US 160 down from Wolf Creek Pass is four lanes, and while curvy, only the hairpin turn – which you are well warned about – is a little tricky. Not that bad in a car, anyway. I couldn’t say about taking a truck down. I’ll bet 50 years ago the route was probably still two lanes and maybe even more winding, so C.W. was only exaggerating for comic effect, not making everything up.

At the end of the drop is Pagosa Springs, whose main street was completely torn up with construction. We found lunch off the main drag at PS FroYo, which is one of those restaurants that makes money for a local charity, in this case Aspen House. We didn’t know that before we ate our sandwiches, just that it was near where we parked and not fast food. A nice bonus to find out.

Lewis Street wasn’t under construction, so that made for a pleasant stroll after lunch, including time at a resale shop. No post cards. Bought some nearly new jeans, which proved their $5 worth (and much more) when I was later deposited briefly in the Kansas mud. They were standing by at that moment, sitting in a bag on top of everything else in the back seat — blankets, sleeping bag, small bags with some winter wear. I didn’t have to dig around looking for them. That never happens, or so it seems, so I thought I’d remember when it did by noting it here.

Lewis Street.

West of Pagosa Springs, but before Durango, is Chimney Rock National Monument. Not to be confused with Chimney Rock National Historic Site in Nebraska.

There is a road up to Colorado’s Chimney Rock, a ridge-top archaeological site that is the nucleus of the national monument, but it was closed. The small museum at the base of the rock was still open, so along with our view, we took in a little about the Ancestral Puebloans who used to live there.

Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, foci of the national monument.

“Chimney Rock covers seven square miles and preserves 200 ancient homes and ceremonial buildings, some of which have been excavated for viewing and exploration: a Great Kiva, a Pit House, a Multi-Family Dwelling, and a Chacoan-style Great House Pueblo,” says the Chimney Rock Interpretive Association. “Chimney Rock is the highest in elevation of all the Chacoan sites, at about 7,000 feet above sea level.”

US 550 North from Durango

North from Durango on US 550, the scenery starts pretty soon.

A few miles out of town, Honeyville. It looked like a good place for souvenirs.

It was. I’m still working on a Honeyville jar of whipped cinnamon honey, which makes a warm biscuit sing.

All sorts of honey products are available.

You can watch part of the process.

A warp drive engine fueled by honey? Could be that Zefram Cochrane kept (will keep) bees.

Only a few miles north, just off US 550, is Pinkerton Hot Springs, which is the kind of place that winds up on Atlas Obscura lists (actually, so does Honeyville). We took a look, but not a dip.

Before you get to Silverton on US 550, you cross Molas Pass, which has some terrific views of the edge of the Weminuche Wilderness. The day, by this time September 18, was clear and not exactly warm, but not that cold yet. Good day for a mountain drive.

Like the highway, the Molas Pass viewpoint was busy, but not overcrowded.

The route from Silverton to Ouray is known as the Million Dollar Highway. There isn’t a consensus about why that might be.

“There are a variety of explanations regarding the source of the name for the ‘Million Dollar Highway,’ says Roadtrip America. “One version claims it is based on the value of the ore-bearing fill that was used to construct the road, and another says it refers to the high cost of building a road over Red Mountain Pass (11,008 feet) and the Uncompahgre Gorge. One thing no one will dispute is the million-dollar views around every turn. This marvel of engineering, designed by Russian immigrant Otto Mears, slices through rugged mountains as it follows old stagecoach routes and former pack trails.”

If you want some twisty mountain road action, Million Dollar’s got it. Also, stretches without guard rails.

“About 40 accidents take place on the Million Dollar Highway each year, with an average of seven deaths per year,” the Durango Herald reported in 2023. “Most of the accidents are caused by careless or fast driving in bad road conditions. Other factors are mudslides, inclement weather and wildlife appearing on the road when there is nowhere to swerve.

“While avalanches used to be a factor, the last reported death on the road because of an avalanche came in 1992.”

The views are exceptional, both as you move and when you stop. The road near Ouray.

Views near Ouray.

Ouray’s got some handsome buildings.

The main street in Ouray is the kind of place that has benches made from skis. Not the only time I saw that in Colorado.

Also, some boutique retail. Good to see that Grateful Goo is available.

Who sells that again? Gwyneth Paltrow? Anyway, hipsters, or more likely plastic surgeons and orthodontists and tech millionaires, seem to have long ago discovered Ouray, close as it is to Telluride. I saw a bumper sticker-like posting on a light pole in town that said: What do you mean there’s an employee housing crisis in Ouray? My 2nd home is always empty.

Monarch Pass

On our return to Denver, we headed out of Montrose east on US 50, a route that edges the gorgeous Blue Mesa Reservoir, and on to Gunnison and Salida. Just west of Salida, we took US 285 north, which goes to greater Denver. That highway crosses the Great Divide at Monarch Pass, elevation 11,312 feet.

Even as early as September 20, the trees were ablaze.

I suppose that isn’t early for that elevation. We saw trees turning a week earlier, further north at Rocky Mountain NP. I didn’t know it at that time, but we were just beginning a fall season during which we’d see more colors (probably) than any other year. It’s not quite over even yet, with some reds and yellows here in the neighborhood. That isn’t so unusual. Lots of people seek out fall foliage. The odd thing was that it was completely unplanned.

Nebraska 2

Posted on November 16, 2025 by admin

Which of these two destinations aren’t like the others?

That’s a beginner’s-level question. Better question: where can you find this pole, with mileages and – what units measure the distance to Heaven or Hell? – other signs?

Answer: Cairo, Nebraska.

Maybe a palm tree was in the works, but the city decided not to spend any more money. Cairo (pop. 822) is one of the small chain of small towns on the eastern section of the highway Nebraska 2, which runs westward and north of Grand Island. Cairo is the first place I stopped on my way west on that highway in early September.

Eventually the highway reaches the Nebraska National Forest and Grassland, a patch of (partly) wooded land that inspires the question, there’s a national forest in Nebraska?

West from the forest, Nebraska 2 crosses the Sandhills, an unusual place here in North America, with the land morphing from cropland to ranch land on sandy steppes. The towns on the way are mere hamlets, and sometimes not even that. On the western edge of the Sandhills, one comes to the sizable town of Alliance, Nebraska, home of Carhenge and railroad staging area for coal trains headed east.

Before I did the drive, I was looking forward to it as much as any of the roads in Colorado. It lived up to expectations. Nice when that happens.

The Fence Post cites Charles Kuralt’s fondness for Nebraska 2: “Highway 2 is not just another highway that goes somewhere. Highway 2 is somewhere,” he’s known to have said. I’d say whatever else his failings, Kuralt had good taste in roads.

Just outside Broken Bow (pop. 3,491), seat of Custer County and pretty much the only town of any size in that county, the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway Visitor Center offers a building with bathrooms and pamphlets and displays and, for my visit at least, a grandmotherly and talkative volunteer. Old enough, she said, to remember when the highway was just a road through the countryside that attracted no attention from the outside world. Not a scenic byway, and sand hill cranes were just flocking birds. Now a trickle of tourists and bikers and RVers come this way. She had some solid recommendations, especially a good diner for lunch.

The visitor center grounds include a relocated (or was that reconstructed?) Sandhills cabin. The residences of the farmers trying to scratch out a living in the Sandhills, and finding out that no amount of scratching would make decent crops grow consistently from the land.

The Custer County Courthouse. Saturday, closed.

A block from the courthouse, some buildings around City Square Park.

City Square Park is a generic sort of name. Wonder whether there’s anyone from the town who can be honored by renaming the park? Looking at list of notables from Broken Bow, one instantly stands out.

This guy: Solomon Butcher.

Wiki: “Solomon D. Butcher (January 24, 1856 – March 18, 1927) was an itinerant photographer who spent most of his life in central Nebraska, in the Great Plains region of the United States… he began in 1886 to produce a photographic record of the history of European settlement in the region. Over 3,000 of his negatives survive; more than 1,000 of these depict sod houses.”

*Frederic Schreyer and family, Custer County, 1880s, by Solomon Butcher.*

Definitely name the park after Butcher, Broken Bow.

One more in that town. I couldn’t be bothered to get out of the car.

West of Broken Bow is Anselmo (pop. 145), home of this church, St. Anselms Catholic Church, nicknamed Cathedral of the Sandhills. Saturday, closed.

A more common sort of building, not far from the church.

Not the most imposing that I saw, but representative of the many structures like it. The grist of a photo collection. Of course it has been done. I’m pretty sure I saw a room of Bernd Becher’s photos of water towers at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Nebraska National Forest and Grassland is in an unexpected place, slap in the middle of Nebraska, not due to a freak of nature, but the efforts of human beings. Specifically, mass plantings of trees by the federal government for more than 100 years, beginning (not a surprise) during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt.

Near the national forest entrance is the Middle Loup River, broad but shallow, and crossable on a foot bridge.

I camped in the national forest. The campgrounds weren’t completely full, but there were more people than I expected for a remote spot in Nebraska. Then again, it was a Saturday night, and soon enough I figured out what brought most of them: the ATV trails. Not long after dawn on Sunday, the campers across from me – a man and a small knot of teenage boys – roared away in a small caravan of ATVs crusted with dust from the day before.

I packed up and sought out a quieter place. A national forest hill with a fire tower and some views. The tower was closed.

But the views were still pretty good.

West from the national forest, Nebraska 2 heads into the rolling grassland of the Sandhills proper. In the village of Thedford (pop. 208), varied public interpretations of the Sandhills are available for reading.

The terrain along the highway Nebraska 2 might seem monotonous to some. Too bad for them. You’re driving across a kind of ocean, terrain all wavy, except that it’s solid ground, marked by occasional trees or manmade structures, and side roads — trails — wandering deeper into the hills.

The handful of towns are really just wide places in the road. Sometimes, not even that.

Nebraska 2 parallels the BNSF line, which came first.

Note: I was standing on a public side road to take that picture, as I do with all my RR shots.

Eventually, I took the road to Alliance. But that was merely incidental. Out this far, the road, as Kuralt said, is the destination.

Five-State National Road Dash

Posted on November 13, 2025 by admin

Our first winterish weather blew through early this week, but we’re back to cool days. For now. Some leaves seem to be clinging a little longer than usual, but most are accumulating on the ground, as expected for November. A scattering of Christmas decorations are already up, and I don’t mean in stores, where they’ve been for weeks. Let November be November, I say.

Much of my return from the East Coast generally followed the westward course set by the National Road, though I didn’t use much of US 40, which has that nickname. If you want to make decent time, you take I-68 through Maryland and then I-70 across Ohio and into Indiana, which pretty much parallels the National Road.

The Interstate is designed for just that kind of efficient travel. On the whole, it delivers. The four-lane highways also deliver boring drives, to hear some tell it. That’s an erroneous assumption, to hear me tell it. The Interstate has its fine stretches, such as I-68 in October, a gloriously colorful drive. Winding and hilly, too, through Maryland’s peculiar panhandle.

A rest stop near Hancock, Maryland, offers views to the north, so most of what you see is Pennsylvania.

The rest stop is at Sideling Hill, an enormous rise gouged by an enormous cut for I-68 to go through. An impressive feat of engineering, completed only in the 1980s. Then again, blowing up mountains is a thing that happens in this part of the country.

The narrowest part of the Maryland isn’t far away. At its narrowest, there is less than two miles are between the Potomac and the Mason-Dixon Line. So if you picked up Maryland by the panhandle, it would surely break at that narrowest point.

I filled my gas tank off the highway in the last town in Maryland, Friendsville (pop. 438), at a station whose enclosed retail space (between a few pumps) seemed little bigger than a walk-in closet, and yet there was a clerk manning the place on Saturday just before dark. Rotund and massively bearded, he was playing a video game when I opened the door to pre-pay. He might have been a little surprised to encounter a customer, at least one who didn’t pay at the pump.

From there, I continued into West Virginia, then took I-79 north into Pennsylvania, then headed west on I-70, which crosses West Virginia’s odd panhandle – more like a periscope – before reaching Ohio. After overnighting in Cambridge, Ohio, I bypassed Columbus but stopped in Springfield, near Dayton but with a distinct geographic identity. Alcor to Dayton’s Mizar, you might say.

Downtown Springfield was practically devoid of pedestrians that Sunday, and not that many cars drove through either. A few buildings rise high enough to suggest a more prosperous past, but look too closely and some of them seem to be as empty as the streets, or at least underutilized.

The National Road went, and still goes through Springfield, in the form of US 40. A milestone in Springfield marks the point at which the federal government quit paying for further westward expansion of the road. Anything else would be on the states, namely Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

National Road Milestone, Springfield Ohio

Later, after the National Road had become History, the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a series of statues along the route, and others to the west: “Madonna of the Trail.”

National Road Madonna of the Trail, Springfield Ohio

There are 12, with the easternmost of them along the National Road. Erected in the late 1920s, the Springfield one was renovated about 20 years ago.

Nearby, passersby are urged to Dream Big.

About an hour west of Springfield, at the border of Ohio and Indiana on I-70 – just barely inside Indiana – is the Uranus Fudge Factory. I had to stop for that.

Sure, there’s fudge in there somewhere, but also a lot of gags involving the word Uranus (Your-anus). Examples can be found in the newspaper — an honest-to-God paper newspaper — that the store produces, The Uranus Examiner, and gives away. I have a copy. My kind of souvenir.

Sample front-page headlines from the Summer 2025 edition:

Breaking News: You Can Explore Uranus In Three Locations

Eating Their Way Through Uranus

Get A Lick Of Uranus

Sink Your Balls In Our Putt Holes

The second of those stories was about the 2nd Annual Eating Uranus Fudge Galactic Championship held at the Anderson, Indiana location in March. Apparently it was a Major League Eating-sanctioned event, and apparently MLE is a real thing. One Patrick Bertoletti won the 2nd championship at Uranus, putting away a bit more than nine pounds of fudge in about as many minutes.

Fudge is one thing, but mostly Uranus sells stuff. A lot of stuff.

The Richmond, Indiana location is the third of three for Uranus, and I think the only one with dinosaurs —

— and a 100-foot cross of corrugated steel over a metal frame.

Until about 10 years ago, the property belonged to New Creations Chapel, which also included a church building, boarding school for troubled teens and a Bible college. The ministry, for reasons its web site explains in some detail, sold the property to Uranus, including the cross.

Heading through Richmond, Indiana, I stopped at an entrance to a large park to check my map. Glen Miller Park. A colorful spot in October.

Not named after the bandleader, which would be Glenn Miller Park. “Glen Miller Park was established in 1885 and was named for Colonel John Ford Miller, who was a railroad executive during the late 1860s,” the city of Richmond says. “Colonel Miller bought the land from Nathaniel Hawkins in 1880, with the intention of transforming the land into a park.”

So Glen Miller as in glen, a term that evokes pleasant Scottish valleys. I was just about to be on my way when I noticed a statue.

It was another of the 12 Madonna of the Trail statues, located at the edge of the park, where it meets US 40. Unlike the earlier one in Springfield, I hadn’t sought it out. It was just there. One’s travels, like life, can be strange sometimes.

Delaware 9

Posted on November 10, 2025 by admin

Coincidence or synchronicity? In September, as I was leaving Colorado Springs, I noticed an equestrian statue near a major street: William Jackson Palmer, railroad developer and Union Army officer. Stopped at a traffic light, I had a little time to look at the statue. Soon I forgot about it.

Palmer had one of those remarkable 19th-century careers, not only as a railroad man and military officer, but also a town planner, hotelier, publisher and philanthropist. He founded the towns of Colorado Springs Manitou Springs, and Durango, among others. Though he grew up near Philadelphia, he was born on a farm near Leipsic, Delaware. Barely a month after I’d spent time in some of the towns that Palmer founded, I found myself in Leipsic, Delaware.

I still wouldn’t have make the connection if I hadn’t looked up Leipsic on Wiki. I noted that the entire list of notable people from that town had exactly one name: William Jackson Palmer. Leipsic has never been a very big place, and certainly isn’t now. I looked him up, and when I saw the picture of the statue, I remembered seeing it.

I’m going with coincidence. I have a fairly high bar when it comes to synchronicity, especially since I don’t really understand the concept. Does anyone?

Before I left Delaware last month – and believe me, it doesn’t take long to leave Delaware – I drove a section of Delaware 9, a two-lane, north-south highway that parallels the coast of Delaware Bay, running east of places like Dover, Smyrna and Odessa. An intriguing squiggle on the map, made more intriguing by the fact that part of it is also known as the Delaware Bayshore Byway, which is a National Scenic Byway. Experience has taught me that those kinds of designations are usually accorded for good reasons.

After the traffic-jammed day before, I thoroughly enjoyed the nearly empty Delaware 9.

One of the few towns along Delaware 9 is Leipsic, pop. 178. I might not have stopped but for the cemetery, one so obscure that Google Maps doesn’t have a name for it, and I didn’t see evidence of a name on the ground either.

Leipsic Cemetery, perhaps. Whatever the name, it has clearly been a burial ground for a long time.

With the sort of heartbreakers you find in cemeteries of this vintage.

Three children, same family, buried in the same decade in the 19th century.

The road passes mostly through farmland, though woods and the western edge of Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge also mark its course. Delaware’s main crops are corn and soybeans, and I’m pretty sure I was in time to see the soybean leaves changing their color. Quite a sight.

You’d think I’d have seen that in Illinois or Indiana or any of the other states chock-a-block with soybeans, but I wasn’t sure I had. Driving on a two-lane road, you’re practically driving through the color, as opposed to the distance of a four-lane highway.

Corn and soy may be the main plant crops in Delaware, but the main livestock is chickens. Some 276,700,000 head of chickens were raised in Delaware in 2024, according to the USDA. That’s an impressive number, considering how small Delaware is: almost the same number as in much larger states such as Tennessee, Kentucky or Missouri. I’m not going to crunch the numbers (I have a life to live), but I’ll bet per square unit of territory, Delaware is the nation’s chicken champ.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord

Posted on November 8, 2025 by admin

Concord naturally follows Lexington. That’s just the way it is. I made the short hop between Lexington and Concord on the morning of October 23, ahead of the day’s ultimate destination in Rhode Island. The first thing I needed to know was the status of the men’s room at the Concord Visitor Center, there on Main Street. I’m glad to report I didn’t run into any “closed for the season” nonsense.

I can also report that the South Burying Place is half a block away, an irregular slice of land wedged between Main, a side street, and some basic apartments.

Notably similar in style to Lexington, and why would they be any different?

One detail on the latter stone caught my attention. It took me a few minutes to work it out.

Deacon Joseph Dakin happened to depart this life on March 13, 1744/3. Ahead of the British switch to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, there were competing ideas of when New Year’s Day should be: January 1 or March 25. Most of the rest of Europe had gone to January by the 1740s, but England clung to its traditional date. He died March 13, 1743 by the the traditional reckoning; March 13, 1744 if January 1 is the first day of the year. Besides switching to Gregorian, the ’52 change fixed January 1 as New Year’s Day in the English-speaking world.

That’s the kind of detail that can make my day. A lagniappe of the visit. South Burying Place itself was a lagniappe to my travels that day. The cemetery I had in mind to see was Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a short drive from Concord’s main retail street. Not to be confused with the one of the same name in New York state, though I have to say that one looks like it would be worth a visit.

Sleepy Hollow in Massachusetts is in a wooded hollow.

A wooded hollow. That’s a good place for a cemetery. Better yet, Sleepy Hollow is a cemetery of some age, by North American standards. Even better yet, autumn colors.

When I got there, I found I wasn’t alone among the living. A rare thing at a cemetery. A trickle of people came and went to pay their respects to a clutch of famed authors who are buried at Sleepy Hollow. They’re up on Authors Ridge. The cemetery thoughtfully built a small parking lot at the base of the ridge, to facilitate that trickle of literary pilgrims.

A path from the lot leads upward. At the crest of the ridge, the authors are found with other family members. In alphabetical order:

Louisa May Alcott.

Here visitors don’t leave stones or small coins, but pencils, pens and paper. She wasn’t the only one to attract writing instruments.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Where’s Waldo? Right there. Interesting that his memory attracted pine cones.

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Henry David Thoreau.

When I parked at the small lot, I noticed a group of four girls, college students would be my guess, heading up the path to Authors Ridge. I waited a few minutes in my car, since I didn’t want to interrupt their pilgrimage. Also, I wanted the ridge to myself, if possible. I guessed they wouldn’t be long, and soon they came down the path, got in their car and left.

About an hour later, when I had finished my own cemetery stroll, I was checking my maps in the car, when a middle-woman pulled up, parked, and headed up Authors Ridge, walking her small dog. The trickle was continuing.

I preferred a more leisurely inspection of the authors’ stones, and the rest of the cemetery, for that matter. Such excellent contour.

There’s also a large selection of stones for non-famous residents of this part of the world.

Besides, the authors aren’t the only notable burials. Here’s Daniel Chester French, sculptor of renown.

If the seated Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial was the only thing he ever did, he’d still be remembered. But of course he did a lot more. The smaller version of “The Republic,” bright gold in color and standing even now in Chicago, is one that comes to mind. So do the allegories at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House at the southern tip of Manhattan. And Gen. Oglethorpe in Savannah.

But you don’t have to go so far to find one of French’s works. Elsewhere in Sleepy Hollow is the Melvin Memorial, honoring three Concord brothers named Melvin (Asa, John and Samuel), who each gave their last full measure of devotion for the Union in ways that represent the spectrum of soldier death in that war: died in combat, of disease, and in a prison camp.

The figure is known as Mourning Victory, a version of which is held by the Met.

Another famed work of French’s is in Concord: namely, “The Minute Man” at Minute Man National Historical Park.

I didn’t bother with that historical park this time, since I knew it would be closed. But I did see it 30 years ago, and it’s stuck with me. Just example of French’s work standing the test — and literally standing the test — of time.

Battle Green, Lexington

Posted on November 6, 2025 by admin

Too bad about iconic. If there ever were a time to use iconic to describe sometime distinctive and revered, John Parker in bronze would be it.

Icons are no accidents. The pose captures the Battle of Lexington as we, Americans, want to remember it: the resoluteness of an ordinary man in the face of the enemy. What the militiamen experienced that morning is partly enshrouded in mystery like a battlefield of the time might be with gun smoke. No one knows who fired the first shot, for instance, but that doesn’t keep the Shot Heard Around the World from having its own name during later generations — a remarkable thing for a simple firearm discharge to have.

Lore has encrusted the story. Even so, the Patriot soldiers in the Revolution, collectively, can’t be said to have lacked resoluteness over the long years of conflict.

The Parker bronze stands on the edge of Battle Green in Lexington, Massachusetts, and across the street from Buckman Tavern, where the militiamen of the town waited the night before the battle. Among their number on April 19, 1775, was a young man named Jonathan Harrington, a fifer in the militia. About 75 years later, he’s thought to have posed for a photograph, now on display at Buckman Tavern.

Said to be the last survivor of the battle, and the only one to be photographed. The American Battlefield Trust cites a Harrington family history: He said he was aroused early that morning by a cry from his mother, who said: ‘Jonathan, get up, the regulars are coming, and something must be done.’ Jonathan was a fifer. He arose, went to the place where the patriots were gathering, and was with the company on the approach of the British.

It had rained during the early hours of October 22, 2025 in Lexington, but by late morning the sun was out and only a scattering of puddles remained. Battle Green stretched out behind the bronze John Parker. For a time, I was the only person on the green, though a steady stream of car traffic was the be seen on the roads edging the grounds.

John Parker, originally “Minuteman Statue” by the prolific sculptor and public monument specialist Henry Hudson Kitson, is a latecomer to the green, erected in 1900.

The Battle Green flagpole is newest of all, erected only in 1962. Even so, the pole is on the National Register of Historic Places, and an act of Congress specifies that a flag will always be flown there.

Well within living memory of the battle itself (1799), the town – fully aware of its role as spark of the Revolution – erected a memorial, and relocated the bones of the militiamen killed in the battle to a spot in front of it.

Though not formally part of the green, First Parish Unitarian-Universalist is distinctly part of the place, and looks about as New England as a church can.

It might as well be part of the green, considering the history of the congregation. The present church is a 19th-century structure near the site of Lexington’s only church in 1775, which was a hotbed of Revolutionary sentiment at the time.

Catskills ’25

Posted on October 29, 2025 by admin

The highway New York 30 winds along the northwestern edge of Catskill Park because it follows the winding East Branch of the Delaware River, which would picturesquely come in and out of view as I drove that highway on the crisp late morning of October 16. I stopped at a place called Downsville. Wiki calls it “census-designated place, and former village in the town of Colchester, Delaware County, New York.”

This raises some questions. How is a village part of a town? (Colchester is marked on maps as not far away, but not on NY 30.) How does a place become a “former” village? People still clearly live there. Maybe I’ll investigate these questions sometime. Maybe not.

Village or former village, it’s at a pleasant spot on the East Branch.

I stopped because a sign directed me to a covered wooden bridge, one that crosses the East Branch about a block away from NY 30.

“The Downsville Covered Bridge is one of six covered bridges still standing in Delaware County…” explains the New York State Covered Bridge Society. “Built by Robert Murray in 1854, this 174-foot-long, single span structure incorporates the Long truss design patented on March 6, 1830 by Lieutenant Colonel Stephen H. Long of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, with an added Queenpost truss. This truss design is rare to Northeastern covered bridges.”

Nice work, Mr. Murray, and the workers who have maintained it as a vehicular bridge down to the present day.

There’s a small park on the river next to the bridge, and a parking lot. Soon after I arrived for a look-see, a large van pulled up to the lot and about a half-dozen Plain People got out. They were there for a look-see too. So we were all on the bridge together.

I try not to do ethnic profiling, but I couldn’t help thinking that a top tourist sight for Plain People might well be a covered wooden bridge. Then I wondered, how is it they came in a van? As I was leaving, I noticed a non-Plain man waiting for them in the drivers seat. The Plain People equivalent of a Shabbos goy, I suppose. Except maybe that he can work any day except the Sabbath?

Not far away in Downsville is the Paige Cemetery. I had that to myself, as usual.

New York 30 continues a long way on the shores of the Pepacton Reservoir. Still car commercial driving.

The Pepacton Reservoir, seemingly so peaceful on a brilliant autumn day, has a hell of a back story.

“It is formed by the damming of the East Branch of the Delaware River, which continues west and joins the lower Delaware River,” says NYC Environmental Protection. “It consists of one basin, approximately 15 miles in length [that] holds 140.2 billion gallons at full capacity, making it the largest reservoir in the city system by volume. It was placed into service in 1955.

“Pepacton Reservoir is one of four reservoirs in the City’s Delaware Water Supply System. As the reservoir with the largest capacity, it normally contributes more than 25% of the total daily water flow into New York City.”

Italics added, because they needed adding.

Once I left NY 30 and headed east on NY 28, which put me on a path toward the Hudson River Valley and NYC and Long Island, traffic kicked up several notches. It was still mostly a pleasant drive.

Most of the traffic was headed west into the park, opposite of the way I was going; as only to be expected on a Thursday ahead of a colorful fall weekend. The Catskills are still a destination, if not quite the Catskills of yore. Some of the old story was told to the rest of the country through TV shows in previous decades, or even more recently: namely, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Metal spaceship and robot sculptures haven’t been part of the Catskills narrative that I know of. But there they were, right off NY 28.

As part of this place of business.

Some artful metal for sure.

More.

Fabulous work, Mr. Heller, but those Space Age artifacts are of a Space Age that never quite was. Too bad.

The Basilica of St. Fidelis, Cathedral of the Plains

Posted on October 12, 2025 by admin

Today I let Google finish “Cathedral of the…” and got the following responses, top to bottom (capitalization sic): Sea, deep, Holy Angels, holy angels photos, forsaken, immaculate conception, incarnation, Madeleine, deep ds3, pines.

Cathedral of the Sea is La catedral del mar, a “Spanish drama series” that I’d never heard of, though I have been to Santa Maria del Mar. The Cathedral of the Deep and of the Forsaken appear to be aspects of electronic games, and the others are churches in various places.

Not on the list is the Cathedral of the Plains. But it’s out there, in central Kansas.

That’s a nickname, since the church isn’t actually a cathedral, but the wording does appear on its point-of-interest spot on road maps – and naturally that got my attention. Formally, the church is the Basilica of St. Fidelis, said to be the largest church west of the Mississippi by seating capacity (1,100) upon completion in 1911 in Victoria, Kansas. Conveniently (for me), some decades later I-70 was built not far away.

John T. Comès (d. 1922), a Pittsburgh architect, designed the church for a congregation of Volga German immigrants. Who had come to greater Victoria starting in the 1870s. Why Victoria? Why not? No doubt they looking for flat farmland.

Comès, an incredibly prolific specialist in Catholic churches, did a fine job.

Nice.

The Volga Germans aren’t forgotten. No doubt their descendants are all around this part of Kansas. In 1976, the townspeople erected a memorial to their immigrant ancestors, across the street from St. Fidelis. A work by Pete Felton, a “Kansan limestone carver,” according to this posting, which also mentions limestone fenceposts as important in Kansas — something else to look into sometime.

After nearly 50 years, the statues are looking a little weatherworn, but they abide.

The woman and daughters caught the light at that time of day, the afternoon of September 23.

The man and sons did not. Would sunlight have made him less – Stalinesque?

Never mind. St. Fidelis Cemetery isn’t far to the north of the basilica, and I stopped by.

A good variety of memorials in a nice setting, even if the land lacks contour and there’s no flora beyond grass and cut flowers.

Then I started to notice iron crosses.

A lot of them. That called for further investigation, and it wasn’t long before I found out that Volga Germans were known for their wrought-iron crosses.

“German-Russian blacksmiths began making wrought-iron crosses in North Dakota as early as 1884,” says an article posted by North Dakota State University. “The hand-made crosses were most prevalent in central North Dakota from the late 1880s to about 1925, when marble and granite became more popular for grave marking. Most wrought-iron crosses appear in Catholic graveyards, although a few of these markers are also found in German-Russian Lutheran graveyards.”

The article talks of their crosses in North Dakota, but notes that they are also found in the “Northern Plains.” Such as Kansas, apparently.

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Salina, Kansas

Posted on October 11, 2025 by admin

The in-motel breakfast on September 24 in Salina, Kansas (pop. 46,800 or so) had been less than satisfactory, so Google Maps guided me to a doughnut shop on one of the wide, lightly traveled streets of downtown Salina. I ate in the car parked on just such a street, and soon started out for the highway (I-70) to head east.

Then I noticed Sacred Heart Cathedral.

I had to take a closer look.

If that structure doesn’t say midcentury, I don’t know what would. Indeed, the cathedral was built in the 1950s. But it isn’t quite like any other church building I’ve seen, even of that period. Also, it isn’t mid-century concrete, which it looked like from a distance, but limestone.

Note the Kansas elements.

The cathedral’s web site says: Sacred Heart Cathedral is a distinctive building that draws upon rural Kansas imagery and uses it in the service of Christian mythology. It is a noteworthy example of the work of Edward J. Schulte [d. 1975], a prolific designer of Catholic facilities across the Midwest through the greater part of the twentieth century.

Its most striking features are what appear to be a row of cylinders thirty feet in circumference extending the full height of the eastern and western facades, which resemble the grain elevators that dominate the skyline of most towns in western Kansas.

The allusion to grain elevators helps to link the church to its place in Kansas. It can also be seen as a symbol — the Cathedral is a place where the faithful come to receive the sustenance of the Eucharist.

It was open. That was unexpected, but I didn’t let the opportunity pass.

The baptismal font in the narthex.

The nave.

That part of downtown Salina was thick with churches. Another is First United Methodist, across the street from Sacred Heart.

About a half block away, Christ Cathedral Episcopal. The other churches weren’t open.

Later that day, at an exit just east of Abilene, I went looking for one more church — a kind of church I’d only ever driven by before.

Google Maps told me that this Cowboy Church was open for a few hours that day. I was skeptical, but went anyway, on the off chance that I’d get to see the inside of a Cowboy Church. As expected, it wasn’t open. Still, I got to look around in all directions.

Informality, I’ve read, is important to the nondenominational Cowboy Churches, whose number seems to be large, but without an exact count. (And some individual churches are pretty large.) I can only hope that at one or more of them, somewhere and at sometime, Yippee-Ki-Yay, Lord! is part of their prayer.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Small Town USA