At 7:30 p.m. Monday, I left the Lincoln College Library, after spending some time looking at the enormous woolly mammoth tusk on display in the college library lobby. A Lincoln College student found it, along with a molar, on college property during an unusually dry summer (2005). The beast must have been enormous. He is thought to have lived between 12,000 and 25,000 years ago.
A Lincoln College professor found a second molar at the same site. The mammoth is believed to have been about 50 years old.
The area we now call Illinois was also home to the mammoth bison, which looked like the bison we know, but incredibly larger. Their skeletons have also been found in Illinois.
In the interest of keeping this walk on a low budget, and following the advice of many friends, I sought out the local Walmart parking lot as a potential place to park and sleep. As I parked, a very full moon was rising. Some teenagers were talking and messing around near an old pickup truck, and shoppers were still coming and going.
It got down pretty cold in the night (if the 50s can be called cold), and numerous nighthawks plied the sky and landed nearby from time to time. After less sleep than I would have liked, I got up at about 6:45 a.m. After a hearty breakfast of yogurt, milk, and an apple, I set off toward the west on Route 10.
078 Burton View
A grain elevator is the business most in evidence. It's the Burton View Coop, right next to Brandt Professional Agriculture, a seed company.
083 New Holland, establiished in 1875
This town, as is typical out here on the Central Illinois Prairie, also has an elevator, The Taloma Farmers Grain Company.
090 Mason City
This town is a bit bigger than those I'd been driving through.It has a Horizon Seeds plant and a Monsanto Soybean plant.
096.7 Teheran
The Farmers Grain and Coal Company is undergoing some equipment updating, and new components are scattered around the grounds. All these little towns had people already at work early in the morning
098.5 Easton
An American flag was flying from every utility pole on both sides of the highway. I spoke to two men who were cleaning the bricks left from a demolished building. A man driving by slowed to tease them, rural style, about being idle because they had paused in their work to talk to me.
103 U.S. Route 136, with lots of road construction in progress
Yesterday I was interested to see a fair amount of corn being picked. Though the stalks and leaves in those fields were dry enough that some leaves were shattering, I don't see how the moisture content of the corn could have been very low yet. It's a good bet the farmer had sold some corn futures and decided to deliver the real deal.
Driving west on Route 136, one sees what look like sand dunes on both sides of the road. There are also lots of center-pivot irrigation systems in use, though some of them describe only a half circle because they are interrupted by the highway. The end sprinkler on one unit was spraying water high up into some nearby trees as I drove past. Down in a low area, there's Valley brand irrigation system dealership, which has been there for many years.
107 The Evening Star Camping Resort has been spruced up since I last came this way. It's on the south side of the highway.
114 Havana
This small city is the county seat of Mason County, Il, linois. Havana has a historic water tower, which I photographed. It's next to a lovely Lutthern Church building.
Just west of Havana is a creek called "Lazy Ditch." In that area is also Dickson Mounds, with a museum that is open to the public.
120 Illinois Route 100
130 Otter Creek, with some turtles crossing the creek on the bridge, a very hazardous thing to do with all the big grain trucks rolling.
126.4 Marbletown
After studying the history of the area, I decided to spend some time in Marbletown. There are two houses there, so that might not be the best plan after all.
129.2 Anderson Lake
There's an Illinois recreational area right on the lake that might serve as a reasonable substitute for an overnight spot.
131.2 Bluff City
These towns were important river ports in their day, but there's not very much there now. The entire area boasts dozens of purple martin homes, raised up on poles.
135 Sheldon's Grove, home to the Hickory Township town hall
138.5 entrance to the Sanganois Conservation Area.
139.6 Browning
145 Frederick
I departed from my planned route and crossed the bridge over the Illinois River to Beardstown, where I found a Hardees that offers a 10% discount to veterans. I took advantage of that courtesy to observe a custom hobbits call "second breakfast" with an egg sandwich.
I drove to U.S. Route 24 and on through Ripley, Mt. Sterling, Timewell (Mound Station), which I somehow didn't see as I went through, and Clayton, home of an Illinois Department of Corrections work camp.
188.8 On to Camp Point, originally known as Indian Camp Point.
194.7 Coatsburg
At the Casey's station I borrowed a phone book and looked up the number and address of some old friends. They had a new address (different from the one I'd known 30 years ago. I drove south to their new place, but no one was home. I hope to renew acquaintance on the walk.
205 I-172
It was 11:50 a.m., and it was already more miles from home than I thought it was going to be. At 6:00 Mary I and were to be at the home of a young married couple we are meeting with every week for some marriage mentoring.
Though the GPS predicted a 200-mile trip home along the Interstate system, it turned out to be about the same distance back to Champaign as I had already driven. An now to bed, perchance to sleep, and maybe to dream.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Route Survey, Monday, August 23
At the risk of spoiling things for the walk itself, I'll share some notes from this afternoon's route survey (by motor vehicle). The three-digit numbers along the left-hand margin are odometer readings along the survey of the route, measured from my house, which I named "Four Oaks" when we moved in 7 or 8 years ago.
There are three mature oak trees, a white oak, a black oak, and a mossy-cup, or burr, oak, but I also have a 4-inch high seedling at the edge of the garden, so some day there will be four oaks there if all goes as planned.
I left home at about 1:30 p.m. to drive some of the route and to poke around in general in the small towns along the way.
000 leave Four Oaks
004.2 Staley Road and Springfield Avenue (Illinois Route 10), just west of Champaign.
007 Bondville.
We once looked at a three-story brick house, with basement, near the east edge of Bondville. That was in about 2002. I thought the house was overpriced at $105,000, but in retrospect, it would have been a bargain. Think of all the house guests we could have entertained! Mary was very disappointed when I decided we shouldn’t pursue that particular house.
The house had an interesting story. It had been moved into town from a farm several miles to the south. Given the size of the house, the fact that it was a true masonry brick building, and the tremendous weight, that’s no small feat. I couldn’t see any cracks or other signs of the house’s having been moved.
An interesting Bondville story occurred a few years ago. A friend of mine, Louise, ran a phone repair service and a two-way radio service in the former Bondville schoolhouse, which she had converted into their company headquarters. One Saturday morning the place was suddenly swarming with SWAT officers, who held her at gunpoint, while she explained that the building was her business.
It turned out that some years earlier, when the building had still been vacant, a police training facility had secured permission to use the building as a SWAT training area. No one had bothered to check whether the building was still vacant, or whether the permission to train there was still valid. From this perspective, this could be a funny story, but I can just imagine Louise being held at gunpoint, sputtering to the officers that they had no business being there.
010.2 Seymore
017.3 Lodge
Just south of Lodge is the Pontious Berry Farm, where a person can still go to pick berries. The father of the present owner visited the appropriate authorities (on raising berries) at the nearby University of Illinois, one of the country’s land-grant universities. The agronomists told Mr. Pontius that blueberries just would not grow in that part of Illinois. Undaunted, he researched the topic on his own, treated the soil for the right pH, and began to successfully raise blueberries on the Illinois prairie. The blueberries are still flourishing there.
Route 10 skirts Lodge on the north side, and there is a rail crossing for a north-south line. When I was surveying my route of march, a railroad repair team was there fixing a broken crossing gate (the red-and-white-striped wooden bar than comes down to block a lane of road traffic while a train is passing). I just happened to be stopped waiting for a northbound train to pass so I could continue my trip. The train was a local, comprising mainly tank cars.
022.3 Deland
Deland and Seymore have a consolidated school district. They have built a large facility north of Route 10 out in the country. Fortunately there seemed to be no signs of vandalism, such an isolated building in a city might suffer. Abraham Lincoln said, “Let him who hath not an house not pull down the house of him who has one.” Whatever you may think of the late president, I agree with that quotation.
027.7 Weldon
What I knew about the town of Weldon before my visit was that our friend Jan, for many years a missionary with Youth with a Mission, grew up in the country with a Weldon address. The family’s lower pastures are now at the bottom of Clinton Lake, and the little farm house sits on a road that is otherwise lined with more luxurious homes of more recent construction.
When Route 10 was rebuilt some years ago, it was rerouted to bypass many smaller towns. That speeds things up for those driving right past, but for my investigative purposes, it meant that I had to leave the highway and go some distance to visit several of these little towns.
I thought I’d visit the town library, but it was closed. A mother and daughter sat in the shade out front on a park bench, a laptop computer open on a fold-out table in front of them. I asked, “I guess this means the library has free wi-fi, right?”
“That’s exactly what it means, the mom answered.” Out on Route 10, a blue sign listed one tourist attraction, Mamma D’s Smokehouse Restaurant. Though the restaurant is open only on Friday and Saturday afternoons (from 5–9 p.m.), I walked up to it and found the door unlocked. Sharon, who is also Mamma D, was there to let in a refrigerator repairman. She made me a gift of a cold Coke and told me a little about her business.
She grew up in Oklahoma. Though she works full time as a medical laboratory technician at a nearby hospital (and her husband also works full-time), they started this business as a hobby. In addition to gourmet bratwurst (they’re much more heart-healthful than regular brats because they are much lower in fat), she offers several other specialties, including onion hamburgers (she fries the thin-sliced onion right with the meat).
Sharon suggested that I visit the Weldon Bank, staffed by Jean Lawrence and Becky Farris, and I did. Jean humbly denied any great knowledge of the town’s history, but did tell me about the terrible fire that destroyed nearly the entire downtown. The bank, being of solid brick, survived the fire, and the face of the building looks much as it did in the old days.
Jean and Becky also said that the Weldon Bank was one of the few Central Illinois banks that John Dillinger didn’t rob. Doug Edwards’s Facebook page has some great Weldon pictures.
About 5 miles west of Weldon there is a beautiful white farmhouse on the north side of the road. There’s almost always an American flag flying near the house, and I had noticed that on previous journeys past the place. I decided to stop and see what I could learn about the place.
I saw a tractor with a blade on the three-point hitch, with a pickup truck parked beside it. That was near a machine shed behind the house. The house itself was under construction, with a crew busy adding on to the original structure.
A man emerged from an office in the machine shed and greeted me courteously. I said, “It looks as if this is not only your home, but also your business.”
“Yes,” he said. “I farm.”
The man was tall, lean, and clean-cut. He had a direct gaze, with piercing eyes, and his handshake was firm, when I introduced myself. I told him I was walking across Illinois, a veteran in support of veterans. He said he really appreciated what veterans have done for this nation.
I asked him about the farm and house. The family just received the State of Illinois official designation as a sesquicentennial farm. If you’re not familiar with that program, that means the farm has been in the same family for at least 150 years. It belonged to a Union Army captain named John D. Graham. He built the main part of the house when he returned home from the Civil War 143 years ago (in 1867).
The family recently had all but the original part of the house torn down. The new addition is being built to look like an 1800s carriage house, and there will be two widow’s walks on the roof, when all is complete.
David Newberg, the farmer I met, is the kind of man who has built America. These folks are honest, hardworking, and friendly. David told me that his wife is the fourth generation of that family to live on the farm, and that his grandkids will be the sixth generation of the family, if they decide to live there. Refreshed in spirit by my encounter with this fine gentleman, I continued down the road.
040.1 miles Weldon Springs Road
Just south of Route 10 is the Weldon Springs State Recreation Area, including camping areas. One can make a reservation for a camping spot by going online at reserveamerica.com. Pads with electricity are $20 per night, and tent campsites are $8.00 per night. That means I can’t sleep in my pickup without paying $20, but I can pitch two shelter halves to make a tent, and that is only $8.00.
The campground runs using a system that’s widely used at state and federal parks. The fee-takers, in this case known as hosts, were off duty, as the sign plainly stated, but the hostess came out and graciously answered my many questions. As we conversed, I discovered that she and her husband were doing this (being hosts) for the second summer, that they were permitted to have a small garden next to their camper, a pop-up trailer-tent, and that they hailed from the great state of Oklahoma. During the summer of 2009, she had gotten to know a second cousin whom she didn’t know existed. They had spent lots of time getting acquainted and catching up on their respective branches of the family.
045 Clinton, Illinois
Clinton seems to be thriving. There are many small industries, lots of them clustered along the south side of Route 10 on the east end of town. Clinton also boasts a Case-International implement dealership, a very large Chrysler and GM dealership, and a very special Ford dealership.
The Chrysler dealership offers some spectacular savings on what nowadays are called program cars. (Back in the day, they were known as demonstrators.) Douglas does not do floor planning, which is a euphemism for borrowing all the money for all the cars in the showroom and on the lot. Douglas buys the cars outright, which saves lots on interest, and translates to a better price for the buyer.
The Ford dealership, almost right across Route 10, is the only dealership for many miles that carries special production Ford Mustangs. The car comes off the assembly line and then goes directly to another company, where a super high-performance engine, heavy-duty suspension, and other expensive components are built into the vehicle. Then the care comes to this particular dealership to be sold.
About five and a half miles west of Clinton, there is a Y that introduces a road that heads off to the north. The road name is Y-End Road.
Hallsville, Illinois
About 6 miles west of Y-End Road is Hallsville.
055 Midland City, Illinois
Midland City boasts some very interesting street names, such as Rejected Rock Street (there has to be a story there!). There were also some goats in a pen on Rejected Rock Street.
059.6 Beason
Lots of houses in Beason had American flags flying. The old downtown district was completely boarded up except for the Post Office. There’s a really nice park, with kid’s playground equipment and horseshoe pits that my late dad would really have appreciated. There’s also a beautiful Methodist Church building [[photo]], and the East Lincoln Farmers Grain Company has the Beason Elevator in the northwest part of town.
While I was photographing the church building, two small boys came down the middle of the street, one pulling the other in a plastic wagon. They greeted me enthusiastically, though of course they couldn’t have known why this stranger was taking pictures of an old church building. On the west side of town there is a College Avenue, which ends in a cornfield. Try as I might, I could not find a college. Again I saw some really nice campers in front of many homes, and again there was a pasture with horses grazing just at the south end of town.
064.6 There is a bridge that is down to one lane because of construction work. I hope that work is done by September 17 or so. Otherwise I might have to wait a while to walk across the bridge because there is certainly no shoulder or walkway.
068.9 NOAA National Weather Service Station.
This facility, just off Route 10 to the north, is where our weather radio signals originate for most of East-Central Illinois. There’s a bubble on a tower, probably covering a pretty serious radar dish, and there is all manner of weather station paraphernalia and radio transmission gear. I’m very grateful for this state-of-the-art facility in our area.
Just east of the NOAA facility, but south of the highway, is the Lincoln Christian University campus. I’ve known many students who have attended this school through the years, but I had never actually seen the campus. A friendly lady who was heading to her car kindly directed me to the library, but it was about to close for the day at 5:00 p.m. I was a bit surprised by that, because university libraries are often open in the evening. Nevertheless I asked when the name had been changed from College to University, and the librarian told me that the change had taken place the previous year (2009).
I briefly interviewed three bright-looking young people who were still standing where they had been several minutes earlier, deep in a conversation. Daniel is from Morris, Illinois. He just completed a BA in Preaching in May, and has now begun work on his Master of Divinity Degree at the seminary. I asked whether he might know my friend Jonathan Harrison, and he said, “yes, I lived right next door to him.” Their respective time at the university had one year in common. Daniel served as a part-time preacher for a couple of years before embarking on his educational journey. He seemed mature and focused.
Megan is from Bloomington, Illinois, and she’s also pursuing a Master of Divinity Degree at the seminary, majoring in New Testament, and possibly in New Testament Languages. She’s also a recent grad from a baccalaureate program, and she hopes to do Bible translation with Pioneer Bible Translators in Papua, New Guinea, where she has already done a missions internship.
Sarah is from Cerro Gordo, Illinois, and seemed surprised that I had heard of her home town. She’s an undergrad in Teacher Education and English Secondary Teaching. She is planning to earn a TESOL (teaching of English as a second language) certificate, and she hopes one day to teach English in China. I asked whether she was familiar with ELIC (English Language Institute in China), and she was. Because Christian missionaries are not, per se, permitted into China, Christians go there with other primary purposes, with the full knowledge of the government that they have ulterior motives. Though they don’t go around the streets preaching the gospel, they do have a great opportunity to live a Christian life in front of their Chinese students.
My hat is off to these other-directed young people who have high goals and a willingness to invest their lives in other people.
069.4 Lincoln
Lincoln has an Amtrak depot. It also has yet another college, Lincoln College. I was familiar with the college because they built an attendance center in Normal, Illinois, where they have a four-year program. The programs here in Lincoln are all two-year programs. I’m sitting typing this at Lincoln College’s McKinstry Library (collocated with the Heritage Museum), just off Route 10. The staff have graciously given me access to their wireless broadband, and if this makes it into the blog, it’s thanks to them.
There are three mature oak trees, a white oak, a black oak, and a mossy-cup, or burr, oak, but I also have a 4-inch high seedling at the edge of the garden, so some day there will be four oaks there if all goes as planned.
I left home at about 1:30 p.m. to drive some of the route and to poke around in general in the small towns along the way.
000 leave Four Oaks
004.2 Staley Road and Springfield Avenue (Illinois Route 10), just west of Champaign.
007 Bondville.
We once looked at a three-story brick house, with basement, near the east edge of Bondville. That was in about 2002. I thought the house was overpriced at $105,000, but in retrospect, it would have been a bargain. Think of all the house guests we could have entertained! Mary was very disappointed when I decided we shouldn’t pursue that particular house.
The house had an interesting story. It had been moved into town from a farm several miles to the south. Given the size of the house, the fact that it was a true masonry brick building, and the tremendous weight, that’s no small feat. I couldn’t see any cracks or other signs of the house’s having been moved.
An interesting Bondville story occurred a few years ago. A friend of mine, Louise, ran a phone repair service and a two-way radio service in the former Bondville schoolhouse, which she had converted into their company headquarters. One Saturday morning the place was suddenly swarming with SWAT officers, who held her at gunpoint, while she explained that the building was her business.
It turned out that some years earlier, when the building had still been vacant, a police training facility had secured permission to use the building as a SWAT training area. No one had bothered to check whether the building was still vacant, or whether the permission to train there was still valid. From this perspective, this could be a funny story, but I can just imagine Louise being held at gunpoint, sputtering to the officers that they had no business being there.
010.2 Seymore
017.3 Lodge
Just south of Lodge is the Pontious Berry Farm, where a person can still go to pick berries. The father of the present owner visited the appropriate authorities (on raising berries) at the nearby University of Illinois, one of the country’s land-grant universities. The agronomists told Mr. Pontius that blueberries just would not grow in that part of Illinois. Undaunted, he researched the topic on his own, treated the soil for the right pH, and began to successfully raise blueberries on the Illinois prairie. The blueberries are still flourishing there.
Route 10 skirts Lodge on the north side, and there is a rail crossing for a north-south line. When I was surveying my route of march, a railroad repair team was there fixing a broken crossing gate (the red-and-white-striped wooden bar than comes down to block a lane of road traffic while a train is passing). I just happened to be stopped waiting for a northbound train to pass so I could continue my trip. The train was a local, comprising mainly tank cars.
022.3 Deland
Deland and Seymore have a consolidated school district. They have built a large facility north of Route 10 out in the country. Fortunately there seemed to be no signs of vandalism, such an isolated building in a city might suffer. Abraham Lincoln said, “Let him who hath not an house not pull down the house of him who has one.” Whatever you may think of the late president, I agree with that quotation.
027.7 Weldon
What I knew about the town of Weldon before my visit was that our friend Jan, for many years a missionary with Youth with a Mission, grew up in the country with a Weldon address. The family’s lower pastures are now at the bottom of Clinton Lake, and the little farm house sits on a road that is otherwise lined with more luxurious homes of more recent construction.
When Route 10 was rebuilt some years ago, it was rerouted to bypass many smaller towns. That speeds things up for those driving right past, but for my investigative purposes, it meant that I had to leave the highway and go some distance to visit several of these little towns.
I thought I’d visit the town library, but it was closed. A mother and daughter sat in the shade out front on a park bench, a laptop computer open on a fold-out table in front of them. I asked, “I guess this means the library has free wi-fi, right?”
“That’s exactly what it means, the mom answered.” Out on Route 10, a blue sign listed one tourist attraction, Mamma D’s Smokehouse Restaurant. Though the restaurant is open only on Friday and Saturday afternoons (from 5–9 p.m.), I walked up to it and found the door unlocked. Sharon, who is also Mamma D, was there to let in a refrigerator repairman. She made me a gift of a cold Coke and told me a little about her business.
She grew up in Oklahoma. Though she works full time as a medical laboratory technician at a nearby hospital (and her husband also works full-time), they started this business as a hobby. In addition to gourmet bratwurst (they’re much more heart-healthful than regular brats because they are much lower in fat), she offers several other specialties, including onion hamburgers (she fries the thin-sliced onion right with the meat).
Sharon suggested that I visit the Weldon Bank, staffed by Jean Lawrence and Becky Farris, and I did. Jean humbly denied any great knowledge of the town’s history, but did tell me about the terrible fire that destroyed nearly the entire downtown. The bank, being of solid brick, survived the fire, and the face of the building looks much as it did in the old days.
Jean and Becky also said that the Weldon Bank was one of the few Central Illinois banks that John Dillinger didn’t rob. Doug Edwards’s Facebook page has some great Weldon pictures.
About 5 miles west of Weldon there is a beautiful white farmhouse on the north side of the road. There’s almost always an American flag flying near the house, and I had noticed that on previous journeys past the place. I decided to stop and see what I could learn about the place.
I saw a tractor with a blade on the three-point hitch, with a pickup truck parked beside it. That was near a machine shed behind the house. The house itself was under construction, with a crew busy adding on to the original structure.
A man emerged from an office in the machine shed and greeted me courteously. I said, “It looks as if this is not only your home, but also your business.”
“Yes,” he said. “I farm.”
The man was tall, lean, and clean-cut. He had a direct gaze, with piercing eyes, and his handshake was firm, when I introduced myself. I told him I was walking across Illinois, a veteran in support of veterans. He said he really appreciated what veterans have done for this nation.
I asked him about the farm and house. The family just received the State of Illinois official designation as a sesquicentennial farm. If you’re not familiar with that program, that means the farm has been in the same family for at least 150 years. It belonged to a Union Army captain named John D. Graham. He built the main part of the house when he returned home from the Civil War 143 years ago (in 1867).
The family recently had all but the original part of the house torn down. The new addition is being built to look like an 1800s carriage house, and there will be two widow’s walks on the roof, when all is complete.
David Newberg, the farmer I met, is the kind of man who has built America. These folks are honest, hardworking, and friendly. David told me that his wife is the fourth generation of that family to live on the farm, and that his grandkids will be the sixth generation of the family, if they decide to live there. Refreshed in spirit by my encounter with this fine gentleman, I continued down the road.
040.1 miles Weldon Springs Road
Just south of Route 10 is the Weldon Springs State Recreation Area, including camping areas. One can make a reservation for a camping spot by going online at reserveamerica.com. Pads with electricity are $20 per night, and tent campsites are $8.00 per night. That means I can’t sleep in my pickup without paying $20, but I can pitch two shelter halves to make a tent, and that is only $8.00.
The campground runs using a system that’s widely used at state and federal parks. The fee-takers, in this case known as hosts, were off duty, as the sign plainly stated, but the hostess came out and graciously answered my many questions. As we conversed, I discovered that she and her husband were doing this (being hosts) for the second summer, that they were permitted to have a small garden next to their camper, a pop-up trailer-tent, and that they hailed from the great state of Oklahoma. During the summer of 2009, she had gotten to know a second cousin whom she didn’t know existed. They had spent lots of time getting acquainted and catching up on their respective branches of the family.
045 Clinton, Illinois
Clinton seems to be thriving. There are many small industries, lots of them clustered along the south side of Route 10 on the east end of town. Clinton also boasts a Case-International implement dealership, a very large Chrysler and GM dealership, and a very special Ford dealership.
The Chrysler dealership offers some spectacular savings on what nowadays are called program cars. (Back in the day, they were known as demonstrators.) Douglas does not do floor planning, which is a euphemism for borrowing all the money for all the cars in the showroom and on the lot. Douglas buys the cars outright, which saves lots on interest, and translates to a better price for the buyer.
The Ford dealership, almost right across Route 10, is the only dealership for many miles that carries special production Ford Mustangs. The car comes off the assembly line and then goes directly to another company, where a super high-performance engine, heavy-duty suspension, and other expensive components are built into the vehicle. Then the care comes to this particular dealership to be sold.
About five and a half miles west of Clinton, there is a Y that introduces a road that heads off to the north. The road name is Y-End Road.
Hallsville, Illinois
About 6 miles west of Y-End Road is Hallsville.
055 Midland City, Illinois
Midland City boasts some very interesting street names, such as Rejected Rock Street (there has to be a story there!). There were also some goats in a pen on Rejected Rock Street.
059.6 Beason
Lots of houses in Beason had American flags flying. The old downtown district was completely boarded up except for the Post Office. There’s a really nice park, with kid’s playground equipment and horseshoe pits that my late dad would really have appreciated. There’s also a beautiful Methodist Church building [[photo]], and the East Lincoln Farmers Grain Company has the Beason Elevator in the northwest part of town.
While I was photographing the church building, two small boys came down the middle of the street, one pulling the other in a plastic wagon. They greeted me enthusiastically, though of course they couldn’t have known why this stranger was taking pictures of an old church building. On the west side of town there is a College Avenue, which ends in a cornfield. Try as I might, I could not find a college. Again I saw some really nice campers in front of many homes, and again there was a pasture with horses grazing just at the south end of town.
064.6 There is a bridge that is down to one lane because of construction work. I hope that work is done by September 17 or so. Otherwise I might have to wait a while to walk across the bridge because there is certainly no shoulder or walkway.
068.9 NOAA National Weather Service Station.
This facility, just off Route 10 to the north, is where our weather radio signals originate for most of East-Central Illinois. There’s a bubble on a tower, probably covering a pretty serious radar dish, and there is all manner of weather station paraphernalia and radio transmission gear. I’m very grateful for this state-of-the-art facility in our area.
Just east of the NOAA facility, but south of the highway, is the Lincoln Christian University campus. I’ve known many students who have attended this school through the years, but I had never actually seen the campus. A friendly lady who was heading to her car kindly directed me to the library, but it was about to close for the day at 5:00 p.m. I was a bit surprised by that, because university libraries are often open in the evening. Nevertheless I asked when the name had been changed from College to University, and the librarian told me that the change had taken place the previous year (2009).
I briefly interviewed three bright-looking young people who were still standing where they had been several minutes earlier, deep in a conversation. Daniel is from Morris, Illinois. He just completed a BA in Preaching in May, and has now begun work on his Master of Divinity Degree at the seminary. I asked whether he might know my friend Jonathan Harrison, and he said, “yes, I lived right next door to him.” Their respective time at the university had one year in common. Daniel served as a part-time preacher for a couple of years before embarking on his educational journey. He seemed mature and focused.
Megan is from Bloomington, Illinois, and she’s also pursuing a Master of Divinity Degree at the seminary, majoring in New Testament, and possibly in New Testament Languages. She’s also a recent grad from a baccalaureate program, and she hopes to do Bible translation with Pioneer Bible Translators in Papua, New Guinea, where she has already done a missions internship.
Sarah is from Cerro Gordo, Illinois, and seemed surprised that I had heard of her home town. She’s an undergrad in Teacher Education and English Secondary Teaching. She is planning to earn a TESOL (teaching of English as a second language) certificate, and she hopes one day to teach English in China. I asked whether she was familiar with ELIC (English Language Institute in China), and she was. Because Christian missionaries are not, per se, permitted into China, Christians go there with other primary purposes, with the full knowledge of the government that they have ulterior motives. Though they don’t go around the streets preaching the gospel, they do have a great opportunity to live a Christian life in front of their Chinese students.
My hat is off to these other-directed young people who have high goals and a willingness to invest their lives in other people.
069.4 Lincoln
Lincoln has an Amtrak depot. It also has yet another college, Lincoln College. I was familiar with the college because they built an attendance center in Normal, Illinois, where they have a four-year program. The programs here in Lincoln are all two-year programs. I’m sitting typing this at Lincoln College’s McKinstry Library (collocated with the Heritage Museum), just off Route 10. The staff have graciously given me access to their wireless broadband, and if this makes it into the blog, it’s thanks to them.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Project America Run
Soon after I decided to walk across Illinois, I heard about a group of wounded veterans who were riding their bikes across the United States to show support for our troops. I had visions of a group of slim, fit veterans flying down the road past an old, bent, somewhat chubby guy who is trudging down the roadside. These guys had wonderful sponsorship from State Farm Insurance, and a local State Farm agent was along for the ride. These guys passed through Champaign a few weeks ago.
Kudos to the Convoy of Heroes, who are riding on the Sea to Shining Sea bike ride from Oakland, California, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, about 92 days for sea to sea.
Tonight when I called my 95-year-old mom, she read me an article from a northwestern Illinois newspaper, the Prairie Advocate. Mike Ehredt, a former Illinois resident and veteran, is running across the United States, planting a flag each mile of the way in honor of a fallen U.S. service member. He’s apparently pushing a jogger-stroller, and he’s staying each night with a different host family. [I’m staying one night with a host family.] Donations go to support the fund for Honoring Our Veterans, an organization that works to better the lives of wounded warriors.
He’s ending his walk at Rockland, Maine. You can read Mike’s blog at http://projectamericarun.wordpress.com/, or you can read more about the walk at http://www.projectamericarun.com/Donate3.htm. I salute Mike for his creative and very meaningful run across the United States.
An acquaintance of mine of Army days in Germany told me that, when he was in Colorado recently, he read about a man who was walking across Colorado with a big dog. His mission was to highlight certain conditions our soldiers are enduring.
In short, my walk is neither sponsored, nor sanctioned by anyone. If I get tired walking, I just might hop on my bicycle and make up a few miles. It’s my walk, and, do or die, I’ll likely do it my way. Of course my idea is not at all an original idea. But I’m sure I’ll meet some fascinating fellow Americans and have some interesting adventures (and probably smell fairly badly by noon most days).
Kudos to the Convoy of Heroes, who are riding on the Sea to Shining Sea bike ride from Oakland, California, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, about 92 days for sea to sea.
Tonight when I called my 95-year-old mom, she read me an article from a northwestern Illinois newspaper, the Prairie Advocate. Mike Ehredt, a former Illinois resident and veteran, is running across the United States, planting a flag each mile of the way in honor of a fallen U.S. service member. He’s apparently pushing a jogger-stroller, and he’s staying each night with a different host family. [I’m staying one night with a host family.] Donations go to support the fund for Honoring Our Veterans, an organization that works to better the lives of wounded warriors.
He’s ending his walk at Rockland, Maine. You can read Mike’s blog at http://projectamericarun.wordpress.com/, or you can read more about the walk at http://www.projectamericarun.com/Donate3.htm. I salute Mike for his creative and very meaningful run across the United States.
An acquaintance of mine of Army days in Germany told me that, when he was in Colorado recently, he read about a man who was walking across Colorado with a big dog. His mission was to highlight certain conditions our soldiers are enduring.
In short, my walk is neither sponsored, nor sanctioned by anyone. If I get tired walking, I just might hop on my bicycle and make up a few miles. It’s my walk, and, do or die, I’ll likely do it my way. Of course my idea is not at all an original idea. But I’m sure I’ll meet some fascinating fellow Americans and have some interesting adventures (and probably smell fairly badly by noon most days).
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Georgia on My Mind
This post is about yet another detour, this one to the state of Georgia. I decided to investigate a topper for the pickup, and I found one advertised on Craigslist. The price was right, but the topper was at Winston, Georgia, some 640 miles south of Champaign, Illinois.
Undaunted, I set off for Georgia on a very hot Sunday (two days ago), arriving without incident (except that following the GPS took me to the neighbor's house first) at 8:00 p.m. Jason, owner of the topper welcomed me and helped me install the topper and clamp it down.
A small amount of money ($150) changed hands (as opposed to 1200 to 1400 for a new topper), and I was back on the road, despite Jason's offer of a place to crash for the night. I really wanted to get through Atlanta when the traffic volume was less than I had seen there during some rush hours over the years, when I either had to drive through Atlanta, or drive from or to the airport.
Jason and his little family fulfilled all the best traditions of southern hospitality, and left me with a great impression of Georgia. I do want to mention one incident when I had first entered Georgia on Sunday afternoon, though. There was a welcome center sign along the Interstate. Though the sign clearly said the welcome center closed at 5:00 p.m., I thought there would at least be restroom facilities available. I was not alone. Literally hundreds of others were pulling in to the parking lot, getting out of their cars, and searching for a restroom. Alas, everything was locked up tight.
Thus hundreds of people were walking around the building hoping for a way in. At least we all got some much-needed exercise. I challenge the great state of Georgia to come up with a more clearly worded sign at such welcome centers, or to set up separate restroom facilities that are open all the time.
I made it through Atlanta without problems and later spent a couple of hours under the new topper on top of an air mattress and a sleeping bag (despite the high altitude of Monteagle, Georgia, it was still in the very high 80s).
The nearby drive-through, the sound of big trucks passing on the not-too-distant Interstate, and the lullaby of tree frogs (thousands of them in the trees behind the gas station parking lot) lulled me into a kind of stupor that stopped short of sleep, but that gave my eyes some much-needed rest.
At 1:30 a.m. I gave up on sleeping and hit the road again. There are several advantages to traveling through the night: It wasn't nearly as hot as the day before had been. The traffic kept thinning out until about 5:00 a.m., when it started to pick up again. The cities were really easy to navigate, with only a modest amount of traffic (the GPS gave ample warning of coming turns and complications).
With only requisite gas and restroom stops, I kept rolling until I came to a rest area north of Marion, Illinois. By that time the sun was well up. This time I didn't open the topper's side windows, thinking to block out the diesel engine noise (the sleeping truckers were using their ACs, so the engines had to run). The increasing warmth and the sound of a multitude of diesel engines woke me. I might have fared better (i.e., slept longer) at a different rest area, because that particular one had the trucks right next to the cars. There was a big rig idling about 20 feet behind my pickup.
I arrived safely at home at 11:30 a.m., having driven 1280 miles in 26 and a half hours, not bad for an old geezer. I'm thankful that I had no near misses (at least of which I'm aware), and that I saw no serious accidents.
Despite the rains in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, my trip was dry. Despite the high winds in Iowa and northern Illinois, I experienced nothing of the sort on my trip.
Undaunted, I set off for Georgia on a very hot Sunday (two days ago), arriving without incident (except that following the GPS took me to the neighbor's house first) at 8:00 p.m. Jason, owner of the topper welcomed me and helped me install the topper and clamp it down.
A small amount of money ($150) changed hands (as opposed to 1200 to 1400 for a new topper), and I was back on the road, despite Jason's offer of a place to crash for the night. I really wanted to get through Atlanta when the traffic volume was less than I had seen there during some rush hours over the years, when I either had to drive through Atlanta, or drive from or to the airport.
Jason and his little family fulfilled all the best traditions of southern hospitality, and left me with a great impression of Georgia. I do want to mention one incident when I had first entered Georgia on Sunday afternoon, though. There was a welcome center sign along the Interstate. Though the sign clearly said the welcome center closed at 5:00 p.m., I thought there would at least be restroom facilities available. I was not alone. Literally hundreds of others were pulling in to the parking lot, getting out of their cars, and searching for a restroom. Alas, everything was locked up tight.
Thus hundreds of people were walking around the building hoping for a way in. At least we all got some much-needed exercise. I challenge the great state of Georgia to come up with a more clearly worded sign at such welcome centers, or to set up separate restroom facilities that are open all the time.
I made it through Atlanta without problems and later spent a couple of hours under the new topper on top of an air mattress and a sleeping bag (despite the high altitude of Monteagle, Georgia, it was still in the very high 80s).
The nearby drive-through, the sound of big trucks passing on the not-too-distant Interstate, and the lullaby of tree frogs (thousands of them in the trees behind the gas station parking lot) lulled me into a kind of stupor that stopped short of sleep, but that gave my eyes some much-needed rest.
At 1:30 a.m. I gave up on sleeping and hit the road again. There are several advantages to traveling through the night: It wasn't nearly as hot as the day before had been. The traffic kept thinning out until about 5:00 a.m., when it started to pick up again. The cities were really easy to navigate, with only a modest amount of traffic (the GPS gave ample warning of coming turns and complications).
With only requisite gas and restroom stops, I kept rolling until I came to a rest area north of Marion, Illinois. By that time the sun was well up. This time I didn't open the topper's side windows, thinking to block out the diesel engine noise (the sleeping truckers were using their ACs, so the engines had to run). The increasing warmth and the sound of a multitude of diesel engines woke me. I might have fared better (i.e., slept longer) at a different rest area, because that particular one had the trucks right next to the cars. There was a big rig idling about 20 feet behind my pickup.
I arrived safely at home at 11:30 a.m., having driven 1280 miles in 26 and a half hours, not bad for an old geezer. I'm thankful that I had no near misses (at least of which I'm aware), and that I saw no serious accidents.
Despite the rains in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, my trip was dry. Despite the high winds in Iowa and northern Illinois, I experienced nothing of the sort on my trip.
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| Add caption |
Here's the topper. Mission accomplished. (double-click to see entire photo)
Here's a rest area (cell phone photo) at Rend Lake, Kentucky.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Press Release
Today I wrote and sent out a press release about the walk. Basically I researched newspapers along the route of march, and looked them up online. In some cases there is a very easy way to send news to the periodical from the Web site. In other cases, getting an e-mail address or point of contact requires a phone call.
I also contacted 7 radio stations along the route. That's also not particularly easy from the Web sites. Of course I have no idea of whether the news release (press release) will be released by the media. Here's what I released:
Rob Siedenburg, a 65-year-old retired Army veteran, plans to walk from Quincy’s Bayview bridge to the Indiana border, just east of Danville, starting on September 1. Siedenburg’s walk will follow U.S. 24 for about 50 miles to Illinois 103. The walk will also take him on Illinois route 100, U.S. 136, Illinois 10, and U.S. 150. His walk will take him through Mount Sterling (Sunday, September 5), Havana (Friday, September 10), Mason City (Monday, September 13), Lincoln (Wednesday and Thursday, September 15 and 16), Champaign (Saturday, September 25), and Danville (September 30).
Siedenburg plans to walk about 10 miles per day, and will sleep in a tent in the bed of his Ranger pickup, which he will return to retrieve at the end of each day’s walk. Though the walk is not primarily a fundraiser, any donations will go to the Army Emergency Relief fund, which provides emergency loans to families of deployed soldiers. Siedenburg says he wants to “remember those who have given their lives for our country, raise awareness of those who are missing in action or who are prisoners of war, and honor those who have served and those who are serving.” He plans to post progress reports to his blog during the walk at http://www.walkacrossillinois-rob.blogspot.com/. Anyone interested in walking along for part of the way can contact Siedenburg at Siedenburg@comcast.net. Siedenburg plans to end his walk on September 30 at the Indiana border east of Danville.
Here is the complete itinerary:
Sept 1: Start walk at Bayview Bridge in Quincy. Walk 7 miles along U.S. 24.
Sept 2: Walk 7 miles along U.S. 24 to Fowler.
Sept 3: Walk 11 miles along U.S. 24 to Camp Point.
Sept 4: Walk 11 miles along U.S. 24 to Timewell (Mound Station).
Sept 5: Walk 6 miles along U.S. to Mount Sterling.
Sept 6: Walk 7 miles along U.S. 24 to Ripley.
Sept 7: Walk 13 miles along U.S. 24, then IL 103 to Frederick.
(Beardstown is just a mile off the route, so I'll visit there too.)
Sept 8: Walk 10 miles on IL 100 to Sheldon's Grove.
Sept 9: Walk 9 miles on IL 100 to Marbletown.
Sept 10: Walk 10 miles on IL 100 and U.S. 136 to Havana.
Sept 11: Walk 11 miles to junction of U.S. 136 and IL 10.
Drive home for weekend.
Sept 13: Walk 12 miles on IL 10 to Mason City.
Sept 14: Walk 7 miles on IL 10 to New Holland.
Sept 15: Walk 10 miles on IL 10 to Lincoln.
Sept 16: Walk 3 miles across Lincoln to Lincoln Christian College.
Sept 17: Walk 11 miles on IL 10 to Beason and stay overnight with friends.
Sept 18: Walk 12 miles on IL 10 to Clinton.
Drive home for weekend.
Sept 20: Walk 12 miles on IL 10 to Weldon.
Sept 21: Walk 10 miles on IL 10 to Lodge.
Sept 22: Walk 8 miles on IL 10 to Bondville.
Drive home to sleep.
Sept 23: Walk 10 miles on IL 10 to Champaign.
Sept 24: Take day off.
Sept 25: Walk 8 miles across Champaign (route to be determined).
Sept 26: Take day off.
Sept 27: Walk 9 miles along U.S. 150 to St. Joseph.
Sept 28: Walk 9 miles along U.S. 150 to Muncie.
Sept 29: Walk 8 miles along U.S. 150 to Hillery.
Sept 30: Walk 9 miles through Danville to Indiana state line.
Several friends specifically requested that I walk across Champaign on a Saturday so they can walk along, and I'm doing that.
I also contacted 7 radio stations along the route. That's also not particularly easy from the Web sites. Of course I have no idea of whether the news release (press release) will be released by the media. Here's what I released:
Rob Siedenburg, a 65-year-old retired Army veteran, plans to walk from Quincy’s Bayview bridge to the Indiana border, just east of Danville, starting on September 1. Siedenburg’s walk will follow U.S. 24 for about 50 miles to Illinois 103. The walk will also take him on Illinois route 100, U.S. 136, Illinois 10, and U.S. 150. His walk will take him through Mount Sterling (Sunday, September 5), Havana (Friday, September 10), Mason City (Monday, September 13), Lincoln (Wednesday and Thursday, September 15 and 16), Champaign (Saturday, September 25), and Danville (September 30).
Siedenburg plans to walk about 10 miles per day, and will sleep in a tent in the bed of his Ranger pickup, which he will return to retrieve at the end of each day’s walk. Though the walk is not primarily a fundraiser, any donations will go to the Army Emergency Relief fund, which provides emergency loans to families of deployed soldiers. Siedenburg says he wants to “remember those who have given their lives for our country, raise awareness of those who are missing in action or who are prisoners of war, and honor those who have served and those who are serving.” He plans to post progress reports to his blog during the walk at http://www.walkacrossillinois-rob.blogspot.com/. Anyone interested in walking along for part of the way can contact Siedenburg at Siedenburg@comcast.net. Siedenburg plans to end his walk on September 30 at the Indiana border east of Danville.
Here is the complete itinerary:
Sept 1: Start walk at Bayview Bridge in Quincy. Walk 7 miles along U.S. 24.
Sept 2: Walk 7 miles along U.S. 24 to Fowler.
Sept 3: Walk 11 miles along U.S. 24 to Camp Point.
Sept 4: Walk 11 miles along U.S. 24 to Timewell (Mound Station).
Sept 5: Walk 6 miles along U.S. to Mount Sterling.
Sept 6: Walk 7 miles along U.S. 24 to Ripley.
Sept 7: Walk 13 miles along U.S. 24, then IL 103 to Frederick.
(Beardstown is just a mile off the route, so I'll visit there too.)
Sept 8: Walk 10 miles on IL 100 to Sheldon's Grove.
Sept 9: Walk 9 miles on IL 100 to Marbletown.
Sept 10: Walk 10 miles on IL 100 and U.S. 136 to Havana.
Sept 11: Walk 11 miles to junction of U.S. 136 and IL 10.
Drive home for weekend.
Sept 13: Walk 12 miles on IL 10 to Mason City.
Sept 14: Walk 7 miles on IL 10 to New Holland.
Sept 15: Walk 10 miles on IL 10 to Lincoln.
Sept 16: Walk 3 miles across Lincoln to Lincoln Christian College.
Sept 17: Walk 11 miles on IL 10 to Beason and stay overnight with friends.
Sept 18: Walk 12 miles on IL 10 to Clinton.
Drive home for weekend.
Sept 20: Walk 12 miles on IL 10 to Weldon.
Sept 21: Walk 10 miles on IL 10 to Lodge.
Sept 22: Walk 8 miles on IL 10 to Bondville.
Drive home to sleep.
Sept 23: Walk 10 miles on IL 10 to Champaign.
Sept 24: Take day off.
Sept 25: Walk 8 miles across Champaign (route to be determined).
Sept 26: Take day off.
Sept 27: Walk 9 miles along U.S. 150 to St. Joseph.
Sept 28: Walk 9 miles along U.S. 150 to Muncie.
Sept 29: Walk 8 miles along U.S. 150 to Hillery.
Sept 30: Walk 9 miles through Danville to Indiana state line.
Several friends specifically requested that I walk across Champaign on a Saturday so they can walk along, and I'm doing that.
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Patio and the Bicycle Brigade
As summer progresses, I’ve been able to accomplish lots that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. For instance, several years ago I bought two pallets of landscaping tiles. Each is 14 × 14 inches, and a little more than an inch thick. I didn’t have any idea then why they were marked down to about a dollar apiece, but now I think I understand. (1) The tiles were not well fired in the kiln, and they are pretty easy to break. (2) No one around here markets 14- by 14-inch tiles any more, at least that I can find.
I’ve resorted to using a concrete cement to repair the tiles I’ve broken. (Mary isn’t thrilled with the sliver-gray color of the patches, but that can be fixed with some concrete paint, which I’m not quite ready to buy.)
I worked for many days on the patio. It’s enclosed in a box of pressure-treated two-inch lumber, and I drove stakes, T posts, and several other sharp-pointed objects into the ground outside the box to keep things in place.
I tried to leave about 3/8 of an inch between two tiles, but that was not always a precise accomplishment. Nevertheless, I filled the cracks among the tiles with polymerized (polymeric) joint seal sand, sprayed water on it, and continued with the project.
To backtrack a bit, I prepared the area by roto-tilling the lawn (what was left of it, after years of excavation by our friendly local gray squirrels). Then I hauled four tons of torpedo sand in our little style-side Ford Ranger pickup, and delivered it shovel by shovel to where I wanted it.
This large expanse of sand quickly became an attractive nuisance, and I had to repeatedly shoo off some little neighbor boys. I also had to relevel the sand frequently, and once when I was smoothing the surface with a garden rake, I dug up a number of toy trucks and other playthings. There may well be toys still buried under the patio. I don’t know for sure.
The other unexpected visitors to this very large sandbox were the neighbors’ cats. I had to point that out to the neighbor boys to finally get them to cease and desist in their excavations, so the cats proved a blessing in the end, so to speak.
Once the 4 tons of sand were in place and tamped down wet, I laid the tiles over that, and finished off with the joint sealing sand, as I mentioned in an earlier paragraph of this rambling blog. That left the patio perched up higher than the surrounding yard, which had been a little too low to my liking, in any case.
I then hauled in two cubic yards of topsoil, which I again distributed with a shovel from the back of the Ranger. I laid 200 linear feet of sod around the patio, so it looks pretty nice. Once I found out how inexpensive sod was, I was amazed that I hadn’t used sod before. The Pedigo Sod Farm, out on Staley Road, is a family-run business that really excels at their work. They sold me my first 100 feet of sod for a little over $36, a bargain, so far as I’m concerned.
The finished area was ready for our United Marriage Encounter Core group picnic on Saturday, with some help from my Bicycle Brigade lads.
The finished patio, replete with seating for 20 adults, looks like this:
One of my other projects was to install some rain barrels to catch the precious water running off down the street. I got one up (I have two more barrels to install), but the project was beset with technical difficulties.
First I bought the barrels, of course, and I also got one for free from my little brother Ric, with only a little begging. I brainstormed for a while about the best way to build a platform to hold a rain barrel. Mary told me about some so-called deck tiles at Menards. These are 22-inch square sections of pressure-treated decking, with a frame of 2 by 6 pressure-treated wood underneath. I drilled four holes in the bottom of the platform, one in each corner.
For supports, I bought four 24-inch lengths of 1-inch galvanized pipe at Rural Kind, drove the pipes into the ground, and set the platform on the pipes. I then releveled the platform.
Alas. One overnight 1-inch rain filled the 220-liter barrel to overflowing. Gee, I should have talked to an engineer. (Let’s see, that’s 58.12 gallons at 8.35 lbs per gallon.) I now have 485.302 lbs of water (plus the weight of the barrel) on my poorly engineered platform. When we came home from a friend’s house at about 9:30 last night, the entire device was listing dangerously to starboard.
I did a quick fix with a 2 by 8 length of lumber and an 8-pound sledge hammer, just driving the high side of the platform (and thus the supporting pipe) downward, apologizing afterward to the ladies across the street, who were having a little deck party. This morning I’ll have to relevel the platform again.
I guess the worst-case scenario, short of a 400-lb. barrel full of rainwater rolling down the yard is that, eventually, the platform will be level with the ground.
In other project news, the purchase of a high-efficiency (five-foot tall) air conditioning unit and a high-efficiency furnace, mysteriously led to a major remodeling of our hallway (and beyond).
Let me explain: The new furnace needed a 180-degree change in orientation from the old furnace, which was almost impossible to service because it faced the water heater. That called for a hole in a wall in the hallway. (By the way, wives do not like holes in hallway walls, drywall and plaster dust, storage and furnace areas that are open to public view. . . . But I digress.)
The new hole in the wall now has a new door in the hall, as shown in the previous and following pictures. The former very large service access opening for the furnace and hot water heater now has its own 24-inch door. The bathroom has a new door. The spare bedroom has a new door. The closet door has several new coats of white paint, and is about to receive its very own mirror, and there’s lots of new drywall to spackle and paint.
Furnace, closet, water heater, bathroom, and spare bedroom doors, along with plenty of new drywall.
Now we’re getting new hardwood flooring in the hallway, living room, and kitchen. How did buying energy-efficient heating and air conditioning equipment lead to this?
In other news, I really do still plan to walk across Illinois in September. My good friend (and excellent artist), Duane Gillogly, who illustrates my East of 39 cartoon series, designed a nice logo for the walk, which I’m displaying here.
I’ve resorted to using a concrete cement to repair the tiles I’ve broken. (Mary isn’t thrilled with the sliver-gray color of the patches, but that can be fixed with some concrete paint, which I’m not quite ready to buy.)
I worked for many days on the patio. It’s enclosed in a box of pressure-treated two-inch lumber, and I drove stakes, T posts, and several other sharp-pointed objects into the ground outside the box to keep things in place.
I tried to leave about 3/8 of an inch between two tiles, but that was not always a precise accomplishment. Nevertheless, I filled the cracks among the tiles with polymerized (polymeric) joint seal sand, sprayed water on it, and continued with the project.
To backtrack a bit, I prepared the area by roto-tilling the lawn (what was left of it, after years of excavation by our friendly local gray squirrels). Then I hauled four tons of torpedo sand in our little style-side Ford Ranger pickup, and delivered it shovel by shovel to where I wanted it.
This large expanse of sand quickly became an attractive nuisance, and I had to repeatedly shoo off some little neighbor boys. I also had to relevel the sand frequently, and once when I was smoothing the surface with a garden rake, I dug up a number of toy trucks and other playthings. There may well be toys still buried under the patio. I don’t know for sure.
The other unexpected visitors to this very large sandbox were the neighbors’ cats. I had to point that out to the neighbor boys to finally get them to cease and desist in their excavations, so the cats proved a blessing in the end, so to speak.
Once the 4 tons of sand were in place and tamped down wet, I laid the tiles over that, and finished off with the joint sealing sand, as I mentioned in an earlier paragraph of this rambling blog. That left the patio perched up higher than the surrounding yard, which had been a little too low to my liking, in any case.
I then hauled in two cubic yards of topsoil, which I again distributed with a shovel from the back of the Ranger. I laid 200 linear feet of sod around the patio, so it looks pretty nice. Once I found out how inexpensive sod was, I was amazed that I hadn’t used sod before. The Pedigo Sod Farm, out on Staley Road, is a family-run business that really excels at their work. They sold me my first 100 feet of sod for a little over $36, a bargain, so far as I’m concerned.
The finished area was ready for our United Marriage Encounter Core group picnic on Saturday, with some help from my Bicycle Brigade lads.
Part of the Garden Hills Bicycle Brigade
One of my other projects was to install some rain barrels to catch the precious water running off down the street. I got one up (I have two more barrels to install), but the project was beset with technical difficulties.
First I bought the barrels, of course, and I also got one for free from my little brother Ric, with only a little begging. I brainstormed for a while about the best way to build a platform to hold a rain barrel. Mary told me about some so-called deck tiles at Menards. These are 22-inch square sections of pressure-treated decking, with a frame of 2 by 6 pressure-treated wood underneath. I drilled four holes in the bottom of the platform, one in each corner.
For supports, I bought four 24-inch lengths of 1-inch galvanized pipe at Rural Kind, drove the pipes into the ground, and set the platform on the pipes. I then releveled the platform.
Alas. One overnight 1-inch rain filled the 220-liter barrel to overflowing. Gee, I should have talked to an engineer. (Let’s see, that’s 58.12 gallons at 8.35 lbs per gallon.) I now have 485.302 lbs of water (plus the weight of the barrel) on my poorly engineered platform. When we came home from a friend’s house at about 9:30 last night, the entire device was listing dangerously to starboard.
I did a quick fix with a 2 by 8 length of lumber and an 8-pound sledge hammer, just driving the high side of the platform (and thus the supporting pipe) downward, apologizing afterward to the ladies across the street, who were having a little deck party. This morning I’ll have to relevel the platform again.
I guess the worst-case scenario, short of a 400-lb. barrel full of rainwater rolling down the yard is that, eventually, the platform will be level with the ground.
In other project news, the purchase of a high-efficiency (five-foot tall) air conditioning unit and a high-efficiency furnace, mysteriously led to a major remodeling of our hallway (and beyond).
An Air Conditioner as Tall as My Wife
"Nothing Runs like a Trane"
Let me explain: The new furnace needed a 180-degree change in orientation from the old furnace, which was almost impossible to service because it faced the water heater. That called for a hole in a wall in the hallway. (By the way, wives do not like holes in hallway walls, drywall and plaster dust, storage and furnace areas that are open to public view. . . . But I digress.)
The new hole in the wall now has a new door in the hall, as shown in the previous and following pictures. The former very large service access opening for the furnace and hot water heater now has its own 24-inch door. The bathroom has a new door. The spare bedroom has a new door. The closet door has several new coats of white paint, and is about to receive its very own mirror, and there’s lots of new drywall to spackle and paint.
Furnace, closet, water heater, bathroom, and spare bedroom doors, along with plenty of new drywall.
Now we’re getting new hardwood flooring in the hallway, living room, and kitchen. How did buying energy-efficient heating and air conditioning equipment lead to this?
In other news, I really do still plan to walk across Illinois in September. My good friend (and excellent artist), Duane Gillogly, who illustrates my East of 39 cartoon series, designed a nice logo for the walk, which I’m displaying here.
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