2025 Jumbo Road Trip

 
I woke up at my usual early time, drove up Route 1 for a couple of miles to get a Dunkin’ coffee, and when I got back to the Kittery Inn & Suites, I was once again the first person to get to the Breakfast Room. At the last minute I realized I wanted a state of Maine sticker (preferably a lobster-shaped one) to add to the trunk lid. But that early riser habit bit me in the butt because there were no touristy places about. Next thing I knew, I was in New Hampshire heading west; really, I was in Maine for less than a mile.

I spent the majority of the drive in NH, about 90 miles, because it is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. While Vermont is the opposite, there were only around 35 miles of that state. Amsterdam is about 40 miles into the state of New York. All those mileage figures are as the crow flies. Today’s mileage was closer to 300 miles with all the twists and turns of the backroads.

I have two Roadside America photos for today, and both of them are from tonight’s town. The first is the top photo, The Leather Guy, who, like most of the tall human statues or muffler men, has led several lives. The other is the Volkstack: Beetle on a Smokestack shown on the right. It has been there since at least 1999, but the auto repair shop it is an advertisement for looks like it had been out of business for a heck of a lot longer than that.

Oh, and I’m spending a night in a place that could be considered a Roadside America attraction; it’s a “castle”.

 
I only took one photo today, and it was of the Freeport Big Indian. It is 40 feet tall and is often called by its initials, FBI, and you can pretty well guess that the F is often substituted for that famous expletive…

I took the photo on way back to Kittery after visiting with my other cousin, Muffy, and her husband, Ralph, in Waldoboro. Muffy and Ralph live in the house that she and my other cousin, Weezie, grew up in. The same house that I spent a week, or maybe two, in one summer when I was probably 10 or 11 visiting their parents, my aunt Virginia and Uncle Eugene. The girl cousins who are 4 & 6 years older than me were out on Monhegan Island working as waitresses or housekeepers at the Island Inn.

When I got back to Kittery, I was treated to a fantastic dinner with cousin Weezie and her husband Lexi at the Ski (water) Club on the third floor of the Bistro 1828 at Pepperrell Cove overlooking the Piscataqua River. Me and the cuz had Fish & Chips while her hubby had the Cod. Afterwards we retreated to their house, where dessert and conversation were had.

Tomorrow I turn left and start home. There is only one more planned stop, Traverse City, Michigan, to visit with an old Navy pal and his wife.

The day’s Roadside America photo is of an Indian Muffler Man in Shirley, MA. It is not really a “muffler man” as it isn’t the typical shape, and it is made of fiberglass. And it has one hand up in what is probably meant to look like the stereotypical “how” gesture, but looks more like a Nazi salute.

Had I jumped in the car and driven straight from Springfield, MA, to Kittery, ME, it could have taken a mere 2-1/2 hours. But not me, the ‘Avoid Highways’ & ‘Avoid Tolls’ guy; I managed to do it in 6-1/2 hours. I left the hotel at 9 and an hour later stopped at a Dunkin’ for coffee and sat a spell watching the traffic outside. Then I made a wrong turn, which turned into an additional 15 minutes tacked on.

The next snafu was on Google’s head because the voice said, “Turn left,” and it was past the real left it wanted me to take. Another 5 minutes added. Both of these could have been corrected, but I just kept rolling wrong while it figured out how to put me back on the “right” track. There was a lot of road construction that involved a lane closure and a flagman. Somewhere in there was a snack stop, then later a quick bite to eat for lunch.

I was supposed to meet Cousin Weezie at 2:30, but while I was about an hour away having a quick lunch, she texted to say, “Running late; let’s push to 3:30.” As it happened, I was a mere mile away from a Roadside America stop I considered using but dismissed it because of time constraints. Now it was back on the table and I can’t refuse a ‘henge of any kind, so off I went to visit America’s Stonehenge. It is nothing like the real Stonehenge in England, there is no circle of large stones. There are a lot of stones in various configurations that appear to be the remnants of an ancient civilization’s village. There are walls and small rooms, and there is what looks like it could be a sacrificial altar in the center. The flyer I was given mentions that the stone line up with astrological events, but I’m skeptical. It could be they just retconned that stuff and the stones just sort of haphazardly happen to be close.

Today’s Roadside America is of Yurtle the Turtle which is part of the Dr. Suess Amazing World Museum and Sculpture Garden. Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield in 1904.

The next three photos are from my own personal Roadside Brian collection. All these were also taken in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Brian William Bogardus was born in 1955. The story of these can be found in my post Can I Have “70s Movies” For 1,000 Alex? from back in March where you can see the matching screencaptures from the movie, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.

While in Springfield, I also visited the Basketball Hall of Fame for the first time. I wandered around and took several pictures that aren’t worth posting. Probably the most interesting things there are life-size photos of a dozen or more men and women basketball players. They are posed with their arms outstretched straight out to the sides. I think the only one I was taller than was Mugsy Bouggs who is 5’3″! If you didn’t read the signs when you pulled into the parking lot you would be hard-pressed to know it was a pro sports hall of fame, that signage on the building is easy to miss because all the restaurants inside have much larger signs. Max’s Tavern, Cold Stone Creamery, Subway, UNO Chicago Grill, and Plan B.

Today John and I tooled around the stomping grounds that surround our shared hometown. We rolled through our old neighborhood and it looked, not looked the same; the houses were still there, but they had all updated dramatically. Then took a tour of the town that looked recognizable, not recognizable at the same time. A final loop that took us by our old high school, that was where we spent 10th and 11th grades, and our old new school where we spent our senior year. I say old new school because the first year it opened was 1973.

After the nostalgia tour, I talked him into driving to Hartford so we could go to the Riverview Park because there was a photo there to be had, Jack, First Presidential Pardon Turkey. The Roadside America story of Jack differs from the plaque text, so who knows if any of it is right or myth? After that adventure John remembered that there was a flying cow on top of a local dairy. Not as large as yesterday’s dinosaurs, but larger than the pardoned turkey. Super Cow the mascot of Guida’s Dairy.

When we started our adventure, we passed right by a charity car wash that looked like some teenage kids and I said, “If they are still there when we get back, I’ll bring them the Miata.” “It hasn’t been washed since Aiken.” Well, sure enough, they were still there. But there were no teenagers; it was just adults. It was for a girls’ soccer team, and they were out trying to drum up business. The Miata was almost finished, and they showed back up. Good thing too, as I’m not sure they had ever washed a car before; it was almost 3 Stooges funny watching them try to wash a big SUV. Best $10 dollars spent so far.

 
Today’s Roadside America is called Steel Dinosaurs and is just inside the New Jersey border from Pennsylvania in Phillipsburg. Miss Google directed me down this sketchy road into an industrial park and into the side yard through a half-opened gate. I could see my prey on a nicely manicured lawn. There was a “life-size” brontosaurus with a T-Rex, mouth open, coming at the bronto from behind. There was also a time traveling caveman looking back at the T-Rex to the side of the brontosaurus.

When I got out of the car, I noticed a couple of dogs coming my way, neither in a menacing way. One came about 50 yards away and stopped, just kind of watched me. The other came a bit closer and was barking, but he seemed like he just liked the sound. Roadside America said there were 3 dinosaurs, but there were only two. Surely they weren’t counting the Neanderthal-like figure. I exited via a slightly different side of the field, and there, right behind a fully closed gate, was the 3rd, a brightly colored stegosaurus.

Up until Asheville, NC, where I got tricked into being on one for 3-5 miles, I had never been on an interstate highway. Until today, because here in the Northeast it becomes nearly impossible to not take one, so I spent a significant time on the Eisenhower Interstate System. To sum up how I feel about interstates, at one time I created a bumper sticker and sold it on CafePress that read “INTERSTATES SUCK!”

 
Today’s big stop was at the Ellwood Manor in Virginia. The gate on the driveway to the house was locked, but I walked the 1/2 mile to the house anyway to see if anyone was home. Sadly, neither Ellwood nor his brother Jake was there.

I jest; this house served both as a hospital and a general’s headquarters for both the US Army and the CSA Army at different times during the Civil War. It is also, or maybe not, the burial place for the left arm of General Stonewall Jackson. His arm was amputated after a friendly fire accident at the Battle of Chancellorsville on the second of May 1863. Either way, after amputation, it was buried in the family cemetery of the owners of Ellwood Manor. My friend Richard is an avid Civil War buff, and he regaled me with a fanciful story of the arm, and I have asked him to write it out in an email, and if I get it, I’ll add it here. But for now I leave this bit of wit from him:

Confederate General Robert E. Lee referred to Stonewall Jackson as “my right arm,” so what is buried there is the left arm of Lee’s right arm.