Monthly Archives: September 2019
Sault Ste. Marie and Wild Moose . . .
I spent all day at work and most of tonight trying to migrate the new Tattoo website over to another server. I finally got it done, but too later to do a blog. So I’m reposting some of our visit to the Sault Ste. Marie area in July 2013.
We left for the Canadian side of the Soo Locks about 1pm. And after showing our passports at the border, we first headed down to the Bushplane Museum.
First up was this Canadair CL-215 firefighting amphibious water bomber, one of the premiere planes of the type.
It fills its tanks by landing at high speed on a lake or river, opening the tank fill doors,
and then waiting until water starts gushing out of this overflow outlet. In 8 hours they can may as many as a hundred bombing runs.
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Whenever I see one of these old Bell 47’s all I can think of is “Whirlybirds”, an old TV show.
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Next up is this replica Fokker Tri-Motor, built for the movie, Amelia, about Amelia Earhart. Although I never flew in one of these, I did fly in a Ford Tri-Motor a number of times when we were living in South America in the early 60’s. However that one had been upgraded to bigger engines on the wings. And the center engine had been removed and replaced with a cargo compartment.
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Here’s a neat little homebuilt amphibian, an Esperanza 4.
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And this is pretty much the “end all and be all” of bushplanes, the de Havilland Beaver. First designed in the 1940’s, over 1600 were built until production ended in 1967, with more than 1200 still flying. A real workhorse.
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And RC-3 Seabee
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And for some reason, they also had several old cars there. This is the fabled Stanley Steamer, a car that I had never actually seen in person before.
Doesn’t look like you’d have to change the sparkplugs on this one.
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The next two are a couple of Fords. The only problem with the car displays is that there was absolutely no info on them anywhere, I even ask some of the guides and no one knew the make or year of any of them. Bummer.
After seeing a couple of good films on bushplanes and aerial firefighting, we left the museum and headed north up PH17, looking for moose.
Yep, we were on another Wild Moose Chase.
Jan had been told there were a lot of moose about 20 miles north of town in the Mile Hill area. So off we went. But although we found the area with a lot of “Watch For Moose” signs, no moose.
Sometimes I feel like Coronado searching for the Seven Cities of Gold. They’re always right over the next hill.
On our way north we had passed a Boston Pizza, one of our favorites, and by the time we came back past, it was 4:30 and we couldn’t resist stopping for dinner. And as usual, we ordered the large Meater, to give us plenty of leftovers.
On a related note, what is it with the northern Midwest and cold drinks. First, pretty much every place we eaten since Bend, OR never has any sweetener on the table. And after they bring you your drink, they don’t even offer. You have to ask for it. What’s up with that?
And I’m sorry, but ordering a glass of ice water or iced tea does not mean three lonely ice cubes floating on top of a glass of tepid liquid. It’s usually pretty cold up here. Why do they have to ration ice cubes?
Leaving Boston Pizza and heading home, we stopped off at a Tim Horton’s to pick up some muffins for our next travel days, and also got Iced Hazelnut Cappuccinos to go.
Except for having to wait in line behind a bunch of semi’s, we didn’t have any trouble getting back across the border. I guess Jan’s past hasn’t caught up with her yet.
As I mentioned yesterday, tomorrow we’re going to drive down to St. Ignace and take the ferry over to Mackinac Island, and then the horse-drawn carriage tour around the island.
After we were home for a while, Brandi sent over a bunch of Landon school pics for this year. A real cutie. Can’t wait to see him in about 3 weeks.
Love the hat and bowtie.
Later, just as the sun was going down, I got this shot of a big freighter going by.
Don’t know what ship this is, but there are thirteen 1000 footers here on the Lakes, the largest of which at 1,013 feet, is the Paul R. Tregurtha. The American Century we saw going through the Soo Locks the other day is also one of those 1,000 footers.
Thought for the Day:
“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” – Albert Einstein
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EnterTRAINment Junction(s) . . .
Since it pretty much poured down rain all day today, and will for the next few couple of days, and I was trying to finish up the new Tattoo Supply website and get it ready to put online, I thought I repost a couple of our visits to EnterTRAINment Junction, then listed as the largest indoor model railroad in the world.
Don’t know how this one presently compares with the one in Germany though. Enjoy!
July 30, 2010
We’re presently parked at the Little Farm on the River RV Park in Rising Sun, IN, about 25 miles from Cincinnati, OH.
This park is in the middle of a working farm that runs right down to the Ohio River and we’re surrounded by corn and soybean fields
About 10:00 am we headed into Cincinnati. Strangely enough, although Ohio is just across the river, we have to go through Kentucky to get there. Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky all come together right here in this corner of the country.
Our first destination was Quaker Steak and Lube, a hot wing place we first ate at in Buffalo, NY last year on our way back from Newfoundland. When we were there the big promotion was their “Atomic Wings”. These rate about 150,000 on the Scoville Heat Scale (a jalapeno rates between 2500 and 8000) and you have to sign a release before they will serve them to you. Jan and I got a sample order (5 wings) and we both thought they were pretty hot, hotter than anything we’ve eaten before. Jan could only eat one.
This time they have a new deal. “Triple Atomic Wings” with a 500,000 rating. Unfortunately they don’t offer a sampler of the Triples, and I didn’t want a whole order of 10, so we didn’t get to try them.
But Jan and I both agreed that either we had both lost a lot of taste buds, or these “Atomic Wings” today weren’t as hot as the ones we had last year. But they were good. We also had some regular Hot Wings and some Buckeye BBQ, which rates at about 5000.
One thing I really like about Quaker Steak is that their chicken pieces are a good bit bigger than either Hooter’s or Buffalo Wild Wings.
After lunch we stopped off for gas and car wash before heading over to the main course for the day, EnterTRAINment Junction. Yes, it’s spelled correctly.
EnterTRAINment Junction is a trained-themed attraction that has a railroad museum, and what I was really there for, the world’s largest indoor model railroad.
With over 25,000 sq. ft., 90 trains with more than1200 cars, 2 miles of track, and over 6000 handmade trees, it’s really something.
I had a large HO layout when I was a kid, and if we weren’t living in the RV I might think about building another one. But in the meantime I still like reading about them, and visiting large layouts when possible. Last year I visited the Model Railroad Museum near Lancaster, PA, but this one is much bigger.
As I said, my layout was HO, which at the time was the smallest scale at 1/87 real size. The trains we say today were G scale, or 1/22.5
Now there are two smaller scales than HO N scale, at 1/160, and Z scale at 1/220. An locomotive in Z scale is less than 2 inches long.
We also enjoyed the American Railroad Museum, which had a lot of interesting displays and artifacts. One thing that I found funny was that when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific work crews approached their meeting from opposite directions, they passed each other by and kept on going for another 100 miles. They were getting paid by the mile and didn’t want to stop. Finally the Government stepped in and declared Promontory, Utah the meeting point.
Leaving the Junction we head back to the rig, but detoured through downtown Cincinnati to get some flavor of the city. It’s a very nice town with a lot of new big buildings going up.
I kept looking for the Flimm building, but never found it.
Getting back to the rig a little before 5 we decided it was nap time for an hour or so. Then about 6:30 we headed out for dinner at Skyline Chili, one of two chili-based restaurants in this area, the other being Goldstar Chili.
Everything is pretty much chili. Chili Dogs, chili burritos, salads with chili on them, and even chili spaghetti. And of course, all of it covered with grated cheese and onions.
And it was delicious. Hopefully we’ll get to try Goldstar some other time.
Tomorrow we head north about 135 miles to Celina, OH for the night before getting into Elkhart, IN on Sunday.
September 20, 2012
Trains and Pl . . . well, just Trains . . .
Today was another fun day and we hit the ground running . . . well, walking briskly anyway. Our first stop was back at Jungle Jim’s Market. Terry wanted to spend some time there, so we dropped her off and then we all headed out.
On the spur of the moment we saw a Jack in the Box and decided to grab a quick breakfast sandwich. But when we started to pull in we noticed police cars and policemen directing traffic into the parking lot, with a double line of cars going into the two drive-thru’s.
What’s up with that?
It turns out that this was the grand opening of the very FIRST Jack in the Box in the entire state of Ohio. I guess they don’t get out much here.
After we finished, we headed around the corner to our destination, EnterTrainMent Junction.
EnterTrainMent Junction is the largest indoor train display in the world. With two actual miles of track, 90 locomotives, and 1000 cars, the layout covers 25,000 sq. ft. in an 80,000 sq. ft. building.
The dream of Don Oeters, a Cincinnati entrepreneur and model railroad hobbyist, EnterTrainMent Junction is a family entertainment center focusing on trains, with something for everyone.
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Although EJ (EnterTrainMent Junction) is laid out using ‘G’ Scale equipment, most home layouts use one of the 3 sizes shown below. ‘HO’ scale is on the left, ‘N’ scale in the middle, and ‘Z’ scale is on the left. To give you some idea of the actual size, the ‘Z’ locomotive is only about 2 inches long.
The ‘G’ in ‘G’ scale stands for Garden, because this scale is normally used outside in a garden or backyard.
The display is divided into 3 main areas, the early days of railroading, starting in the Civil War era, the Golden Age, centering around the 1940’s and 50’s, and the Modern Era. And the detail is just amazing.
Another thing that’s unusual is that they use real water on the layout.
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The detail even extends to the lighted insides of the buildings.
The lighting cycles through periods of daytime and night, showing off the many lit interiors, but others are visible even in the ‘daytime’.
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The night time scenes are amazing.
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There’s even a very realistic forest fire with dancing flames.
The downtown area of the Modern City is fantastic. Most of the buildings are based on real structures, but from many different cities, like the Space Needle from Seattle,
and this office building in New Zealand,
complete with occupied offices.
And of course, what’s a railroad without someone spray painting graffiti on a railcar.
This was our 2nd visit here at EJ, but Nick’s first. And it was fun to watch him wander the aisles trying to take it all in.
If you’re in the Cincinnati area and have kids, or you act like kids most of the time like Nick and I, this is a must-see.
Tearing Nick away from EJ, we all headed back over to Jungle Jim’s to pick up Terry, and then headed off to our next stop, IKEA.
Nick and Terry had never been to one, and when we left, Nick said it was the ugliest stuff he had ever seen, and that he would never forgive us for taking him there.
I guess there’s no accounting for taste . . . or lack thereof.
By now it was almost 5pm, so it was off to a nearby Red Robin for our burger fix. Nick liked this place better. And so did I.
Food was involved, after all.
Our last stop of the day was The Container Store. Jan and Terry were looking for some storage items, so Nick and I napped in the truck. Nick said now we could tell everyone we slept together.
He wishes!
We finally got home about 8:30pm after another long but very fun day. Tomorrow will be a stay-at-home before we make a day trip to Dayton on Saturday.
Thought For The Day:
“24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.” ~ H. L. Mencken
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