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Posts Tagged ‘ohio river’

A Missed Turn Finally Put Me on the Right Road

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , on October 16, 2012| 1 Comment »

            “If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.” —  Dietrich Bonhoeffer      

Adventures with Pepper: Day 25  

A picnic site along the Ohio River Scenic Byway. — Photo by Pat Bean

          Once again I decided to take the scenic route instead of the shortest route. I would continue following the Ohio River Scenic Byway, Highway 52, south. It would eventually turn north and become Highway 7, which would take me to my Carthage Gap destination near Coolville, Ohio.

But once again, I found myself on a scenic byway that wasn’t untraveled. That wasn’t too bad, I thought in the beginning. I needed a post office, and since I was driving down the main street of all these small towns, surely I would see one.

I knew to look for an American flag out in front. Well, I saw lots of American flags, indicating this was a pretty patriotic part of the country, but none of them were in front of post offices. I finally thought I had found one when I spotted a postal truck in downtown Gallipolis.

It wasn’t, but I did catch up with the postman hand delivering mail in the vicinity, and he took my envelope to mail.

I frequently saw pumpkins and mums for sale along the Ohio River Scenic Byway. — Photo by Pat Bean

The post was important to me because it contained my signed contract to blog three times a week for American Profile magazine. This was a writing job that I was thrilled to have gotten, especially since I would be blogging about this beautiful country I live in.

The blog is called Discovering America, and you can check it and the magazine’s other blogs out at: http://blogs.americanprofile.com

I guess I was still thinking about this great opportunity when I missed my turnoff to Carthage Gap.

I knew I had done something wrong when I found myself crossing the Ohio River into Ravenswood, West Virginia.

I immediately I got stopped by a Fall Harvest Parade being held in the town, but at least  that gave me some time to study my map to discover where I had gone wrong, and what to do about it.

The answer was to go back across the bridge to Ohio and take Highway 124 to Carthage Gap, which is exactly what I did when I could finally pull a U-turn.

Highway 124 was narrow, winding, sometimes steep and it followed closer to the Ohio River than I had been all day. And I had it practically to myself.

I’m sure glad I took that wrong turn.

            Book Report: No progress yet today. Too much other stuff to catch up on. I’ll get to Travels with Maggie later today – I hope.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Photovia http://tinyurl.com/cnung67 I May Die: I’ve been here a few times  in my travels, and know exactly how relived one is to find they’re right where they should be, and that the scary isn’t scary at all – just different. This post made me smile. Perhaps it will you, too.

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Glorious End to a Day’s Drive Beside a River

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Books, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 15, 2012| 5 Comments »

            “I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

This is how the sky looked when Pepper and I first went outside to watch the sun go down. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Day 23-24

I left readers wondering about whether I would drive on the Kentucky or the Ohio side of the Ohio River today.  But the big question I had to answer first was whether I was going into Cincinnati to do a little sight-seeing, or was I going to skirt it.

And this is how it looked a few minutes later, when I thought it could get no more colorful. — Photo by Pat Bean

While I truly can enjoy big cities, I prefer to do so without an RV as my mode of transportation, and without a dog. Since I was stuck, happily I might add, with both, I decided to skirt the Queen City by taking Interstate 275 across the Ohio River and through Kentucky – Yes I know, I hate freeways but it was the easiest and quickest way to get away from city traffic.

Thankfully I was only on 275 for about 35 miles before I crossed back over the Ohio River on the other side of its big curve. Ohio came out the winner as the state of choice for the majority of today’s travel.

Once in Ohio, I veered south onto Highway 52, also known as the Ohio River Scenic Byway. I was seldom out of sight of the river the entire day.

But then it did. — Photo by Pat Bean

My route took me past Ulysses S. Grant’s birth place, where of course I stopped to investigate, but didn’t linger long.

I think I had wondered my brain out yesterday, for when I reread the notes I had jotted down on the drive to put into my journal later, there were none.  But I didn’t need notes to remember that the best part of the day was the evening, which I spent backed up to the Ohio River at Wolford’s Landing outside Portsmouth.

The day’s biggest thrill came when my canine traveling companion, Pepper, and I watched the sun go down over the Ohio River. I stayed an extra day at Wolford’s in hopes of a replay.

Book Report:  Travels With Maggie up 55,902 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Travel Books http://tinyurl.com/cng8jzl This blog intrigued me because I’m a big fan of travel books, and of the five favorites this blogger mentioned, I hadn’t read four of them. Of course I’m going to check those four out. How about you?

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