Trips – Page 64 – Kevin's America

Great Lakes Trip 2019 Day 11

Dixon IL

Wings of Peace and Freedom, donated to the city of Dixon by Nick Taney, an immigrant to the US from Bulgaria, in gratitude for President Reagan’s part in ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Interestingly, Dixon was home to several people who made significant contributions to American life. Charles Walgreen, the founder of Walgreen’s Drug Store. The Walgreen family still owns the estate in Dixon.

John Deere developed the steel plow in Dixon.
Also, film director/actor Orson Welles was born just a few miles from Dixon.

Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard here for several years in the 1920s. He was credited for saving 77 lives in the Rock River here during those years.

This is a statue of Abraham Lincoln in military uniform. Lincoln served in the military during the Blackhawk War in the early 1830s. He never saw any combat, but he was stationed here in Dixon during that time.

After church, we ate lunch at Flynnie’s Diner, which was very good!

President Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, Dixon IL

Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States. He was president from 1981-1989. He is one of my favorite presidents. After four years of President Carter’s “malaise”, President Reagan ushered in a time of positive outlook, and a great turnaround of a sour economy and a depleted military. He spoke of the US as the “shining city on the hill”. I could talk about this president for hours, since I grew as a young adult and got married during his presidency.

This is the home in Dixon that Ronald Reagan lived for a few years during his childhood. He was an excellent athlete, and a superior swimmer. After graduating from Eureka College (IL) with a degree in Economics, he went on to become a radio announcer. As a radio announcer, he broadcast Chicago Cubs baseball games from a small radio station in Iowa. There was no live TV feed (not available yet), so he would receive the teletype throughout the games and announce that action as though he was actually watching it! While he was in California for Cubs spring training, he scored a screen test, and thus his acting career in Hollywood began! Reagan served several terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, then went on to become governor of California in the late 1960s.

This statue shows President Reagan looking at corn kernels.

This was Reagan’s parents’ bedroom. None of the home’s furnishings are from the Reagans, but period pieces. Ronald and his brother Neil Reagan described what they remembered about the furnishings when the house was being prepared to become a museum.

The Reagans actually had an indoor bathroom (not with these fixtures, however).

When President Reagan visited Dixon in 1984, he recalled that as a child, he would hide his coins under this tile by the fireplace (for safekeeping). He reached down and place four pennies under the tile to demonstrate.

Popcorn was a favorite snack of the Reagan boys.

When President Reagan visited Dixon in 1984, he ate lunch here. He sat at the left in this picture. The place at about 8 o’clock in the picture is the plate he ate from.

The ice box in the center of the wall has a sign for “ICE”. The customer would place this sign in the window to indicate to the Ice Man how much ice was needed. Each ice block was 25 pounds.

The inside of the “ice box”. The blocks were picked up with tongs similar to these.

Ronnie Reagan and his friends played a lot of football in this yard beside the house.

1919 Model T Ford similar to one the Reagans would have owned.

Reagan and his brother were both voracious readers. They would come to this library to check out books.

The Reagans attended this church. Reagan’s mother was a Sunday School teacher here, as well as Ronald himself as he grew older.

President Reagan was born here in Tampico IL, about 20 miles from Dixon.

Reagan was born in an apartment on the second floor of this bank building. It was a bakery at the time Reagan was born, February 6, 1911. The room he was born in was the window to the left of the sign on the second floor.

Plaque on the building. President Reagan was a determined proponent of individual liberty.

This is the back porch of the apartment, with a window from the adjoining apartment. When Reagan was an infant/toddler, and his mother needed to step out to do chores, she would simply hand the child through the window to the neighbor to watch. When President Reagan visited in 1984, he crawled through the window, which he said was “the last time”.

Windmills along the Illinois countryside. They weren’t turning very much, some not at all.

Great Lakes Trip 2019 Day 10

We sadly leave Milwaukee. Mary Jean and Trena could have talked for another month and still wouldn’t say everything! They have known each other since 1960! Sisters!

So Milwaukee has a bronze statue of The Fonz. Heyyyyyy!

Downtown Milwaukee on the Milwaukee River.

Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison WI

The Capitol sits at the top of a hill so it dominates the landscape.

The Capitol looks like this on all four sides; it is shaped like an “X”.

This is the entrance to the Senate chambers. The entrance looks exactly the same for the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court. The doors were all locked so I was not able to see inside.

Downtown Madison was celebrating Taste of Madison, which drew several thousand to the Capitol. Good timing for us – we had to park about 10 blocks away, down hill!

Dixon IL

President Ronald Reagan grew up in this town. He worked as a lifeguard here, and graduated high school here, prior to leaving for Eureka College.

The parlor. It looks like we stepped back into the 1890s!

We ate dinner here, a very nice Italian restaurant.

Great Lakes Trip 2019 Day 9

Whitefish Point Coast Guard Station in the early morning as we left. Lake Superior winds blew very loudly all night long, even though there was no storm – just wind, lots of wind! It sounded like a blizzard!

This bumper sticker is pretty funny. We know what they mean.

Lake Michigan. Both of us have seen Lake Michigan before, numerous times. In fact this was the only Great Lake we had seen prior to this trip. No one was around who we could ask to take our picture, so we had to do two singles…

… this view of Lake Michigan is in Manistique MI.

Manistique East Breakwater Lighthouse on Lake Michigan.

We didn’t see any real live moose(s), but we saw these…

Lambeau Field, Green Bay WI – legendary home of the Green Bay Packers.

We made it to Milwaukee to Trena’s (Mary Jean’s sister-in-law)! Here we all are: me, Trena, Rick (Trena’s son), Adrian (Rick’s daughter) and Mary Jean. We had a relaxing overnight visit with a steak cookout, and late night talking about the good old days.

Great Lakes Trip 2019 Day 8

Whitefish Point MI

After Mackinac Island, we headed north to Whitefish Point MI, which is home to a Coast Guard station, and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. This point on Lake Superior is where ships from the west turn south toward the Sault Ste. Marie canals to enable passage southward. Many shipments of iron ore have passed through here on the way to Detroit.

So here we are on the shore of Lake Superior! Our fourth lake this trip!

When we arrived, it looked like a storm.

Two hours later, the sky had cleared quite a bit. Here is a ship turning southward.

Sunset on Lake Superior (we woke up to sunrise on Lake Huron this morning!) This view is looking northward.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. This was one of the stops I have really been looking forward to. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a large ship which sunk 17 miles from here in November 1975. I remember that shipwreck, primarily because it was memorialized by Gordon Lightfoot hit ballad *The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald*. If you have some time, look it up and give it a listen. It is quite fascinating.

White Shoal Lens. This is a second order lens (Outer banks lights are all fourth order lens). It has a 9 foot diameter and weighs 3500 pounds. Its light with 344 separate precision ground prisms can be seen 28 miles away!

The museum contains artifacts from a number of shipwrecks.

There have been over 6000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.

The Edmund Fitzgerald sunk 17 miles from Whitefish Point. It was broken apart in a severe November storm and sunk 500+ feet deep. The entire crew of 29 men were lost.

This is the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald. The divers removed this bell, and replaced it with a replica. The divers did not look inside the ship, so they did not otherwise disturb the final resting place for the crew.

We stayed here overnight. This was the Crews’ Quarters, and has been converted to a B&B.

… they go out on Lake Superior early every morning and bring in their haul of whitefish. They only serve what they caught that morning. They are open until 7 PM, or when they run out of fish, whichever comes first!

Tahquamenon Falls (pronounced like phenomenon). The brown color is from tannic acid, which results from decomposing vegetation in the cedar, hemlock, and spruce forests upstream.

Whitefish Point Light Station in action!

Great Lakes Trip 2019 Days 7-8

Mackinac Island MI

Background: I watched the movie Somewhere in Time back in the early 1980s. The movie starred Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve, and is a love story. It is set on Mackinac Island (pronounced Mackinaw). Mackinac is a beautiful island, and is ranked among the top summer vacation islands in the world.

So let’s get the corny stuff out of the way first. I wanted to recreate some of the scenes in the movie. Here goes…