Tuesday, July 19, 2016

{Road Trip} Day Four - Ohio Presidential III + A Little Football

This morning we traced the life of our 25th Commander in Chief, and Lady's favorite, President William McKinley.

From his (reconstructed, but currently under renovation, so we couldn't tour) birthplace in Niles, OH...




to the site of two of his former residences in nearby Poland, OH...

The first once stood at 101 South Main Street where this office building stands now...
 



Another stood across the street near where the parking lot of this bank is today...




From Poland, we headed back to Canton to tour the Saxton McKinley Home.  This home was the ancestral home of First Lady Ida (Saxton) McKinley and where the McKinleys lived on and off during their marriage.  It is now the First Ladies National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service...




We spent the evening at the Pro Football Hall of Fame...




 
 
 


We loved seeing the draft card for one of our Clemson favorites, Shaq Lawson...




On the way back to the hotel we made a special stop (requested by B) at the birthplace of both Stephen Curry and LeBron James in Akron.  Yes, folks, may I present THE hospital where both basketball stars took their first breaths...




More {Road Trip} 2016 Fun
Day Nine - Lansing, Michigan and The Henry Ford

Monday, July 18, 2016

{Road Trip} Day Three - Ohio Presidential II and Columbus, Ohio

So, today we canvassed the lower half of Ohio...  No, seriously...  With that detour to Buffalo (you know, because it was "close by"), it was a little hard to merge back into the original trip...  So, we might have done some backtracking taking some less traveled roads due to the GPS, but we got to all of our destinations (you can read that as plaques and historical markers that are not near anything else).

First, we made a stop at the birthsite of Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks...





Thomas A. Hendricks served as the 21st Vice President of the United States under President Grover Cleveland.

He was born in Muskingum County, OH in 1819.  The historical marker stands on the edge of a farm near a country road.  Dodging some horse mess to get to the marker, B remarked (with great pride, I might add) that this is his second time walking in a cow (or horse) pasture for a picture...  You can read about his first time here...  Great fun, I tell you!

From there, we continued along a road that looked like this...  That's dirt...the GPS led us to a nice, dirt road...




Once we got to Marietta, OH, we tracked down the birthplace of Vice President Charles G. Dawes.  He served as the 30th Vice President of the United States under President Calvin Coolidge.

Though the home has undergone a lot of change over the years, the room where he was born still stands within the updated structure.  Currently, the building houses The Betsey Mills Club, a nonprofit community organization named after the aunt of VP Dawes.




 B and I ventured inside where a very nice lady happily showed us the plaque commemorating the room where he was born in 1865.  So neat!




Also in that room was a portrait painting.  The  lady showing us around wasn't sure who it was, but I'm thinking Charles G. Dawes.  Here's looking at you, VP Dawes!


 

Looks just like him, right?  I mean, when I look him up in Wikipedia, that is...  ;)


From Marietta, we continued on to Columbus to run up some state capitol building steps!


Columbus, OH
Ohio Statehouse
B's 32nd set of state capitol steps scaled...
#capitolstepschallenge




Next up...

Another VP, another birthsite...

 

 
Charles W. Fairbanks served as the 26th Vice President of the United States under President Theodore Roosevelt.

He was born in Unionville Center, OH in 1852.  The historical marker stands on an empty lot near a nice little park area.




We continued on to Delaware, OH and the birthsite of President Rutherford B. Hayes.  The site is now a BP gasoline station, so of course we had to fill up!




The last stop of the day was at a historical marker commemorating the location of one of President William McKinley's homes in Canton, now the site of the local library...





What a day!


More {Road Trip} 2016 Fun
Day Nine - Lansing, Michigan and The Henry Ford

Sunday, July 17, 2016

{Road Trip} Day Two - Oh, Buffalo...

Today we covered a good bit of ground, booking it up to Buffalo, NY for the day...  Let's just call this our "Alamo" for this year's trip...  It wasn't in the original plan, but when we realized how close (to clarify, "close" on a road trip is more like..."Oh, the Grand Canyon is only 4 hours away, we HAVE to swing by!") we'd be, we decided to check it out.

The Buffalo area is home to several presidential sites related to both President Millard Fillmore, and sadly, President William McKinley, as well.

Our first stop was a bit of a bust, and I was pretty disappointed.  I might have even shed a couple tears...  If it is a site that can be toured and we don't tour it (or at least step foot inside), we don't count it.  This is serious stuff...  Having cut out an earlier morning stop in order to make it to East Aurora, NY in time to tour the Millard Fillmore House, but getting delayed yet again with road work on the interstate, we arrived at 3:40, and no one was there...  Like it was locked up with no sign of life...  Mind you, the posted hours were 1:00-4:00pm...  
 



Sooo, someone should've been there, even if we were too late for a full on tour, right?  I called the number listed on the website (I had emailed earlier in the day) and no one could come give us a tour...  Darn it...  Like when are we going to be back in East Aurora, NY again?  Ummm, I'm going to guess, never?

Oh well...  We peeked inside...



 
 

 

and toured the gardens...


{B captured this shot!}

With that, we said see ya to East Aurora, and headed on over to Buffalo...

In Buffalo, we visited the sites of two of President Fillmore's homes.  The Franklin Street site is now home to a school...




and the Delaware Street site in Niagara Square now looks to be either a hotel or an apartment building, and is currently undergoing some construction...




Lastly, we visited President Fillmore's grave in Forest Lawn Cemetery...




President William McKinley, one of the "Ohio Presidents", was assassinated and died in Buffalo, NY.

In 1901, while attending the Pan-American Exposition, President McKinley was shot at the Temple of Music.  A plaque marks the spot where it once stood...




President McKinley was taken to the nearby Milburn House where he died about a week later.  A marker is all that remains of the Milburn House today...


 {Leapfrog did find a four leaf clover in the area underneath the sign!}


Ending on a happy note, we swung by the Buffalo Bills stadium on the way out of town.  We do love our local Clemson boys, Sammy Watkins and the newly drafted, Shaq Lawson...