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I have created some entries on Worldisround where you will find pictures from my trip:

Highlights

Dayton, Part 1

Sunday September 23 -

I got home from Germany just under two weeks ago, and today I headed for Dayton, Ohio, for what was planned as an 11-day business trip.  Most days were spent on work-related activities, but with the trip straddling a weekend, I used those two days for some Louisville and northern Kentucky sightseeing.

During the course of the trip I had to make some changes to my plans, tacking on another three days for a side trip down to Florida.  By the time I got home, I had 42 travel days in a 54-day stretch, and six more planned for the following week.

I flew Frontier Airlines to Dayton through Denver.  The Denver stop was quite short.  I literally walked off one plane and onto the other, spending less than a minute in the terminal.  That made for the shortest overall travel time I've ever had between Seattle and Dayton, which was nice.  And given how much I grumble in these things about the various airlines, I have to point out that the Frontier people provided great customer service and the planes actually had sufficient legroom.  

The rental car company - Avis, this time - was a different matter.  They kept trying to sell me on an "upgrade", apparently unwilling to admit that they didn't have any of my reserved intermediates in stock.  I really have to wonder why Avis and Hertz even bother with reservations since they almost always trying to push something I didn't reserve onto me.  I ultimately ended up with a Chrysler PT Cruiser, which I thought was based on the Neon chassis, and thus hadn't considered it to be an intermediate.  An uncomfortable driver's seat combined with a car alarm that went off half a dozen times for no apparent reason - all in all not a vehicle I'd want to be stuck with again.

I picked up some dinner at Chicken Louie's on my way to the hotel.  After settling into the room and enjoying my "killer hot" chicken legs, I headed over to the grocery store next door to pick up some provisions for breakfasts for my 11-day visit.

I did get in a bit of nightlife - I checked out the new Centerville location for Celebrity.  Nice facility, miniscule crowd, and - good grief, why did they bring DJ Miss Hill with them to the new location?  

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Monday September 24 -

Work.  Reading.  Some TV.  The Stage Door.  That was about it.

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Tuesday September 25 -

Work.  Dinner with some friends.  But for some reason I was dead tired today - as we visited after dinner, I was having a difficult time keeping my eyes open.  So it wasn't as late a visit as these usually are, but it was good seeing them again.

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Wednesday September 26 -

A day at the office.

Tonight I headed to Dayton's Human Race Theater Company's Loft Theater to see Snapshots, A Musical Scrapbook, a 6-actor production that repurposes several songs from earlier shows by Stephan Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, The Magic Show, Rags, Children of Eden and Wicked among them) into a story about a middle-aged woman who is about to leave her husband.  In an awkward meeting just before she was about to leave, she and her husband happen upon a box of old photos, brought to life by actors portraying their earlier selves, telling the story of how the pair met, grew together and eventually grew apart.  A solid, emotional show, and the reuse of the music generally worked, although a couple of the songs didn't quite repurpose well.

Afterwards I checked out MJ's Cafe, a new gay club in downtown Dayton, founded by the owners of DJ's Saloon, one of my old haunts that recently closed as it is being torn down to build a new parking garage.  Great facility, small crowd.  I was back at the hotel by midnight.

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Thursday September 27 -

Work.  The Ugly Betty season premiere.  Some reading.  I was rather zonked out today, so I made an early night of it.

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Friday September 28 -

Not that it mattered.  I ended up waking up for good at 5AM.

Work.  Dinner.  Friday night nightlife in downtown Dayton.  First up, the Stage Door.  But it had a terribly small Friday night crowd.  So I headed next door to Club Masque, a generally splashy club that opened a few years ago.  It's never quite grabbed me - the music seems a bit dated, and the crowd doesn't really match the scene.  But an old bar buddy of mine hangs out there.

Or at least he used to.  No sign of him tonight, so I didn't stay too late.

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Kentucky Sightseeing Weekend

Saturday September 29 -

When I lived in the Dayton area, I made several overnight and weekend trips every year, targeting Columbus and Louisville mostly.  Last year, I tacked on some weekend time in Columbus to one of my Dayton trips, only to find a faded downtown and small crowds at my old favorite club.  This weekend I figured I'd head back to Louisville for the first time in about six years.  But I planned some Kentucky sightseeing to go with it.

After breakfast, I headed south into Kentucky.  When I hit Lexington, I headed east for the Red River Gorge Geological Area.  The area features approximately 100 arches and natural bridges.  I made a stop here once several years ago, but never made it back when I lived in Dayton.

I headed for my targeted hiking area but found that my park map was out of date, making for a much longer hike than I had planned on.  So I headed for a different area of the park where I took a handful of short hikes out to various arches and natural bridges, including Rock Bridge, Angel Bridges and Sky Bridge.  Not as colorful as the red rock formations in Arches National Park, but it is an interesting place to visit nonetheless.

From there I headed over to Louisville where I would spend the night.  It was already late afternoon when I reached the city, but I set off on a photo walk, especially to get some waterfront shots.  But the sun sets pretty early this time of year, so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted.

After the sun set, I headed to the area called Fourth Street Live!, a thriving section of downtown that features a number of restaurants and clubs.  Well, "thriving" may be the wrong word here.  It is indeed very lively, but it is only one block long.  And police officers check IDs before letting you in.  The ID check in particular is unfortunate as it drives home the message that downtown Louisville is not safe.  I'm not sure why they would want to do that.  Unless of course it really isn't safe.  I got dinner and then headed back to the room to take a look through my photos.

My nightlife was Louisville Connection.  It's a huge complex with a number of separate bar areas and dance floors.  Its theatre had the biggest crowd when I arrived, featuring La Boy Le Femme, an impressive drag show hosted by Hurricane Summers.  Hurricane and friends put on quite a show.  Hurricane is a good performer and has a great sense of humor and thus puts a lot of fun in the show.  Some drag performers will stand and do poor lip-syncing along to some tired Whitney Houston ballad (and crowds for some reason applaud when the performer merely lip-syncs to the high notes - uh, it's a recording, people).  To get my applause, the performer has to, well, perform, even if lip-syncing is part of the performance.  Hurricane performs.  And has been as long as I've been going to Louisville.

As for the rest of the complex?  Well, the crowd never picked up as much as I remember it did.  I don't know if it was just a slow night or if there's a new place in town luring the crowds.  In any event, the Louisville Connection is a great club, and I really enjoyed seeing it again, even if it is probably for the last time.  Over the last year or two, I've become more willing to skip the nightlife when I travel.  Not that I don't like the nightlife anymore.  But at 46, too much night begins to interfere with my day.  In other words, I'm getting old.  I was back at the hotel before 1AM.

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Sunday September 30 -

It was a beautiful sunny day when I got up.  I headed out with my camera to get the downtown Louisville photos I wanted, starting at the Belvedere and its George Rogers Clark statue pointing to the Ohio.  I made my way over to the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory, which features a bat sculpture 120 feet tall.  I then headed up Main Street and then over to the Thomas Edison House.  The inventor worked as a telegraph operator in Louisville until he was fired for conducting experiments while on the job.  I checked out the Billy Goat Strut Alley - I've never been sure of the significance of this ordinary alley, if any, but my map highlights it.  Breakfast at McDonalds and then back to the hotel to check out.

Living in Seattle now, and I'm used to a vibrant downtown.  I know that Dayton's downtown has faded terribly, but I don't think I paid much attention to Louisville's during my past visits.  Wide streets, a great river location, easy access to the interstates, and...  well, whatever downtown Louisville once was, it's not that any longer.  And that is a shame.

I crossed the Ohio River and headed into Clarksville, Indiana.  The Falls of the Ohio State Park is located at the location of where the Ohio River once spilled down some falls.  It became a starting point for Lewis & Clark as they began their trip to St. Louis where they launched their exploration of the Louisiana Territory.  A lock and dam system effectively ended the falls, but today it exposes a broad stretch of limestone in which numerous sea fossils are readily visible.

I had a couple more stops to make in Louisville.  First, I headed down to Churchill Downs for some photos there.  Churchill Downs, of course, is the home of the Kentucky Derby.  Then I headed over to a nearby grocery store with some hope that they might have Derby Pie, a very tasty Kentucky tradition.  Alas, no such luck.

I hit the road, heading west to Frankfort, where I toured the state capitol grounds and updated my photos of the place.  I also made a return visit to the cemetery where Daniel Boone and his wife are buried.  From there I headed south to Harrodsburg, for what I think was my fourth pass through the village.  It was the first white settlement in Kentucky and the site of the first cemetery for white settlers, a reconstructed fort, and the building where Abraham Lincoln's parents were married.  As I'm capturing digital photos of places I've visited in the past, I spent some time here, forgetting that I had stopped here back in 2004 on my first trip with a digital camera.  Oh well.  At least I had better daylight for this visit.

My last sightseeing stop was the town of Danville, and its Constitution Square State Historic Site, where Kentucky statehood began.  The state's constitution was drawn up in Danville, and it became the state's first seat of government - Constitution Square has information on that, and several historical buildings have been reconstructed or relocated here, including the first U.S. post office west of the Alleghenies.

I checked out other sites in town.  The first abdominal surgery in the U.S. took place in a house across the street from Constitution Square.  William Clark stopped in town to visit his nephews in 1806 en route to Washington, D.C., to fill in President Jefferson on the results of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.  Numerous Kentucky firsts took place in town although nothing that would really stand out to the average visitor.

And that was it.  I headed back to Dayton, got some dinner, and then spent the evening watching some TV and going through the trip's photos.

Dayton, Part 2

Monday October 1 -

Work.  Dinner.  An evening organizing and labeling my photos from my Kentucky weekend.

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Tuesday October 2 -

My last full day in Dayton, which I once again spent at the office.  I followed this with dinner, a movie (The Simpson's Movie) and packing for my Dayton departure tomorrow.  

Once again, no nightlife.  Dayton nightlife has been pretty underwhelming on this trip.

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Florida

Wednesday October 3 -

Florida?

So how did a long business trip to Dayton wind up getting me to Florida?  Well, since I don't discuss business in these trip summaries, you will just have to guess.  But instead of flying back to Seattle today as I had originally planned, instead I flew to Ft. Lauderdale for some meetings tomorrow.  

A run of the mill kind of travel day.  I flew down to Florida by way of Atlanta, picked up my rental car by mid-afternoon, and headed for my hotel.  A different one than where I stayed last year, but about as isolated, at least as far as restaurants and markets were concerned.  There was a gas station with some decent food options across the street - catering to workers heading home, I suppose.  Other than a short walk, I made an easy evening out of it.

Dinner at the hotel, which is a real rarity for me.  For nightlife I headed for Ft. Lauderdale's Boardwalk, the better of two bars I checked out when I was down here last year.

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Thursday October 4 -

Work.

But things wrapped up an hour early, so I headed for Highway A1A which hugs the Atlantic Coast, and headed north, stopping for some photo ops along the way as I made my way to Palm Beach.  There I walked around checking out the city center, and then I found a restaurant.  Which lacked water - apparently the area just north of where I was staying had gotten some cooties into the water system, which really limited what the restaurants could do.

After dinner it was back to my hotel.  I checked out Boardwalk again, and ran into someone who recognized me from last year's visit.  Things like that always amaze me as I have a hard time recognizing myself in the mirror each morning.

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Hunting Alligators

Friday October 5 -

It is pretty safe to say that when I left Seattle for Dayton on September 23 I never thought I would be spending part of this trip looking for alligators in the Florida Everglades.  From my Boca Raton hotel to home in Seattle is about 12 hours of travel and waiting.  That would have shot today, so I swapped my Friday travel day and my Saturday weekend day, giving me one last day of summer before heading back to Seattle.  I decided to spend it exploring sites along Highway 41, which passes through Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve as it crosses southern Florida.  I was on the hunt for some alligator photos - I was lucky enough to come across about a half dozen alligators during hikes and sightseeing at various stops.

I headed southwest towards Miami and US Highway 41, the Tamiami Trail, which cuts west across southern Florida towards Naples.  It follows the northern boundary of Everglades National Park and then cuts through the southern half of Big Cypress National Preserve.

I made a couple stops along the highway to check out the canals and pumping stations that control the amount of fresh water that passes south through the Everglades.  The Shark River Slough is essentially a broad grassy river that passes through the heart of the Everglades.

I then stopped at the Shark Valley Visitor Center, where I figured I'd check out the Observation Tower well to the south of the center.  Unfortunately it turned out that private cars weren't allowed at the tower.  Walking, bikes or a guided park tram tour only, and the next tram tour wouldn't start for about an hour and a half, and it would take the whole afternoon.  So instead I decided to head out for a walk down the observation tower road.  I checked out the Bobcat Trail, but didn't see any wildlife along that trail.  I did see some Florida gar swimming in the channel along the road, and I spotted a blue heron and a few anhingas.  No sign of any alligators in the marked alligator hole.

I figured I'd walk as far as the Otter Cave Trail, take that and then return back to the center.  The Otter Cave Trail leaves the road and cuts through a damp, woody hammock area, a slight rise in the land that is just dry enough to support a grove of tropical hardwood trees.  It was in here that I spotted my first alligator of the day.  In fact, I almost stepped on it.  A little baby gator was sitting on the trail and scurried into the brush just as I came upon it.  I did get a decent photo of it, but kept an eye out for an annoyed parent, although I don't know how maternal the adults are.

Where the Otter Cave Trail reconnected with the road is where I found my first big gator.  It was in the brushy channel next to the road.  There was enough brush that it was difficult to get a decent photo of it, and it kept moving as I did.  I don't think I was too close, but when it started hissing at me, I could tell that it thought I was.  I figured that the alligator's opinion on the subject outweighed mine, so I backed off.

Satisfied with the outcome of my first alligator hunt, I decided to try my luck at another location.  I headed for the Tree Snail Hammock Trail along a scenic road that cuts thorugh the southernmost end of Big Cypress National Preserve.  I parked the car along the side of the road near a Florida panther warning sign, and crossed a small footbridge across a narrow channel and heads into the hammock.  I didn't need to go far, though.  There was a good-sized gator in the water just a few feet from the bridge.  We watched each other for awhile and then I headed into the hammock to hike the short trail.  I didn't see any gators along that hike but the one at the bridge was still there when I got back.  

I hit the road, following the scenic drive for its whole length.  I made a few more stops to check out the cypress trees and look for alligators.  I saw a couple more at the Sweetwater Strand crossing, but that was it for the day.

I continued west on US 41, stopping at the Ochopee Post Office, generally regarded as the smallest post office in the U.S.  At Carnestown, I headed south on Highway 21 to check out Everglades City, the Gulf Coast Visitor Center and the village of Chokoloskee.  It was pretty enough, but it was getting late and stormy weather was coming in.

I took a different route back, heading north on Highway 21 along the western boundary of Big Cypress to I-75, and then east on I-75.  This stretch of I-75 is nicknamed Alligator Alley, but I didn't make any stops.

It was after 7PM by the time I reached the hotel.  I decided to skip looking for a restaurant and instead gassed up the rental car and picked up some dinner stuff at the station across the street.  After dinner, I spent the evening checking out my alligator photos and packing.

No nightlife for me tonight.  With the drive to the airport, the rental car shuttle, the recommended time to get to the airport in advance of one's flight and my early departure time, I figured I'd seen enough of the Boardwalk for this trip.

Good grief.  I am getting old.

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Heading Home

Saturday October 6 -

An 8:15 flight from Fort Lauderdale to Denver, and then from Denver to Seattle.  Early to the airport to secure United's EconomyPlus seats (extra leg room for a higher price).  With the time zone changes, I got home mid-afternoon.  An uneventful day all in all.

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Souvenirs

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