Thursday, August 13, 2015
The Road Home... Another Black Angel
The Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City is often confused with the Black Angel of Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs Iowa. One can understand considering their blackness and angelness and all. Since we were passing through Council Bluffs that morning on the way home, why not visit both. Again, we were rewarded.
From http://www.councilbluffs-ia.gov
"Locally known as "The Black Angel," this statue honors Ruth Anne Dodge, the wife of General Dodge. Sculpted by Daniel Chester French, creator of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Black Angel commemorates Ruth Anne Dodge's 1916 death.
The sculpture is said to be the translation of a dream experienced by Mrs. Dodge on the three nights preceding her death in 1916. According to the legend, Mrs. Dodge related to family members that she had a vision of being on a rocky shore and, through a mist, seeing a boat approach.
In the prow was a beautiful young woman whom Mrs. Dodge thought to be an angel. The woman carried a small bowl under one arm and extended the other arm toward Mrs. Dodge in an invitation to partake of the water flowing from the vessel.
Then, according to accounts later published by Mrs. Dodge's daughter, Anne, the angel spoke twice, saying: "Drink, I bring you both a promise and a blessing."
The daughter wrote that the vision came three times to her mother and, on the third visit, Mrs. Dodge took the drink as offered and felt "transformed into a new and glorious spiritual being." Mrs. Dodge died soon after the third vision. The monument was dedicated in 1920 and carries these inscriptions:
"Blessed are the Pure of Heart,for they shall see God. " Matt. 5:8
"And he showed me a pure river of the water of life; clear and crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. " Rev. 22:1.
"Let him that is athirst come and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. " Rev. 22:17"
Indeed.
The remainder of the journey home was uneventful, though pleasant. More music, more singing, more laughter... then home.
From http://www.councilbluffs-ia.gov
"Locally known as "The Black Angel," this statue honors Ruth Anne Dodge, the wife of General Dodge. Sculpted by Daniel Chester French, creator of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Black Angel commemorates Ruth Anne Dodge's 1916 death.
The sculpture is said to be the translation of a dream experienced by Mrs. Dodge on the three nights preceding her death in 1916. According to the legend, Mrs. Dodge related to family members that she had a vision of being on a rocky shore and, through a mist, seeing a boat approach.
In the prow was a beautiful young woman whom Mrs. Dodge thought to be an angel. The woman carried a small bowl under one arm and extended the other arm toward Mrs. Dodge in an invitation to partake of the water flowing from the vessel.
The daughter wrote that the vision came three times to her mother and, on the third visit, Mrs. Dodge took the drink as offered and felt "transformed into a new and glorious spiritual being." Mrs. Dodge died soon after the third vision. The monument was dedicated in 1920 and carries these inscriptions:
"Blessed are the Pure of Heart,for they shall see God. " Matt. 5:8
"And he showed me a pure river of the water of life; clear and crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. " Rev. 22:1.
"Let him that is athirst come and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. " Rev. 22:17"
Indeed.
The remainder of the journey home was uneventful, though pleasant. More music, more singing, more laughter... then home.
Hawkeye Point, 76 Trombones, The Black Angel, James T. Kirk, Amish Buggies, and... The High Barbaree... All in One Day!
The day ended with Triple Berry pie. But I get ahead of myself. We rolled at 8 AM after sub-optimal hotel biscuits and coffee. Ahead was a 546 mile day that will not be forgotten. No way. Too much of road trip goodness in one day. An hour of easy terrain among Iowa cornfields and farms brought us to Sibley and Hawkeye Point, 1,670 Feet. Well, Google did take us through some dirt roads and farmlands, and past an old cemetery (Google somehow knows our love for cemeteries and accommodates). But we arrived just a few minutes later than expected. After 13 months of no high points the old familiar exhilaration came without a nudge. The Point lies behind a farm just off the main highway... 3.5 miles south of the Minnesota state line. There are so many nice touches at this highpoint that I rank it above many others of greater elevation.
At Hawkeye Point, there is:
1. Great signage leading to the place;
2. A campground;
3. An observation deck;
4. A picture with holes for your faces;
5. A mosaic of Iowa;
6. A large stone marker;
7. A registration box;
8. A set of five signposts with 10 signs each pointing to all the other state highpoints and their distances (fantastic).
9. A bulletin board with license plates from all 50 states.
Since Alex had never been to Minnesota, we headed after photos and hopped on I-90 headed East to Albert Lea, Minnesota, where again we would head south into Iowa. Ahead and next on our agenda was the Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery, Iowa City, a place of vaunted haunted lore. But first, our appetites bid us to repast at Mason City, along the route. New fun fact: Mason City was the inspiration for River City of Music Man fame. Truly, it exuded midwest charm. Sigh. In another life. Rear view mirror.
But now the Black Angel...
From www.prairieghosts.com: "The black angel of Oakland Cemetery is an eight and a half foot tall burial monument for the Feldevert family, erected in the cemetery in 1912. Since that time, it has been the source of many stories and legends in Iowa City --- most connected to the mysterious change in color that the angel took, turning from a golden bronze to an eerie black..."
Alex had read about it, and we needed to see it, and it was on the way to a roadside shrine of an entirely different nature.
So we saw it. Took photos of it. And we were not afraid. It sure it interesting how people get superstitious about the silliest things. It was a very cool cemetery though.
Having buried our ghosts we went on to Riverside, Iowa, a place of great importance in the year 2248... the birthplace of... James Tiberius Kirk.
We had to do it. When he is finally born we can say we visited his future birthplace.
Oh, and live long and prosper!
Now, if this had been all there was to that day, it would have be a really great day. But this day wasn't over yet. Not by a longshot. My plan was to head west toward Omaha, back on I-80, and make a brief detour to Colfax, Iowa, the boyhood home of one of my favorite authors, James Norman Hall. But, GPS on our phones was NOT working. We were in a valley and a ways from the interstate. Not wanting to backtrack, I reckoned that we would be fine if we headed west out of Riverside toward Kalona, Iowa, then we could steer north again to the main artery. Through rolling hills we drove and listened and sang, musing on the cursed Black Angel and Star Trek. Until...
"Amish people!" I exclaimed, laughing out loud. "Yesssss!" For truly we had been rewarded. I had no clue, but seeing the quirky, anachronistic folk was a high point on a high point day. The girls laughed at me as I made Amish jokes and talked endlessly of the awesomeness of seeing Amish people unexpectedly. It's like going bird-watching and seeing an Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Well I was immensely entertained at seeing this primitive tribe in their natural habitat, especially when I had no idea whatsoever they were there. I had sermon illustrations wildly whirling in my mind when at last we reluctantly merged onto the main highway. And this day still wasn't done.
Last on the list was Colfax. A postage stamp town not far east of Des Moines, and just a few miles south of the freeway, James Norman Hall grew up here, the author of Mutiny on the Bounty and a good number of other great books. When I was in seminary I ran across his High Barbaree, and I was absolutely enchanted for an afternoon as I read his short novel about the survivors of war in the South Pacific. There were scenes in the novel that he drew from his childhood days in turn-of-the-century Colfax that really tugged on my nostalgia strings regarding my father's boyhood home on a farm in southern Oklahoma. I have an unbounded love for that time in our nation's history, especially turn of the century midwest. It is my personal utopia. So I just wanted to see the town, the standpipe, and the G-Note Road, running west toward Prairie City, a road of dreams and idealism and maybe of heaven on earth. I wasn't disappointed. It was a picture of the past and as close to how I imagined it as possible. We gave Alex her name from the protagonist of High Barbaree, Alec Brooke.
I have to admit I wanted to linger, and live another life here. But it would not be mine. Not in this life at least.. Back to life... back to reality... back through Des Moines to Clive.
How to top off a truly capital day? Why with triple berry pie! The day ended with triple berry pie...
At Hawkeye Point, there is:
1. Great signage leading to the place;
2. A campground;
3. An observation deck;
4. A picture with holes for your faces;
5. A mosaic of Iowa;
6. A large stone marker;
7. A registration box;
8. A set of five signposts with 10 signs each pointing to all the other state highpoints and their distances (fantastic).
9. A bulletin board with license plates from all 50 states.
Since Alex had never been to Minnesota, we headed after photos and hopped on I-90 headed East to Albert Lea, Minnesota, where again we would head south into Iowa. Ahead and next on our agenda was the Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery, Iowa City, a place of vaunted haunted lore. But first, our appetites bid us to repast at Mason City, along the route. New fun fact: Mason City was the inspiration for River City of Music Man fame. Truly, it exuded midwest charm. Sigh. In another life. Rear view mirror.
But now the Black Angel...
From www.prairieghosts.com: "The black angel of Oakland Cemetery is an eight and a half foot tall burial monument for the Feldevert family, erected in the cemetery in 1912. Since that time, it has been the source of many stories and legends in Iowa City --- most connected to the mysterious change in color that the angel took, turning from a golden bronze to an eerie black..."
Alex had read about it, and we needed to see it, and it was on the way to a roadside shrine of an entirely different nature.
So we saw it. Took photos of it. And we were not afraid. It sure it interesting how people get superstitious about the silliest things. It was a very cool cemetery though.
Having buried our ghosts we went on to Riverside, Iowa, a place of great importance in the year 2248... the birthplace of... James Tiberius Kirk.
We had to do it. When he is finally born we can say we visited his future birthplace.
Oh, and live long and prosper!
Now, if this had been all there was to that day, it would have be a really great day. But this day wasn't over yet. Not by a longshot. My plan was to head west toward Omaha, back on I-80, and make a brief detour to Colfax, Iowa, the boyhood home of one of my favorite authors, James Norman Hall. But, GPS on our phones was NOT working. We were in a valley and a ways from the interstate. Not wanting to backtrack, I reckoned that we would be fine if we headed west out of Riverside toward Kalona, Iowa, then we could steer north again to the main artery. Through rolling hills we drove and listened and sang, musing on the cursed Black Angel and Star Trek. Until...
"Amish people!" I exclaimed, laughing out loud. "Yesssss!" For truly we had been rewarded. I had no clue, but seeing the quirky, anachronistic folk was a high point on a high point day. The girls laughed at me as I made Amish jokes and talked endlessly of the awesomeness of seeing Amish people unexpectedly. It's like going bird-watching and seeing an Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Well I was immensely entertained at seeing this primitive tribe in their natural habitat, especially when I had no idea whatsoever they were there. I had sermon illustrations wildly whirling in my mind when at last we reluctantly merged onto the main highway. And this day still wasn't done.
Last on the list was Colfax. A postage stamp town not far east of Des Moines, and just a few miles south of the freeway, James Norman Hall grew up here, the author of Mutiny on the Bounty and a good number of other great books. When I was in seminary I ran across his High Barbaree, and I was absolutely enchanted for an afternoon as I read his short novel about the survivors of war in the South Pacific. There were scenes in the novel that he drew from his childhood days in turn-of-the-century Colfax that really tugged on my nostalgia strings regarding my father's boyhood home on a farm in southern Oklahoma. I have an unbounded love for that time in our nation's history, especially turn of the century midwest. It is my personal utopia. So I just wanted to see the town, the standpipe, and the G-Note Road, running west toward Prairie City, a road of dreams and idealism and maybe of heaven on earth. I wasn't disappointed. It was a picture of the past and as close to how I imagined it as possible. We gave Alex her name from the protagonist of High Barbaree, Alec Brooke.
I have to admit I wanted to linger, and live another life here. But it would not be mine. Not in this life at least.. Back to life... back to reality... back through Des Moines to Clive.
How to top off a truly capital day? Why with triple berry pie! The day ended with triple berry pie...
Rocking Out to Hawkeye
It has been a year and then some since the last foray to a state high point. It has been an action-packed year. Our son Turner, who began the high point adventures with me, has gone off to college at Moody Bible Institute. Our daughter has set her sights high for college and has extraordinary accomplishments for her age. I have been to war-torn Ukraine and back; we have hiked in Zion National Park and strolled the shore at Pacific Grove, California. We have been back and forth to Spokane individually and as a family, to California, Oregon, Virginia, and Texas. But not one of us has visited a single state high point. Last summer's bounty was rich: Kansas, Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana, all in one swoop. Thanks to the demands of a family going in many directions, and a busy summer for all of us, it came to three days and one high point, a foray to Hawkeye Point, Iowa. We invited the daughter of our dear friends, Lorelei Thorne as a guest high-pointer, and she brought much to the team: humor, low-maintenance traveller, and best of all, DJ and singer extraordinaire. We would have great tunes and singing on this road trip.
We were poised to see state high point #25, Hawkeye Point, Iowa.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
3716.3 Sunrise to Sunset
We left on a Wednesday morning at sunrise, to beautiful rays of sun beaming down on the Eastern Plains of Colorado. We returned on a Wednesday evening at sunset, to rays of sun beaming down on the Rocky Mountains from Long's Peak to Pike's Peak. Yellow-Orange-Gold fireworks that no man can imitate. What a perfect way for God to conclude our trip.
The trip odometer says 3716.3. That is a measure of miles. But how can we measure precious times, shared experiences, laughter, awe? I don't think we can. But we can be thankful. That I am.
The trip odometer says 3716.3. That is a measure of miles. But how can we measure precious times, shared experiences, laughter, awe? I don't think we can. But we can be thankful. That I am.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Hoosier Hill, Bridge Out, Baseball, and How to Make Friends in Rural America
Siri said go west. We went. Siri said go south. We went. Siri said go west. The sign said "Bridge Out, 5 Miles." We went West anyway, on US 36 (which eventually goes to Boulder, Colorado), only to arrive at a sign that says, "Road Closed 3 Miles Ahead, Local Traffic Only"
Not to be discouraged or defeated, since the actual high point was only ten miles beyond, we plotted a course through the lesser farm roads of Ohio and Indiana with our map app. Left here, right there. We came to the tiny village of Hollansburg, Ohio and dropped off a postcard. Up the street all the cars from all around were parked in a field at roadside. What??? Ah, little league baseball. There's still hope for America after all. How completely charming! I wanted to stop and pick a team to cheer for, but Alex wouldn't let me. Too shy. Too embarassing.
On the other side of town, the roads got more narrow, down to single lanes between corn fields. Suddenly we came out at Bethel, and a zig zag later we found the Highest Point in Indiana, Hoosier Hill. 3 students from a local college were there, signing the logbook. It was their first highpoint, my 24th, and Alex's 14th. We all had a few minutes pleasant chat, and went our ways, the chance meeting having run its course. It seemed remarkable that the five people who visited the high point that day all happened to be there at the same time.
The ten miles south of Bethel to Interstate 70 were an up and down roller coaster ride unlike any other. We both got that funny feeling in our stomachs many times. Interstate. Nothing happens on the interstate, does it?
On the other side of town, the roads got more narrow, down to single lanes between corn fields. Suddenly we came out at Bethel, and a zig zag later we found the Highest Point in Indiana, Hoosier Hill. 3 students from a local college were there, signing the logbook. It was their first highpoint, my 24th, and Alex's 14th. We all had a few minutes pleasant chat, and went our ways, the chance meeting having run its course. It seemed remarkable that the five people who visited the high point that day all happened to be there at the same time.
The ten miles south of Bethel to Interstate 70 were an up and down roller coaster ride unlike any other. We both got that funny feeling in our stomachs many times. Interstate. Nothing happens on the interstate, does it?
Campbell Hill, Ohio: The Business Park
What a relief it was, the stress completely gone, when we turned off the interstate and headed along the lesser byways toward Bellefontaine, Ohio through the rolling farmlands. A right turn and a brief jaunt brought us to the campus of a job training center, and the highest point in Ohio, Campbell Hill. There were no signs from the highway, and we had to go on the ten year old guidebooks to thread our way through the parking lots to the top of the hill.
So it wasn't Clingman's Dome or Brasstown Bald. We had fun findin
g it. My comment: highpointing is like a cross country scavenger hunt. Road trip plus navigating skills plus a little bit of deduction along the way. We bond, we team up, we solve problems, we listen to podcasts. Four hour podcasts on the siege of Muenster in 1536. Wow, Dan Carlin, you are a great narrator of history. Highly recommended for road trips or lengthy hospital stays. Any time with time to listen. Hardcore History with Dan Carlin. Itunes it.
We dialed in Bethel, Indiana to the Iphone maps app and headed out for what we expected would be an uneventful 90 minute drive to Hoosier Hill. We were wrong. Siriously wrong.
So it wasn't Clingman's Dome or Brasstown Bald. We had fun finding it. My comment: highpointing is like a cross country scavenger hunt. Road trip plus navigating skills plus a little bit of deduction along the way. We bond, we team up, we solve problems, we listen to podcasts. Four hour podcasts on the siege of Muenster in 1536. Wow, Dan Carlin, you are a great narrator of history. Highly recommended for road trips or lengthy hospital stays. Any time with time to listen. Hardcore History with Dan Carlin. Itunes it.
We dialed in Bethel, Indiana to the Iphone maps app and headed out for what we expected would be an uneventful 90 minute drive to Hoosier Hill. We were wrong. Siriously wrong.
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