May 22-23, 2005

Ann Arbor-Nashville Meandering

Traveling Companion: None
Vehicle: My truck

Leg 1: Lowest Point in Michigan

Lake Erie
Luna Pier, Michigan
571 Feet

After visiting friends in Charlottesville, VA; Kitchener, ON; and Ann Arbor, MI; I began making my way to visit my family in Nashville. Quickly after leaving Ann Arbor, I stopped in the small lakefront community of Luna Pier. It was an overcast, windy morning on the beach of Lake Erie, but there were a few people fishing out on the concrete quay plus a kid playing with the shorebirds. Then I ate lunch in Toledo, OH, and weaved my way through northern Ohio and eastern Indiana collecting new counties.

Leg 2: Highest Point in Indiana

Hoosier Hill
1,257 Feet


The trail up Hooiser Hill		Hoosier Hill is in northern Wayne County, a mile or two west of state road 227. On 227, look for Bethel Road in the town of Bethel, and head west until you get to Elliott Road and turn north. There is a green road sign indicating the high point on the left after about a mile. I had accidentally turned the wrong way on Elliott Road, but a nice woman out planting in her garden set me straight.

Then I went to Greensburg, IN, home of the Decatur
County Courthouse, which has a large tooth aspen
tree growing out of the top of it. A tree first appeared
in 1870. That one died, but more have grown in its
place.

Leg 3: Highest Point in Ohio

Campbell Hill
1,550 Feet

On Monday morning, I got up early, packed up my tent, and ate breakfast before scaling Campbell Hill. I arrived at about 8:45 AM to find parking difficult because it was time for school to begin. Campbell Hill is located on the grounds of the Ohio Hi Point Career Center, a vocational school. The highest point was formerly used as a NORAD installation, but once it seemed up unlikely that missiles or bombers would make it to central Ohio without being detected earlier, a vocational school was opened on top. The actual high point is to the left of the carpentry building.
Campbell HillThe X marks the highest point

The rest of the day was taken up with driving through Ohio and Kentucky, stopping at the Doric temple that Abraham Lincoln was born in. The one room log cabin in which Lincoln was born is now surrounded by a neo-classical temple with nothing else in it. (Is it that obvious that I was listening to the audiobook of Sarah Vowell's Assasssination Vacation on this whole trip?)

Then I worked my way over to Owensboro, KY, and sampled the mutton barbecue and burgoo that the city is famous for. I ate at the Moonlite BBQ Inn. The burgoo was just okay, but the mutton was excellent. Then on my way to visit my family in Nashville, I stopped in Clarksville where my friend Boone gave me a tour of the largest porcelain tile factory in North America before heading to Nashville to visit my parents.