Sensational and Surreal Start of Summer Season 2019!…part 7: Fantastic End- of-June Mini-Trip Weekend!

     Still on a high from the Blues recent Stanley Cup championship and victory parade, it was time to get back into the normal routine.  There was daily work, but still fun times in the following 13 days.

     On Sun, June 16, it was Festa Junina—a Brazilian event at Kirkwood Community Center. 



















Next was the Volcanic Ash concert at Faust Park, worked from start to finish on my 72-page photo album for our post-Christmas Tulsa area trip, went to the Cardinals 4-2 win over the Angels on June 22 to join in on the Albert Pujols standing ovation following his home run. 

Later that night, went to The Family Arena with several friends to see the Silver Bullet and Big Love tribute bands.

     Followed those activities with purchases of Blues Stanley Cup memorabilia in June 23, attended a big wine and cheese house party on June 25, made dinners and all the while made detailed plans for our June 29-30 Evansville weekend mini-trip.

     Few people would consider Evansville much of a hot spot, but I had already traveled in all 50 states, including most major and secondary cities within a six-hour drive of St. Louis.  I have long been a big time travel researcher and a trip planner.   In fact, I even used a good deal of my Junior High Study Hall time to plan detailed vacations for my own family and that of several of my classmates. 

     My girlfriend Pam was looking for a city that wasn’t as large or hectic as most we had visited, and I did find quite a few real gems in Evansville!

     On Saturday, June 29, we left at 7:30 a.m. and drove non-stop the 175 miles to the Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden in that southeastern Indiana town.  We were there from 10:20-1:30, and especially loved feeding the giraffes and going into the Budgie Walkabout, featuring several dozen small birds with a variety of colors, resembling parakeets.

    

The Children’s Enchanted Forest was also interesting.  I enjoyed looking in on a variety of both physical and learning activities for kids.  This was the first extremely hot weather weekend of the year, reaching a 105 heat index.  Since Pam hates hot weather while I hate cold temperatures, she waited inside The Rain Forest Grill while I toured the Amazonia section.  It featured gorgeous flora, colorful toucans, short-tailed opossum, Amazon milk frogs, Brazilian Rainbow Boa, giant cockroaches, Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula and the brightest orange-colored birds I had ever seen!

     The zoo also featured a large ship with adjoining bumper boats, a Discovery Center, a giant animal-themed carousel, huge Galapagos Island tortoises and the beautiful Port Victoria area with large-swan boats in the lake’s waters, and flowers galore lining the adjacent walkway!

     One thing the zoo grossly lacked was decent eating areas.  So, we drove to the closest food source:  Taco John with really good food & a variety of lemonade flavors for just $1 apiece!

     Our next stop was the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science.  It far exceeded our expectations, featuring a fantastic variety of local, national and international art.  There were also good displays of local, regional and national history with a terrific Abraham Lincoln area, plus terrific hands-on science exhibits!

     There was also an extensive display of World War II memorabilia and description of how a small city like Evansville played such a major role in the war effort.

     There were exceptional astronomy exhibits with award-winning space program artwork in a juried competition dubbed, “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.”  But the piece de resistance was the planetarium show.  As a long-time astronomy nut with a Celestron 8-inch reflecting telescope from the mid-1970s, I was incredibly impressed by the 45-minute planetarium show, “Space Next” in the strangely-shaped Koch Immersive Theater!  Both the audio and the images were astounding!

Leaving there at 4:50, we walked about 200 feet to the Ohio River, then about the same distance to the Mickey’s Kingdom playground, given to Evansville by the Elks Club. After exploring that site for about 15 minutes, we walked back to the car so I could make two nights’ reservation at the Comfort Inn East.

     After settling in to our room, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner in the great atmosphere of Mission Barbecue!  There was military, police and firefighter memorabilia on every wall!  There were several dozen medals of honor, patriotic photos, flags and this giant wall sign:  “Choose the Harder Right Instead of the Easier Wrong.”

     Pam and I have never been on any trip of more than a single day without some live music event.  So, our final stop was the Tropicana Casino.  We enjoyed great music and some dancing to The Herchel Bailey Band, featuring sounds from the Motown era through the 1970s.

     Since it’s less than three hours from home, we also enjoyed a full Sunday in Evansville.  Actually, we first crossed over into Henderson, Kentucky on a very old, rusty bridge.  We parked by the Ohio River and walked along it to see a few signs of the area’s history and also some of the sculptures of renown naturalist, ornithologist and painter John James Audubon, who lived in Henderson for nine years.

     There were also signs about W.C. Handy, “The Father of the Blues,” who lived in Henderson for 11 years, and Lewis and Clark, who passed through the town in November 1803 on the way to Oregon’s lands end.

     











From there, we drove about a half mile to John James Audubon State Park.  The hiking trails there were average at best with the highlight being fantastic reflections on Wilderness Lake.  But we enjoyed the visitor center and especially the John J. Audubon Museum and Nature Center.

     Audubon was known for his love for birds and the museum itself was a bird lover’s paradise!  There were soooo many beautiful bird paintings and a large, round room with glass windows to view a wide variety of birds on outdoor feeders.

     There were also Audubon panoramas and dozens of his sculptures and paintings.  Audubon is a great example of how someone can best achieve success while following his or her passions.  This display perfectly described that message:

     “Audubon’s failure as a businessman forced him to make a bold choice that dramatically changed his life.  He had honed his artistic talents to a keen edge, and was ready to put them to use in making a living.  He would forsake his business career to follow the subjects of his artwork, spending much of his time and energy collecting new species to draw.

     “His ultimate goal was to publish his drawings.  The seed was planted that would grow to be the four-volume expression of his love for birds, known as ‘Birds of America’.”

     Our final stop was back in Evansville, along the Ohio River.  Once again, it was something highly historical!  The 2 p.m. heat index was 101, but that didn’t keep us from taking a guided tour of USS LST (Landing Ship Tank)-325.  It’s best known for Normandy landings at Omaha Beach in early June 1944.

    It is now a living museum and memorial with several dozen displays and historic artifacts! It’s also on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places! 

          But prior to that, the LST-325 was part of invasions of Sicily and Salerno, Italy. That was mostly in 1943. Even after D-Day, LST-325 made 40 trips across the English Channel, carrying thousands of men and far more pieces of equipment to help liberate Europe.

 Some of the below deck highlights for us were maps and photos of Operation Overlord, the code name for the D-Day invasion; memorabilia from the Evansville Shipyard, historical photos of the LST-325, several manikins of men on the ship, serving in their regular uniforms and positions, that well-known glamour photo of actress Betty Grable.

Our tour began and ended on the deck.  It gave me such a special feeling just standing there, thinking about my own dad, who served on the USS Argentine in the south of France just a few months or so after the D-Day invasion that started on June 6, 1944.

     Since it was equally hot below deck as in the bright sunshine atop, we returned to the car with air conditioning blasting on our faces with happy and vivid memories of our weekend in Evansville, returning on the final day of June, 2019, completing an incredible five weeks of early summer!