Photos

Historic Bishop’s Palace in Galveston

/ Roadtirementvintage / 5 Comments

Known as Bishop’s Palace, this Victorian style mansion was originally the home of Josephine and Walter Gresham. Gresham was a railroad magnate and hired famed architect Nicholas Clayton to design the home. The structure was completed in 1892, and miraculously it survived the disastrous hurricane of 1900.


From 1923 until the 1960’s the house was used as the residence of the Bishop of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese. It is now owned by the Galveston Historical Foundation. Guided and self guided tours are available for an admission fee.


This stunning mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Locally in Galveston it is a contributing building in the East End Historic District, in its entirety a National Historic Landmark.

The old jail in Bardstown is haunted and a Bed and Breakfast

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Bardstown, Kentucky is in Nelson County and is in the heart of the Kentucky Bourbon industry. Bardstown is also home to one of the oldest jails in the area. The original jail structure (now called the front jail) was erected in 1819 and was used until 1874 to house prisoners. In 1874 the “back jail” was built and held inmates until 1987. During this time the front jail was the jailer’s residence. The facility is now a Bed and Breakfast using the rooms in the old residence.

Thick walls and narrow windows of the jail

The history of this place is fascinating. You can (for a fee) take a tour of the back jail, with many of the jail cells untouched since the last prisoners left in 1987. There are original photos, some of which show the last hanging that took place in 1894 in the yard in back of the jail. Some paranormal activity has been reported and investigated.

Back of the jail where the gallows were for the last hanging in 1894

Hood and shackles for the 1894 hanging

 

 

 

 

 

The structure is quite the fortress! The walls are every bit of 30 inches thick with large metal bars covering the narrow windows. There are mason’s marks on the huge stones where hooks were used to move them into place during the construction. The original wall surrounding the back yard is complete with massive solid metal gates.

There are some nice RV parks in the area, including My Old Kentucky Home State Park. Be sure to check out the old jail. By the way, there are 11 (count ’em) distilleries in and around Bardstown. Go ahead and take a distillery tour while you are there.

Good timing at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial

/ Roadtirementvintage / 17 Comments

One thing we have discovered about Roadtirement is that timing is sometimes everything. We hit perfect timing when we visited Mt. Rushmore a while back on one of our trips to Seattle. We were at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial on a Sunday in late August a week before Labor Day. The traffic was minimal, and we discovered a vehicle pull off on the Norbeck Parkway, Route 244, where you can see George Washington’s face in profile. The parking area was nearly void of cars and outside the Park grounds.

See George directly above the white truck?

Sure there were some vehicles that pulled in to the turn off, but very few stayed for any length of time. It seemed like we had that beautiful slice of Mt. Rushmore all to ourselves.

George’s big profile view

Some statistics: George’s face is 60 feet tall, his nose is 20 feet long and his mouth is 18 feet across. Oh, and don’t forget his eyes. They are 11 feet wide each. Glad we had a telephoto lens!

 

Haunted Suicide Railroad Bridge

/ Roadtirementvintage / 12 Comments

The sad story has been repeated over and over: Unwed girl gets pregnant, gives birth, and takes her life and the infant’s life as well.

This tale of tragedy takes a paranormal turn in Columbus, Indiana. The time is in the mid 1920’s, when illegitimate children brought shame not only to the mother but to her family as well. One such birth led to the young unwed mother making the decision to take her own life and her baby’s. The location of the suicide was an open railroad bridge over the East Fork of the White River in Columbus, Indiana.

The old open RR bridge

Locals still report seeing the misty figure of a young woman with a bundled blanket in her arms standing on this bridge, which does not have adequate width to even allow current pedestrian traffic. This figure vanishes into “thin” air. Perhaps even more unsettling is the mournful sound of a baby wailing, also heard emanating from somewhere in the area.

The center portion of the bridge

Research into this apparition has revealed a couple of accounts of the sighting of some sort of large yellow eyed creature being seen on this bridge at times. However I was not able to confirm any such sightings or reports of same with the locals.

Note: This post is taken from our My Paranormal Encounters blog.

American Shorthair Tabby cat

/ Roadtirementvintage / 22 Comments

Just this week a stray tom cat has been hanging around our house and neighborhood.

He likes to peer in through the screen in the back door

A cute face and a sweet little meow

This skinny American Shorthair Tabby cat appeared in the neighborhood a few days ago. He wants in the house, and wants to adopt us. He is quite vocal and hopefully he’ll find somebody that will take him in before winter sets in…

 

The Berlin Wall in Rapid City, South Dakota

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Original wall sections, note the tank trap in foreground

Having just seen some of the statues of US Presidents in downtown Rapid City we continued just driving around checking out the town. Sher spotted a sign in a park next to the convention center that said “The Berlin Wall”. There we found a memorial to the history of the divided city and the ultimate fall of Communism and the tearing down of the wall in November of 1989. Remember Reagan’s speech to the Soviet leader? “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

There are two sections of the original Berlin Wall displayed along with information filled plaques, signs and even old tank traps that were once used at Check Point Charlie, the only gate between East and West Berlin during the times of the divided city.

Original sign from “Check Point Charlie”

If you travel through the Rapid City area on your way to Mt. Rushmore, take a few minutes and go see this memorial. It is worth the time.

Texas Hill Country’s Jester King Brewery

/ Sher / 4 Comments
This is a post that Sher wrote back in February, 2020 just before we cut short our time as Winter Texans and headed back to Indiana before COVID struck. We just found this and somehow it never got published. So…Here it is.

It was a special treat for us to visit Jester King Brewery while we were in Austin, TX because our last name is Jester.  So, of course we had to buy some beer with our name in it!

Enjoying our beer under one of the heaters

It is located at a beautiful 165 acre ranch in the Texas Hill Country.  It is so welcoming and a fun place for all ages.  Since we are retired we were able to visit when it opened at 4pm, so they weren’t super busy.  We had had a late lunch, so we weren’t hungry but their pizza looked delicious and by the looks of people ordering it I think it was a favorite.  We were there on Maj’s birthday and  we already had reservations in town with our family in Austin, or I would have suggested we have dinner there.

The kitchen/food bar

The spacious and comfortable seating area

 

 

 

 

 

They had many choices of beer, but it was easy for us to choose one we wanted try, the Jester-King one!  We, also, bought a bottle to bring home.  How we could we turn down a beer with our name on it?

Had to have it!

We had fun and it is on our recommended places to visit.  The bartenders were exceptionally nice and so friendly and helpful in answering our questions.  They have an outdoor covered area for seating with heaters, and a bonfire outside when we were there.

This is a favorite place and we’ll definitely  be going back the next time we are in Austin.  And, getting pizza!

If this old tin barn could talk

/ Roadtirementvintage / 16 Comments


Tin roofing? Yes, of course. However you don’t often see tin siding on a barn. This old structure needs a little TLC, at least a paint job! You can see at the peak of the roof the overhang indicating that originally there was a pulley and rail for loading loose hay into the barn. This old barn has been around for a long time.

A bright blue iron bridge

/ Roadtirementvintage / 5 Comments

Normally old iron truss bridges are painted in shades of green. Not this one, Shelby County Bridge #117 on CR 600 S. Bridgehunter.com has a 2010 photo showing a rusty green, but a 2016 shot shows a shiny bright blue paint job.

Approaching on CR 600S

The first bridge over Conn’s Creek at this location was a 16′ tall Pratt through truss built in 1892. Ironically it got a new concrete deck in 1912. The irony comes with the historic and horrific disastrous flood of 1913 which washed this bridge away. The original concrete abutments and wingwalls survived the flood and now support the replacement 7-panel, riveted Warren pony truss bridge. This bridge was built in 1925.

Looking at Conn’s Creek through truss

Truss outriggers and abutment and wing wall

Riveted hip connection

Diagonals, side rails and deck grate

You can see all 7 truss panels and deck grate

It is quite a visual as you approach this bright blue iron bridge. Like referenced above, you usually see green iron bridges, not blue. This is, however, a very nice bridge that spans a pretty little country creek.

For those of you interested in truss design details, HistoricBridges.org describes the design and structure: Concrete abutments and wingwalls support the single-span Warren pony truss. The riveted structure extends 87’6″ in seven panels. Its all-interior verticals are manufactured from pairs of angles riveted together with stay plates and reinforced with external sway bracing. Its diagonals are made from a pair of angles (doubled in the outer panel) also riveted together with stay plates. The I floor-beams are riveted to gussets and the verticals above the lower chord and carry the concrete deck. The weight and varied size of the diagonals, the placement of the floor-beams, and the integration of knee or external sway braces into the verticals indicate a late stage in the design of all-riveted Warren pony trusses.