Life On A B-I7

Route

• Grand Rapids to Bowling Green

Metrics

• Miles: 21
• Average Speed: 9.9 mph
• Travel Time: 4 hours 32 minutes

Notes

• As I was rolling out of the campground this morning, a fellow looked up from his campfire and said “I admire what you’re doing young man.“ While I appreciate the sentiment, I think the gentleman could use a pair of glasses.
• What are my two favorite foods? Coffee and a doughnut.

Thought For The Day

• Use your gifts and your time to help others, not just help yourself.

I spent an hour this morning, looking at the only restored section of the Miami and Erie Canal with a working lock. Also, in the interpretative park is a restored Canal Boat. Excursions are offered daily. The boat goes through the lock which raises it about 10 feet to the next level of Canal. I had a nice conversation with the Park Ranger as he was preparing the lock for the first transit of the day. The lock gates are so well balanced that one person can manually open and close the doors with ease. The doors are built from heavy timber and weigh 2 tons each.

Water from the canal was also used to power Flour and Lumber Mills along the route. The canal played a major role in the settlement and industrialization of Western Ohio. Finished in 1849, the canal was only in service for 20 years before being replaced by railroads. Construction of the canal almost bankrupted the State of Ohio. At one point there was no money to pay workers so at the end of the day they were given a glass of whiskey as the day’s wage.

I found a marvelous used bookstore in Grand Rapids. This artifact, presumably a reproduction, caught my attention. It is a perfect example of compassion, and graciousness by one of our most brilliant and selfless founders.

This is a letter to Lydia Bixby in 1864. The letter reads as follows:

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

Top: The Miami and Erie Canal in Grand Rapids, Ohio. Middle: Restored Canal Boat. Bottom: Restored Canal Lock.

Itinerary Maps