Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Trip #1 My General Area




Hayes Speigel Grove home



Presidential Gravesites seen on this trip: #29 Warren G. Harding Marion, Ohio  1 of 38
                                                            #19 Rutherford B. Hayes Fremont, Ohio 2 of 38

I have already gone through and made a write up on each President, and then showed pictures of my trips to the sites connected to them on each of their pages. And as I see more I will continue to update those pages. Now I am doing something a little differently. I want to share the trips that I have taken in my quest to visit all of the Presidents Gravesites, which as of now I have 4 left to see. I have visited many websites  on the subject and some do it differently. I like them all. But some of my favorites are the ones that share their experience by trip instead of by President. Since I have already gone by President, now I want to share by trip.

Now to start with I never actually took a single trip that incorperated the 2 Presidents above. One is north of me, and one is south. But I have visited both numerous times over the years. So I am grouping them together here for my convenience. But this is the only time that I will do this through the course of these trip post.

April 4, 2009 Warren G. Harding


Here is the series of events that inspired me to get my own collection of Presidential Gravesites. In January 2009 I became a Dad. My wife and I welcomed our little girl Khloe. It was a surreal experience. Not long after that we decided to make a trip down to Houston, Texas to see some of my wives family down there so that they could meet our little girl, who happend to be the first baby of a new generation in my wives family. Now at that point we didn't travel much. I hadn't been out of the Ohio, Michigan, Indiana area since a family trip to Disney in Florida back in December 2004. So I started thinking about stuff to see on the way down and back.

A life long interest in the Presidents, combined with a childhood interest in seeing their gravesites led me to start looking up what Presidential Gravesites that I could see on the way down. I discovered several websites of people with the same idea. Who knew that there would be others out there with this same interest. These sites inspired me start my own collection. Since I hadn't any pictures of me at the ones that I had already seen I decided to start at square one and revist all of the ones that I had already seen before.

So I started with the easy ones. I decided that the first chance I get to drive the 40 minutes down to Marion to see President Harding I would take. On Saturday April 4, 2009 I spent most of the day running a PVC drain for my sisters kitchen sink. I finished up early afternoon. My wife was working and Khloe was 3 months old. I ended up rounding up my 3 nephews and my oldest neice and took them down to Marion for some Donatos Pizza and show them some Harding sites. All the while my sister watch Khloe.

We got down there in there saw Hardings Home, site of the last front porch campaign. We then saw Hardings temporary tomb in Marion Cemetery, and finally the Hardings Tomb. Their reward for humoring their Uncle was of course some Donatos pizza.




Harding Tomb



May 25, 2009 Rutherford B. Hayes


The obvious choice for No. 2 in my collection was Hayes. I knew that it was a matter of time before we would make it up that way. On June 27, 2003 I purposed to my wife at Marblehead Lighthouse on Lake Erie. Ever since that has become a special get away for my wife and I. And of course President Hayes Speigel Grove home in Fremont is right on the way up to Marblehead. On Memorial Day, 2009 my wife wanted to head up to Marblehead to get some family pictures taken. My cousin who enjoys photography in his spare time went with us to take the pictures. On the way back from the lake we stopped at the Hayes Center. This is a site I always enjoy stopping at. Like a park, it's great for a walk.




Hayes gravesite.

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