Galax, Virginia for the barbeque event “Smoke On The Mountain”-the Virginia state barbeque championship. This is something I do – I judge barbecue. I became Memphis-certified and Kansas City-certified about 15 years ago. The hard part is, the best barbeques are quite some distance from my home in Owen Sound, Ontario. But as is often said, some of the joy is in the journey, not just the destination.

So, we’re off on the road to Galax – a song Bob Hope and Bing Crosby never quite got around to. It was an easy drive down the elephant’s spine from Owen Sound to Windsor. (If you don’t know the elephant, almost anyone from Owen Sound can show you Southern Ontario in the shape of an elephant.). I caught up with an old friend in Windsor before crossing into the United States on Wednesday morning; not an ounce of trouble….not for me, and apparently not for the many other Ontario cars around me who were moving through the border checkpoint fairly quickly.

I enjoy staying at Windsor because of this skyline – Detroit, Michigan, right across the river. We were doing a bit of Tuesday evening sightseeing and were coming along Riverside Drive when we caught the Skyline in sunset. The next morning I went around to another portion of the casino hotel to get the second picture through a rather attractive fountain Caesars Windsor has in its original hotel.

And bingo! The first adventure of the day. While I was taking these photographs, there was a fairly loud, repetitive pinging noise at the property.   Next thing you know, there were fire trucks everywhere. As they were going in, firefighters could not confirm any real problem – the first thing they had to do was check. Me, I hit the road! First stop, Marion, Ohio.

I’m starting to develop a thing for these old courthouses.   Many of you know I am a matchbook collector; one of the categories a number of people seem to like is collecting match covers from cities and towns that are county seats all over America. This is not one of my categories, So I’m not really sure how I’ve come to recognize that the county buildings in these county seats are rather magnificent structures.

This, for example, is the Marion county courthouse in Marion Ohio. It was built in 1884, and is one of three designed by the same architect. Another is in Fayetteville Ohio and the third is in Charlotte, Michigan.  Apparently they are sister courthouses.  I look forward to seeing at least one of the others this summer.

I missed the Wyandotte Popcorn Museum around the corner. The phrase “around the corner” is a lot less simple in a combination of one-way streets and active rail lines!

The second half of my day was very much bogged down by road construction, making it a longer day than I wanted it to be. The pencil sharpener museum, an anticipated the highlight, was closed.

And while I did see the worlds largest washboard, I was too late to take the brief factory tour. Yes, washboards! The Columbus Washboard Company in Logan Ohio. Why not?

So – long day, good day; more tomorrow. Dancing rabbits!