DailyWoo: World's First KFC

 

[VIDEO] Well it's hard to believe the first franchise opened in Salt Lake City, Utah instead of in Kentucky which is where the business began. What an interesting look at this store also referred to as Harman's cafe. Pete Harman struck a deal with Colonel Sanders to open this franchise. Now I have a reason to visit Salt Lake City perhaps I need to visit this place during the NBA season because that's the only other reason to go there. Go see how Utah Jazz fans watch basketball...

YouTuuba: A Walk Through the original series Star Trek Set Tour

 

[VIDEO] Don't let the date you see to this fool you. This tour occurred in 2018 as part of YouTuuba's Train Odysseys remember those?

Anyway he's in Ticonderoga, New York to go on a tour of the original series Star Trek sets. We see him drive to a building and then a slideshow which he narrates on what he sees during this tour. It's very cool that he had a chance to sit in Capt. Kirk's chair.

This exhibit is actually located in Ticonderoga, N.Y. and you can learn more about this at startrektour.com. This is one place I would like to visit.

Oh and I didn't know this but according to that website this exhibit was created by James Cawley who played Capt. James T. Kirk in fan produced videos that were designed as a continuation of the original Star Trek. According to this Cawley's wiki page the sets here were actually seen on an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise called "In a Mirror, Darkly"

Did you know "Shawshank Redemption" was filmed in Ohio

One of my favorite YouTuber's is known as YouTuuba who goes to Mansfield, Ohio to not only visit the Ohio State Reformatory he also drives along The Shawshank Redemption trail. The trail shows sites where the movie was filmed which includes the Ohio State Reformatory.

Actually I always thought the movie was filmed in Maine which is where Shawshank was filmed. I never before knew that the film was mostly produced in Ohio in or around the Mansfield area.

The one thing I do like about YouTube - yeah being a bit childish here - is that it takes you places you never knew existed. It takes you places you're not likely to visit although now that you see it, you might want to visit these places.

A walk through the Ohio State Reformatory: Shawshank prison about an 1 hr 25 mins [VIDEO]

A drive along the Shawshank trail: In and near Mansfield, Ohio about a 20 mins [VIDEO]

Amongst other things that give me an escape, it's movies like Shawshank. I never saw it in it's initial theatrical run over 25 years ago, however, seen it on TV enough times to enjoy the movie. It's one of those films I should've had in my VHS or DVD collection. Perhaps at some point in the future I should just download it through iTunes. 

Have you ever been to Chicago and took the L?

[VIDEO] I've been an L rider all my life. Spent many a Saturday in my youth riding to downtown with my mother when she used to work at a bank downtown. Now I spend a lot of time on the CTA getting to school or work or just getting out of the house for a few hours.

Today I have a tourist piece for you. Strangely enough I'm starting with the yellow line aka Skokie Swift. Skokie is an adjacent suburb of Chicago and the CTA does have L service which travels to nearby suburbs such as Skokie, Evanston, Cicero, Oak Park & Forest Park.

Either way I realised that I've traveled on almost everyline of the CTA L system. Only recently - that is within the last 10 or so years my travels have taken me to all of the CTA's colored lines.

When I attended community college in downtown Chicago I traveled the blue line to O'Hare, Forest Park and 54/Cermak. Now the 54/Cermak branch is part of the pink line as a result of service changes. I also took the train from Ashland/63 and Cottage Grove to get downtown via the green line. Also I traveled the red line from 95th all the way to Howard and changed to the purple from Howard to get to Linden. Finally I took the orange from downtown to Midway and back.

Since then I've taken the pink line with some video that needs to be digitized in the future. Also for the first time I took the brown line all the way to Kimball and took the green line to it's west side terminal at Harlem Avenue. Since I've started working I've taken the yellow line on two occasions mainly to get up to Old Orchard mall and that means I'd have to take the bus from the Skokie stop.

I forgot to note the quirk of the purple line. While the purple is a local service within Evanston when it stops at Howard it becomes an express during rush hour with no stops until Belmont. When I worked briefly in Evanston to make up some time I took the express train to get to work there.

Needless to say there have been many interesting adventures on CTA as you can sometimes tell if you follow me on twitter. If only I had such a tool during the pre-twitter/social media days.

There's more videos of other CTA routes via their YouTube page.

State Journal-Register: Visit impresses British relative of Lincoln

Springfield, Illinois is the state capital and unfortunately it takes a back seat to it's much larger sister city of Chicago. As far as state government goes all the action is in Springfield especially during a session of the Illinois General Assembly. This is true in spite of the fact that most of this state's constitutional officers well all but one of six in fact resides in the Chicago area.

Springfield is known for it's association with America's 16th President who just so happens to be Abraham Lincoln who is known for leading this nation through a Civil War and during the course of that war freed the slaves. It's interesting that in this article we see that genealogists found President Lincoln's closest living British relative and they brought him to his cousin's adopted hometown.

It was such an enjoyable visit for him that he wants to tell others to visit Springfield. It just let's everyone know that Lincoln buffs are everywhere and they're willing to visit the sites where Lincoln lived or worked. And at that the sites such as Lincoln's Presidential Library that shows his place in history.

Welcome to Illinois Mr. & Mrs. Gilchrist hopefully the people you meet wherever you go in this state will show you nothing but great hospitality. And as a person who is an Illinoisian, Springfield is probably the one place that I need to visit in the future. All I've done in the past is pass through and that needs to change!