• Filming Locations

    Saturday Night Fever Filming Locations

    I had fun while in New York back in May 2008 tracing the footsteps of Tony Manero, footsteps that walked the streets of Brooklyn to the pulsating rhythm of “Stayin’ Alive.” Of course, Tony Manero, played by John Travolta, is the main character of the film, king of the (paint) store by day and the disco floor by night. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge – Brooklyn, New York The opening of the film starts with an aerial shot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Staten Island. From the point of view of the camera, Manhattan is visible in the background. There’s alot of significance to the scene. You can’t see…

  • Road Trips

    Indiana State Road 236

    Not long ago, a fellow roadie from the Indy area (code name “mobilene”) had a post on his blog  about an end to end trip he took on Indiana State Road 42. I’ve admired his writings of his road logs and vowed to start documenting some routes in our home state as well. I figure together we should wrap up the entire state by the time we’re in our mid-late 110’s. My first…and hopefully not last…entry is based on a route that goes all the way back to my very beginnings: State Road 236. It stretches from just north of Danville and makes a 41 mile trek through west central…

  • Filming Locations

    Yeah, Rain Man definitely filmed here

    Here’s a compilation of screen shots from the 1988 film “Rain Man” starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman and photos of some of the locations, taken by me. John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge / Cincinnati – Covington Here is a scene where they are crossing the Roebling Bridge between Ohio and Kentucky: Here is a photo I took of the bridge: Pompilio’s Restaurant – Newport, Kentucky There was a scene filmed at Pompilio’s Restaurant. Here is the exterior from the film: I took this photo last year. It looks so much less barren now! Here’s the interior of the restaurant, a scene when they are ordering their pancakes from their waitress: Sally…

  • Road Trips

    November 28, 2008: Route 66 (Day 2)

    This morning at the motel, I did searched geocaching.com for geocaches along Route 66, as well as back to Indianapolis. I just got a new GPS, a DeLorme PN-40, and was anxious to try it out. I hadn’t cached for a while, and was ready for some caching! We left the motel and followed 66 through Rolla, where we found our first cache of the day, and our first in Missouri. We decided to stick with just one or two caches per hour so we could make it as far as Oklahoma City on this trip. We also wanted to get to Pop’s – a gas statiohn/ soda ranch /…

  • Road Trips

    November 27, 2008: Route 66 (Day 1)

    We woke up this morning intending to head south to Georgia. After a last check of the weather we noticed the forecast had worsened. The chance for rain increased significantly, and since I had a specific purpose for this trip mostly involving outdoor photography, it was not something I wanted to do in the rain. We struggled between wanting to go and whether or not to trust the forecast. We could go somewhere else with a better forecast or not go at all. Pat hinted at going west on 66 since we hadn’t done that in a while. He’s very indecisive, as readers of his blog know from his recent…

  • Road Trips

    November 2008: Cincinnati, Ohio….the Neon Shangri-La

    We’re planning for our next trip, a 4 day weekend to Georgia. We originally planned for Thanksgiving weekend, then Pat asked if I could go sooner (i.e., this weekend). No sooner did I arrange for Friday and Monday off work, when I received an e-mail from our friend, Denny Gibson, from Cincinnati. Another roadie friend, Don “RoadDog” from the American Road Magazine Forum that we moderate, was going to be passing through Cincinnati and they were planning on going to the elusive American Sign Museum. Elusive, that is, to Pat and me – we never seemed to be in Cincinnati at a time when the owner / founder was available…

  • Road Trips

    Tourist Trap Hell

    It was a last second idea, but I wanted to finally see Gatlinburg, Tennessee. My second oldest brother, Scott, and his family go down there two or three times a year. Since it’s just a 6 hour trip on the interstate, we decided to go for it this weekend. We were on our way Friday afternoon after work, and procured a room at the Country Hearth Inn in Pigeon Forge via priceline.com for a modest $38/night, a savings of $20/night. Priceline has yet to fail our travel expenses in the 6+ years we’ve been using it. We arrived at our motel at 11pm Friday night and headed straight for bed. We had…

  • Road Trips

    Road Trip!!!

    There won’t be any updates for a few days. We’re heading to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, TN this afternoon for the weekend. We’ve never been there, so it’ll be interesting to see if it lives up to the hype I’ve heard over the years. Details next week…..

  • Road Trips

    Running to Madison

    We had a nice Saturday afternoon trip down to Madison, Indiana for some fudge and burgers. Due to some time constraints, we had to jump on the interstate heading down, but got off onto US 31 in Columbus and took IN-7 into Madison.   Due to the fact the Madison Fudge Factory closed at 5pm, we had less than a half hour to get in and get our fix of sugary goodness. The Factory’s HIGHLY recommended by us, as we’ve tried all the fudge shops in Madison….but we still buy from all of them anyway! Next up was dinner at Hinkle’s Hamburgers on Main Street, an institution in Madison dating back to…