Delaware - Day 19 - Dover

Killens Pond State Park
Saturday, 19 January 2019

today's route

On the drive north yesterday, I'd noticed a business called Helen's Sausage House near Smyrna and wondered how good their sausage was.  Well, this morning I found out: there was already a line standing outside their door before 9:30.

The weather forecast for the weekend is attention-grabbing: lots of rain beginning Saturday afternoon, strong wind gusts for the next 2 days, a high temperature Sunday in the 50s dropping to a low around 20° Sunday night (not counting wind chill).  The weather people are calling it a flash freeze.  Which is why I wanted to get chores done yesterday.

Jiffy Lube
One thing still to do, though, is take care of my engine, which I've been shamefully neglecting - the last oil change was on Cape Cod.  I'd found a Jiffy Lube in Dover that said its doors were high enough to fit me in, and with the coming freeze I decided I couldn't put that off any longer, so that was my first stop.

One of the advantages of this company is that all their computers are connected so they know what work has been done before.  The staff always seems competent and plesant, and their prices seem competitive.

Historic Dover

Legislative Hall

The Old State House

Just a few blocks from the Jiffy Lube I found the state capitol building, built in 1933.  Oddly, Delaware doesn't call the building the Capitol, or even the State House.  Instead, they call it Legislative Hall.

The original capitol building, built in 1791, is still standing and is now a museum.  That one they call The Old State House.  The two buildings are back to back a block apart, separated by a large green lawn.  The old building faces a traditional village green, surrounded by many houses clearly of the capitol's vintage.

The whole area was quiet, with only 1 dog walker in sight, probably because of both the strong wind and the 3-day holiday weekend.

A walk from one to the other brought me to the Briggs Museum of American Art.  I hope you can see that the art outside the building extends into the inside: it shows a large flock of birds flying away from the tree, with the flock continuing inside, flying up to the ceiling.

Nearby these buildings was a display in honor of the USS Delaware, the first of the dreadnoughts in the US Navy.

In the background you can see the ship's bell (weighing 888 pounds) and the ship's nameplate (weighing 333 pounds).  (It's a wonder the ships could move, carrying all that weight.)

Johnson Victrola Museum
I found this place fascinating.  I was the only visitor at the time so got a personal tour of the exhibits.

Eldridge Johnson, a machinist working in the late 1800s with the Berliner Gramophone Co., figured out a way to marry the coil and governor he invented with the gramophone that had to be hand-cranked frequently to keep the sound constant, resulting in a machine that was easier and faster to crank and didn't need constant attendance.

Gramophones were then using cylinders, first made of tinfoil, then of wax, and later of celluloid.  Berliner was trying to invent a flat disc - a record - but the sound resulting from mass production was terribly scratchy.  Johnson secretly worked on his own process that greatly improved the sound quality.  He was sued in 1901 and the court enjoined him from using any variation of the word gramophone.  Two weeks later, he registered the trademark of Victor.  (No one knows why he chose that word - there are many theories, but he never explained.)

His Master's Voice

At about this time he acquired the right to use the image of a painting called "His Master's Voice," done a few years earlier and not related at all to these companies.  Johnson used this image on every product he turned out, and one result was that the dog, named "Nipper," was the most famous animal on the planet until being dethroned when Mickey Mouse was created in 1929.

gramophone with a wooden horn

A characteristic of the gramophone led to an expression we still use today.  There was no ability to lower the sound level - what came out of the horn was what you got.  (Having listened to several at the museum, I can testify that it's pretty loud.)  Gramophone users invented their own mute button: stick some socks down into the horn and the sound level is cut in half.  And from that we still have: "Put a sock in it."

Victrola

In 1906, Johnson produced a gramophone that was entirely contained in a piece of furniture, with the horn concealed in a case below the turntable.  He called it a Victrola.  Owners could mute the sound in 2 ways - both by partly closing the doors where the horn was and by closing the lid of the turntable.  And from that we still have: "Put a lid on it."

Victor began expanding into many countries, including Japan in 1927 where it was called (unsurprisingly) the Victor Company of Japan or JVC.  The two companies split up during World War II (again unsurprisingly), but JVC endured and is today one of Japan's oldest electronics companies.

Also in 1929, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) merged with Johnson's company, mostly to acquire rights to the Nipper image.  Johnson stipulated the image could be used only along with the name Victor, and RCA Victor was born. 

As the Victor company was developing, Johnson convinced Enrico Caruso to record for him - the first major star to do so.  Many others followed, but the process was limited.  There were no microphones at the time so the singer or the orchestra performed into the bell of a gigantic horn.  Caruso's voice worked well with that process, but others not so much.  Then in 1925 Johnson developed what he called orthophonic sound which used a microphone.  This allowed more nuanced performances and ultimately led to the popularity of crooners like Frank Sinatra.

This is only a part of what I saw in the museum and I didn't even make it to the 2nd floor because I'd already spent so much time on the 1st.  I'm glad I went.

Campground
By this time it was already part-way into the afternoon.  Because I hadn't been to this campground before, and because I didn't have a reservation, and because the weather was already intensifying, I wanted to get where I was going.  My plan was to find a decent site and stay there for 2 or more days until the storm had passed.

I almost immediately ran into a hitch though: I only had a quarter tank of propane left and there was no possible way that would see me through a couple of days of temps in the teens.  My plan is to brave whatever wind and rain happens tomorrow morning to get propane for heat and then dig in.