Saturday August 8, 2015
I went down to Portsmouth to the Roy Rogers Festival with my family on August, 8 for my birthday. My mom grew up with his TV shows and movies and used to come down to Portsmouth a lot when she was a youth. There are some family somewhere in the hills and in Sciotoville and Lucasville. My mom’s birthday is July 28th so the last few years we have combined our birthdays as far as activities go.
She had been wanting to go down to Portsmouth for a while even besides the festival so I made it happen. The trip is about 2hrs give or take.
The drive is pretty. My town is a bit flat and southern Ohio is hilly. We found the Holiday Inn where the festival was being held pretty easy. It faces the south and the Ohio River. The conference room in the hotel was full of vendors and some of the celebrities who came to the festival. This was the last day of the festival and dress up day. There was a man dressed like John Wayne and Tonto and among others as well. We bought our dinner tickets to the evening banquet with the stars and then wandered around the vendor area. We spoke with Steve Connors, the son of Chuck Connors (Lucas McCain). Chuck was the star of The TV show The Rifleman (1958-1963). He was such a nice man and humbled by the out pouring of love everyone’s bowed towards his father. Johnny Crawford, (Mark McCain/The Rifleman – also a former Mouseketier) had been at the festival earlier in the week but had to leave for a concert performance with his Band (the Johnny Crawford Orcestra). A lady there with Steve showed us a picture of him from the other day.
After we looked at the vendors we left the hotel and took a drive to the Murals along the Ohio River. Sometime after the river flooded in 1937 they built the flood walls. Rather than just have plain walls they put murals on the walls to commemorate Portsmouth’s and Ohio history. It’s done very nicely and a site to see to be sure. I bought mom a Roy Rogers ornament in the Vistors Bureau.
The flood wall depicting Ohio’s famous Indian, Tecumseh who was from the area. In Chillicothe, there is an outdoor drama performed in the summer months telling the story of Tecumseh.
We ate at Penn Station (our first time actually) and did some antique shopping in downtown Portsmouth. Since it was my birthday she bought me a few things as well. I’m not picky and I like a vast number of things. So, I ended up with a Clint Eastwood photo, a Joe Nuxhall baseball card, a bracelet and NKOTB trading cards. Some combo huh.
After we shopped we headed back to the hotel lobby, looked around and relaxed. We had dinner in the conference room. They introduced the stars, and had an auction. We left before that was completely finished since it was 9:30.
We had a nice, peaceful day and it was beautiful weather as well.
Steve Connors
The Ohio River
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