We consulted a new guide today, a book we picked up at the Cracker Barrel gift store. (Anybody else think it’s kinda weird that a restaurant has a gift store that is not solely dedicated to their own merchandise? Then again, I did buy stuff here, so guess it is a good idea…)
The book was called, appropriately, “The Great American Road Trip.” It pretty much summed up our trip—big, crazy and wacky sights to see all across America! I was a little bummed we didn’t know about the book at the beginning of the trip, but turns out, we hit many of the cool sights anyway. I was a little excited and worried all at the same time how many of the sights we’d seen, and how many we went out of our way to see (hello, Corn Palace, I’m talking to you!).
I gave the book to Mark and told him we’d be driving through Kentucky, Ohio and maybe Indiana (have I mentioned I’m really bad at geography?). I told him to find us some cool stuff to see along the way. He immediately called out the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, or the Wall Drug in South Dakota.
“Oh!” he said, surprised. “Let me look again then.”
But he did make one good find, a random castle in Ohio. It was called Loveland Castle, and was made from rocks dredged from the river beside it. We checked the GPS and found we’d be going right past it—it was only four miles off the highway.
We drove through some lush Ohio neighborhoods, turned down a little road, and suddenly, there it was. It was kind of surreal.
Apparently, somebody built it as a place for Scouts (boys and girls) to have campouts. It would be an awesome place to camp out! There are lush gardens surrounding the castle, a lookout point over the river, and a fire ring down by the water. I was not expecting to see a castle on this trip, and this was a very cool one.
We spent maybe 30 minutes checking it out. Back on the road, we passed through some more cute neighborhoods, and at one point, passed a deer right on the side of the road! We also spotted a yard sale, which we did not pass. Edra wanted to see what kind of wares you could buy in Ohio, and the most obvious answer was coats. Lots of them. Big, thick winter coats, which told me the winters are a little colder than in California. The home owner was complaining that he hadn’t sold many coats, but it was almost 100 degrees and humid as all get out. Just looking at those coats made me pour sweat, I couldn’t imagine actually trying one on.
Edra didn’t find anything, and the owners weren’t nearly as colorful as the yard sale owner we’d met in Illinois. (He drove up on a motorcycle from somewhere when we stopped, and then told us about all the great aunts he had in California. He spoke about the riots—yes, the Los Angeles riots in 1992!—and struggled to remember the lyrics from a song he’d written about it.)
There was a whole lotta nothing in Ohio, at least nothing new. We’d seen most of it before—giant rolls of hay, corn, the occasional barn. We got some occasional barns, and things got a little crazy when we drove through Columbus—we saw a car crash, a cop checking out a dead deer on the roadside, and an 18-wheeler that flipped on its side on a curvy off ramp.
“Be careful,” I told Edra, who was driving. “There’s all sorts of crazy stuff going on right now!”
We stopped for lunch somewhere far out in the country, but changed our minds as quickly as the lady changing her baby on the tables. (Good eye, Edra!) That was really the only really scary dirty place we encountered along the trip, and we hurried to get away. We found a cute little diner a few miles up the road, although it had a curious-looking clientele. The women all wore skirts and flowered shirts, and piled their hair up high on their heads. The little girls all wore flowery dresses and bright bows in their long hair. We couldn’t figure out if they were some kind of cult, polygamists, or a Tiaras and Toddlers audition. Or maybe this was just the way small-town Mid-West folk dressed. But it was still pretty odd…
We did pass some other nice places on the way...like Ashland, OH.
Ashland was also home to Grandpa’s Cheese Barn. We weren't sure what that was, but we could't pass it up--we had to stop.
The first thing I saw made me literally clap my hands in excitement--an Amish buggy! (I am not at all religious, but I am fascinated by religion, and religious people, and I've never met an Amish person before.)
There was a little Amish boy playing by the buggy. He was the cutest little guy, with blond hair, a long sleeve shirt, a vest and pants on. The humidity was too much for me in shorts and a t-shirt, but it didn't seem to bother him at all.
He was swinging around a pole, and walking around the buggy. He was a sweet, quiet kid, and when I silently waved to him, he waved back.
We saw his mom, who was selling baskets under a tent. She was also dressed in Amish clothes (duh!), a long dress and a bonnet.
The baskets were adorable, but fragile. I really, really wanted one, but could tell there was no way I'd get it home without crushing or breaking it. The Amish woman told us all about how she made them, and was just really nice. (And no, I don't have any pictures of them to post--I really wanted to take some, but I know they don't like to be photographed, so I was respectful of that. But here's a pic of half their buggy!)
Grandpa's Cheese Barn was a fiesta of crackers, soup mixes, jams, sauces and yes, cheese. It was fun to sample the different salsas, and we bought a couple soup mixes. But we were most excited at the ice cream counter below, where we bought some gigantic cones.
Cleveland was just a couple hours away. We rolled into town in the late afternoon, at the same time a Jehovah's Witness conference let out. (Seems like all the hotels we picked were popular with the religious groups!) There was a huge line at the elevators, but once we got upstairs, we were delighted to find a huge room. Even better, there was a free happy hour below, so we left our bags behind and hit that.
Mark and I decided to explore downtown Cleveland a bit. Although the happy hour and elevators were packed, the downtown area was dead, dead, dead. There were no people in sight, anywhere. I don't know if it's just that we were in a business area on a Sunday night, or if it's normally like that, but it kinda creeped me out. We went back to the hotel, which was fine by Mark, since he got to go swimming instead of exploring. (Turns out he's not much of an explorer...)
Cleveland also taught me, yet again, how little geography I know. The Indians were playing when we entered town, which is kinda funny because we keep rolling into towns while the baseball games are in action. We saw an even split of Toronto Blue Jay and Cleveland Indian fans, and I couldn't figure out why there were so many Canadians in town. Until I looked at my map--turns out Canada is just on the other side of Lake Erie.
Anyway, our day was pretty mellow compared to the rest of our packed-to-the-hilt days. But it was nice to have a leisurely, relaxing day. And of course, tomorrow is the real big day, the one I've been waiting for the entire trip--our jaunt to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame! So I was fine turning in early, while visions of rock stars danced in my head. :-)
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