World United States Ohio Loudonville

Danielle and Jay's 2010 Summer Trip

Ohio Amish Country Jul 15, 2010

We drove about 4 hours southeast to a rural area of Ohio. We came to this area last year and really loved the small Amish towns and the Mohican River for lots of fun water recreation.

We were pretty tired by the time we got in, so we just turned on the air conditioning after we arrived and relaxed. Duke enjoyed his walk too with a new place to sniff and leave his mark. We went out for an early dinner and called it a day. Luckily, the heat and humidity are less here than they were in Indiana.

Friday, we headed out to Berlin, which is a town with the largest Amish population in Ohio. There are horses and buggies everywhere along with tons of tourists. We had fun looking through the shops and went out to dinner at Grandma’s Café. On the way to dinner we stopped at Guggisberg’s Cheese Factory. This company was the one who started Baby Swiss Cheese and it’s absolutely delicious!

Then we stopped at Hershberger’s Fruit Stand and found Big Ben. No, Big Ben is not a large clock or piece of fruit, but a 19.3 hand Belgian horse and the biggest in all of Holmes County. Jay and I had never seen a horse this large. Big Ben was in the petting zoo and quite content to be munching on hay while a chicken was at his feet.

Our stop at Walmart proved to be another first. As we pulled in there was a sign saying “hitching rail” and an arrow pointing to the right. We found a covered parking area for the Amish horses to get out of the weather while their people shop. What will Walmart think of next?

Saturday, since the weather was supposed to be sunny all day, we spent the day on the river. What this meant was driving over to Mohican Adventures and renting tubes to S L O W L Y float down 7 miles of the Mohican River which takes about 4 hours without any stops.

Last year we were novices, so we knew what to expect this year. The Mohican River is touted as the most scenic river in Ohio and I can’t disagree with that. It’s not wide and not deep and curves as it meanders next to the Ohio Scenic Byway. There are lots of trees, so it’s a pretty cool float down river with lots of campgrounds along the banks, beautiful views and even places to stop for lunch along the way.

As last year, the river was extremely crowded with canoes, kayaks, rafts and tubes. The river isn’t deep in most places, so it’s a great place for kids to play on the river and get out of their water crafts. Part of the fun is that many of the kids and adults have water canons and definitely use them on each other. We got caught in a few water fights as we were minding our own business floating down the river. All you can do is laugh and enjoy it. Most of the time we didn’t get fired on because we were “unarmed” but it sure was fun to watch. One guy in a canoe even had an umbrella! This is definitely the best place to tube. Our four hour journey was full of lots to see and experience. And what a bargain! Only $10 a person to rent the tube and get a ride back to our car.

Although we were just relaxing all day, we were pooped. There are lots of trees on the river, but also a lot of sun too. We were sure to bring sun screen in our dry sack and reapplied it quite a few times, especially after were got caught in the cross fire of the water fights. All in all….. a fun day!

Sunday, we were off to play golf. We tried to get something to eat afterwards but it wasn’t easy with just about everything being closed on Sunday.

Monday, Jay took a bike ride in the morning, while I did laundry. In the afternoon, our destination was Lehman’s Hardware store in the small town of Kidron. We went there last year and just loved it. It’s absolutely HUGE and has everything from wood stoves to a giant kitchen section to gardening to….well, it just goes on and on. We had a fun time shopping and I managed to find a few things for the kitchen that I needed.

On the way to Kidron, we came across the town of Wooster, which was quite large compared to so many of the small villages in the area. We stopped here for lunch on the way to Lehman’s and stopped on the return trip at the “Everything Rubbermaid” store. Several years ago, Rubbermaid was manufactured in this area and this was the original store. Since then, the other Rubbermaid outlets have been closed and so has the manufacturing plant. But we found a fun store and managed to find a few things we needed.

We also passed the Smuckers outlet near Orrville, OH, where Smuckers manufacturing was started in the late 1800’s. We had no idea that the Smuckers company now owned so many other brands such as Jif peanut butter, Pillsbury, Eagle Brand condensed milk and many more. The history line was interesting showing how the company developed over time and their show room of products was fun to look at. We especially liked the giant Pillsbury Dough Boy and Jay loved the ice cream display!

Tomorrow morning, if the weather is good, we’re taking Duke for a swim in the river. Then we’ll head south to Kentucky for an overnight stop and then on to “The Rally” in Louisville. This area of Ohio has been fun and we’ll be heading back to Ohio for a few weeks after the rally.