As previously reported this is our 'stay-cation' week with the GF being on vacation from work all week and this being my last week of break before returning to work. We have packed the week full. Monday GF had to make a few pickups for work even though he is on vacation and I spent the day waiting and watching the satellite tv installer working at GF's house. Tuesday even though the weather was chilly and damp in the morning we took youngest son and went to the zoo. We were there for 7 hours and except for 30 minutes spent eating lunch walking the entire time ! GF hadn't been to the zoo since he was a child so it was quite an experience for him to see how awesome it has become. Wednesday was our one tank trip day! We headed off for central Ohio with our goal to visit Lehman's hardware (www.lehmans.com) and a local thrift store a customer of GFs had told him about. It is a nice hour drive to Lehman's and while it felt more like October than August it was sunny and the ride was pleasant. We spent 3 hours at Lehman's. The place is enormous and we had lunch in their café (I had Amish Vegetable soup, GF had a hot dog with cheese and bacon on it). This store has just about anything and everything non electric that you can imagine. GF was amazed that they will even bend wrought iron to your specifications. He spent some time talking pellet stoves with a salesman while I browsed the wood burning stoves . I particularly liked all of the antiques that decorate the store. I did spend a little money, $55.62 and came home with some bread supplies, a 2 pound loaf pan (to replace one that got ruined), a bag of oat flour, some reusable bread storage bags, a clay bread keeper for my bread box (helps bread stay soft and fresh longer), and a couple of books, one of which is a cookbook (imagine that) of recipes from the 20s, 30s, and 40s and the other an autobiographical account of a couple's life on a Vermont farm in the 1930s. I look forward to reading both.
Our next stop was a short ride from Lehman's a local thrift store. It was an interesting place with not only 'regular' clothing but also 'plain' clothing for the Amish, household goods, books etc. I spent $15 and came home with a couple of blouses I can wear for work and 8 of a 10 book set of anthologies of children's literature that I had as a child. At 50¢ a book I was excited to pick these up for my grandchildren's future pleasure!
We then headed farther south on some hilly, windy two lane country roads that took us within touching distance of many Amish farms. We enjoyed the peace of the surroundings as we proceeded at a leisurely pace many times behind Amish buggies and wagons. I particularly enjoyed the site of laundry drying on the clotheslines and children playing in the yards. We really didn't have much of a goal with this ride and when we came upon a local cheese house we stopped in at Heini's Cheese Chalet (www.heinis.com). You can watch them make cheese (sadly they weren't making any that day), buy all kinds of food products and browse their gift shop. GF bought some swiss, Amish butter cheese, teriyaki smoked meat sticks, trail bologna, and caraway swiss cheese. Some other tourists were talking about a local Amish antique mall about 20 minutes from there so we made that our next stop. http://www.amishfarmvillage.com/shoping/berlin_antique_mall.php More two lane country roads got us there. I spent another $15 and was really excited to pick up two framed Currier and Ives prints similar to four unframed ones I inherited from my parents. This really inspires me to frame the ones I have and get them all hung up on the living room wall. I also picked up another cookbook.
GF is a big fan of Andreas furniture (http://www.andreasfurniture.com/) and wanted to do a bit of browsing since we really weren't that far away so we took yet another nice ride over there. After browsing a bit we stopped at Beachy's Country Chalet Restaurant (http://www.allmenus.com/oh/sugar-creek/141160-beachys-country-chalet/menu/) for dinner, choosing the Amish family style option with fried chicken. The food was fabulous. Since we'd had such fun driving the back roads once we got down to central Ohio we decided to consult a map and take all back roads back home to GF's house. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.
Sounds like a wonderful day trip!
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