Don't Blink!

My observations although quite casual are that many of the tiny towns went by the wayside centuries ago. Why they are still on the map is beside me.
What is the glue that holds a small town together? A bar, pizza shop and a feed store. The closest thing I found to a Mayberry-like town was Ft Recovery. I really wanted to stop in to the barbershop and see if Floyd was on duty but I probably would have stumbled over an explanation and end up with a butch haircut.

Here is a partial list the towns I traveled through:

Ohio
Greenville*
Wauseon
Leipic
Pandora
Roundhead
New Bremen* (nice but a fake Disneyland feel. Apparently they have a Mr. Dickey a wealthy businessman that has restored the town. Too bad no one goes there)
Eaton *
Napoleon*
Ada
Jumbo
Hamilton
Ft Recovery*
Celina
St Mary
St Henry
St Rose
Pioneer
Cooney
Oxford*

Indiana
Bath
Brookville
Connersville
Anthony
Fairview
Albany
Farmland*

• = very nice

Here is a list of some of my odd observations:
• Celina Ohio has no place to eat after 9 so I dined at the local Wal-Mart which closed at 10!
• Ft Wayne’s WOWO AM radio station never was out of range.
• My GPS took the guess work out of map reading so I never got lost.
• I saw more tractors than cars.
• Every tractor I saw was a John Deere!
• Every town was clean.
• I never saw a farm with a for sale sign.
• I think (don’t hold me to it but) for every child born in Ohio a silo is erected.
• The only place I had bad vibes from was Hamilton (which no one has ever heard of). I drove around and ended up in an area that was really run down and a lot of teens and men hanging around the streets. I decided my La La ice cream trip was not the best idea.
• Ohio seems to have more catholic churches and Indiana has more Baptist.
• I am now really good at driving and snapping a picture.
• The Erie Miami canal system was pretty amazing although no blacks were ever allowed OFF of the boats.
• Every alive town has some memorial to their servicemen.
• Never go swimming in Grand Lake.
• Never eat fish from the Grand Lake.
• Farmland Indiana is a very diversified community 

My only regret was that I was not bold in taking photos. I am so reluctant to bother others. I really did like traveling solo. I thought it would feel weird but it was cool just going where I wanted and when I wanted.
Stay tuned kids; I will be back on the trail again!

I really would love to do this again but need some suggestions. Any ideas? Maybe I should try the dart and map method.
Also, If you could go anywhere, where would that be?

Ben thought that Ohio sounded pretty lame to travel to. Granted, there are more interesting places but I truly enjoyed the flat spacious farmlands and safe small towns of Ohio and Indiana. This is coming from a person who hated NYC. Sorry Big Apple lovers.

And I believe I saw that many silos!

If you have been reading these entries, please leave a comment.

Left Hamilton, Ohio, the town trying to revitalize itself through arts and porn shops (see previous entry) I thought about driving around the town more but it gave me the creeps with what I did see so I headed to Northwest. My GPS took me to Oxford so I stopped in on recommendations from my brother, Tom. The campus of Miami of Ohio was quaint and beautiful and the chapel was very photo worthy. I tried to get in but it was locked. I haven’t been arrested yet so “what the hey.”
I crossed into beautiful Indiana: land of patchy crappy roads. I cranked it left at a sign for Brookville Lake. If my GPS could comment I'm sure she would have cussed me out a million times! The lake area was nice and a potential family vacation spot. Best of all: No carp smell. Next place, Quakertown Pioneer Village. I found it but it was surrounded by a huge rusty chain link fence. Made me wonder if that’s how they handled wayward Quarkers or possibly an Indiana low budget correctional facility. Yeah, Mitch Daniels!
It started to rain pretty hard. I headed north to Connersville and had lunch at Wendy’s. I stopped at the County Fairgrounds and snagged a shot of the covered bridge oddly placed there. I noticed a small circus set up and grabbed some pictures of the elephants ( or I should say, their butts), midget horses and big top. It was really coming down so I headed north on Rt 1. a detour took me off of it for 30 miles! Man! Are they replacing the whole road??? I found myself in a little town of Farmland and stopped in a little gift/antique store which surprisingly the town had a lot of them. Dripping wet I was greeted with a cup of coffee and chocolate from a nice fellow. He excused himself while he pulled cheesecakes out of the oven. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he was a light-loafer kind of fellow. I bought a barn bird house and some necklaces for my daughter in laws. I also bought a baby blanket for adults called a Chooty. It is so soft. The fellow was telling me that Farmland got a ½ million dollar grant to renovate downtown. For all the towns that I have been in, this one needed it the least. Give it to poor Jumbo, Ohio! Farmland is a real artsy town and I wouldn’t mind going back. I was still wet and only 2 hours from home so I gave the GPS the go ahead for freeways and cranked it for home for a hot bath, my own bed and watching American Idol ( which I love Danny). I am going to process this trip in my head ( if old age doesn’t wipe it out soon) and list my findings.