(Above Photo: Hocking Hills State Park)

What better way to learn about a state than to spend an entire month there? Other than a short business trip to Cincinnati years ago, I knew little about Ohio. After a fabulous and busy two weeks in Detroit, I entered Ohio via its northwest corner, smack dab into Toledo, population 275,000.

A Rust Belt Town Poised To Pivot: Holy Toledo!

Do you know about the Ohio-Michigan War? I first heard about it at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan two months ago. In the end, Michigan got the Upper Peninsula, and Ohio got Toledo. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who got the better deal.

Toledo makes Jeeps. Dubbed “The Glass City,” Toledo is also home to the Libbey Glass Company.

Here is the punch bowl Libbey displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The 134-pound bowl was the largest piece of cut glass Libbey had ever made.

I stocked up on Christmas presents at the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet and bought myself a new set of flatware. At $.10 apiece, it set me back a whopping $3.60.

The Libbeys were benevolent benefactors, founding the Toledo Museum of Art (outstanding, and free!).

The Glass Pavilion at the Museum is a fitting tribute to the town’s glass legacy.

The Maumee River runs through Toledo into nearby Lake Erie,

and East Toledo’s blue-collar immigrant roots run deep near the port authority, in the Birmingham neighborhood.

Surrounded by union halls, Tony Packo’s has been serving up chili dogs and Hungarian food since 1932.

Toledo native Jamie Farr put Tony Packo’s on the map, mentioning it six times during the M*A*S*H television series.

One day during a visit to Tony’s, Burt Reynolds autographed a hotdog bun, and the Packo’s tradition was born. Bread won’t last forever, so a special bun is made of resin for signing.

Farr also mentioned the Toledo Mudhens on M*A*S*H, and many believed it was a fictitious team.

Au contraire! The Mudhens play at Fifth Third Field in Hensville, the stadium area of Toledo.

(Fifth Third is a Cincinnati-based bank, formed when the Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank merged. What a lousy name; it sounds like divvying up a bottle of booze.) Toledo is very proud of their Hens. They are also very proud of the fact that the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, Moses Fleetwood Walker, played for the Toledo Blue Stockings.

Downtown is fairly sleepy, and no doubt there is some serious blight going on in downtown Toledo. Shells of buildings barely stand directly across the street from the hockey stadium, for example. But there are also some lovely pockets, including the Adams Street Corridor, three blocks of shops and restaurants.

This is the Anthony Wayne Bridge in Toledo.

Do you know who he is? I sure didn’t.

His name is plastered all over everything in this part of the country, from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Wayne State University in Detroit, to this tavern in Waterville.

“Mad Anthony” fought the last battle of the Northwest Indian Wars – The Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794) – in nearby Maumee, and the battlefield is open for tours. Next door in Perrysburg, Fort Meigs was seiged during the Battle of 1812. American history is older in Ohio. (Perrysburg is a quaint little township that was holding a scarecrow contest during my visit.)

Perrysburg was named for Commodore Perry, whose legendary heroism during the War of 1812 made him a household name, but let’s catch up with him in Put-in-Bay.

The Lake Erie Shores And Islands

“Have you been to The Lake?” Everywhere I went in Ohio, people asked the same question. In Ohio, “The Lake” means only one thing: Lake Erie. And it’s no wonder; it is situated along almost all of Ohio’s northern border. But if it’s a lakefront vacation you’re after, people flock to north-central Ohio and the Sandusky area, AKA “The Lake Erie Shores and Islands.”

This is the working man’s family lake getaway, complete with Cedar Point, the amusement park with some of the best roller coasters in the world.

Ever since neck surgery in 2012, when I was warned off even so much as bumper cars, I can’t ride coasters anymore. Instead, I opted for Cedar Point’s Halloweekend, when the park is decorated with spooky decor and offers several indoor and outdoor scares.

The haunts at the park entrance were pretty PG, with themes like zombie high school and a charmingly spooky mansion.

But in the back corner of the park, where the little ones don’t go, the haunts were downright scary!

Several ferry lines take you from the shore to the islands, and I opted to visit Put-in-Bay, on South Bass Island.

Seven miles off its coast, in 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry won a decisive naval battle against the British, effectively ending the War of 1812.

Perry was on board the Lawrence, named for a friend who had recently died in battle. His friend’s last words were, “Don’t give up the ship.“ (Incidentally, they did.) Perry had those words embroidered on a flag, which he presented to encourage his crew.

When the Lawrence was destroyed, Perry transferred to the Niagara and renewed the fight.

Within 15 minutes the British surrendered. Perry sent a dispatch to Major General William Henry Harrison, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.“

Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial was erected between 1912 and 1915 to commemorate the Battle of Lake Erie that occurred on September 10, 1813. The observation deck 317 feet above lake level offers beautiful views.

Put-in-Bay is hopping in the summer and on weekends, but it was pretty quiet when I visited on a sunny early October day. I liked it that way.

On The Path Of The Presidents

Ohio lays claim to eight United States Presidents.

The state is a veritable cornucopia of historic sites and museums related to Presidents in the USA’s middle history.

From Sandusky it was a short drive to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums in Fremont. The grounds include the house in which he lived both before and after his election,

a very good museum,

and the remains of Hayes and his wife Lucy.

He was the 19th president and served after Ulysses S. Grant (who was born in Ohio), but his election was quite the scandal. He won the electoral college, but not the popular vote, earning him the nickname “Rutherfraud.“

The museum was contacted frequently for comments after the outcome of the last election.

Hayes did not seek reelection and was succeeded by another Ohioan, James Garfield. I visited Garfield’s home and museum just outside Cleveland in Mentor, where ”Front Porch Campaigns” got their start. Back then the party did all the campaigning for you, and you just stayed home. That didn’t stop visitors from coming, and Garfield spoke to over 15,000 of them from this front porch.

Garfield was shot by a crazy man who wanted a political appointment, and it took Garfield 79 days to die. The PBS American Experience episode, “Murder of a President,” left me in tears. In his final days he wanted to see the water, and they put him on a train to the Jersey Shore. People lined the tracks, throwing straw on the rails to make the ride easier. His death must have been excruciating.

Garfield‘s glorious tomb in Cleveland also includes his wife Lucretia, “Crete” to her friends. More on the cemetery where it is located in a bit.

I am often asked how many Presidential Libraries I have seen in my travels, and it depends on your definition of “library.”

There are 13 libraries operated by the National Archives, which actually hold the administration’s papers and artifacts. Then you have various birthplaces, homesteads, graves, and tombs around the country, run by trusts, historical societies, and civic groups, some of which call themselves “libraries” no doubt to benefit from the prestige of the Archives. Official or not, most are worth the trip, but the “library” for William McKinley in Canton was pretty iffy.

The second Ohioan assassinated while in Presidential Office, the 25th President was shot by an anarchist while visiting the Pan-American expo in Buffalo, New York. He died within days. His tomb is stunning,

but the “library“ consists of a single room in the county history museum, planetarium and science center, with animatronic President and First Lady. Egads!

Ohio counts 13 sites in the state devoted to U.S. Presidents. I intended to visit the William Howard Taft National Historic Site in Cincinnati, but ended up bypassing the city due to weather. More on that in a bit too. If you’d like to learn more, check out ohiohistory.org.

Covered Bridges Galore: Ashtabula County

I am such a sucker for covered bridges, and Ashtabula County, an hour from Cleveland, has 19 of them. I headed east, avoiding the tolls on the Ohio Turnpike by setting GPS preferences to skip toll roads. I set up camp in the town with the same name as the county, at the Elks Lodge on the banks of Lake Erie.

I timed my visit for the Covered Bridge Festival, when community groups adopt a bridge and hold fundraisers directly at the bridge sites.

The festival culminates in Jefferson, where there is live music, food booths, rides, a car show, and a parade.

The bridges in Ashtabula County run the gamut, from the shortest

to the longest.

There’s even a two-fer for bridge hunters, where a pedestrian only covered bridge was built under the longest.

While Main Street in Ashtabula has fallen on hard times, Bridge Street by the Ashtabula River is alive with activity.

In the early 20th century, Swedish, Finnish, Irish, Italian and other immigrants worked at the adjacent ore receiving port, which was known as one of the toughest ports in the world, alongside Shanghai and Calcutta. Back then Bridge Street served the marine and railroad trade with department stores, barbers, grocers, attorneys, undertakers, restaurants, pool halls, saloons, and brothels. Things are a lot tamer now. I sipped on a mocha while perusing the boutiques.

The old coal conveyor, no longer in use, has become an iconic symbol of the area, and efforts are still being made to clean up the river – one of the 43 most contaminated areas of concern in the Great Lakes. Up to 19 industrial facilities operated there unchecked for over twenty years. They dredged the contaminated sediment from the riverbed for five years!

Cleveland Rocks!

Ian Hunter and Drew Carey were right – Cleveland Rocks. I was in town for a week and barely scratched the surface of everything I wanted to see and do there.

There is the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, sure, but it is such a small part of what Cleveland is all about.

(You might wonder why the Rock Hall is in Cleveland. It’s because local disc jockey, Alan Freed, coined the phrase. I paid my respects at his grave in Cleveland, the tombstone shaped like a jukebox.)

The public art in Cleveland is wonderful.

I have heard of Case Western Reserve, but never gave any thought as to how the college got its name. “Western Reserve” is part of the names of many buildings and businesses in the area. Why? Ohio used to be part of Connecticut. When America gained its independence, Connecticut ceded much of its land to the newly-formed United States, but reserved a portion of northeastern Ohio – The Western Reserve. I don’t know if I ever knew that, but if I did, I surely forgot.

Moses Cleaveland (I am not misspelling it) was sent on an expedition to scout the area, did not stay and never returned, yet the town was named after him. Years later a newspaper masthead, too small for so many letters, dropped the first “a” from the name.

The Industrial Revolution left its indelible mark on Cleveland, as titans of industry made their fortunes.

Many of them are buried in Lake View Cemetery, which dates back to 1869 and includes such notables as John D. Rockefeller, Elliot Ness, and President James Garfield.

Let me tell you – I’ve toured a lot of cemeteries. Never have I been so welcomed as I was at Lake View. I was even taken on a private tour via golf cart by Memorial Advisor Karen Drake, who drove me around for over two hours with my new Elks Club friend, Laura.

Highlights included the Tiffany-designed Wade Memorial Chapel,

and the Haserot Angel, full name “Angel of Death Victorious.” (Sculptor Herman Matzen, 1924) She weeps black tears, man oh man.

Think that’s a sword in her hand? Oh no, my friend. That’s the torch of life, which she has turned over and extinguished. Shudder!

By the 1930s things were really booming in Cleveland, promoting the amazing growth of civic architecture and infrastructure.

(Severance Hall, 1931)

(The Guardians of Transportation on the Loraine-Carnegie Bridge, 1932)

In the late 40s and 50s families raised their children in neighborhoods like Tremont, minutes from downtown, in the shadows of the factories and mills.

The house from “A Christmas Story” is in Tremont, in a little row of cookie-cutter homes on an idyllic Middle America, middle-class street.

People shopped at Eastern Market in the neighborhood for fresh meat and produce.

Their immigrant roots are still apparent in restaurants and grocery stores, where pierogi, schnitzel and spaetzel, and Chicken Paprikash are ubiquitous.

They worshipped in cathedrals like the Russian Orthodox Saint Theodosius, where in its heyday, over 1,000 families were part of the parish (today, less than 100). The wedding scene from “The Deer Hunter” was filmed there.

The party was over by the 60s and 70s. Factories closed. Unemployment was rampant. Race riots ensued. The mob’s bloody turf wars earned Cleveland the nickname “Bomb City.” (Watch the movie “Kill The Irishman” if you’d like to lean more, even though it wasn’t filmed in Cleveland.) In 1969, the Cuyahoga River that runs through town burned. It. Caught. Fire. The thing is, it wasn’t the first time, but on this occasion a Time magazine reporter was there to witness it. (The photos in the article were from another fire in the 1950s.) The EPA soon followed.

No doubt the decades after that were rough on everyone. But now Cleveland is having itself a Renaissance. Imposing, ostentatious banks have been converted to restaurants, and even a grocery store.

All the theaters in Playhouse Square have been revived and restored – the second largest theater district in the United States after New York.

The Flats along the Cuyahoga are livable again, full of bars and restaurants and dog parks and trails and bike paths.

I could have stayed much longer in Cleveland. If it weren’t for those dismal winters, I’m sure I could live there very happily.

Kent State University

Nowadays May 4 is a Star Wars gimmick – “May the Fourth Be With You.” But on May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine injured (one paralyzed) by National Guard soldiers during a Vietnam War protest on the campus at Kent State University. Some of the students were merely walking to class at the time they died.

The May 4 Visitors Center and Memorial explores the political and social factors that led to this preventable injustice, a perfect storm of tragic events which unfolded when truth was spoken to power.

The memorial suggests we reflect, learn, and inquire, and the Center’s motto is “Be The Change.”

Ohio’s Natural Beauty – A National And A State Park

The National Park: Ohio’s only National Park is 24 miles outside Cleveland and 18 miles from Akron – Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I stayed nearby at Nimisila Reservoir, where I was the only camper for three nights in a row!

The solitude, cooler weather, and fall colors inspired me to build a fire, which I so rarely do.

A popular way to see Cuyahoga Valley National Park is by train.

Volunteers staff the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, which makes several stops in the park, running between Akron and Cleveland.

Reading the reviews by all the wankers on TripAdvisor, I went prepared with low expectations, but the entire trip was wonderful.

While this National Park is not the most grand in the country, I was mesmerized by the story of the Ohio Erie Canal and the fortitude of the people who hand dug it and built the locks.

Many of the little towns in the valley sprang up because the canal brought visitors for the first time, and those towns are still in existence today.

Can you imagine being towed on a boat by a mule through the canal? 309 miles in 80 hours!

In nearby Zoar, founded by German religious separatists in 1817 as a socialist utopian society, the citizens paid off their land debt by digging seven miles of the canal and building four locks between 1825 and 1828.

The State Park: Who knew I was a hiker? I still declare that I am not, but I came as close as I’ll ever get at Hocking Hills State Park. I did four separate trails in two days. (Torrential rains forecast for the last day at the park necessitated the urgency.)

Here is Old Man’s Cave:

Rock House:

Ash Cave:

and Cedar Falls.

The fall colors, together with the caves and waterfalls, were spectacular. What a treasure Ohio has in this park.

At the Visitor Center 12 miles from Hocking Hills is the Pencil Sharpener Museum, dedicated to the local pastor who collected them his entire life.

The Pencil Sharpener Museum did not show up on any of my go-to internet searches. (I frequently refer to the United States edition of “1000 Places to See Before You Die”; atlasobscuracom; onlyinyourstate.com; roadsideamerica.com; findagrave.com; the New York Times “36 Hours” series; and Condé Nast and Travel & Leisure on Facebook.) No, I became aware of the Pencil Sharpener Museum because of a brochure about the Hocking Hills area.

There is little I love more than walking into a Visitors Information Center off the highway at a state border. I thrill at the sight of rows and rows of magazines, cards, brochures, and pamphlets, organized by region. Laden with armloads of materials, I am inevitably asked if I would like a bag. The answer is always yes.

Likewise, whenever I am at a tourist attraction, hotel, shopping mall, diner, or anywhere else with informational pamphlets by the entrance or restrooms, I always peruse them. And that’s how I found out about the Famous Endings Museum in Dover, Ohio.

Housed in the Toland-Herzig Funeral Home, the Museum is a collection of the funeral and memorial items of famous people, curated by Funeral Director John Herzig.

It all started with Joe Louis. Herzig purchased an autographed photo online, and when it arrived, the seller had thrown in Louis’s funeral brochure. As a funeral director, Herzig’s interest was piqued, and he started collecting.

The result is very stylish, well-organized and informative. It rung so many bells with me, as I am fascinated by famous people and their deaths, and I was a collector of many things for so long myself. John wasn’t in that day, but his son showed me around. And it’s free! What a find!

Mansfield: A Pilgrimage For One Of My Favorite Movies Of All Time

Twenty-five years ago, Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, told Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, played by Morgan Freeman, to get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’. When I learned that the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, where “Shawshank Redemption“ was filmed, was open for tours, and there were other movie sites nearby along the Shawshank Trail, there was no doubt I was going.

In August Mansfield held a 25th anniversary party for the movie, and there was artwork installed throughout town commemorating the milestone.

I camped at the Eagles Aerie downtown, steps from where many of the town scenes were filmed. I could see the antique shop where Red bought the compass from my windshield.

Touring the reformatory itself was great, not only because of the scenes from the movie,

but because of the hauntingly beautiful decay and the downright spooky feeling of the place.

The opening scene of the movie, when Andy is sitting in the car with a gun contemplating murdering his cheating wife and her lover, was filmed at Malabar Farm State Park, 12 miles from downtown Mansfield.

I must admit I had never heard of the farm, or of Pulitzer Prize winning author Louis Bromfield, who lived there from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Bogey & Bacall were married there.

It is a wonderful time capsule period home, all original furnishings, and still a working farm.

Here’s more about Bromfield if you’re interested! The short film at the bottom of the page is good.

Hey Boo Boo, That’s A Big Pic-A-Nic Basket!

How lucky for me, there was one day in the month of October that the Longaberger Basket Home Office in Newark, Ohio was open for tours, and I was able to go. If you aren’t familiar with the company, which went bankrupt after its founder died and his daughters ran the business into the ground, here’s a timeline from the local newspaper.

The Longaberger Building (1997) is 160 times larger than the basket after which it is modeled. It is seven stories tall and 180,000 square feet. The handles weigh approximately 150 tons and are heated to prevent ice formation.

As it turns out, I could’ve saved myself the drive and just photographed the exterior of this unique building. There really isn’t much to see inside.

Rumor has it that it is going to be turned into a hotel.

I saw my first groundhog while visiting the Longaberger Building. Photographing the backside of the building, I felt the ground giving way as I walked – a telltale sign of burrowed tunnels. Out of the the corner of my eye I saw something that I thought was a cat. It stopped moving, standing stiff. Those things are huge!

The State Capitol: Columbus

Sure, I visited many state capitols before Nellie, but I vowed to see every capitol city in the lower 48 while in the RV. Columbus made it 23 so far.

The check engine alarm came on as I pulled into town, so a large part of my time in Columbus was spent at Cummins in Hilliard. (It was a coolant issue. I won’t bore you with the $750 details.) While Nellie was in the shop I took the short drive to Dublin to see “Cornhenge,” also known as “Field of Corn with Osage Orange Trees,” by Malcolm Cochran. It was a particularly foggy morning, giving an eerie quality to the photographs. The town of Dublin used the photo for Halloween on Instagram.

I also spent a sunny Sunday afternoon in Columbus, enjoying the architecture and neighborhoods.

What do you do when your town is named for an historical figure once glorified, now vilified? Lean in. Look at the size of that statue at the Board of Education, and I heard no grumblings about it coming down anytime soon. I bet the people of Columbus don’t call that holiday in October “Indigenous Peoples Day.“

I must admit I had never heard of the Sciote River, but it runs through Columbus.

Topiary Park, on the site of the historic Deaf School, was such a delight. Since 1989 artisans have been recreating George’s Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” with topiaries.

German Village was declared historic in the 1980s, saving it from so much demolition that occurred in that decade and the next.

I was particularly enthralled with the Short North District, which is known for its gay enclaves and Bohemian sensibilities. They host a politically irreverent Independence Day parade each year, and a fashion-forward Halloween parade. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to attend one or both.

A Legend And A Tragedy At The Ohio Border: Point Pleasant, West Virginia

On my final day in the Hocking Hills area I took a drive to the Ohio/West Virginia border, admiring the Mail Pouch Tobacco barns along the way. (Not my photos; I was never fast enough!)

(A Mail Pouch Tobacco barn has one or more sides painted from 1890 to 1992, advertising Mail Pouch Tobacco. They are decreasing in number but are generally found in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.)

The farther east I drove, the more I was reminded of those family car trips from Mississippi through Appalachia, to Kentucky to visit my mother’s people.

It was my first time in West Virginia, and I entered the state on Memorial Bridge (1969) over the Ohio River, from Gallipolis, Ohio to Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

I knew a little bit about Point Pleasant and what happened there because of the 2002 movie with Richard Gere and Debra Messing, “The Mothman Prophecies.” The movie has very little to do with the events that actually occurred in 1966 and 1967, but it piqued my interest, and I watched a couple of documentaries after that.

In Winter 1966, upstanding, sane citizens of Point Pleasant began seeing a large, black, bird-like creature, first at an old World War II munitions facility, then in other places around Point Pleasant. There were over 100 reported sightings in the next 12 months. The following year, on December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge between Gallipolis and Point Pleasant collapsed during rush hour, killing 46 people.

Historically, in other cultures and another places around the world, sightings of other-worldly, bird-like creatures have occurred before tragic events. Mothman sightings in Point Pleasant ended after the bridge collapsed.

The Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant is campy, but accurately describes what happened during those 13 months.

More somber, sober remembrances of the collapse can be seen at the actual site of the Silver Bridge downtown,

and at a rest stop in Ohio.

An eye bar failed under the weight of the stop and go traffic, prompting Congressional passage of national bridge inspection standards in 1968.

Catch You Next Time, Cincinnati

Temperatures began dipping below freezing at night while I was at Hocking Hills State Park. At my next stop I intended to boondock at an Elks Lodge just outside Cincinnati. It is harder to adequately heat a motorhome in freezing temperatures without the benefit of an electrical hook up. Not impossible, but harder. I decided to skip Cincinnati. Next time, I’ll be sure to see the National Underground Railroad Museum, the American Sign Museum, Spring Grove Cemetery, and Union Terminal.

Other Ohio sites for next time:

The graves of the Wright brothers in Dayton
The Merry Go Round Museum in Sandusky
The Edison Birthplace in Milan
The Dunham Tavern in Cleveland
Vasehenge in Zanesville
Annie Oakley sites in Greenville and Versailles
Granville
The Thurber House in Columbus
Greenlawn Cemetery in Columbus
The Early Television Museum in Hiliard

As I depart Ohio, let me leave you with this little ditty from the 1953 Broadway musical “Wonderful Town,” as sung by Doris Day: