Monday, June 21, 2010

A Tasty Ohio Day

Today's adventure took us from the RV Park on

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Highway 250 west past this old barn and beautiful corn field.

  We turned on Hwy 94N, where we shared the road with

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some of the locals who were coming and

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going about their daily business.  As for us, we were heading to the little town of Kiddron, where Mark was anxious to visit

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this famous hardware store.  We all enjoyed time there and fascinated by what we saw.

There were...

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new things that looked old.  And, things that

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were really old.

Lauren questioned

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this item.  Well...when is the last time you saw a clothes pin bag?

And, she was really fascinated by this

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old hair dryer!

She did find a new

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grill for her dad.

Andrew liked the

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tractors,

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the big book about tractors, and

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the over sized lanterns!

Wow...you could roam around this place all day.  However, we needed to get on

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down the road through...

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where we would visit the

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Heini's Cheese Factory.

Lauren was excited to

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watch the process.  They started with 2,400 gallons milk and would end up with 2,000 pounds of jalapeno cheddar cheese.

Next would come the

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salt and

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jalapeno peppers.

After, these had been

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well mixed, it was time to

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dump the cheese curds into these tubes where it will stay for 12 hours while all the

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liquid is squeezed out.

  From here it will be stored and aged.  This particular cheese is a Colby cheese and will be aged for 4 to 6 weeks, while a sharp cheese would be aged anywhere from 1 to 10 years.

Next stop...

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the sampling room.

Andrew's favorite was the Canadian Bacon Cheddar, while Lauren went for

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Fudge.

Brenda....we even found some

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butter for you!

And Jim, we found some

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Habanero cheese for you!

With our choices made, we were off to find

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lunch, which was an Amish buffet at the Homestead Restaurant in Berlin.  Yummy!

After a drive through the

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surrounding country side and watching the Amish

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going about their daily chores and

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activities, we made one last stop at

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a local market.

Here we shopped for

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fresh fruits and

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veggies.

Finally, after tasting our way through the day, it was time to figure out which

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country road would lead us back to the RV Park!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Just A Travel Day

Typically, we don't travel on Sunday, but today made a perfect travel day because we needed to...

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scoot around Louisville,

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creep through Cincinnati,

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wiggle through Columbus, and

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dodge orange cones as we headed toward Cleveland!

  So, we decided all of this could be accomplished a little easier on Sunday than on a week day with rush hour traffic.

Plus...

We did it the old fashion way...reading a map.

It seems that there must have been something floating around the atmosphere today because...

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Streets and Trips could not find the GPS...nor could my Droid.  Even the

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satellite radio had no signal.

Now...that was what you call a real glitch in the system!

We made it just fine, even locating a Flying-J.  Here on I-71 in Ohio we paid

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the highest price yet for diesel.  After getting fuel... we didn't have far to go before our turn off at I-71 and State Highway 30.  Once we were on 30, we saw lots of

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farms and

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farm houses.  And, then we saw our first

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Amish family as they traveled home from church.  We saw signs for

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places we want to go tomorrow.

Soon, we arrived at the

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Evergreen RV Resort

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where we will be staying for the next several days.

A quick look around the park...

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the church at the front of the property,

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the back side of the office and laundry.  (Note to Jim...there are 18 washers and dryers!)

And,

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there is the indoor swimming pool.  And, yes, we have already tried it and the hot tub!

Now, we are settled in and discussing our plan for tomorrow.

  Be sure you come along as we discover the

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Ohio Amish Country.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

A Priceless Adventure...

Today's adventure started a little before noon as we all loaded in the Jeep and headed for none other than the one and only Churchill Downs...

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home of the Kentucky Derby.

We had a great time as

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we watched

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the horses parade down the field.

From the program,

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Lauren studied the stats and decided which horse

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she wanted to put her money on.  While,

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Andrew just made a call back to Texas to Great MiMi to see if she had any track tips to share.  I guess she did...

And, the winner was horse #4,

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Sherlock, ridden by Calvin Borel, the 2010 winning Kentucky Derby jockey.

Andrew claimed his win, place, and show ticket of $12.60.  Lauren's choice, Cool Hero, came in 3rd place for a payoff of $2.60.

And, so went the afternoon...we watched as the horses

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left the starting gate until they crossed

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finish line.  And, then waiting and watching for the

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official results to be posted.

We sat out a race or two while having lunch from the Track Grill.  We shopped in the

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gift store, where Lauren and I had fun

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trying on all the hats.  I mean a girl can't come to Churchill Downs without her hat!

We spent some time just out walking around admiring the

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the beautiful facilities.  This is truly one

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amazing place.

This evening we tried out

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White Castle, home of the original slider hamburger.  It took 16 mini burgers to make dinner.  LOL

Then, it was off to Kart Kountry, where,

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the kids choose to take a ride around the

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world's largest and longest track at a mile and half.

Back to the RV park and still not out of gas, they decided to rent a couple of

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banana bikes for a spin around the park.

Now, they are waiting for it to get dark so the movie can start, which will be shown on the

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inflatable movie screen.  That is a wrap on our day and the summary went something like this...

     Parking..............................................$  5.00

     Admission to Churchill Downs.............$  1.00

     Wagering............................................$64.00

     Winnings............................................$44.00

     Food...................................................$41.00

    T-Shirt................................................$22.00

     Go Carts..............................................$20.00

     Banana Bikes.......................................$ 6.00

     The Adventure..................................Priceless

Tomorrow is a travel day...destination...Evergreen RV Park, Dundee, Ohio.  See you tomorrow from the Amish Country.