We don't have anything planned in Central Ohio

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

September 29, 2022

After our stop at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, we drove another 80 miles to our next Boondocker Welcome stop. We're staying right in the center of Ohio, an area not known as a tourist stop. But we can usually find something to do. How about a bike ride?

We found that a section of the Heart of Ohio rail trail starts in the nearby town of Mount Vernon. 

Even though we are at the end of September, we found some nasturtiums blooming along the trail.

This section of the Heart of Ohio is named the Gap Kokosing Trail. We headed northeast on it for five miles to the town of Gambier.

Our bird pictures of the day were snapped in the branches of the trees along the bike trail.

Like many of the rail trails, we came to stops that explain the trains that once made regular trips on the very same route that we are biking today.

In the sections between towns we rode beside soybean fields.

The plants have dried out, and it looks like this field of beans is about ready to harvest.

This Heart of Ohio bike trail is very nice, with wooden bike bridges that replace the old train trestles that used to link the hills.

We rode all the way to the rock bridge near Howard, Ohio, before we turned around to head back.

On our way back through the town of Gambier, we stopped to walk around Kenyon College. This is a liberal arts school that was started in 1824 by an Episcopal Bishop. We enjoyed a 1.6-mile walk through the old buildings and old trees of this campus.

As we continued on our hike, we spotted a wood chuck chewing on the green leaves along the trail.

After riding our bikes back to the pickup, we realized that we had once again found ourselves in Amish country. We love to shop at Amish grocery stores, and we knew we had found an authentic stop when the hitching post was full of buggies and horse manure.

We love to stop at the "Dent and Bulk Grocery" stores that we often find in Amish country. They feature dented cans and squished boxes that a traditional grocery won't sell. We also find groceries that are close to their expiration dates. Our favorite find was this large tub of miscellaneous snack bars. Many are not designed to be sold individually, and anything in the tub was available for ten cents each. It's a good way to try lots of new brands and flavors of the bars that we often eat on the trail.

Our last stop of the day was at an orchard, where the honey crisp apples were at their peak. We bought a bag, as we can obviously never have too many apples in the motor home! We made one other stop when we got a facetime call from both our sons and our grandchildren. We will always stop whatever we are doing to take a fun phone call like that! It was almost dark when we finally got back to the motor home. We sure have been busy on this central Ohio day when we didn't have anything planned!