Enjoying The Ride

Our road trips are mostly weekend escapes but some are longer. We once started a road trip and ended up in Nevada. We had no plans to go that far but we enjoyed the ride. We especially enjoyed traveling in Utah and Colorado. The best food we ever ate on the road was in roadside bar & grill in Colorado. It was very rustic and western, had a friendly, pleasant atmosphere and the food was really good.

We mostly travel to out of the way places. It’s not about destinations, it’s about slowing the trip down and seeing new places and meeting new people. We have our own adventurous style of travel, I’m not saying it’s right and others are wrong, it’s just ours and we are happy with it. Cell phones are silenced except if we need to use them. Getting away from phones, computers, traffic and noise far from the hustle and bustle of urban life is like medicine for the soul.

We’ve spent many years traveling together and have learned the art of traveling slowly. We keep a positive attitude and place a high value on forming relationships with local residents and others we meet. We’ve met many wonderful everyday men and women over the years, some have become lifelong friends. Stepping outside your comfort zone to talk to new people and try new things can be rewarding.  Embrace the unknown; you never know if you'll be in a particular place again and what you discover can be amazing.

Placemarks

You may be familiar with Google Earth Placemarks. If so, you know how useful they are. If not, here’s a brief explanation.

A placemark is a saved location in Google Earth. Placemarks are saved in a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file. When you create a placemark you can name the place and make notes about it which are saved along with the coordinates in the placemark. KML files can contain hundreds of placemarks. 

When a KML file is loaded into Earth, the placemarks appear as pins on the map. Clicking on a pin displays the information you entered about that location. If we’ve taken photos of a place we attach a photo to the placemark which also appears when the pin is clicked. 

For many years we have been place marking locations while traveling about. There are many uses for placemarks. Whether it's a farm that sells produce, a scenic overlook, a unique and interesting place or something we want to remember and be able to find again, placemarks allow us to quickly find it.

We add anything of interest that we might want to visit in the future. Placemarks are easily shared and can be used on any device that has Google Earth.

The National Road Project

 In 2018, we started the National Road Project - To explore and photograph the Ohio portion of the National Road and what remains of the original roadway, buildings and structures from the Pennsylvania border to the Indiana border. The National Road was nicknamed "The Main Street of America". There are historic stone bridges on the National Road that have their own stories to tell. The S Bridge, so named because of its design, stands 4 miles east of Old Washington, Ohio. Built in 1828 as part of the National Road, it is a single arch stone structure. It had deteriorated and was used only for pedestrian traffic but I believe it has now been restored. It’s a great adventure and there are many things to see from a bygone era. There’s also a “Y” bridge in Zanesville that was built in 1814 and spans the confluence of the Licking and Muskingum Rivers. The Route 40 project is finished. We explored what remains of the original National Road (Route 40) in Ohio. It was interesting and a lot of fun.

Artesian Well

An artesian well is a well that brings groundwater to the surface without pumping because it is under pressure within a body of rock or sediment known as an aquifer. Water runs from this well continually year round. There are many of these wells in Ohio. 

Wild Rose

Cryss took this photo of a wild rose growing near a forest path. They have a pleasant fragrance but not as strong as garden roses. Wild roses can be found in areas such as fence rows, woodland edges, and prairies. There are many wild flowers to be seen in Ohio’s woodlands.

Rusting Away

Abandoned barns and broken down farm equipment fascinate me. There are stories behind the abandoned machines. I sometimes look for clues to see if I can learn what happened and why it was abandoned and left to rust away. Discarded objects, an old shed, piles of junk can sometimes give clues. The truck in the photo is a 1960’s model. The amount of undisturbed dust in the barn tells us that it’s been sitting here for many years. This barn and a small shed are all that remain of a farm.

Lawn Mowers

Sheep keep this cemetery mowed. Sheep run on what they eat and don't emit carbon as they mow. Sheep eat most lawn weeds, as well as grass. Sheep don't require any sharpening or tuning before lawn mowing season starts. They don't throw rocks at windows. However, they do require care all year long, and carrying water to them all winter is a lot of work compared with tuning up a lawn mower. We have also seen goats in cemeteries. It's easy to distinguish between them, sheep tails hang down and goats tails usually point up.