First let me say that I am trying something new (for me). Some of my friends and family are getting an email letting them know when I post a blog. If you want off that list or if you want on that list, just email me and let me know either way, bwesters@earthlink.net. Now to our blog…
We have been staying at the Lancaster Campground, a very old church camp that is today used for summer vacationers, school band camps and of course church summer campers. It is very clean, friendly and has PassPort America rates for RV’ers. We drove into the downtown area of Lancaster on Tuesday, but found the Glass Museum and Sherman House, birthplace of William Tecumseh Sherman, closed.
We did see the very old and beautiful Elks Lodge, but obviously there was no RV parking here.
We pulled over across from the Glass Museum on Main street and parked when I noticed a car pulled in behind us and was taking our picture. The guy got out of his car and walked up to my window. I rolled down the window and said, “Geocacher?”. Yup, he was taking a picture of the Travel Bug on the back of our Jeep. We talked about caching and he mentioned he was a teacher. What did he teach? Woodshop. What a small world, Tom and HUGN8R (cache name) compared notes on SkillsUSA and other woodshop things.
On Wednesday we had planned on moving north toward Maine, but decided to go to the Ohio State Fair. I even wore my Big Fresno Fair shirt. We were up early (for us) 7:30 am, got our coffees in our travel cups, grabbed 4 mini biscotti’s and headed to Columbus. It was a 40 minute drive from the Campground to Hwy 33 to Hwy I70 to Hwy I71 to the Fairgrounds. Traffic was light and we drove by the Highway Patrol Academy as we entered the fairgrounds and were directed by Highway Patrol volunteers. These guys and gals volunteer their time to patrol the fair and are great information people. They offer a great service to the fair. Our shuttle bus driver said this school is host to many other state Highway Patrol Officer trainings. We’ll have to ask our friend, Dan Chance, who retired from California HP and writes a terrific blog on his and wife, Patty’s, travels and occasionally tells a story of his days as a CHP Officer.
Our first stop after paying a bargain $3 for the first day entry fee was the Youth Center Building.
This was a combination of the Big Fresno Fair’s old Career Path and current Junior Exhibit buildings. This building is almost entirely hands-on exhibits, corporate sponsored booths/areas, and youth organization competitions (4H Health Interviews). We talked to the Home Economics student leadership organization’s state staff about vocational education in California and Ohio and it seems the challenges are the same… all students are going to college and do not need Voc. Ed. classes.
We then spent quite a bit of time with Dick Dieffenderfer, Ohio Dept. of Ed. Technology Education staff, talking about the partnerships between the Fair, the Universities, and the school programs displayed at the fair. It definitely works and offers fairgoers lots to see and DO.
We saw lots of horse show activities which are not at our Fresno Fair. The exhibitors were so good at handling their horses that neither Tom nor I guessed the winner, the rider on the horse next to the end on the right.
The butter cow sculpture has been shown at the Ohio State Fair for over 100 years. The detail on the cow and her calf is pretty amazing.The other sculpture was of an astronaut though it looked more like a Martian than astronaut.
My favorite sculpture was of the pigs. They were all made out of chocolate and so the building they were in was air conditioned. Boy was that appreciated as by noon it was very hot and humid.
We rode the shuttle around the fairgrounds from building to building as this is a huge fairgrounds and as I mentioned before it was very hot and humid.
We had to check out the Floriculture department for ideas. This fair does not have daily entries so everything is pre-entered. Exhibitors can enter as many flowers or plants as they want for $10 a person not entry. We liked some of the names of the entries, Black Magic, Coleus Craze, Miniature Landscapes, and Reach for the Sky.
A couple of exhibits we’ve never seen before were the Brillo Pad Designed Bra
The toilet design exhibit
and the Origami exhibit.
We finished our day riding the overhead tram across the fairgrounds. Tom really concentrated on holding his shoes on.
We left Lancaster the next morning and drove 225 miles up I-71 then onto I-90 to Ashtabula, OH which is just a few miles from Lake Erie and a few miles from Pennsylvania. We are going caching. Until then we are On the Road Again, Tom, Barbara & Pansy
Hey Barbara and Tom. Had to laugh that you had taken a photo of my wife's Brillo Pad Bra that was used as an inspiration for a new category of Creative Art at the Ohio State Fair because she had it on her blog http://wwwmainelobstah.blogspot.com/2011/02/brillo-pad-bra_01.html. We too are avid Geocachers and welcome your visit should you ever come out the Idaho direction.
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