Spent A Week With Grams!

We spent a fantastic week in Mansfield, Ohio with Grams for her 80th birthday!!

A lot of the plan this spring and summer revolved around getting to Mansfield, Ohio to visit Grams for her 80th birthday! We could tell she was excited about us visiting. She sent us ideas of places to go and things to see for weeks before we arrived. There were a lot of things on the itinerary, so I took the week off of work. I didn’t want to miss anything!

We arrived in the Mansfield area on Sunday. We were staying in a small, quiet little campground near Butler, about 20 minutes south and a little east of Mansfield. The drive to get there was only a couple of hours, so we got there fairly early. Once we got set up, we took off to Mansfield to see Grams! We didn’t do much that first evening except for a lot of chatting and catching up. Grams showed us around her beautiful home, then we went to Dairy Land for dinner. Dairy Land has been open since 1947, I think and is kind of like a Dairy Queen meets Sonic. Haha! Grams was telling us that they close down for the winter and the whole town watches for them to put the giant ice cream cone back on the roof in the spring. That’s the signal that they’re open again. I got a pizza burger and a root beer float, and it was Devine. 🙂

Monday, we got up bright and early and got ready to go to Grams’ house. Monday was her birthday! We blew up the big 80 balloons and surprised her with them. We also had a couple of small gifts for her too even though she insisted us being there was her gift. ❤️ For her birthday, she wanted to drive up to Lake Erie and visit some of her favorite places. Her daughter, Susan and her granddaughter, Katie went with us. Susan was kind enough to drive.

The first place we went was Marblehead Lighthouse. It’s the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on the Great Lakes. The day we were there was the day before its 200th birthday! How cool is that!? We even got to climb to the top of it. Super narrow spiral staircase that went just about straight up. The view from the top was totally worth it. Here are a few pictures. Click on the images for a larger view.

From the lighthouse, we went and had lunch. Grams said when you’re on Lake Erie, you have to at least try the Lake Erie perch. I’m glad I did. It was delicious. From there, we did a little shopping. Then we drove over to another area with more beautiful views of the lake. By that time, it was time to head home. We stopped at a farmer’s market on the way and picked up some fresh fruits and some local jam.

One of the things Grams asked if we wanted to do was tour the Ohio State Reformatory. We were on the fence until she said, “It’s where Shawshank Redemption was filmed.” I said, “Uuuummm, heck yeah we’re in!” Morgan said, “What’s the Shawshank Redemption?” 😱 So, we watched it one evening, then she was as excited for the tour as I was. LOL! We did the self-guided tour with audio. They give you this little speaker and at certain points along the tour, there are numbers on a plaque. You key in the number and it tells you what you’re looking at. The tour took about 2 or 2 1/2 hours and it was very good. Click on the images for a larger view.

Cells were tiny

Aaawwwww

Once the tour was over we were starving so we went to downtown Mansfield and had a slice of pizza. Then we wandered over to an area called The Brickyard where they have outdoor concerts in the summer. There was a brewery in the area, so of course we had to check that out too.

The next day, Grams gave us the Grand Tour of Mansfield. First, we went to her church. I’ve only seen cathedrals like this in Europe and a couple in NYC. I’m sure there are more, but I just haven’t seen them. That made this one really cool to see.

From there, we were treated to views of most, if not all of the houses Grams has lived in around town. She even took us by the house she had built many years ago. The stories she told about each house and about the different sites around town were just absolutely fascinating.

Thursday, we drove over to the Mohican State Forest and Park where we discovered that there are parts of Ohio that has beautiful rolling hills. Such beautiful country to drive through. We also swung by Landoll’s Mohican Castle. It’s an inn out in the middle of nowhere, architected to resemble a castle. Beautiful structure. The rates are not cheap. Not cheap at all.

Friday, we explored Amish country! I had personally never been to Amish country that I can remember. I’m not sure I even knew Ohio had Amish country. We stopped by downtown Millersburg, where on the square there was a section of “Horses Only” parking. We picked up a new plaque to hang on the front of our trailer! “Home is where we park it. The Smiths.”

We also went to this really cool cheese factory that I’ve unfortunately forgotten the name of. Any kind of cheese you want, you can find it there. We picked up a few kinds of cheese and also got some jalapeño and cheese summer sausage that is just delicious. We ended the day going to the J.M. Smucker Company Store and Cafe. Yep. Smucker’s, the jelly and jams.

Saturday, we went to a graduation party and then kind of took it easy. Once we got home Saturday evening, we realized that we’d been there a whole week and didn’t get one single picture of all of us together. So when we left Sunday, we swung by her house for one last quick visit and picture!