Ohio - Places and Spots

    Yesterday my family and I drove across the state of Ohio in order to come visit my home state of Indiana. I have quite a few memories of crossing Ohio, and also a few times visiting specific places within the state.

    A former colleague of mine, who is mostly from Virginia, but has lived a few other places, does not Ohio for his reasons. Me, as a lifetime Indiana Hoosier fan, can grow to disdain or be jealous of the Ohio State Buckeyes, yet I do admire their support in football; I hold no ill will towards the school and rival.

    I like thinking about the places in Ohio that I have been, and newer spots where I have witnessed and observed.

    Two summers ago, 2023. a chartered bus that I was riding on went on a weird detour near the middle of Ohio that I did not understand. We stopped in a little suburban area with a Dairy Queen and another restaurant, perhaps a Panera. I was positive that I had never been to this part of the state before. Perhaps I will never go back. For now, I doubt it. I cannot even remember the town or county it was located in.

    But that was an added "highlight" of that bus trip. A little more Ohio than before. Valuable? Maybe not. A note for me and my life.

    Last September 2024, my son and I got some gas and made a pit stop near the outskirts of Akron, which I mentioned was Lebron James territory. Ohio. It's a place among places. Some Kings have come from there. Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered, lost a small child, went through financial turmoil and trials, figuring out the problems of the Saints in Missouri, and then where to go.

    Ohio. My first baseball game, the Reds versus the Pirates back in the days of the Big Red Machine. Rose, Concepcion, Morgan, and Bench. And others. 

    King's Island. Wright Air Force Base. Beaumont, a camp ground outside Kirtland.

    Drives on Route 50, pulling over for a roadside pitstop, hearing the shotgun during hunting season in the far off paths and fields and forests of southern, rural Ohio.

    Ohio.

    Yesterday we took a side highway near Zanesville, a place I connect and remember to my mom, for her stopping there on the way to Boston over the years. We moved a bit, through town, then the rural highway, but then we slowed down, and we saw the side farms and homes along the road. It was sunny, with many cars and trucks alongside. I saw fences and barns and sheds, the driveways, the hills and dales, trees and streams of this random part of Ohio and the world where I happened to see for the first time, again, likely the last.

    Ohio.

    Three years running, another corner of the state. Our land. The home away from home.

    These seemingly random places and spots.

    Round on the edges and high in the middle.

    From the Northwest Ordinance.

    History and circumstance. 

    Blog on.