Don and I began our journey to Amish country later than we'd intended, mostly due to me lolly-gagging around in the morning. I was a little hesitant to even go due to all the clouds covering the sky. At least until Don finally convinced and then promised me it wouldn't rain. You can see the cloud coverage in the photograph below; this is exactly what I woke up to. As we cruisied along on St. Rt. 309 East heading towards Galion, Ohio, around 11 a.m., we spotted the Goodyear Blimp hovering in the sky.
As we continued traveling east on St. Rt. 288, then on to St. Rt. 97, just outside of Lexington, Ohio, the clouds began breaking up and the sun began to shine. This lifted my spirits and made me realize that I was so glad that Don had convinced me to make this trip, in spite of the dreary, over casted, cloudy weather. I so love this area of Ohio. It's one were very familiar with as we've made many road trips over to and in this area, visits to Malabar Farm, Mt. Jeez overlook, and the Mohican State Park. Our scrapbooks are filled with pages and images we've captured on those previous visits. We love these hills and it is truly exhilarating to come up over the top of one of them and to be able to see nature's beauty for miles and miles. Everything is so lush and green! It is serene... doesn't it just lift your spirits?
The roadway allows you to climb up and over the hills, then brings you back down into the valley below, where there's plenty of wide, open spaces to see over the fields and there's a splattering of farm houses, each with their own unique features. There's one special barn that we absolutely adore seeing on our travels, as it holds two cupolas on it top, although its hard to stop along the road to capture any photographs of it. You'll just have to take my word on it, that it does exist.
As we cruised into Butler, Ohio, we were forced to make a detour over to St. Rt. 95 from Rt. 97. I was a little disappointed as 97 takes you into the Mohican State Park area, but the detour did actually save us a lot time in reaching our destination of St. Rt. 39 East in Loudenville, Ohio. We traveled on, through Amish country until we reached Walnut Creek, Ohio and made our first stop at 'Tis The Season Christmas shop. This is one of my favorite Christmas shoppes, although we both seem to love it.
Sadly, it reminds me of another Christmas shoppe, The Christmas Castle, that we came upon years ago while traveling to Portsmith, Ohio. Unfortunately, The Christmas Castle went out of business a few years ago, Thanks to all the big box stores and new developments in that area of Ohio. Perhaps, one of the reasons that both and Don and I prefer to shop in a lot of the little "Mom and Pop" style of small boutiques we discover on our travels, although I suppose like most Americans, we utilize both, mainly for the convenience they both offer.
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