Mansfield, OH Weekend!

August 10-12, 2012

Charles Mill Lake Park

Off on another weekend camping trip! This time we headed to Mansfield, Ohio. Mansfield is known as “The Haunted Capital of Ohio”. Our reason for the visit was not for the haunted/paranormal activities, but to visit some of the places that were featured in the film “Shawshank Redemption”.

For this trip we camped at Charles Mill Lake Park ($29/night with electric hookup), which is part of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District.  The campground was quite hilly, making finding a level site a challenge. The bathrooms were some of the cleanest campground bathrooms that I have ever seen.  The campground has a lot of offer: boat rentals, fishing, swimming, horseshoes, volleyball, basketball, remote control car track, and play structures for the kids.

Ohio State Reformatory

Saturday morning, we headed to the “Ohio State Reformatory”. The tour was $9/person. You can wonder around much of the building, using the video kiosks for descriptions, or if you would rather, for $5 you can use a hand held audio tour. We spent about 2.5 hours in the reformatory. We arrived soon after they opened and were able to get parking without any issues, but by the time we left the parking area was overflowing with visitors.  The tour would not be good to take small children on, due to lead paint exposure and the many stairs. The interior of the building is pretty run down, with lots of peeling paint and broken windows.

Richland Carrousel Park

After the reformatory, we headed to downtown Mansfield, which is only about 2 miles away from the reformatory. We parked in a large parking lot across from the carrousel. We stopped by the “Bissman Building” for some photos. The “haunted” Bissman Building (1886) is closed to the public, but there are limited paranormal investigations that occur occasionally.

The “Richland Carrousel Park” is hand carved in the style of G.A. Dentzel, of the most revered carvers of the early 1900’s. The carrousel is enclosed and runs year round 11am-5pm. It is $1 per ride or $5 for six rides. There is a small gift shop in the building.

We continued to walk around town a bit and found an excellent chocolate shop called “Squirrel’s Den Chocolate Factory”. I got the “Paradise” chocolate, which had pineapple and coconut inside. It was very yummy! We also stopped by the bakery, but it was pretty much all sold out of everything.

Oak Tree - Shawshank Redemption

The last stop for the day was to check out the Shawshank Redemption “Oak Tree”. It was struck by lightning a few years back, so the dead part is at the reformatory.  There is not anywhere super close by to park, the tree is just standing in the middle of the field, and the lightning strike makes it pretty obvious.  Malabar Farm is very close by, but they charge a fee to enter.

Besides the things we checked out there are many more things to do in the Mansfield area: zip line tours, canoeing/kayaking, biblical wax museum, and gardens to name a few.

Mike's Birthday Travels!

August 4, 2012

"Red Barns Spectacular" Gilmore Car Show

It was an early start for the day as we headed for the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan. It was the “Red Barns Spectacular” Car Show and Swap Meet, my husband was very excited to go. The show was expected to draw around 1,000 cars. Besides the car show, the museum is also included with admission costs ($9/adult). The museum includes six buildings with all sorts of cars including:  Pierce-Arrow, Tucker, and Franklin just to name a few. Currently, there are additional buildings under construction. The facility is open from 9-5 daily and food is available on-site. Per the Michigan Travel Ideas Magazine 2012, the Gilmore Car Museum ranks #1 in the “10 Great Historic Auto Sites” column.

We headed back to Battle Creek for a very late lunch. We decided to check out the #7 ranked BBQ place in Michigan – Hogzilla BBQ Pit! We decided to opt for the lunch buffet ($9.99/person) so we could sample a little bit of everything. The meat was very smoky flavored and very lean. The BBQ sauce was spicy, kind of like the “Texas” type that some other BBQ places have. The mac & cheese was decent (good flavor and texture) – I am not a huge mac & cheese fan. I was disappointed in the corn bread; it was a bit blah and a bit over cooked. The baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad and spaghetti were all good. The owner of the establishment is very friendly and enjoyed talking about his business and the clients that he’s had.

Honolulu House

As we continued our trek home we stopped by Marshall. We had been to Marshall in the past, but it was in the early spring and the fountain downtown was not running. This time we were able to see the fountain in action and we also visited the historical Honolulu House. The Honolulu House tour was $5/adult and they start the tour whenever people show up. Photography is not allowed inside of the home. Our tour lasted probably about an hour. The tour is not really that formatted, so you can ask questions whenever you want. If you want more information on something the guides will share all they know, which could extend the length of your tour. There are many other historical homes in the area around the fountain. There are walking maps available at the Honolulu House.

Our last stop on the way home was Jackson. “The Parlour” is an excellent ice cream shop that has been serving since 1944!  The portions are very large – the banana split has six scoops of ice cream! They also serve food items, but we have only ever gotten the ice cream.