Actually, this vacation is not just about Marietta, Ohio; it just happened to be the first stop. We also saw interesting things in Wooster, Dresden, Berlin, Akron, and other places on the eastern side of Ohio.
We started with a good breakfast at the Sheridan Family Restaurant on Sheridan Drive near Campus Drive.
We got on the Thruway and started heading west. This would be an easy trip: 90 west to the 271 bypass around Cleveland, then 8 south to 77 south to the hotel. Ten miles into Pennsylvania, we stopped at the convenient TA TravelCenter truck stop at mile marker 35. This place always seems to work out well, time-wise, on all of our Ohio trips. Another convenient stopping place is Gulliver's Travel Plaza on Route 77 in Canton, off of exit 101.
We arrived at the Super 8 Motel in Marietta at around 3 PM, not bad time considering that we stopped a few times to stretch our feet. We checked in, then went right over to the annual tent sale at the Fenton Art Glass Factory. A couple of hours of botching around there, and in the gift shop, allowed us to build up a good appetite. There was a Shoney's restaurant right in front of the hotel, and with their terrific buffet, it was easy to eat way too much. After a long day of driving, we retired for the night, tummies full of country-fried steak and other good things. The hotel was not luxurious, but was clean, had reasonable amenities, and was a good, inexpensive place to spend the night.
We started the day by checking out and heading back to Shoney's for a hearty breakfast of eggs, pancakes, grits, and all kinds of other good things.
Our next stop was for the Fenton Art Glass Factory tour, which is the best factory tour I've ever been on. This is not a faked demo or a long-distance viewing; you actually walk around the factory floor, standing only a few feet from the workers handling the hot glass, and occasionally stepping aside as they carry pieces from one place to another.
We next drove up to the Dresden/Frazeysburg area, hitting a major storm in Zanesville along the way, so we could visit the The Longaberger Homestead. We had heard there was a factory tour, but this was much more than we expected. From the homestead, a shuttle bus takes you to the factory, which is 880,000 square feet (17 football fields) under one roof, containing 1000 state-of-the-art ergonomic basket-making workstations. They employ over 5,000 people, and their baskets are sold all over the world. A balcony stretching the length of the factory allows you to view the entire basket-making process, and it conveniently ends at a gift shop. :-) The Longaberger Homestead itself is nice, sort of a combination mini-mall and mansion, and you could spend a lot of money easily, if you had the inclination. Our only disappointment was that we had read that kids could make their own baskets, which we thought would be fun for them until we got there and found out that it costs $56(!) to make one!
We went over to Roscoe Village in nearby Coshocton, but it was near the end of the day and they were no longer selling tickets to tour the buildings. We went in a couple of shops, then headed to Wooster to check in to our hotel, the AmeriHost Inn Wooster-North. This a very nice hotel, has a great pool and other facilities, and we were impressed.
After checking in, we went to dinner at The Amish Door Restaurant of Wooster on Route 30, not too far from the hotel. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, some of us went to a couple of local stores, and then we enjoyed a nice swim and hot tub soaking.
We started off with the hotel's nice continental breakfast. We drove down to the Berlin area, and went to the Guggisberg Cheese Factory and Store in Millersburg. You can view the factory through windows in the store, and, although they're known for their Baby Swiss, I much prefer their aged swiss.
Our next stop was to another cheese factory and shop, Heini's Bunker Hill Cheese Chalet. They had many, many kinds of cheeses for sale, and samples available for almost all of them (it was amazing to see people walking along the coolers like it was a buffet, and getting annoyed at people cutting in to actually pick up some to purchase). This store also offered viewing windows so you can see how the cheese is made.
We stopped at Wendell August in Berlin, and, although we bought some nice gift items, were kind of disappointed that there were not any demonstrations or hands-on activities for the kids (Tom had made a hammered aluminum foil picture when we went there a few years ago).
Lunch was eaten at the Alpine Homestead Restaurant; they had a great soup and salad buffet, but we were disappointed that the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock was closed for repairs (If you have problems finding this restaurant in brochures, it was formerly known as the Alpine-Alpa before being purchased by the owners of the Homestead Restaurant in Charm in 2003).
After lunch, we went to Lehman's hardware store in Kidron, where Mom and Dad bought us a four-quart Lodge Logic Camp Dutch Oven as an early anniversary gift, which I love. I had just been thinking about where to buy these, and when we walked into the store and they had three shelves full of them, I knew I had to get one. This store has all kinds of outdoors and cabin living appliances and accessories, and caters to homes that are "off the grid", as is the case with many Amish homes.
After all that good Amish cooking over the last few days, we were kind of filled up, so we got a pizza from Donato's, just down the road from the hotel.
We checked out of the hotel, and headed back to the Berlin area. We stopped at Schrock's Amish Farm and went through Tis The Season, Ohio's largest Christmas store, which has lots of neat Christmas goodies. We then went on a buggy ride, and Jill made friends with Shirley, the horse that took us on our ride.
We then went to the Holmes County Amish Flea Market in Walnut Creek, and bought some good junk (actually, quite handy household utensils and such). It was fun walking around, and we had a good lunch there at Der Dutchman Express. Then, we started the trek home.
Of course, we couldn't pass through the Akron-Canton area without stopping at Harry London Chocolates. Unfortunately, the tours were all booked up, but we bought a lot of great chocolates in the store (which we will parcel out sloooooowly over the next few months).
A stop in Irving, New York, was in order, for a good dinner at Aunt Millie's Kitchen. We decided to take Route 20 home, and got in around 7:30 or so.
This was four days of seeing very different things, lots of driving, and, most importantly, having fun. We toured factories, saw how the Amish live and work, bought lots of cool things, and hopefully gave the kids experiences they will remember for a long time. By the way, the links in the next section also include places we didn't get to, but hope to the next time.