Sunday, October 21, 2012

Erie, Pa to New Concord, OH

Cambridge, OH – October 15 to 21, 2012 Our Current Location

For the most part we prefer to dry camp or stay at a city,county, state or national park campground. Generally, but not always, commercial parks are a little too crowded for our taste. We scored the almost perfect campground in Erie, PA. Owned and operated by the city it is presented as a marina campground. Situated on the shores of Lake Erie, the campground is located next to the canal leading to the East Basin. So we got to see lots of cargo ships transiting the canal to load and unload. The Coast Guard Station is located across the canal and they provided reveille and taps daily.

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The campground also had full hookups, very important after having dry camped for 8 nights and a Laundromat.

 

 

On one of our excursions around the area we discovered a yard full of quirky art. You need to click on the picture to get a closer look at what they are made from. We wondered how the neighbors felt about this. I guess it would make it easy to give directions, “Yeah, we live in the house next to the yard full of weird stuff”.

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We also explored Presque Isle State Park where we found a small bay full of houseboats. Later we found out that the bay contains the maximum number of houseboats allowed by the state and that the only way to have a houseboat in there is to buy a lease from the state. So, until someone moves their houseboat out of the bay, no one else can move one in.

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EJ had coordinated with her uncle for us to come visit. So now we’re on the way to New Concord, Ohio. It’s overcast and traffic got a little congested, but there are still some beautiful fall colors to enjoy.

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We had scoped out a campground, the closest we could find to New Concord, and drove through to take a look. We didn’t get a warm fuzzy feeling from it,so we opted to spend our first night at Walmart. The next morning we contacted the Elks Lodge in Cambridge, OH and asked if we could park in their lot and got the OK. So we spent the morning getting set up there before driving over to meet EJ’s relatives, Dick and Sally.

They had made arrangements for us to see the National Road Museum. It’s actually called the National Road-Zane Grey Museum and we wondered why someone would combine these 2 elements into one museum. Well, as it turns out there is good reason for the combination. Back in the 1700’s is was next to impossible to pass through Ohio because of the thick forest that covered the state.  Ebenezer Zane, Zane Grey’s grandfather, contracted with congress to cut a trail for horseback riders across Ohio. Although the trail was barely big enough for a horse, thousands of settlers used the trail to build settlements along the way.

Between 1811 and 1828, construction on the road brought it from Cumberland, MD to New Concord, OH then eventually all the way to Vandalia, IL. The road originally consisted of dirt, next crushed stone then, in WW1, it was completely bricked to accommodate military traffic.

The museum chronicles all this complete with vehicles of the period and a wonderful diorama. There is also a display of Ohio pottery as well as one of Zane Grey the author. And of course we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to change our looks, Yeehaw.

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The next day we all drove to Columbus, OH for lunch, to surprise EJ’s Aunt Sue. She was indeed surprised, and even rendered speechless, which surprised the rest of us!

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On the return to New Concord we stopped at a pumpkin farm and market. There was a big crowd and we wanted to see what the attraction was. We came away with some small gourds and pumpkins to use as decorations in Big Guy.

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Dick and Sally also took us for a drive on some of the original National Road to show us the original brick roadbed. We also saw several examples of “S” bridges and mile posts.  The “S” bridges are examples of the most economical method of building a bridge at the time. They are built perpendicular to the current.  A well cut rock and mortar bridge could only span so far between footings and this provided the shortest distance.

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We had a great time in PA and OH, but now it is time to pack up and hit the road.

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CAMBRIDGE, OH

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