Monthly Archives: March 2024

Misadventure Day

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Saturday was supposed to be a fun Adventure Day. It wasn’t even 11 a.m. before my fella renamed it a Misadventure Day.

We planned to hit a used bookstore in Lancaster followed by the Ohio Glass Museum, a little browsing at the Olde Shoe Factory Antique Mall, lunch and some dress shopping for me. We did those things but none of it was quite what we had hoped. 

We started at the bookstore which has been on my list for a while. I had confirmed the hours and location with their Google listing only to show up and find they had moved to a new location across town in October. A later visit to their Facebook page revealed that they had updated their location on Facebook but not with the rest of the world. I tell you this not to complain but to remind you that if you have a business, you must keep your information updated online. My marketing experience forces me to tell you this: Facebook is terrific but it is not enough. Don’t underestimate the value of your Google listing and reviews. Many potential customers will only learn about you via Google including your hours, pictures other people post, and the reviews they leave. 

The sign on the window provided a new address that I would never have found without my phone.  It’s off the beaten path and there’s not so much as a hand drawn poster board sign in the window to identify it as a store. The shopping experience was disappointing as well. The building is under renovation so I’m hopeful things will improve. Fingers crossed for them! 

Meanwhile, as Adam said, the bookstore took the wind from our sails. 

The antique mall was terribly busy, making it hard to shop and to enjoy the exploration, leaving us empty handed and me rethinking our plans. At this point, I actually offered to drive the thirty minutes out of town to the Barnes and Noble we both like just so we could be guaranteed a better experience. But he said we should be brave and soldier on with our plans.

The Glass Museum was nice even though it took much longer than we had planned. I’ll tell you more about that this week. Lunch at Maria’s Mexican Restaurant up the street was great save for the young server who seemed so painfully shy and nervous that I felt bad for him. Dress shopping was a bust too. Where exactly are professional women supposed buy dresses these days? 

By the time we cried uncle and headed home, we were still laughing and enjoying the day even though it really was a bad adventure day. 

This has been a sad pattern in our winter adventures. Here’s hoping Spring will breathe new life into our Adventure Days. Meanwhile, we’ll keep trying and we’ll keep laughing! 

Remember adventure days will not always be smooth sailing and you won’t always be pleased with how things turn out but that’s part of the fun. It’s character building to not have your way all the time and it makes you appreciate the quality experiences so much more when you do have a fabulous day!

International Find A Pay Phone Booth Day

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Happy International Find a Pay Phone Booth Day! It’s increasingly rare to find a working payphone as I discussed in this story last month but it’s almost impossible to find one in an actual phone booth. However, I do know where you’ll find one!

It’s in the lobby of the Athena Grand movie theater in Athens, Ohio. There’s even a sign posted inside that let’s folks know that it really works.

It was on this day in 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell made the world’s first ever telephone call. It was to his assistant in the next room. Less than two years later, Thomas Doolittle created the first phone booth which he called a “telephone cabinet.”

While this invention would change the world in ways he may never have dreamed, Bell refused to have a telephone in his study because he feared it would be too much of a distraction from his work. I suspect he was a fan of the phone booth because you would have to be purposeful in going out to use the phone rather than spending hours in an endless conversation at home. 

If you’re serious about celebrating today, go out and look for a phone booth! If you find one, maybe convince some friends to engage in the age old tradition of phonebooth stuffing! That’s where you see how many people you can fit into a phone booth. Wikipedia tells me that on March 20, 1959, students in South Africa set a world record when 25 of them were able to squeeze at least the greater portions of their bodies into a standard phone booth. 

See if you can beat that!

And if you can’t, maybe just take a selfie and report back here where you found your phone booth. I enjoy hearing about pay phones out in the wild!

Magical Morning At Lake Katherine

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Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve is in my regular rotation of great places to hike but I had a particularly memorable hike there over the weekend. We awoke to fog on Saturday and there was a fine, misty rain in the air on the way. Luckily, it cleared up before we arrived at our trailhead.

While a snowless winter can be a lackluster time in Ohio, this place was positively gorgeous at every turn. 

Eastern hemlocks, ferns and mosses provided color and texture. Bits of life like small buds and the tiniest signs of green made us think that spring really is on the way. We stopped to listen to a conversation between two owls. We also heard a chorus of small frogs known as Spring Peepers or, in my family, as March Peepers. The air smelled of fresh earth and decomposing wood, a rich aroma that will always, always, always make me stop and sniff the air.

It was almost magical.

If you search this blog for Lake Katharine, you will find more stories and pictures. Visit Make The Journey Fun on Facebook to view more pictures from the hike. If you’re in southern Ohio, consider stopping by for a literal breath of fresh air that hasn’t been ruined by the tourists you find at a lot of our state parks. 

Lake Katherine is a state nature preserve so you’ll have to leave your pets at home and there are no trash cans so plan to carry out whatever you carry in. There is a port-a-john but I would not recommend relying on that. There are some fast food restaurants and stores in Jackson that are much better options for a potty break. 

Lake Katharine is located at 1703 Lake Katharine Road, Jackson, Ohio.

Visit Leo Petroglyph and Nature Preserve

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If you ever travel Route 35 through Jackson County, Ohio you’ll notice an unassuming sign for Leo Petroglyph and Nature Preserve. If you follow that sign, you’ll turn off the four lane onto a two lane country road and then another country road to a parking area with a small shelterhouse.

Why should you do such a thing? Because this series of turns will take you to one of the most important remnants of ancient culture in Ohio.

In case you don’t recall from school, a petroglyph is an image made by removing part of a rock surface. Basically, chiseling or even scratching off the surface of the rock creates a lighter area that forms the image. 

Leo Petroglyph consists of 37 such images on a single slab of sandstone that is protected by a wooden shelterhouse. There are footprints, a human stick figure, birds, a snake and some things that are difficult to interpret. One of the birds looks like a bird with wings while I think another resembles a penguin. My fella was fascinated with another image. It resembles a smiley face with horns and bird feet (pictured above) and looks comically out of place amongst the other images. A nearby sign says that it may represent a shaman. I read someone else’s suggestion that it is a great horned owl.

It’s impossible to know today but it is fun to venture a guess. The Ohio Historical Society says these petroglyphs are likely the product of the Fort Ancient Culture.

There’s also a half mile nature trail through a gorge and along beautiful cliffs. Wildflowers, mosses, birds and Eastern Hemlock are abundant here. It’s a sight to behold when there’s snow on the ground too. This is a short trail but it is a nice one if you just want a little stretch of the legs. 

I read other bloggers’ accounts of Leo Petroglyph and they were not too kind because the place IS small, there are NO restrooms and it does feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. One blogger griped about all of this and asserted there are no decent restaurants nearby and ordered his readers to not bother going. He calls himself a photographer and suggested that his readers could get the gist from the truly terrible pictures he shared. Let me tell you. This dude was not my people. He is also an example of why I don’t trust strangers on the internet. But I digress.

Here’s what this stranger on the internet wants you to know. Temper your expectations.

The nature trail is only a half mile but it’s a nice one. You’ll find a state operated rest area just down Route 35 and a host of businesses in nearby Jackson that do have public restrooms. In fact, Jackson is about 20 minutes away and Chillicothe is about 25 minutes away. Both towns have some great dining options. It does feel like the middle of nowhere but I think it’s really only about three miles off the four-lane.

Some people will show up and wonder why they drove so far to see preschool style artwork carved into a rock floor. Others will marvel at the fact these carvings have existed for hundreds of years. They will be curious about the people who left them and wonder what it all means. They may even leave inspired to go searching for answers or for more petroglyphs that will fuel the fire of their curiosity. 

How you view them and how you later talk about these petroglyphs is a window into your own soul. 

Personally, I view this as something really special to see and something that can easily be batched into other things you might do in the area. When we visited this weekend, we left Leo to travel over hill and dale for a nice hike at Lake Katherine. If you stay in Jackson County, Buckeye Furnace is a great place to visit to learn about Ohio’s early industrial past and there are a couple of covered bridges worth a look. There are other public lands to hike as well. You might also take a picnic to Leo Petroglyph. It’s a peaceful place and there are picnic tables where you can enjoy lunch as you ponder the mysteries of this place.

Nearby Chillicothe has a ton of historic sites, bike paths, hiking trails, shopping and restaurants that can entertain you for days.

Want to go? Leo Petroglyph is located at 400 Park Road, Ray, Ohio. You can follow signs from Route 35 but I just confirmed that my iPhone’s maps app gives accurate directions.

Visit Make The Journey Fun on Facebook for more pictures.

Oppe og ikke gråter

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Under the heading “Learn Something New Every Day,” there is the the Norwegian phrase oppe og ikke gråter.

The internet claims that this is a response to the common question “how are you?”

If you aren’t from Norway or familiar with the language, “oops og ikke gråter” translates to “up and not crying.”

And now my day is made. Never in my life have I felt a phrase more appropriate.

In America, when you ask someone how they are doing the standard answers are things like “fine” or “busy, busy!”

The asker rarely expects or wants to hear how you really are. So these boilerplate responses work pretty well. However, “up and not crying” may be my new go-to answer! It speaks volumes and is hilarious!

Note: the daffodils pictured above are the first of the season to bloom in my hard. There’s a story to go with the first daffodils that you can read here.