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Monday, April 11, 2011

Country Drive to the Outlet Store

Good morning,

We drove North form Cincinnati to Jefferson, Ohio, to one of our favorite outlet centers to pick up some luggage at the Samsonite store.  Of course, we picked a beautiful day for picture taking, too.  Unfortunately, the weather had gotten very cold again and we didn't have heavy coats in the car or we would have taken country roads back to take some pictures of farms.  That will come another day.
So, most of these images are taken from the car window as we cruised along the Interstate.  Above is an image of the famous Kings Island Amusement Park as seen from I-71.  I remember when it was built and have been there more than enough times as the kids have grown up.
Ohio has many large, prosperous farms...
 ...and many interesting barns.  I took quite a few barn pictures and some of them are here.  More will come in later posts.  The barn above has a tribute to Ohio's Bicentennial in 2003 as well as a religious message.
 We reached the outlet mall and found a series of these nifty little rides for the kids.  It was so cold and the wind was so strong that there were no kids and very few shoppers.
 The first stop wasn't on our agenda, but just drew us right in.  It's one of My Honey's toy stores.

We discovered the Samsonite store was gone from the mall.  When we got home we went on line and learned that it has moved to another nearby outlet mall so that will be the next road trip.
 Our road trip wasn't a waste by any means, though.  The farm land and farms are just beautiful.
 We saw old barns and new signs...
 and beautifully painted barns.

I'll have more country images coming in future posts.  I hope you're enjoying the Ohio farmland.

Stay tuned!

Very best,
Lois

Check out Barn Charm for more great images of great barns.

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17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Old barns are getting older. A new barn is not a regular barn but these days are called pole barns and are made with poles for the foundations and strips of metal are hung on the sides in place of wooden siding. Barn siding is tongue and groove and is sold at many lumber yards.

There are several different kinds of barns.

The Bank Barn
Always built with like a basement which contains some stalls for milking, and for horses. The front of the barn has an earthen ramp to the main floor doors. That is where they used to dump the hay or "fork" it from wagons that were filled by pitchfork in the fields. From the barn floor to the hay mow was the job of a big hay fork that came down from the peak of the roof and stuck into the hay. When you hooked a horse to the rope it would pull the forful of hay up and then another rope caused it to travel over to the hay mow where the fork was tripped and the hay fell and was stored there.

The simple barn was one level with a place to raise hogs, stalls for two or four horses and a milking parlor for the cows. I liked these barns. They also had a hay mow and there was a door on the backside of the barn that was the same as the one on the front.

That way, you could drive your team of horses in on the barn floor, two men would string a rope from one side of the wagon to the other and then hold it while a third man drove the team of horses out the back barn door. That would pull off the whole load of hay onto the floor and leave an empty wagon to drive back to the hay fields and have a new load of hay forked on.

The third kind was a tobacco barn where green hay was stripped and speared onto tobacco laths and the laths with a 6-8-10 leaves on it was hung between two tobacco rails that could be moved about. This is where the tobacco came in green and dried out and turned the tobacco color. And, in the winter, the little shed on one end of it was the strip shed where the tobacco was brought in and taken off the laths and the main stem peeled out and the leaves packed in a big box made of fresh lumber. It was then bought by a buyer who came around and inspected and sampled a leaf or two in one of the boxes and offered to buy all of it for a price.

Tobacco was a cash crop for farmers.

I have enough here to make myself a post about barns. lol

Montanagirl said...

Beautiful farms! We were to Columbus, Ohio for the big Mustangs and Legends Airshow in 2007. That's the only time I've ever been to Ohio that I know of.

TexWisGirl said...

You made me smile at the King's Island note. My hubby spent his last few high school and college years in Ohio and when we first started dating, he had taken a trip back to OH and had gone to Kings Island... :)

Julie Ferguson said...

Beautiful scenery and lovely day.

lululan said...

Gracias por enseñarnos fotos tan bonitas de tu tierra. Espero que algún día pueda viajar y poder ver todas las maravillas que hay en el mundo. Feliz semana.

Angela Häring-Christen said...

Thank you very much for this nice and for me interesting pictures of your trip.
Warm regards from Switzerland
Angela

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

We saw so many great looking barns in the Lancaster, PA area and while we do have them on the VA eastern shore they are not quite as picturesque and many are run down or fallen down.

Anonymous said...

We've been by the Bi-Centennial Barn tons of times, seems to me all the photos look very similar!! Guess we travel the same roads Lois!! Never get tired of Barn shots, just wish I could go in them all!!! ...debbie

dogsmom said...

It is interesting how back in the day barns tended to look similar in nearby locations, but now that barns are being replaced by other buildings (less heartwarming) the old barns that are saved all seem to have unique characteristics.
I am enjoying seeing all their forms and sizes.

Thanks for taking us along on your road trip.

Jan n Jer said...

It looks like a beautiful day for a drive....love all the barns.

Unknown said...

Sounds like a fun day, it's been years since I hit the outlet malls while traveling through the US!

~Andrea~

Rose said...

Looks like the trip was not a waste...if that had been us we would have taken backroads coming home.

Elaine said...

Good thing you found that "toy" store since the Samsonite store was gone. I always enjoy your photos along the way, so even if you weren't able to stop because of the cold it made for a nice outing. I'll look forward to seeing more of the Ohio countryside.

Tanya Breese said...

what a fun day you had!! some great barns along the way!!

Anonymous said...

Looks like an exciting road trip w/ plenty to see... the barns are great & that last one is especially nice... very red! =)

Thanks for joining!

Jenny said...

Your road trips always sound like fun! I never mentioned my parents-in-law have a farm in Ohio, north of Dayton. I'm taking my boys there for a week or two this summer when my husband is away for work.

Olive Knitting said...

ohhh, those photos make me miss my native Wisconsin!!!! Barns and farm land are so beautiful