OHIO AMISH WEEKEND ! (The Report)

  
 We took a three-day weekend to do some genealogy research, cemetery photography and general exploration of the area N E of Columbus, known to most as Ohio's Amish Country.
 
It has been very hot and humid here in the Louisville area for most of the summer, so a ride up into Ohio where temps were in the lo 80's and the air was much dryer was a nice break!
 
We drove up to Delaware,OH Thursday morning, arriving by about 1 PM. we checked Jan and the Scotties into our motel so she could relax while I worked in the county library searching the files there for info on family members.
 
We had dinner commitments I'll describe shortly, but the hungers got me about 3 PM so I stopped in at HOGGY'S BBQ on Williams St to check the place out. I got a sample combo plate which was 'OK', nothing special. However the side of BBQ Beans was a bit unique. It had a lot of bacon and onion pieces in with the tomato sauce, good flavor, but the unique part was that they used 3 types of Beans in the pot. Regular Pea-Beans, Red Kidney's, and Large Butter beans!  All were well cooked and picked up the flavor of the sauce very well. They identify this side-dish on their menu board. I will also supply the web-link for those who might want to check the place out.  Nice Folks and fair BBQ.
 

  
  http://www.hoggys.com/locations.cfm
 
Then it was back to the motel to prep for dinner. Michael Hoffman and others had recommended BUNS Restaurant, so we arranged to meet some old friends who now live in the area for dinner there.  The place is not hard to find, with a large banner pointing to it, visible for several blocks
 
http://www.bunsrestaurant.net/
  
 
Our choices for dinner were-
1. A Large Greek Salad (Friend)
2. A nice Sirloin Steak  (Friend)
3. Sirloin Tips and baked Potato (Jan)
4. Pot Roast and Garlic Mashed Potato (Al)
 
Good solid Mid-Western Dinner stuff. One photo to note an unusual side-dish here too. They served a square of Blueberries in gelatin with a cream cheese dressing...not a dessert!! It was very good, full of fresh blueberries offset by the cream-cheese!
 

 
That ended a very nice Thursday.
 
Next morning we visited the family plots in the Sunbury and Centerburg cemeteries. I thought that posting a photo of my own headstone might be a bit morbid for some of you, and start others hoping for immediate use of the stone...so I won't post it !! We stopped at Landry's Market outside of Mt Vernon and bought a bunch of snack stuff and bakery goods to keep us on a sugar-high all day long, then it was down Rt 13 to Utica, Ohio to the Old Mill, recommended by Greymo for the high quality ice cream there.

  
 
We kept it simple, getting a single cone each. My Peach was very good, but Janet's Blackberry was OUTSTANDING ! It had the little chocolate cups (like Moose-Tracks) but instead of peanut butter filling these little bit-sized piece were filled with Blackberry Syrup! YUM!!
 
 
  
 
After the treats we headed up US 62 to Millersburg, then east to Berlin then the backroads to Choshoton. All three towns were pretty crowded with tourists, but we did manage to do some shopping at the big flea market in Berlin, and at several produce vendors along the roads.
  We noted that the many folks we saw along the backroads seemed to go out of their way to wave and smile as we passed. Much more 'outgoing' than we recall from our visits to PA Dutch country.  Here are a few photos of the rural folks in Holmes County....and one of Jan doing some bargaining at a produce stand.

 

 

 
  
 
After Choshoton, we stayed in Zanesville for the night.  No food worth discussing that night..
 
Saturday Morning we drove down Rt 22 to Washington Court House. Photos were taken of my old home there, and the store that had been my Dad's Plumbing Supply Store in the late 1930's, then on to the big outlet mall on I-71 so Janet could do some shopping.
We decided to head home via Indy, rather than Cincinnati so that we could stop at King Ribs to get a bunch of good BBQ to take home.  The place is reviewed here on RF. We use the stand on Pendleton Pike as it is right next to the 465 beltway on the east side of town.
Here is their menu and a shot of one of the PitMen doing his thing with the Que!

 
 
Then it was a quick two hour ride down I-65 to home. A real fine getaway weekend !

That looks like it must have been a lot of fun, and great pictures! Thanks for posting, been a long while since I've visited Amish country.

Very enjoyable tour and excellent pictures.
I might just have to make a trip to Amish country.
Thanks for the write-up.

 After a closer review of my report, I thought I would add a brief Post-Scrpt.  In the rural areas , away from the towns, the main industry is agriculture, not tourism. We passed many farms where the folks were working to get the summer crops completed. They may have had farm-stands for public sale, but the prime interest was the farm itself.  Here is a photo of a man cutting hay using a two horse team. We watched him as he cut a wide swath of the hay, with the horses working as a real 'engine' pulling the mower.



In a nearby field a young boy had a team and hay-wagon to gather the haystacks piled earlier. I think of my 12 year old grandson playing with his video-games and then this lad loading hay with a fork on a warm afternoon. What a cultural difference!



We did see the mixing of the cultures in Berlin where Amish carts were parked with visitors cars and motorcycles at the big flea market and fabric outlet. Here they leave the parking area, as we did shortly after.



OK That's enough of the travel story. We really had a relaxing ride, not always knowing where we were going, gps turned off, and just looking around. All in all, it was just the ticket for clearing the mind of a summer full of 'clutter'!!

We will do this again when Fall comes!

Al, it looks like you guys had a great time.  Beautiful photos, too, especially the ones from Amish country.   I do think you are setting yourself up for some trouble here, though.  Only one of your dogs made it into the trip report?  Just wait until the other finds out you have been playing favorites!

Oh, I will surely be craving that blackberry ice cream all day. 

Great report thanks...been to Lancaster countless times, but never the Ohio Amish...thanks...I almost felt at home!!!

Great report.  We were in that neck of the woods last October.  I thought the Amish Farms were so well groomed.  Imagine doing all of that by hand.

Susan,
  Yeah I thought about the hand labor a lot...the key word here is "thought" !!!  When I got home the heat and rain had really caused our grass to grow quickly. I got out the diesel powered mower with the 6 ft cut and it still took three hours to cut the 3 acres of grass (lots of fruit trees to work around). I can't imagine doing that with a team of horses pulling a sickle-bar mower !

BTW, I had never seen, nor tasted, Elderberries before. We bought some at a produce stand... won't do that again. I guess they make good preserves, but fresh off the bush there isn't much to them worth saying nice things about.

I agree with BB that I will be thinking about that ice cream all day.  Maybe I can talk my wife into taking a drive this weekend to get some. 

You summed up Hoggy's pretty well.  The pulled pork and chicken are decent.  The brisket is just pot roast. The ribs are ok but not a lot of smoke flavor.  The main attraction is that the sides are pretty good.  Good mac and cheese, beans and hoppin john. 

Greymo gave us the nod on the Velvet ice cream place. It's on Rt 13 about 1.5 miles south of Utica (towards Louisville). It reminds me of Mayfields Dairy in Athens TN.. a nice picnic area, pond, tours available and a super ice cream parlor. They open at 11 AM, and we started their day last friday. That Blackberry was amazing. One of the best 'fruit' flavors I have ever enjoyed (just from the taste Janet shared with me).

We stopped at a couple of the United Dairy Farm convenience stores during this ride as well. That is a convenience store-chain , mainly in Ohio, for you 'Outsiders'! They are really an ice-cream parlor with a convenience store and gas-pumps on the side! For a more 'massed-produced' chain operation, we were pleased by the quality and size of the servings they put out. Their Peach and Turtle flavors are very good also, but the treat here is the Cherry-Limeade Sherbet. It reminded me of my favorite beverage from Sonic.. sweet Cherry and very tart Lime mix well together. A couple of scoops of that was as good as a Highway 44 drink from the drive-thru!!!
 
Your comment on the Brisket at Hoggy's is right on the money. Very moist and juicey...good flavor, but NO SMOKE at All. It had to be oven-done. The ribs were OK. The sweet sauce was very thick with Molasses. I liked it as a dip, but slathered, it would over-power everything!
 
With  BUNS just a couple of blocks away, I would pass by HOGGY'S next time and stick to the standard restaurant menu for my dinner ! My Pot Roast at BUNS was really good!

Excellent report.  I'm so close to Amish country, and have blown by it on 71 on the way to Cleveland many a time.  Will have to stop!