Two Days in Ohio

Our first stop of the morning was the home of Rutherford B. Hayes.  We had been there before with The Heinisch children, and I've always wanted to go back.  The Hayes family had possession of the home until the 1960's and all of the items on display were from their families.  President Hayes' and his family had a lot of money for the 1870s and it showedin their home.  He was also the only Present to have a life-size painting completed while he was in office.  It was quite impressive.  A nephew of his had taken pictures of all of the rooms when President Hayes was still alive, so the restoration of the rooms to the 1880s was authentic and fascinating.  I loved hearing the story behind Lucy's White House china.  We had seen it at the Smithsonian on our last trip to D.C. and found it intriguing.  All of the pieces had a nature them and for lack of a better work they were gaudy.  I loved the dishes as did Meg, but it sounded as though others did not.  Thus, her's was seldom used at White House gatherings.

After the guided tour of the mansion Doug and I walked through the museum and library.  President Hayes' was the first President to have a Presidential Library.  It was built in 1917 and his grandson still lived at the home when it first opened.  We left the museum and walked to the tomb of both Rutherford and Lucy.  They owned a gorgeous piece of land and we had several squirrels visit us along the way.

We left Fremont for Mansfield close to 11:30 a.m.  When we decided to come to Ohio to see the Ohio State Reformatory and the Hayes home, I looked for information on the Ohio wine trials.  Doug really likes trying different wines and beers from other areas, so I knew he would enjoy this part of the trip quite a bit.  Our first stop was for lunch.  We had read wonderful reviews about The Vault.  It was an old state bank that was transformed into a wine bar.  We were impressed.  The wine was delicious and the food was excellent.  We truly enjoyed our first visit of the day.

Once lunch was over we drove to Mansfield to see The Ohio Bird Sanctuary.  They rescue and care for injured or abandoned birds.  I loved seeing all of the birds and walking through the aviary.  I found out that one of the favorite meals of the predatory birds was muskrat.  I also learned that having owls would probably solve my squirrel problem, but I am not ready to try that yet.  While there we also walked through the wooded trails and were met by many different animals.  My favorite was the deer who jumped through the meadow.  We spent about an hour there before checking into our hotel in Ontario.

The rest of the evening was filled with visits to different wine bars and breweries.  In-between eateries we also found three of The Shawshank Redemption stops along the way.  We visited the hotel where Brooks stayed after he was paroled.  We also saw the window that Red was looking through when he was searching for a compass.  The best of the evening was the bench that Brooks sat at feeding the pigeon's hoping that his beloved crow Jake would return.  Although not a conventional vacation, day one of our tour of Ohio was a lot of fun.