Travel Day Today

Yesterday was a laundry day for us.  When we were out to dinner after the Edison Museum visit, I asked our waiter if he knew of any Laundromats close by, and he said that there was a Carwash, Pet wash, Dry cleaners, Laundromat, all next to each other.  We drove down the street to the combo-wash strip mall and I stayed in the van and Anne-Marie took a quick look, and said it would work for us. 

When I walked into this Laundromat yesterday, I just said “Wow” This is the brightest, cleanest, coolest,and newest Laundry that I have seen.  Only in Hood River, Oregon have we found such a clean Laundromat. 

As we travel, we need to find somewhere to do laundry about every three weeks.  When we are visiting family members, Anne-Marie likes to use their washer/dryer, but on the road we use public Laundromats.  Anne-Marie prefers front loaders, and only a few RV Parks have front loading washers, so we look for places like this.  This place is operated by pre-pay cards, you put your credit or debt card in the laundry card machine and choose the amount of money to transfer to a laundry card, then the laundry card can be used in any machine, including the vending machines.  An easy coinless system, but they have no provision for refunding money that is left over on the card.  We ended up finishing our laundry, and going straight to the trailer and gathering the bathroom rugs up, and right back to the Laundromat, and Anne-Marie tried to use up the last few dollars on the laundry card, but we still had a couple of dollars on the card.  Anne-Marie did a quick walkthrough and found someone who would appreciate the card, and gave it to them.

Travel day today.  We have been in Sandusky, Ohio for two weeks, and we have toured hard and fast, and there is still more to see and do, but we need to start moving towards the North West States.  We have more family to see before we head south to Arizona for the winter.  Today we are pulling the trailer to Valley Plaza Resort RV Park, located close to Midland and Bay City, Michigan.  We will tour this area for a few days till after the Labor Day Weekend, and then we will move further north.  During the big holiday weekends, we like to find a nice RV Park, reserve a space for the weekend, and be tourists.  Some times all of the spaces get reserved for big weekends, or big events, like fairs, or shows, and we have to drive a little further to find an open park.

We have seen Lake Superior and done some boat rides out of Munising, Michigan, but I would like to see more of the lake, maybe even traveling as far west as Duluth, Minnesota.

Birthplace of Thomas Edison, Milan, Ohio

Wednesday, Anne-Marie and I drove south of Sandusky, Ohio, for about 20 minutes to visit the town of Milan, Ohio.  There are many attractions to see here, and we could spend another couple of days touring the town and taking pictures.  Our first stop was the Edison Birthplace Office, located in a small house right next door to the house Edison was born in.

The Office has a display of things that Edison invented and developed, including many personal notes and manuscripts of the inventor.  When we walked in the door, there was a tour being conducted of the small museum, and we were invited right on into the small group.  The volunteer had many fascinating facts about the development of the items, what worked well and what didn’t, and how it was improved upon.

A lineup of some of the graphs, phonographs, and dictographs of different styles.  Our volunteer guide played several of them for us, and I think that all of the others are also in working order.

An early Ediphone that used wax drums to record and play messages.  I remember seeing a device like this in Butte Montana, in a old lawyers office while on a walking tour.  An early film projector developed by Thomas Edison.

Displayed around the room were many notes and drawings that Edison had done for family and friends.  The guide explained to us about his experiments with radiation, and how a assistant became Ill and died from over exposure, and Edison quit radiation experiments because of the dangers involved.

The house that Thomas Edison was born in.  The house is staged with furniture from family and donations of period correct items, because when Edison’s parents moved to another town, their house caught fire and all was lost, except what a sister had in her own house at that time, and they are here on display.

Ohio State Historical Markers are well done.

The front room fireplace, Anne-Marie on the right.  This display case had many artifacts to fragile for visitors to handle.

This bedroom furniture and washbasin items belonged to Thomas Edison’s Mother and later his sister.  The Sister had this furniture in her house at the time of the parents loosing all possessions in a house fire.

The spinning wheel, and items belonged to Edison’s Mother, and were saved by being at the Sisters house when the parents home burned.  This is the basement and the kitchen of the house.  There was no water plumbed into the house during their time here.  The fireplace was where all cooking was done, and baking was done with small oven box hung over the fire.

The kitchen area with Anne-Marie listening to the volunteer guide.  The items behind Anne-Marie are wood working tools from the period, and show how Edison’s father supported the family.

Our Volunteer guide, and another well done sign by the State of Ohio.  Our guide took a special liking to us when she found out that we were full time travelers, as her and her husband wish to do that when they retire.   Our one hour tour turned into over a two hour visit and tour.  The guide and Anne-Marie shared common experiences of small town living, and both have husbands who are or were longtime Volunteer Firefighters, and EMTs, and both related to nighttime fire calls, and how each helped the husband out of the house. 

We were well entertained by the museum and home tours, and to prevent reaching an overload of information, we called it a day.  There are several buildings only one block away from here that belong to The Milan Museum, and from the size of them, we could be there a whole day, and the downtown area has several historical buildings to visit, we will have to return another day to see the other attractions in the town.

Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial, Dinner on the water, and a last view of Put-In-Bay

The Battle of Lake Erie of the War of 1812 was decided in 1813 just off of the shore of South Bass Island, but the war continued until 1815.  The British fleet and the US fleet were both commanded by 27 year olds, I think of them as kids, but the life expectancy in these times was not as long as now.

The US captured the British forces on Lake Erie, and had the Memorial been in place at that time, the battle could have been viewed from the observation platform.  I have often wished that I could remember more of the history stuff from school.  The monument as seen from the Museum.  The Monument is 352 feet tall, and was completed in 1915.

In the auditorium, Anne-Marie and I viewed the movie about the war of 1812, and the effect of the battle of Lake Erie on the war, before we toured the Museum.  This museum was only one room, but there was a lot to absorb.  The models of the ships were very well done, and they had a very large display of the ships in battle on the lake, about 8X12 feet.  Artifacts recovered from the lake bottom were displayed along with a few replicas of what one looked like at the time.

Cannons were displayed around town, and here in the museum.  This display show some of the things that were shot out of the cannons at each other. 

The Monument is incredibly tall, and the picture from the front steps just don’t show it well.  The view from my camera looking down at the front steps.  The ledge on the observation deck was too high and too wide to look directly over to the ground, and I had to stretch to blindly point my camera to get this view.

This view shows the bay and the town, and off in the distance is where the battle of Lake Erie took place.

The first picture show the park grounds, and the walkway on the right lead up to the Museum.  The second picture is looking sort of north to Middle Bass Island in the distance.  The height of the observation deck makes these pictures look as if they were taken from an aircraft.

Anne-Marie and I decided to have an early dinner on the island before taking the boat back to the mainland.  This restaurant was right next to the ferry dock, and it was a hopping place.  We had a table on the deck, and there was entertainment of the steel drum played along to prerecorded music, and he was quite good.

A wide view of the deck and the water, from our table.  This was really a nice place, and the weather was just right for being in the shade, on the deck, for dinner.

A view of the Monument from the Restaurant.  When we were across the water on Kelleys Island, this looked like a really tall lighthouse, , it is a real standout Monument.

A last look at the Put-In-Bay dock, and the helm of the Captain, this looks like a airplane cockpit.

Crystal Cave at Heineman Winery

The Heineman’s Winery and Crystal Cave were two very interesting attractions at this stop of the Tour Train trip, and Anne-Marie and I spent an hour touring the winery and cave, after we visited the Antique Cars across the street.

Anne-Marie and I got in line for the cave tour and then the winery tour followed.  The cave is a giant geode and the crystals are strontium sulfate, a blueish mineral called celestite, and are from 8 to 18 inches long.  About 20 of us tourists were inside of this giant thunder egg and we were instructed to not touch any of the crystals.  As I was writing this, I looked up the history of the cave, and in the early years the cave was much smaller, and the crystals were harvested for use with fireworks, enlarging it to its present size. 

The steps down were in one of the front buildings of the Winery, and the crystals looked like they should be cold, or at least cool.  Anne-Marie in her tie-dyed shirt leading me out of the cave past a bald head scuffing low spot.

As soon as our group got topside, we started on the winery operations tour.  We gathered in a room that had older equipment displayed, but if it weren’t for the signs explaining what they were used for, all were clean enough to be put back in service.  Our guide explaining the roll of this huge filter in the operation of making grape juice and wine.

The bottling and labeling room had very sanitary equipment on display.  This is a labeling machine behind plexiglass doors.  A display of the wines that this winery bottles, and our guide described the grapes and the method how each was manufactured.

The interior of the Heineman Winery Tasting Room.  I was taken in by the antique metal ceiling tiles, and rounded corner pieces.  A wide picture of the front of the winery, and all of the rental golf carts in the parking lot. 

Our Tour Train arrives.  We had a rental golf cart on Kelleys Island, and it worked well for us, but there wasn’t a tour bus, or anyone to provide narration as we wandered about the island.  The narration during tours is appreciated by both of us, but the flexibility of stopping and looking longer is removed.  Small fields of grapes were scattered about this end of the island, our guide said that the vines are old and not structured for a mechanical harvester, and all are gathered by hand.

Put-In-Bays original School House, 1855.  Put-In-Bays Catholic Church, completed 1883. 

The tour Train ends back in town, and we drove by the local brewpub.

We had a full day of touring the island, and we saw a lot of historical places, and as I write this, I’m finding many places that we have missed, and now we have a good reason to return.