Today was basically Ohio Day. We are now in Indiana, but it’s not obvious. The place is still red. But we are only about 2 miles over the border, just finishing a delicious dinner at Galo’s in Richmond.

It was a beautiful morning, and we didn’t leave our hotel in Washington Pennsylvania until about 10. Our route was a simple one; get on Interstate 70 and stay there. Our goal was only 4 hours away – Richmond IN, and we made it in 8. Par for the way we operate.

Stop #1. It was a wild goose chase. A sign on the highway exit pointed to the Underground Railway Museum in Flushing OH. Sounded promising and without doing any research, we headed off the highway.

Well, in case you don’t know, eastern Ohio, formed by the same forces that created the Ohio River, is beautiful. So, even though it became clear that the road to Flushing was about 10 miles long, we took it and enjoyed the scenery along the way. Flushing, it turns out, is a town with a central business district of maybe 5 buildings. One of those buildings, it turns out, is the Underground Railway Museum. Unfortunately, the museum doesn’t open until noon, which would have given us an hour wait in a place where even coffee was at a premium, so we reversed track and went back to I-70. Here is as much of the museum as we saw:

The museum gets good reviews and has over 8000 objects. It is too bad we missed it.

Stop #2. We stopped gor lunch in Zanesville. We did that last year and ate at a downtown food court. We thought we could do better, and we were right.

Zanesville is the home of western author Zane Grey. Okay, Zane from Zanesville. What’s the connection? It turns out that Zanesville was named by the husband of Zane’s grandfather’s sister, who received the land from someone else who was a descendant of Ebanezer Zane, Zane Grey’s great grandfather (or something like that). I think Zane’s mother had been a Zane, and Zane was only Zane’s middle name, anyway. TMI.

We had lunch at Muddy Miser’s, a casual spot on the Muskingum River. Muddy was an old man who liked to fish and who became a mentor to young Zane, much to his dentist father’s chagrin. Here is the restaurant, the river, and an older Zane:

Here is the building next to the restaurant:

I have never read any of the 100 plus novels that Zane Grey wrote, nor seen any of the 100 plus films based on those novels. But I can tell you this, based on what I gave read about him today. He may have been one of the most fascinating people ever. Google him.

Quality of the food? Excellent. My first walleye Reuben. Ever.

Stop #3. The Zanesville Art Museum was a very good stop.

It has some interesting works of art, to be sure, such as a work by Samuel F.B. Morse

and an oil of early Ohio by an unnamed artist

and many works by Zanesville native Howard Chandler Christy, including this well known work

But its real treasures are in its pottery. Zanesville was for decades the ceramic center of America, home to Weller and Rosedale pottery and more. The collection is extensive, including local pieces

And then, for St. Louisans, there are three pieces made at the freestanding Weller Pottery StudioBuilding at the 1904 World’s Fair, and then brought back to Zanesville:

The center piece is about 4 feet tall.

Finally, these are included in their Lego exhibit

Stop #4. We stopped at Uranus. A store, not a planet. Or was it? At any rate, it is an oddity. It opened in December and is the third branch of a new company that goes out of its way to be risque and offensive while selling fudge and chocolates and t-shirts and every sort of doo-dad imaginable.  Here are some photos to give you an idea of the place.

Edie thought it was just awful, just as I thought Buc-cees was when we visited it in South Carolina in March. I thought Uranus was astounding (although I don’t think anyone under 40 should be allowed in).

That is it (or That is too much) for today. Tomorrow?