My husband and I started taking drives on Ohio’s back roads during the Covid shutdown. We were tired of staying home, frankly we were bored, you can only watch so much television, so we packed snacks and a cooler of drinks, picked a direction, and simply enjoyed seeing where the road would take us. We have continued our drives ever since.
Some of our favorite trips had no destination at all. We would choose a direction, then take turns deciding which way to go at each intersection. One day we drove through seven counties! As we drove, we found beautiful homes, charming country churches, log cabins, lakes, rivers, and all types of barns, even cemeteries. As an amateur genealogist, I find cemeteries fascinating not so much for my husband.
One of our most memorable surprises was spotting a zebra on a farm. We turned around to make sure we had really seen it, and the owner told us they had purchased it at an exotic animal sale and kept it in a heated barn during the winter.
We also saw plenty of wildlife, including deer, bald eagles, hawks, a family of pheasants, a coyote, and a fox. It reminded us just how much natural beauty Ohio has to offer.
Sometimes we’d follow a state route as far as we could, exploring places like Indian Lake and Chillicothe, Ohio’s first capital. Many attractions were still closed at the time, but we did find an ice cream shop, which made the trip even better.
An unusual old brick silo
Many small towns have banners to honor our servicemen.
Living in northwest Ohio, where the land is mostly flat, it was fun to watch the scenery change as we traveled east and south into the rolling hills. Those unplanned road trips gave us a new appreciation for our home state.
Ohio is a truly beautiful state with so much to offer.