From Berlin to Springfield

We left Berlin on Wednesday, 9/3, first stopping at Heini's Cheese Factory, where we enjoyed lots of tastes of cheeses, dips, cream cheese fudge, and other treats made here. We visited Swiss Village Bulk Foods in Sugarcreek on the way to Dover, Ohio, where we stopped in at Warther Knife Factory and had our Warther's knives sharpened for free.

This being Amish country, we saw horse-drawn buggies everywhere.

From Ohio after Cleveland

From Ohio after Cleveland

We headed south and set up camp at Salt Fork State Park, just outside of Cambridge, Ohio.

That evening we watched some of the Republican convention, including Sarah Palin's speech. She obviously is a great speaker and had an electrifying effect on the convention attendees. We found much of what she said misleading to say the least.

The next day we went to town and did our laundry and explored a bit. Cambridge is on US 40, the Historic National Road (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road). We plan to follow the National Road west to St. Louis before heading south to the Ozarks. US 40 follows the path of the first macadam surfaced road which started in Cumberland, Maryland, and opened the west to new settlers and travelers. We would like to use "red roads" rather than interstates where we can, because of the more leisurely pace and more interesting scenery.

On Friday we went to the camp office to ask if we could stay another day or two at Salt Fork, but someone had reserved the site we were on, so we moved on to Buck Creek State Park, just outside of Springfield, Ohio, which is just east of Dayton. We are enjoying Ohio state parks, because they have large sites with reasonable privacy. It's especially private now, since everyone leaves on Sunday at noon. We have only a few fellow campers and been enjoying our bike rides around the park.

Our Buck Creek campsite.

From Ohio after Cleveland

We'll stay here until Wednesday, when we have an appointment to have some minor warranty work done on our rig, then head over to Dayton to visit the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum. That means we'll be here to celebrate Lee's birthday on Tuesday.