The Michigan State Park that we spent the night at was nice and roomy and right by the shower house, which my girls who left would have loved.  I prefer my own private bathroom in the camper, but several of the kids like to have a good bathhouse for their showers.  We had no water hookups in this campground, so I took advantage of the bathhouse for my shower in the morning, which helped me get my morning off to a great start.

Charlie’s one gripe about this place had to do with his walk that he took the night before.  He tried walking around the campground to get some exercise (and Charlie does not go slow on his walks), but he couldn’t take a breath of fresh air for all the smell of weed in the area.  He ended up leaving the campground to walk on the main park road to avoid the toxic air. 

While I understand that this is now legal in many states, it is very frustrating for those of us who don’t want to poison our bodies in this way to not have any choice over the second-hand smoke.  This definitely gives me a greater appreciation of what people had to put up with in the days when cigarette smoking was more proficient.

Anyway, we pulled out of our campground with Kidron, OH as our next destination.  But before we could get on the way to Ohio, AnaClaire wanted us to drive through St. Clair, Michigan so that we could get a picture.  I wanted to take a picture of her beside a St. Clair sign, but since the only sign we saw was in the middle of a roundabout, I just took a picture as we were driving by instead of risking our necks to get a picture of her with the sign.

The drive to Ohio was a nice one, especially after we were able to get off the interstate.  I would love to drive around and take pictures of old barns in Ohio.  Many of them have a lot of character and “speak to me.”  (My kids love to find old barns and ask me if that barn “speaks to me” as I’m picky about which barns I want to photograph.)  With me not being the driver for the majority of the trip, I haven’t had much opportunity to photograph barns.  I shouldn’t pick on Charlie too much, he has been very good at pulling over for me to get many photographs.  Barns just haven’t happened on this trip.

We drove to Kidron because of a specific store that is located there, Lehman’s.  Lehman’s is located in Ohio’s Amish country.  They sell a wide variety of products for a simpler life, especially items that are less focused on electricity.  I’ve purchased canning products in bulk there for years and would love to purchase one of their wood cook stoves some day.  We picked up a couple books, a new butchering saw, a bread proofing basket, some cane sugar specialty soda treats, etc.  It was a great deal of fun to walk around that place for an hour or so.  Maybe one day I’ll be able to go back with a truck and trailer to pick up some of their bigger items 😊

Lehman’s had been in my bucket-list for years, so this was a great deal of fun for me!

Rebecca