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On Vacation Ohio Festivals

Summer is approaching, which also means people are planning vacations. I know a certain Canadian and a New Yorker who are researching ideas for coming to Ohio for other reasons than seeing me. So, being a thoughtful soul, in upcoming weeks I want to offer Vacation Ohio suggestions to my friends and readers.

Like any of state, Ohio has its share of festivals. Some festivals honor/feature food items as corn, walleye, perch, fish, strawberries, grapes, gourds, potatoes, melons, pumpkins, sugar maple, bratwurst, apples, sweet corn, BBQ, ice cream, maple, sauerkraut, honey, caramel, pork, and apple butter.

Others offer tributes to various heritages as French, Germans, Greeks, Irish, Italians, Polish, and Swiss. Now throw in other odds-and-ends as arts, tobacco, carnations, rivers, dams, covered bridges, antiques, sternwheelers, baskets, Ohio beer, wine, blues, jazz, quilts, films, dogwoods, Celtic music, railroads, hot air balloons, chalk art, leaves, and scarecrows.

On the other hand, here are a few that may interest adventure seekers of all ages. I listed them in chronological order, and one could combine them together for an extraordinary weekend. Most of these have a web site for more information. Welcome to the Buckeye State! Plus here’s are links to Ohio Tourism, Ohio Fest, and the Ohio Festival and Events Association.

Image from DreamTime.com

18 thoughts on “On Vacation Ohio Festivals”

  1. Good morning Frank!

    Wow! Did you overhear my conversation with Al this morning? I was telling him of the dream that I had last night.

    In my dream, he had called me to tell me that he was planning a week holiday to Toronto… Well of course, dreams are sometimes fuzzy, he must have said Ohio and not Toronto….

    Funny thing about this, Al did say: “A week? What would we do?” Well in this post, you answered his question.Ha!

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    • Hi Meesh,
      Well … there you go. Choice galore here, yet Al seems more like a duct tape or Dean Martin type of guy. Nonetheless, I’ll be curious to see his reaction. Plus, next Saturday could provide more fun ideas! (and your thinking, “I wonder what he is up to?”) Have a good rest of the weekend, and glad you enjoyed this. 🙂

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  2. Hi Frank,

    Talk about a coincidence, Al will vouch for this and be amazed… he really did say that this morning. “What will we do for a whole week?”

    Oh he sends his best as well… I told him I would be checking in with “our” classy Ohioan friend.

    Soooooo I guess my dream was “OHIO” and not “TORONTO” they do sound alike.

    So you think Al is sort of a duct tape kind of a guy like our canuck Red Green? ====> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286915/ That’s wild, gosh I hope not! We’ll see what he has to say, hahahaha

    Have a great weekend Frank!

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    • Meesh,
      Oh that Al – he’s worried about being entertained in Toronto for a week – even with his own personal guide? OK – if he gets bored one evening, he can rent Duct Tape: The Movie. In terms of the dream, keep in mind one important word in the post …. series. Hmmmmm?????

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  3. While my suggestions reflect my martial leanings, I offer a few (what I consider) intriguing destinations. The biggest, and most obvious, is the US Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton. Yes, there are lots of military planes, but there are displays of items from space exploration, some former “Air Force One” planes (including a propeller-powered one), and some truly fascinating examples of bizarre aircraft (the so-called “Goblin” fighter, carried aboard a bomber for self-protection, has to be seen to truly appreciate the phrase “butt ugly” :D).
    Not too far away, in Wapokeneta (?) is a museum dedicated to native son Neil Armstrong and the Apollo program which made him famous. Lots of cool memories for us old farts, and good education for the young whipper-snappers.
    At the opposite corner is the Military Air Preservation Society museum, in Akron-Canton. A small museum, but notable for the number of planes that still fly, thanks to much work by dedicated volunteers. While the airplanes sitting on the ground in Dayton can be impressive, the true thrill is seeing these noble old birds in their native environment, roaring past overhead, glinting in the sun as they did in that horrible war some 70 years ago.
    I’ll check out the Coshocton events coming up, and pass those on to y’all.

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    • John,
      The post was about festivals – not museums, sites, or sounds – festivals. On the other hand, I can say that I have a museums post in the works. Besides, you are forgetting one important point, that which I will hold back to give you something to ponder. 🙂

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    • Just pray there are no car shows the weekend of the duct tape festival. If you can find it on the Net, pull up the video of Red Green putting gullwing doors on a Plymouth Reliant K-car. Yes, it was a long running Canadian show (the Red Green Show, creatively enough), where the title character did various things with duct tape, and with cars (and occasionally both). Hilarious stuff – highly recommended! 😀

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  5. I always loved my extended stays in Ohio. In fact, in The Crackerhead Chronicles, I go on and on about the wonderful people at The Gables in Southington, which is around 10 miles north of Warren/Youngstown, who adopted me during a lake effect blizzard in 1997.

    On the other hand, I always dreaded going through Ohio. For the trips were made in a big truck, and much of the revenue for the state is made from ticketing them. Oh yeah, I contributed my share (and then some) before it was all over with. I wonder how Indiana and Pennsylvania survived without going along with the Ohio program?

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    • Don’t know about Pennsy, but Indiana gets you on the Tollway, and you become a captive audience. Fuel, food, sundries, everything is at convenient rest stops – appropriately up-charged. I-80 moves you well, but you HAVE to stop. If you don’t, there’s no way you’ll stay with traffic AND the speed limit. They check your time of entry and exit, and bill you appropriately. I know a lot of people who used it for the first time, and were quite shocked to get the few-dollar toll AND a $100+ speeding ticket at the TOLL BOOTH! 🙂 In Illinois, we don’t do nasty like that. We just make you come to a dead stop every couple dozen miles, create HUGE amounts of pollution and traffic back up, and raise your blood pressure a couple hundred points. We don’t take all your money now – we just drive you nuts (or into the grave) after a period of time. Insidious, ain’t it? 😉

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      • It sounds like Indiana has changed a lot in the 10 years or so since the last time I was able to still drive cross-country. For Indiana used to be almost Heaven for truckers, and I (along with a dozen or so more that could keep up) got an Indiana State Trooper escort from Terre Haute to Indianapolis one fine day back in ’89 (I think). When he zipped past us at over 90 MPH, he got on the CB and told us to come along, and then he proceeded to tell us that his grandson had a gun to his head so that he could get to granny’s house in Fort Wayne when the apple pies came out of the oven. Needlessly to say, it was a lot of fun, and the only time I ever got to be in on something like that.

        Of course, the I-80/90-Indiana Turnpike may have been a different story, and I rarely went on it. For most of the companies that I drove for would not pay their drivers back for taking it. So, I would take US 6 across northern Indiana. I tried taking US 20 once, and I wouldn’t recommend it in a big truck. For I think it took me 3 days to get through South Bend. Well, at least it seemed like it.

        By the way, I noticed in your previous comment that you mentioned Wright-Patterson AFB, which is where I got to see 3 or 4 B-52’s practicing touch and goes one day. Oh my, it was quite a sight to see!

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        • FishHawk and John,
          I actually have a future post planned for something at Wright-Patt that you may not know. John … I did say may … not will. 😉 Good info guys!

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      • Fishhawk- Yes, I was referring to I-80 up north. I’ve traveled that route quite a bit, especially when the wife and I were living in the Chicago ‘burbs and the wife’s family was centered on South Bend.
        Gotta admit, I’ve never had a great relationship with highway police – horrific case of lead-foot-itis, though strongly oriented towards doing it safely, compliments of my father working for the Bell System (who POUNDED safety into their repairmen who drove).
        My wildest drive was with my buddy (a car salesman) and a friend of his, when all 3 of us were doing corner work at the Road America racetrack in Wisconsin. He and I had brand-new 1987 Z-24s (V-6 in a Cavalier) and the friend had a brand new Toyota MR-2. We set off for a restaurant (which I had no idea where it was), whereupon my buddy and his friend decided to race. So there we are, his Z, the MR-2, and my Z, blasting along back-country roads at obscene speeds. Mind you, I had only stepped up to the Z a few months previously from my broken-down old Vega, so I’m on strange roads in a new car trying to follow these two idiots! Let’s just say, I got a REAL good lesson in how my car handled! And lost about 10 pounds in panicked sweat…..
        Ah, the idiocies of youth. Nowadays, I just use the Net to annoy as many people as I can. My distance record so far is Romania – do I hear a vote for Kazakhstan next?;)
        Oh, and a quick footnote, the wife used to live by Carswell in Texas. At random intervals, they’d do practice scrambles (along the lines of a Cold War attack) of the entire base – all the B-52s, plus the tankers, plus the E-2 and E-3 command planes. She and I had a common “mark of the apocalypse”, as O’Hare had a tanker wing and a couple E-types as well – if the mil-spec 707s took off, tune to Civil Defense – and PRAY!!!

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      • John,
        Thanks for the tip on the Indiana toll road. Interestingly, given the need for revenue, I imagine ticketing based on the time stamp is becoming a more frequent occurrence. Thanks for sharing.

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  6. Hey Frank!

    Top of the Morning to you, Sir! Well written and filled with many great ideas. You know how to take care of your friends. We would have to stop along the way to pick up a few bottles of vintage wine for a distinguished gentleman from Cinncinati (wonder who that could be…he’s as close as your mirror, Frank). Sounds like Ohio has so much to offer: the Rocking & Roll Hame of Fame to enhance Meesh’s love of Music, and The Pro Football Hame of Fame (Canton, Ohio) and all of your interesting choices as well.

    Sidebar: lately, when I think of duct tape, I’d like to duct tape the mouths of a few of my fellow Republicans, who seem to always have a case of “open mouth, insert foot” syndrome when they attack President Obama on his birthplace or birth-certificate, instead of focusing upon the issues.

    Have a GREAT week, my friend! Carpe Diem!

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    • Welcome Back Al … which also means you had a safe week of travels.

      I mentioned to Meesh that I thought you would be taken by the Dean Martin and the Duct Tape festivals. So I’m sure you have marked those on your calendar.

      Meanwhile, you mentioned a couple of Ohio’s named spots. Beware, oh kind sir, I’m not yet finished with recommendations for you.

      In terms of the 2012 election, I’m beginning to think that 2012 is the cycle for the looneys … thus 2016 is the cycle for the pragmatic. Nonetheless, time will tell.

      Have a good rest of the week & thanks for stopping by.

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