Wednesday photo: BGSU Firelands arboretum

Posted on August 3, 2011 by elliewick

Another spot in Ohio that I have seen the signs for many times and never stopped is the Bowling Green State University Firelands campus in Huron. Last summer, upon learning there is an arboretum on the grounds, I decided to stop and went with another BGSU-grad and friend, Caitlin.

The James H. McBride Arboretum was lovely in the summer afternoon. There were plenty of flowers in bloom attracting all sorts of bugs.

Paths also lead visitors past birdhouses, through the woods and around a lake. It was an all-around pleasant visit.

The campus is located at 1 University Drive, Huron.

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An ode to my favorite ice creams

Posted on August 2, 2011 by elliewick

I love ice cream. It is one of the few foods I am always willing to eat, and it is always a food I compare to all prior ice cream cones and sundaes I have consumed. I have a favorite ice cream, just like I have a favorite hamburger. Other foods, of which I have a favorite and have yet to write about, are Schnitzel and Hefeweißen.

The month of July has always been my favorite month for eating ice cream, most likely because it is the month where I get to have my favorite ice cream creation.

This is very near and dear to me right now because my month-long ice cream binge has come to an end, and it also could be the last time I have a month like this again, especially at the locations I will mention here.

What makes July special is that I spend the weekends during the month at a house on the beach in Huron. And so, it is here where ice cream becomes a necessary ritual.

My first ice cream of the month has to be at the Pied Piper on Cleveland Road. My all-time favorite ice cream is the Reese Sundae, with chocolate ice cream, chocolate and peanut butter syrups, Reese’s peanut butter cup pieces and no whip cream.My family also enjoys this location immensely for other creations as well, like the Turtle Sundae and ice cream served with freshly made raspberry sauce. I also think the flurry with mint chocolate chips is pretty delicious and my grandfather always chooses the orange sherbet.The second trip for ice cream is likely to be the Dairy Dock in Vermilion, which is where my brother particularly likes the flurry with peanut butter and Oreos.

Also on the list is a cone from Granny Joe’s, which used to be Edna Mae’s, in Vermilion. This ice cream parlor serves Toft’s ice cream, and I had a cone with Bullpen Chocolate, which recently replaced Cave Man Chocolate. The Bullpen Chocolate flavor was fantastic. It was a dark chocolate with Oreo cookie pieces.

Also this year, I made it out to the Toft’s factory in Sandusky. I had had the cone from Granny Joe’s the night before, and had eaten a massive and wonderful cone full of Herd of Cows at the Toft’s Ice Cream Parlor at Cedar Point the week before.

The Toft’s factory isn’t a common stop for my family because my brother was once thoroughly disappointed in his ice cream selection there as a child and has refused to return. Since then, I have had a few treats from their parlor in Port Clinton after a stop at Cheese Haven, the Marblehead lighthouse or to one of the ferries to head out to the Lake Erie islands.

Then last year my dad and I enjoyed ginormous waffle cones at Cedar Point. I was impressed at the amount of ice cream for $5. I thought the amount of ice cream had to be a mistake. We returned this year and found out it wasn’t. The price hadn’t risen, either.

And then, I discovered that at the factory you can get the same giant cone for half the price! And there are easily 30 flavors to choose from. If there is an ice cream heaven, I think it would pretty much be like Toft’s.

I selected one flavor only (you can choose two per cone): Red Velvet Cake. This was my second choice the evening before. It definitely topped the Bullpen Chocolate and rivaled my all-time favorite of mint chocolate chip.In the midst of all these vacation ice cream cones, I also had another well-priced waffle cone ($2.30) at Dietsch Brothers in Findlay. I tried black raspberry chocolate chunk, and I thought there wasn’t enough raspberry flavor, but the coloring was definitely pretty. Their mint chocolate chip is quite good, as is their flavor with buckeyes. I have also had their rum raisin, which was a bit too rummy.

I was invited to Dietsch’s again just as I was beginning this post and I had chocolate peanut butter, which has ripples of real peanut butter in it, and was quite good. This was the best cone yet from Dietsch Brothers.

In addition to the ice cream establishments I have mentioned so far, I need to share a few other places across the globe.

First up is Myles’ Dairy Queen in Bowling Green, Ohio. There can be no better Dairy Queen than this one, hands down, mostly because for the same price as any other Dairy Queen, you get nearly twice as much ice cream.

Katie’s Korner is another favorite, with locations in Howland and Niles in Ohio, along with many others I haven’t been to. The mint chocolate chip has always been good and they serve a pretty fantastic dark chocolate peanut butter as well. A flavor unique to them, as far as I know, is Salty Dog, which has pretzels in the ice cream.

My trip to Kalamazoo earlier this year also included an evening of ice cream. My friend Caitlin and I headed up to Plainwell to the Plainwell Ice Cream Co., which I had read about online and decided was a necessary stop on my trip. The tiny business was packed, which is always a good sign. I had mint chocolate chip, what I usually have on a first stop, and it was delicious and inexpensive, I think under $3 for a waffle cone. The Plainwell Ice Cream Co. is located at 621 East Bridge St., Plainwell, Mich.

In Salzburg, Austria, I can’t say that I had any particularly noteworthy ice cream, but there is a noteworthy name. One of the many gelato stands is called Eis Zeit, which means “ice cream time.” There is no better name than that.

The best ice cream I had in Europe came from Venice, from an establishment recommended by Rick Steves, and he says it is considered the best gelateria in Venice. I was quite impressed with La Boutique del Gelato at 5727 Salizada San Lio, where I was served a generous amount of Nutella gelato. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize at the time my camera was out of focus.So yes, I love ice cream, and I am always looking for new ice cream to try. If you have a suggestion, please let me know.

What is your favorite ice cream parlor? What is your favorite flavor?

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Saturday Spotlight on Ohio: Sand Bar restaurant

Posted on July 30, 2011 by elliewick

When I first started this blog I posted about places in Ohio I would like to visit. I have visited some of them since then, but there are still many places on my list. Now as my time here is dwindling, there are sights and sounds around the state I want to spotlight. Some are old-time favorites, others I have been introduced to only recently and the rest are places on my to-do list. These places include restaurants, museums, gardens and other institutions, all reasons why I truly do love this state.

My last installment was Melt Bar and Grilled in Cleveland. Up this week is the Sand Bar in Huron.This relatively nondescript building down by Nickelplate Beach is a summer “must.”

Getting there early is also a must. There’s nowhere to wait inside if there isn’t a free table, unless you can sit at the bar. They also run out of perch and the daily special, too.

But that doesn’t stop us from going. Their hamburger and fries is one of the best, and my family raves about their pizza, too.

My brother and I have Sand Bar shirts, and I have two restaurant pins, one of them proclaiming my love for the place. Like I said, there is not a lot of space inside, with about 10 tables, though four of those are big, round tables. But the food is great and definitely worth the wait.The Sand Bar is located at 54 Mckinley St, Huron. Its phone number is 419-433-2144.

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Postcard arrival: England and Finland

Posted on July 22, 2011 by elliewick

Sadly, I have not received any postcards since early June. A couple have not been registered yet that I sent in June or July and I fear they are lost. When that happens, it takes even longer for me to receive a postcard. I mailed three today, one to California, one to Poland and one to the Netherlands, in hopes of speeding things up.

I received these cards in the spring, and one is a special Finnish Easter card.

First up is a card from England of a shopping center in Leeds called the Corn Exchange.

 

Like I mentioned, my second card shown here is from Finland.

This is definitely the cutest postcard I have yet received. It also includes two words with the most umlauts I have ever seen.

I liked that the sender of this card included the weather and temperature when she wrote the card. I was also quite intrigued by the stamps, too.

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Wednesday photo: Pickerel Creek

Posted on July 20, 2011 by elliewick

Last night, as I have the past three weeks, I drove past Pickerel Creek Wildlife Area, where I made a small side trip one night last summer on my way home from a weekend on the beach of Lake Erie.

I was thinking of this place and my photos from that night even more this past week as I entered a photo from my stop there in a contest sponsored by Amanda at A Dangerous Business. The contest was for a canvas print by Easy Canvas Prints.

Low and behold, I found out yesterday that I won with this photo as my entry! You can check out the winning information here: A Dangerous Business.

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The view from one man’s dream: Bishop Castle

Posted on July 15, 2011 by elliewick

There’s a man in Colorado building his own castle, a work in progress since 1969.I do not know what skills someone would need to build a castle; all I know is that I do not have them. Joe Bishop does.

He learned through lots of trial and error, as far as the stonework goes, but all the curly cues of wrought iron are what he does when he is not building this castle. He owns Bishop Ornamental Iron in Pueblo, Colo.

Bishop Castle stands many stories tall (its tallest tower is 160 feet off the ground) on his plot of land west of Rye, Colo. This is not something you find in a guidebook, but rather by word of mouth and websites like Atlas Obscura. People definitely know about it, as evidenced by the lines of cars along the two-lane highway. You would probably miss it while driving by if it wasn’t for the cars.

For a castle built by hand, Bishop’s Castle is pretty impressive. But then, if you are not too afraid of heights, you start to climb it and begin to wonder how safe it is and why there are not restrictions or security.

Jon led the way up the outside staircase of uneven and unequal concrete steps.

Following Jon up the outside staircase

We first went into the castle’s main room, a hall often used for weddings. Part of the peaked ceiling is glass with much decorative, twisting metalwork that serves as support trusses.

Great Ballroom's iron trusses

There were windows, some with stained glass, on both ends of the room.

Grand Ballroom stained glass

We headed next to the towers, of which there are four. This is where things got a bit scary because these towers are not your standard European church tower built with precision.

These towers are homemade, without many safety precautions, handrails (a custom handrail [hammered cold!] does exist in Roy’s Tower,  in the southwest corner, named after his son who died at age four while Jim was felling trees), barred windows, and railings. I like feeling safe when you are a couple hundred feet in the air, and there were not many moments of feeling safe on top of Bishop’s Castle.

Windows in the Andreatta Tower

Take the first tower we ascended. Its top had access to an incomplete bridge that one could easily walk right off.

Jon and I on the bridge to nowhere

There also is an Epcot-like top that Jon asked me to climb into for a picture. I was not excited about welded metal swaying in the air and standing on it.

Me inside the steel, Epcot-like tower

The other towers were much of the same. On top of the tallest, the balcony is rimmed with roughly one-foot-tall stone pieces that serve as very little comfort for someone like me.

Looking down

There is plenty of lumber and tools lying around and many other ways someone could get hurt here. On the way out we read on a sign that upon arrival one is supposed to sign away any rights you could have while on the Bishop property. We did not see this sign until our way out, so we saw no waivers and definitely did not sign any.

Bishop Castle sign

But I am a worrier. Jon is not. Maybe you are or maybe you aren’t.

I can’t say that I necessarily recommend climbing the towers, or visiting with small or rambunctious children. All of the things that scream danger to me are pretty obvious and most adults in their right mind won’t do anything stupid. Still, I worry, though, and the added height does not help. And it was quite calming to return to the solid ground, as long as I watched where I was walking.

Even so, the view from the top is nice, especially on a clear day like the afternoon we were there. And yes, this is a cool architecture stop and interesting to see how one man has followed his dreams.

Bishop Castle model at castle entrance

I may have pointed out some things I was uncomfortable with at Bishop Castle, but this man is doing what he wants with his life and has continued following his dream for 42 years.

On the castle’s website, in the final part of the history section, called As It Stands, Bishop writes:

Today’s visitors to the Bishop Castle will find an impressively monumental statue in stone and iron that cries loud testament to the beauty and glory of not only Having a Dream, but Sticking with your Dream no matter what, and most importantly, that if you do believe in yourself and strive to maintain that belief, anything can happen! Three full stories of interior rooms complete with a Grand Ballroom, soaring towers and bridges with vistas of a hundred miles, and a Fire-Breathing Dragon make the Bishop Castle quite the unforgettable experience. Visitors are always welcome FREE of charge, and the castle itself is always OPEN [only during daylight hours]. Please respect this trust and honor while visiting!

And I think anything is worthwhile for a dream.

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Wednesday photo: WindSeeker at Cedar Point

Posted on July 13, 2011 by elliewick

My day job took me to Cedar Point on Monday to ride and review the amusement park’s latest ride, WindSeeker, a towering swing ride.

Photo courtesy of Cedar Point

This is about the happiest I looked during the three-minute ride. That does not mean I won’t give WindSeeker a good review; it’s more that spinning around 301 feet in the air at 30 miles an hour is a bit unsettling.

Head to Cedar Point and check it out. It is a ride that should be experienced.

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My first night on sand and under stars

Posted on July 10, 2011 by elliewick

After spending the day hiking the sand dunes of Colorado, which I wrote about on Friday, I had to decide if I could make a second hike, this time to backcountry camp on the dunes.

After not making it as far as expected earlier in the day, Jon was not sure whether or not I still would want to hike over more dunes to camp that evening. In order to camp on the dunes, you have to drive to the Point of No Return a few miles north of the main day-use area and hike out of the day-use area, which ends at the first ridge along the dunes, a two- to three-mile hike.

I was exceedingly more excited about this endeavor and said yes, I wanted to do this. Before heading out we ate a cooked meal. By the time we were packed and ready to go, the sun was setting, which had a drastic effect on the temperature.

The sunset over the dunes

Refreshed and energized, this hike was a lot easier. The hike first led us to Medano Creek, which flows when there is snowmelt, and was flowing here but not where we hiked earlier. Then we proceeded up the dunes, following some footprints.

Distance is difficult to measure when you are going up and down and we were not so sure if we had gone far enough. We decided we had hiked a considerable-enough distance and picked a spot to spend the night.

I thought that if there was ever a place to sleep inside a tent, it would be in a place where sand is blowing.

Jon had other ideas, and I had no reason to argue. I had never slept under the stars before, and as opposed to some locations, there is limited wildlife in the dunes, compared to a forest, and what does live there isn’t going to harm you like, for instance, a bear, elk or bighorn sheep could.

We spread out our comforter, held down the corners with shoes and backpacks, and covered up with sleeping bags.

While lying there, I said something about the sky and Jon said he did not think it was too spectacular that night. I mentioned that I could see the Big Dipper through the clouds, and as I said that, I realized that it wasn’t cloudy. What I thought was a cloudy sky was my terrible eyesight, blurring the sky.

I had forgotten I had taken off my glasses. When I replaced them, the “clouds” went away and I countered Jon’s opinion of the sky, saying it was a pretty impressive view compared to what I can usually see through the light pollution of an apartment complex and nearby interstate exit. A few nights later this view was topped with a night sky that showed off the Milky Way, but even so, it was nice to see something as simple as a relatively uninterrupted view of stars.

It got quite cold at some point in the night. And sleeping on sand isn’t as comfortable as one might think.

I woke some point before the sun made it over the mountains on the eastern edge of the park but the sky was already lightening. I managed to fall back asleep until the heat started to pick up a few hours later. I think it was around 8 a.m. and I was already thinking about needing sunscreen. We ate some food and packed up so that we could get off the sand before it got too hot.

We followed our footsteps back down the dunes and I was surprised they had not yet blown away.

Our footprints in the sand

Jon decided to walk barefoot until the sand got too hot to bear. I was wearing shoes, and as we ran down the steep, leeward sides of dunes, the sand was burning my ankles.

We moved quickly as we approached the creek because we realized the night before that mosquitos were quite prolific there. I got roughly 15 bites.

Medano Creek

The rest of the path was uphill to the car and less pleasant than the night before. There was no beautiful sunset to look at this time. But now I have the memory of spending the night on the sand under a plethora of stars.

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Saturday Spotlight on Ohio: Melt Bar and Grilled

Posted on July 9, 2011 by elliewick

When I first started this blog I posted about places in Ohio I would like to visit. I have visited some of them since then, but there are still many places on my list. Now as my time here is dwindling, there are sights and sounds around the state I want to spotlight. Some are old-time favorites, others I have been introduced to only recently and the rest are places on my to-do list. These places include restaurants, museums, gardens and other institutions, all reasons why I truly do love this state.

My last installment was about Progressive Field, home of the Cleveland Indians. Up this week is Melt Bar and Grilled in Cleveland.

I had heard about this restaurant two years ago or so, and as a lover of grilled cheese, getting a meal here seemed pretty essential.

I finally made it there this spring, meeting a friend at the Cleveland Heights location. There’s another in Lakewood, and one coming soon in Independence.

Unsurprisingly, the bread-and-cheese-only variety is called the Kindergarten. I opted for the Godfather, which includes three-cheese lasagna, fennel-oregano pasta sheets, spicy red sauce, provolone and garlic-spiked bread.

The Godfather grilled cheese

Lydia ordered the Westside Monte Cristo with honey ham, smoked turkey, swiss, american and some berry preserves for dipping or spreading, which I also considered.

When food is delicious, and let me tell you, this was delicious, I try really hard to clean my plate, and well, that was impossible.

The decor was also entertaining, with a variety of plastic, light-up, outdoor holiday decorations. The beer menu also was appealing, and I had a hard time selecting something.

I would definitely recommend a meal at the Melt Bar and Grilled, but expect a wait or arrive at a less common eating time, like we did.

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A day hiking the sand dunes of Colorado

Posted on July 8, 2011 by elliewick

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is home to quite a bit of sand – more sand than I could have imagined, really.

I had seen pictures, read an article or two, and checked out guidebooks and the National Park’s website. Nothing could have prepared me for this much sand.

I had seen Pacific Coast beaches with small, rolling dunes. Just a few weeks ago I was at Saugatuck State Park in Michigan, where the dunes reach 200 feet. Reaching the highest point required nothing more than ascending that one, tall dune.

That really did not prepare me for hiking at Great Sand Dunes. Jon said hiking in sand never really gets easier, but I countered that continual hiking like what he does would help no matter what, even if it was on a well pounded trail and not on sand.

My practice for hiking in Ohio involves nothing more than walks on flat pavement. There aren’t many other close options for me, seeing as there are no hills of any size nearby, and I had thought that climb at Saugatuck would have been helpful.

We approached the dunes from the east, exiting Interstate 25 at Walsenburg and heading west on U.S. 160 through Blanca and Fort Garland before turning north onto Colorado 150, which becomes the road through the park.

The dunes are not visible immediately at the turn to the north, although the towering Fourteeners bordering the park to the north are.

Approaching Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

After a few miles, you can distinguish the yellowish-brown color of the sand from the desert floor. From far away it does not look like all that much, until you realize that yes, you are still many miles away from the dunes, and that yes, they are quite expansive and tall (the tallest is Star Dune at 750 feet, which is taller than the Washington Monument).

The dunes are visible!

Our goals here were pretty simple: hike the dunes and spend a night on them. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon on a hot and sunny late June day. We got our permit for the free camping and heading to the day-use area where most people go to access the dunes.

From the parking lot, I did not realize how far it was to the first dune, which I could not distinguish too well until we were actually upon it. The sand in the bright sunshine was a bit deceptive.

Only a portion of the distance to the first dune

The dunes start our low, the first at maybe 10 feet. Each one is progressively taller and bigger. I had not considered this when climbing all the way to High Dune (closer than Star and is 650 feet tall) first crossed my mind. It’s not like you just hike up a 650-foot-tall mound of sand – you have to climb and somewhat descend all the dunes leading up to it, too.

Factor in the hot sun, blowing sand, wind (and the wind is what keeps the sand in this area, rather than dispersing), hot sand, thirst, and hunger, and my desire to get to High Dune evaporated as quickly as my sweat.

This is how far we'd come.

I had had enough by the time we had traversed maybe half the distance, although I would not be surprised if the final destination was even farther away than expected and the distance was deceptively shorter than its actual length.

The distance to High Dune. Note the dark speck on the lowest part of the ridge of someone on his way to the top.

Along the way we did get to hike across a dune ridge, which was particularly exciting to me. Most of the hiking involved going up the leeward side and down the windward side to the next dune’s leeward side.

Hiking along a dune ridge

After not making it as far as expected, Jon was not sure whether or not I still would want to hike over more dunes to camp that evening. In order to camp on the dunes, you have to drive to the Point of No Return a few miles north of the main day-use area and hike out of the day-use area, which ends at the first ridge along the dunes, a two- to three-mile hike.

Did I think I could make it through another hike on the dunes? Check back Sunday for part two of my adventures at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

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