Today is Anica's 41st birthday and William's 28th birthday. Imagine that. I had a Zoom call with Anica. How nice. It's hard to believe that 41 years have whizzed by already. Happy Birthday to Anica and William.
I spent the morning, after my Zoom call, doing the laundry. The campground's laundromat is right next to the little lake, so I got to sit by the lake and read, while waiting for the clothes to wash and dry. We had lunch, and went sightseeing. The little town of Jefferson, is the county seat. I guess that meant more back in the late 1800's than it does today. So there was a railroad depot that was very busy, as it allowed people to go from here into Cleveland and back in a day. Lawyers came to the court houses, and there was lots of commercial trains too. So, the town put together a little "village" from that era (circa 1890), at the train station. They gave guided tours of each building--the depot, the pharmacy, the schoolhouse, the church, the Victorian house, the post office and the general store. We also went into the caboose, that ran on the railroad. It was like a little RV for the caboose man, as he did his work there, ate, cooked, had his bathroom (open to the tracks) and bed there. I must admit that I like our RV life better than his. It was very interesting, as it gave a look into a little slice of life in that era. I was most surprised at the separation of the sexes. There was a train ticket and waiting room for the women and kids, separate from the men's ticket room. There was a separate foyer to enter the schoolhouse for boys and girls, as well as seating. The Church had a section for men separate from women, I wouldn't have done well in that era. I did notice that my Mom had a treadle Singer sewing machine just like the one they had, also the wringer on the wringer washing machine was just like the one in our basement when I was growing up. And my Dad's Royal typewriter was exactly the same as the one they showcased in the the train station. Oh my, am I showing my age, or did the technology not change that much between 1890 and 1950? It's hard not to compare this little village to Sturbridge Village in professionalism, accuracy and resources. But, it was an interesting tour.
We needed to go into the next town over of Ashtabula, OH where the Walmart is that had Peter's medications. Thank goodness there are Walmart's (ugh) in most every town on our route, so Peter can transfer his prescriptions whenever he needs them. We stopped at the local grocery store and picked up a few needed items, then drove the few miles north to the shores of Lake Erie. We found a sweet town park, Lake Shore Park. We walked over to their beach, and sat on a bench overlooking the lake. The weather had cooled down, so there was a nice cool breeze. What a difference there is between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Ontario water was gentle, with small, constant, lapping waves. Lake Erie has more energetic waves, with whitecaps out on the waters, and stronger breezes. The waves came crashing to shore, making sitting on the bench a bit more exciting.
By this time, it was dinner time, so we went online, though that was difficult, as we had only one bar on the cell phones. We found a nice Italian restaurant, along the shore. But when we got there, it was so crowded, with folks waiting outside, and no one wearing masks inside, that we ended up finding a little pizza tavern. Nice salad, decent pizza, and there was even live music. So a long, but interesting day.
Did I mention -- Ohio is much flatter than MA, NY or PA. Lots of corn fields. And, we stopped along the road by one of those corn fields and bought some fresh picked sweet corn!
Jefferson Depot Village photos:
No comments:
Post a Comment