On Friday, we toured the Dayton Daily News Building, where they print many of the area newspapers plus other items. It was quite an operation. The big rolls of paper that are shown in the pictures below have about 11 miles of paper in each one. The manager of the plant, who conducted our 90 minute tour, said they use about 770 of these rolls PER WEEK. Wow!!
Friday afternoon, we got a guided tour of downtown Springboro, with emphasis on the connections of this Quaker village to the Underground Railroad. Our guide was very good, and we learned a lot of interesting history of this part of Ohio.
Saturday morning, the men prepared the traditional sausage and pancake breakfast. Then we car pooled to our main activity of the day. To steal a line from Steven Wright, we saw a sign that said "Home Cooking, Any Time", so we chose lunch during the Renaissance. Now that I have that joke out of the way, here is what we really did.
The Ohio Renaissance Festival is an attraction that was about a 30 minute drive from our campground. This is the 19th year for the festival. They have it on weekends, from the end of August until the middle of October. Sue and I had never been there, so we were not sure what to expect. We imagined a large field with tents and people in Renaissance costumes. Well, what we got was a lot more. This was a large village with many permanent buildings, shops and hundreds of townspeople. The characters ranged from the queen and other members of royalty down to the common men and women of the town. I had talked to an aristocratic looking fellow when we first arrived. He found out that I was the president of our group. Later, when we met him in the village, he started yelling, "This man is important, do not look at him". There were a lot of shows and places to buy souvenirs and of course, there were places to buy food. So we did have lunch during the Renaissance, sort of. Kris and Mark had driven up from Cincinnati on Friday evening and stayed overnight to go to the festival with us. It was great to see them and to have them go with us on Saturday.
Saturday night, we went to dinner at The Golden Lamb in nearby Lebanon. This inn has been providing meals and lodging to travelers since 1815. It is very famous in southwestern Ohio. The food was great and we were able to wander through the three floors of the inn to see the way they had all the rooms decorated. The rooms were all named for U. S. presidents. Legend says that the ghost of a young girl named Sarah haunts the third floor. We did not see any signs of her.
Sunday morning, we had a continental breakfast, prepared by the ladies, said our goodbyes and headed for home. They were predicting possible hurricane strength winds for the Cincinnati area later in the day and we didn't want any part of that.
Tomorrow, we take the motorhome to Erie, PA to visit Howard, David and Barbara at Howard's house. We will need to rest up this evening. Having fun can be tiring.
