Canton (Dundee) OH

Sunday, the 20th

We pulled out of the Dayton KOA without incident – going slow is your friend when there are rocks and boulders lining the sides of the road. We had a nice drive and landed in Dundee, OH at the Evergreen Park RV Resort smack dab in the middle of the Amish countryside. Ohio has the largest community of Amish in the world. We had no idea. It’s like a bygone era to see Amish families with their horse and buggies trotting along on the sides of the roads or their wash hanging on clothes lines outside their homes. You can tell it’s Amish laundry because the colors are all dark and there’s lots of long dresses.

The campground is a slice of heaven – large spacious paved sites, manicured lawns, nice amount of trees, and surrounded by farmland and grazing horses. On top of that, there’s an indoor pool (with a roof that they can open on warm days), hot tub, game room, and large laundry facility.

Unfortunately we’re only here for two nights. We have one of the best sites as it’s on the end and larger than the others with a great view of the horses grazing. We sat outside and enjoyed the views for awhile, ate dinner, then had a swim in the pool and a soak in the hot tub and a campfire. Pretty perfect.

Monday, the 21st

We’re here to visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We head off in the morning with Kya. Not that she can visit the Hall of Fame, but it’ll take close to 30 minutes to get there so we didn’t want to leave her in the RV for that length of time – between drive time and visiting. Instead we left her in the truck with the air conditioning running. Not exactly environmentally friendly but you do what ya gotta do to keep the fur babies safe.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame was interesting. Gary was a little disappointed. I thought it was cool, but then my expectations weren’t terribly high :). They had football cards (like baseball cards) on display going back to the 1800’s. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. Works of art, but we weren’t allowed to photograph them. There was also lots of information about the game of football between changes to the game, past and present commissioners, and star players… more than I probably needed (or wanted) to know. They also had some interactive exhibits showcasing the size of these athletes… their arms the size of our legs, their legs the size of our waists, hands, etc. Amazing. But what was really well done was the room with all the Hall of Famers bronze busts. Beautifully displayed. You could look up a specific player by going to a kiosk, enter his name, then up would come a short video on his career and what year he was inducted so you knew where to find him.

They had two short films. The first showcasing stand-out Hall of Famers and specifically their inspiring messages for kids and adults. Very nice. The other was about this year’s Super Bowl. Figures. Pats lost so that was one we could of done without, but it was well done despite the outcome of the game. After that you could see ALL the super bowl rings on display. That was cool! They are humongous. The last couple of Patriot rings are beyond the pale. They are about 5 carats and have over 200 diamonds in them. They are… interesting. I can’t imagine anyone actually wearing one! They are just so huge. One of the workers came up to us and said “are you Patriots fans?” I said yes. She said “I can always tell.” Then she proceeded to show us a faux Super Bowl ring that I could put on. I thought wow she’s pretty good to be able to tell what team we liked. Then I remembered Gary was wearing his Red Sox baseball cap. Not exactly a stretch to figure out what team we like. About then we called it a day at the Hall of Fame. We had checked on Kya once half way thru our visit. She was sleeping comfortably in the truck but we woke her up, walked her, gave her water and let her sleep some more.

When we got back to the campsite we decided to double check our route out the next day to Cleveland with our new Garmin GPS system. I’ll spare you the gory details but suffice to say that it initially had us going under a low clearance bridge. Hello! We don’t fit! It’s supposed to know that! We messed around for several hours with trying to figure out what was going on, do different routes, etc. Plus coming in from the campground via the other direction was problematic because of construction. We could have driven to Cleveland and back in the time we were messing around with this! Then we realized all we had to do was add a couple of inches to the height of the rig on the Garmin profile then it re-routed us around the low clearance bridge. Live and learn.

It poured during the night… buckets! About midnight Kya decided she had to go out so I dragged on the rain pants, rain jacket, and waterproof shoes which weren’t so waterproof when the rain is ponding on the pavement and I’m walking through a river of water. Then she and I headed out so she could take care of her business. Big surprise, we were the only ones out there. Then we all slept through the night until about 6 the next morning when she had to go again and Gary did the honors this time, but it had stopped raining by then.

Next stop Cleveland.