There's No Place Like Home

A beautiful spring day in Northeast Ohio.

When I was little, I watched The Wizard of Oz so much that I wore out our family’s VHS copy. I have no idea why our tape had a muted mauve plastic outer shell instead of black; what’s less of a mystery is why the movie’s central protagonist—a young girl who feels misunderstood and out of place growing up in Kansas and longs to “wake up where the clouds are far behind” her—resonated so deeply with me, a young girl who felt misunderstood and out of place growing up in perpetually cloudy Northeast Ohio. 

When I got a bit older and was able to identify some of the concrete issues contributing to my unease, I began to obsess over the idea of finding my own version of a place where the “dreams I dare to dream really do come true.” Even before I first visited New York City when I was 14, it seemed to me that—while I had no illusions that any change of scenery would cause my troubles to “melt like lemon drops”—going over the George Washington Bridge and into Manhattan was about as close to going over the rainbow as I could get. 

I did try to be at least somewhat realistic about New York City’s ability to heal my spiritual and physical wounds, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t idealize or inflate its powers. For more than a decade after that first visit, I still physically lived in Ohio, but my head and my heart were both trapped in limbo—somewhere between my increasingly bleak real life, and the objectively better one I imagined was waiting for me, should I ever actually make it to New York. 

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The four worst things about Ohio.

I’m not proud of how quickly and willingly I cast my Ohio roots aside when that day finally came in 2013. Before my plane had even reached the gate at LaGuardia, I had already scrubbed my vocabulary of any telltale signs that I was an outsider: I trained my Midwestern mouth to say “soda” instead of “pop,” I would order food “to stay” instead of “for here,” and wait “on line” instead of “in line.” I gladly surrendered my Ohio driver’s license, even if it meant a five-and-a-half-hour wait at the “express” DMV and an even more excruciating weeks-long wait for my photo reveal (mercifully, New York’s ID photos are printed in universally flattering shades of black and white).

I didn’t hide the fact that I was from Ohio, but I didn’t exactly volunteer to share my origin story either. When the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA championship in 2016, it seemed like everyone in Brooklyn was celebrating but me. I was the first to admit that so-called “flyover” states were easy to ridicule (and frequently misunderstood), but more often than not, my home state supplied seemingly endless sources of embarrassment. 

I had helped the county I grew up in turn blue in favor of Obama twice; in 2016, Trump won the bellwether state by nearly half a million votes. In 2019, less than a year before he would deftly handle the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the notorious “heartbeat” law, essentially banning abortions. And that desire to wake up where the clouds are far behind me was very real: The Buckeye State is consistently included in the top ten rankings of cloudiest places in America. According to the Farmers’ Almanac, cities just south of Lake Erie see only 63 to 68 days of sunshine a year. Two months before I headed east in search of (metaphorically and literally) sunnier skies, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis; while there are several contributing risk factors, a pronounced lack of vitamin D is one of the major ones. 

Try as I did to remain objective, I was not immune to blaming my miseries, at least partially, on my surroundings; with some perspective, it’s clear that I was not completely wrong in that assessment. My life did improve measurably in ways both big and small after I moved to New York. I no longer had a car, so I walked significantly more. I spent more time outdoors, enjoying those objectively sunnier skies. I traveled more, developed meaningful relationships, and advanced in my career.

Over the past seven years, I’ve gone entire days without remembering that I carry a potentially debilitating neurological condition along with me wherever I go; is it nearly invisible because of the daily medication I take or because of the lifestyle changes I made? I’m sure, like anything, it’s a complicated mix of factors, but I have no doubt that moving to New York helped me thrive in many, quantifiable ways. 

So when it became clear to me over the last year that my life in New York was coming to a natural end, I wondered where I would go next. I had planned to spend a large portion of 2020 on the road, traveling across rural America—including the true Midwest, to which I argue Northeast Ohio does not really belong. I wasn’t being coy when I declared that I had no idea where I would end up once my trip ended; I truly had no idea if I would want to restart my life in New York or plant new roots elsewhere. For the first time in my highly-structured, true-to-my-Virgo-nature life, I planned not to plan too far in advance. I hoped that a few months on the road would change me; somewhere along the way I imagined that a clearer path would emerge. 

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A family of squirrels outside of my childhood bedroom window.

Well it turns out that sometimes life is also what happens to you while you're busy not making other plans. I did leave New York, but the COVID-19 pandemic put my road trip plans on an indefinite hold, left me unemployed (at least for the time being), and has me sheltering in place with my dad in my childhood home in Ohio. When I moved out in 2009—to live with a boyfriend 45 minutes south—I never imagined I’d be back 11 years later. 

During the seven years that I lived in New York, I’d visited Ohio several times—for holidays, short family visits, and most recently, for work-related functions—but never for more than a few days at a time. I enjoyed exploring my home state as a tourist, catching up with old friends, and eating at regional food chains (Swensons’ cheeseburgers truly are life-changing). But I was always eager to get back to my adopted home of New York which, for at least six-and-a-half years, felt more like home to me than Ohio ever did. I had built a life from scratch there, and I relished the control and autonomy. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine—and I tried not to take it for granted. 

The harder I worked to scrub the “Ohio” from my life, the more I started to warm to its charms. All but invisible when I was living a life that had, for various reasons, never felt like my own—and with enough distance and perspective—they started to slowly reveal themselves. A day spent in Amish country used to be anything but relaxing; the inconvenience of getting stuck behind a painfully slow buggy, the fecund smell of farmland, and the lines of Midwestern moms waiting for free cheese samples all tested my tissue-paper-thin patience in different ways. But gradually, I not only stopped dreading my return visits, but actually started to look forward to driving those same rural roads in search of a weird roadside attraction, an abandoned cemetery, or a sprawling suburban grocery store. 

Since I arrived at the end of March, I’ve had nothing but time to consider the pros and cons of Ohio. During the two weeks I spent in quarantine, I took daily walks, never straying too far from the same streets and sidewalks on which I used to wander as an angsty teen (and later, as an angsty college student). After it was clear that I wasn’t a vector of viral plague, I began to go farther, driving my grandpa’s ‘98 Buick to points both north and south. I explored an abandoned bridge, drove two hours just to photograph a storefront, and visited the former Longaberger Basket headquarters twice. I still take walks as often as I can and I’ve come to appreciate these daily sojourns as a sort of “this is your life” review of my past. 

Within walking distance of my house is the church parking lot where I learned to parallel park, the orthodontist who tortured my tiny mouth with a Medieval palatal expander, and the playground where a friend and I used to sneak cigarettes. Today, I couldn’t parallel park a clown car if my life depended on it. I long ago lost my retainer and regained my snaggle tooth. I could never tolerate the taste of cigarettes, and I’ve since lost touch with that friend. She was the first person I told when I realized I was attracted to women; it would be 20 more years before I could finally come to terms with what that meant personally—and feel secure enough to declare it to the world. 

With the Buick, I can go even further into my own history: to the drive-in movie theater where I first got my period, to the neighborhood street where I had my first kiss (with a boy), and to the college campus where I met my first girlfriend. I recently drove past the house I shared for more than four years with that notorious boyfriend—the one I grew to resent because I blamed him for keeping me in Ohio, and then later, for other much worse (and more objectively bad) reasons. He doesn’t live there anymore, and now, thankfully, I barely recognize the version of myself that did. My journal entries from that time in my life are laughably morose; now, I write things such as, “I’m proud of myself” and “I can’t lose anything that never rightly belonged to me,” without any shred of irony.  

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Breaking news.

The things that I couldn’t wait to leave behind—suburban sprawl, a car-dependent society, desolate streets—are the very things that now make Ohio feel like a literal breath of fresh air. Yes, it’s still perpetually cloudy, and the weather is hilariously unpredictable; in the weeks that I’ve been here we’ve had several inches of snow, rain, hail, a tornado warning, and a few picture-perfect 70-degree days (there is a frost advisory today and next week is supposed to be in the mid-80s). Regardless of the weather, I still take those walks, during which I rarely encounter another person. I used to lament the lack of sidewalks and foot traffic, but now I’m grateful for the ability to clear my head without playing a game of human Frogger—a mild New York annoyance that became increasingly stressful as COVID-19 ravaged the city and everyone, whether they intended to or not, suddenly posed a real threat to my compromised immune system. 

I haven’t shed my New York persona completely, and I likely never will. I still recoil from strangers’ friendliness, walk to the grocery store even though I have access to the Buick, and relish wearing a face mask because it means I never have to force a smile (minus the face mask, I did those things even when I lived in Ohio, to be fair). I don’t regret a minute of the time I spent living in New York. I realize that no life choice is one-size-fits-all, but I do think most people would benefit from the perspective gained when you leave behind the comfort of familiar surroundings and leap into the unknown. There are as many ways to do that as there are people in this world; I urge you to figure out what that means for you, and then actually do it. 

Against a backdrop of ‘90s playlists and Jane Fonda’s audiobook, I had more than seven hours to think and re-imagine my future when I left New York, driving west over the George Washington Bridge. Suddenly, what had before seemed so unclear—where to put down roots when my road trip came to an end—seemed maddeningly obvious. What if I just stayed in Ohio for the foreseeable future? 

Even before the pandemic suddenly shuttered (hopefully temporarily) everything that I loved about New York, I had become increasingly disillusioned with the high costs—again, both literally and metaphorically—of carving out a life in one of the most expensive and dense cities in the world. The cost of living is much lower in Ohio; yes, I will need a car, but I now relish the control and freedom it will bring me, especially in a post-pandemic world. Everything that was a nightmare even in pre-COVID-19 New York is a comparative breeze here—laundry, grocery shopping, road trips, etc. There are just as many things that I will (and already do) miss about New York as there are things that I won’t. 

But what I’m learning is that nothing in life is objectively good or bad; for a brief moment, most things may be weighted heavily in one direction or the other, but more often than not, they fall somewhere in between. I moved to New York because, for many reasons unique to me at the time, it seemed like a better choice than Ohio. Now I, and the reasons, have changed, with predictably different results.

Will I stay in Ohio forever? I have absolutely no clue. Is it the right place for me right now? I think so. It may look different than it once did, but I’m extremely grateful to have a place to come back to—even if it doesn’t feel like I’m going back, but rather, forward. I lost the puzzle box long ago; I have no idea what the final picture will look like, but I’m picking up the pieces and connecting them as I find them.

As smart and clever as I’d like to think I am, sometimes the most obvious solutions are the most elusive. During the years I was busy building a life in New York, I would have insisted that I would never end up back in Ohio. Even now, I’m dragging my feet surrendering that driver’s license—and not just because I like my photo, it’s valid for six more years, and the wait in the stuffy and chaotic Midtown DMV felt as if it was at least that long.

I’m reluctant to admit that something so cliché—something that must have embedded itself into the tightly-woven fabric of my brain long before that fragile VHS tape turned to dust—could turn out to be so true: “If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with … There’s no place like home.”

May 4, Fifty Years Later

1970 was a historic year for the environmental and anti-war movements; inspired by protests of the 1960s, the first Earth Day was held fifty years ago in April. Opposition to the United States’ involvement in Vietnam had been spreading across the country for years, but also in the spring of 1970, student protestors and military units clashed—with violent, and often deadly, results. 

I didn’t know much about the events of May 4, 1970 when I enrolled at Kent State University in August of 2003. During the five years it took to complete my undergraduate degree, I learned many things, but I was mostly focused on myself. Students have been increasingly robbed of the same luxury of self-absorption—thanks to active shooter drills, mounting loan debt, dire climate projections, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic.   

I know that marches and movements—even historically significant ones—don’t immediately change the world in any real way, but I also know that isn’t really the point. Over the past three years, I’ve attended countless protests for various issues; most recently I was arrested three times for civil disobedience with the climate justice organization Fire Drill Fridays. 

When it was announced that Fonda was scheduled to speak about activism at KSU to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the events of May 4th, I felt something about my home state that I wasn’t used to feeling: pride. Almost immediately, event organizers faced the inevitable backlash from a small, but vocal minority of the “Hanoi Jane” contingent—fueled by long-simmering resentment surrounding Fonda’s largely misunderstood 1972 visit to North Vietnam. 

Detractors called on KSU to cancel Fonda’s speech, ignoring—or not realizing—that she has always been consistent with both her support of soldiers and her opposition to war. When the National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting the bombing of Cambodia, Fonda was in the middle of a cross-country road trip, speaking at college campuses and meeting with servicemen who objected to fighting in a war that had become increasingly difficult to justify. 

This year, I had plans to embark upon a cross-country trip of my own. Ohio was meant to be a temporary pit stop on my way from my adopted home of New York City—but in the wake of the pandemic, I am sheltering-in-place in my childhood home for the foreseeable future. I recently returned to Kent State’s sprawling campus for the first time since I graduated. Classes and commencement have been cancelled in the wake of COVID-19. Buildings are shuttered and the streets are devoid of students; manicured lawns and lecture halls sit empty. 

Taylor Hall, now home to the May 4th Visitor Center, still presides solemnly over Blanket Hill, carpeted with daffodils blooming defiantly in isolation. Each of the 58,175 bright yellow flowers represents a life lost too soon in Vietnam. The war may be long over, but in just a few months, COVID-19 fatalities have already surpassed that grim number; casualties from the climate crisis are far harder to calculate, but they too will only increase exponentially over time. 

The ways people gather and spread ideas may have evolved over the past 50 years, but the core issues and enemies we face have not. Technology now both connects and isolates us; mass demonstrations are (rightly) prohibited at the very time when they’re needed the most. In the wake of stay-home orders and bans on public gatherings, organizers and activists have scrambled to find alternate ways to come together. KSU’s virtual commemoration program unfortunately no longer includes a speech by Fonda, but her activism—now focused entirely on the climate crisis—is more needed than ever. 

It may be too soon to tell if the beginning of 2020 has taught us anything, but if so, it’s that “business as usual” is not the solution, but rather the problem. We may be impatient to reopen the country, but if we don’t use this time to reflect on our past, remake our present, and reimagine our future, then we have failed at a time when we have very little margin for error. 

A granite memorial to those killed and wounded on May 4th, 1970 sits at the top of Blanket Hill, encouraging visitors to “inquire, learn, and reflect.” There is no limit to the lessons waiting to be mined from our personal and collective histories, but we must be willing to ask the right questions and not be afraid to face the uncomfortable answers.

Cholera Cemetery

A cholera epidemic hit North America in the mid-1800s and it reached Sandusky, a town located in Northwest Ohio, in 1849, lasting into the early 1850s. Thousands of people fled the city in fear of the disease and half the population either left town or died. 357 people were buried over just 68 days from July to September of 1849, 60 of which are buried in a mass grave.

Cholera, an intestinal infection that usually comes from a tainted water supply, came to Ohio via unsanitary conditions on ships traveling the Erie Canal. During the 1849 epidemic, doctors and nurses traveled from all over Ohio—and some from as far as Philadelphia—to help out, sometimes working in makeshift hospitals. As the townspeople fled, the bodies piled up and according to local folklore, the town drunk (less susceptible to the disease because of his alcohol consumption, allegedly) volunteered to help bury the victims.

The Harrison Street Cemetery, now known officially as the Cholera Cemetery, was closed in 1850 when the much larger Oakland Cemetery opened three miles away. Over the years, the Harrison Street lot was neglected and most of the tombstones were lost. The only tombstones currently standing are three markers for Revolutionary War veterans who survived the war, but not the epidemic.

Today the site is designated as a memorial park with a central monument “erected in memory of the pioneers of Sandusky, Ohio who gave their lives during the cholera epidemic of 1849 to 1854 AD. During this great tragedy, half of the 4,000 population either fled or were called by death. Those remaining rendered worthy service—to their unselfish faithfulness we owe this tribute of reverence and love.”

The grounds were restored in 1924 and given a spruce last year to coincide with Sandusky’s bicentennial. There isn’t much to see in the small cemetery but it’s worth a stop just for the gate alone. I had seen photos before I visited, but the arching letters that spell out “Cholera Cemetery” look like something straight from a Tim Burton movie set.

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Cholera Cemetery
445-487 Harrison Street
Sandusky, OH

Handless Jacques

When I visited Ohio after Christmas, I finally got to visit a famous resident of Marblehead, known as Handless Jacques. While he’s not an official Muffler Man, he is a big, strange, roadside statue which is enough to make him a destination by my road trip criteria.

Marblehead is a village on the Marblehead Peninsula in Northwest Ohio, with Lake Erie to the north and Sandusky Bay to the south. It’s a summer vacation destination, close to Kelleys Island, Put-in-Bay, the Cedar Point amusement park and is home to the oldest continuously-operating lighthouse in the Great Lakes region. Like other summer waterfront communities, Marblehead—population of less than a thousand—was quite desolate but beautiful in late December.

Handless Jacques was not always handless. In the late ‘60s, he stood outside of the Jacques Sandwich Shoppe in Marion Ohio and he held a tray topped with a large sandwich. When a fire damaged the shop, Jacques was moved to Marblehead and lost his tray and hands (cast as one piece) somewhere along the way.

Today, the fiberglass giant stands more than 20-feet-tall and advertises nothing but himself on the side State Route 163, between a gas station and a lot with a few rusty RVs. He’s much larger than a standard Muffler Man, more rough in his construction and sparse in decoration but he still adds whimsy to an otherwise unremarkable stretch of road.

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Handless Jacques
6020 E Harbor Road (State Route 163)
Marblehead, OH 43440

Lake View Cemetery

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m still ashamed of just how little of Ohio I explored while living there for 27 years. I do think that people take their hometowns for granted, but now that I have my distance I’m constantly finding places I want to check out when I’m back visiting friends and family. Lake View Cemetery has always been at the top of that list and I can’t believe it took me so long to finally visit Cleveland’s “Outdoor Museum.”

Founded in 1869, the 265-acre cemetery is home to more than 100,000 people (with more than 700 added each year and 70 acres remaining for future development). It’s Cleveland’s version of Green-Wood or Woodlawn, built at the tail-end of the rural cemetery movement. Located in the neighborhood of Cleveland Heights, a view of Lake Erie can be had when looking north from the cemetery.

20th President James A. Garfield is interred at Lake View inside of an exquisite mausoleum. The sandstone structure, dedicated in 1890, stands 180 feet tall and includes five, terra cotta panels comprising more than 110 life size figures depicting Garfield’s life and death. Garfield was shot by the disgruntled (and probably insane) Charles J. Guiteau at a train station in Washington, D.C. in 1881. After eleven weeks of poking and prodding by a team of well-meaning—but misinformed—doctors, Garfield died of infection, the second of four presidents to be assassinated (this is an excellent book about Garfield’s presidency and his gnarly death).

Unfortunately the monument was closed when we visited (a good excuse to come back in warmer weather!), but the Memorial Hall includes mosaics, marble, stained glass windows, a statue of the President and 64 steps leading to an outdoor balcony. Interred within the monument alongside President Garfield—the only Presidential casket currently on full display—are his wife Lucretia, their daughter and her husband.

Lake View is home to several other famous residents, including John D. Rockefeller, Carl B. Stokes, the first African American mayor of a major US city (Cleveland) and Alan Freed, the radio DJ who popularized the term "rock and roll." Freed, who died of complications from alcoholism when he was just 43 years old, was initially interred at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. In 2002, his ashes were moved to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland but in 2014, the Freed family re-interred his ashes at Lake View, beneath a headstone cut to look like a jukebox.

It was freezing on the day we visited and we didn’t have much time to poke around, but there was one statue I had to see before I left Lake View—The Haserot Angel. “The Angel of Death Victorious,” sits on a marble monument marking the graves of canning entrepreneur Francis Haserot and his family. The life-size bronze angel holds a torch upside-down, symbolizing a life that has been extinguished. Sometimes referred to as the “weeping angel” because of the black “tears” that have formed on her face over the years, the Haserot Angel is even more lovely—and haunting—in person than I expected.

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Lake View Cemetery
12316 Euclid Avenue,
Cleveland, OH

Abandoned Trailer Park: 2018

I first visited this abandoned trailer park in 2017. Kaylah of The Dainty Squid generously offered to show me and a friend around some abandoned spots in Ohio, but this trailer park was by far the highlight of our day. When I realized that my friend Shannon and I would be driving right by it on my recent trip back home, I couldn’t not stop.

The trailer park is in a pretty remote location, and honestly, I have no clue how you’d ever find it without being told exactly where to look (thanks again Kaylah!). Despite its seclusion, the cabins and trailers had much less stuff inside of them than they did a year ago, and everything was significantly more damaged.

The only thing of note still remaining is that perfectly spooky stack of books (minus, intriguingly, The Nixon Recession Caper). I took a nearly identical, if not better, photo of it back in 2017. My favorite is still Hearse Class Male, which I know for a fact is available on Amazon, because I just sent a copy to my friend JMP as a joke (but also, consider me intrigued—honorable mention goes to Uneasy Lies the Dead).

I still can’t find much information about this park, or why it appears as if everyone picked up and left at the same time without taking their possessions. Isn’t that the point of owning a trailer, that you can take it with you when you go? Most abandoned places have a post-apocalyptic feel to them, but this place even more so. To make matters even more mysterious, there is an active trailer park located very close by, and I’d imagine that this waterfront property was, at least at some point, considered desirable.

The contrast between what was obviously a once-vibrant vacation community and the twisted, rusty metal hulks that remain is staggering. Several of the cabins appear to have been set on fire, most have collapsed roofs, doors hang open and glass is shattered. I always wonder how places like this decay exactly—is it simply nature wreaking havoc, or do people seize the rare opportunity to destroy without consequences, taking out their frustrations by toppling refrigerators and smashing TVs?

It’s thrilling to explore off-the-grid places like this park, of course, but there’s sadness as well. Human touches like the stack of books or personalized trailers like the Serenity or The Escape Hutch allude to the lives once lived here but leave us only with questions—were the people who lived here happy, were they part-time residents, where did they all go, and most importantly, why did they leave in the first place?

Having the opportunity to revisit abandoned locations is not something to be taken for granted. The very nature of abandoned spots demands immediacy and there are no guarantees of what you’ll find (if anything) when you return. Documenting the way a spot evolves and changes is just as interesting to me as exploring a place for the first time and I can only hope that I have a chance to see this park again in the future.

Wayne County Home Cemetery

Before I make a trip back home to Ohio, I make sure and scour Kaylah's archives over at her blog, The Dainty Squid for potential creepy adventures to have while I'm in town. Kaylah has discovered (and beautifully photographed) so many places around Ohio (and surrounding states) that I never knew existed in the 27 years that I called Ohio home, and I'll be forever playing catch-up on my short visits. 

One place that I added to my list the second I saw her post on it was the Wayne County Home Cemetery in Wooster, Ohio. I had recently visited my first cemetery for institutionalized patients—Letchworth Village's cemetery, in Rockland County, NY—and I've always been fascinated by asylums, institutions and their (often) anonymous grave markers. 

The nearby Wayne County home was established in 1852 for the elderly, sick and homeless. In the 1930s, a county hospital and nurses' home were built on the grounds, which comprises 286 acres of farmland in rural Northeast Ohio. Like the Staten Island Farm Colony, the Wayne County Home was nearly self-sufficient until the '70s with a dairy, gardens and a working farm. The Home was renamed the Wayne County Care Center in 1983 and it is currently operating as a nursing home. 

Despite knowing that the cemetery is easily accessible and surrounded by cornfields, I was still surprised when it seemingly appeared out of nowhere in the middle of miles of farmland. There is no dedicated parking lot, but there is a gravel turnaround across the street, so I parked there and no one seemed to mind. I don't usually get too sad at human cemeteries (pet cemeteries are an entirely different‚ and more emotional, experience for me) but I mourn the anonymity of these people's death's—and in a lot of cases, their lives.

Ohio

I lived in Ohio for 27 years, but it never really felt like home. Before I even visited New York, I knew I wanted to live here and as a result I feel as if I never truly invested much time into getting to know Ohio. I knew no matter how long it took me, I'd eventually leave, so what was the point in getting attached? Even though I got my license quite soon after turning 16, I never really took advantage of the freedom that having a car afforded me. In the four years since I've moved away, I've visited Ohio several times and have probably seen more of the state on those short visits than in all of the years that I lived there. 

On my most recent trip back to Ohio, after I had visited Achor Valley Cemetery, and while I was on my way to the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock, I was driving with my windows down and the radio up. I had no way to play my iPod in the Olds, so I was at the mercy of Northeast Ohio radio station Gods. They blessed me with a song from my all-time favorite 90s album, Jagged Little Pill right as I passed the Shortest Covered Bridge in the US.

I immediately turned around—the joys of a meandering road trip and a full free day!—to snap a few photos and refresh my limited knowledge of covered bridges (based entirely on Bridges of Madison County—the movie, of course). The bridge is no longer in use but has been standing in Colombiana County since the 1870s.

After we visited the World's Largest Teapot, my dad, grandma and I drove down the road to the Homer Laughlin outlet in Newell, West Virginia. The Homer Laughlin China company started in 1871 East Liverpool, Ohio, but moved to nearby Newell in the 1920s. The best part of the factory is actually outside—there's a huge pit where they throw the broken dishes and it killed me that it's surrounded by several, stern "No Trespassing" signs. 

They started producing the Fiesta line in 1936 and they were having a huge sale when we visited. Fiesta retails for $30+ a plate, but at the outlet you can get seconds for as little as a dollar. I love all of the colors and I wish I had enough room in my apartment to justify raiding the clearance bins—but my dad did buy me a piece of their Halloween collection that I literally could not have lived without.

I drove miles out of my way to go to Grandpa's Cheesebarn in Ashland, and while they aren't as free with their samples as Heini's Cheese Chalet, I did stock up on cheese, buckeyes, puppy chow and wasabi peas. They do have a squished penny machine—I got the cheese with eyes design—and I love their huge "Cheesebarn" sign.

I also fit in a visit to Mary Coyle, the cutest ice cream parlor where time seemingly stopped in the 1940s. I had an exquisite (and huge!) root beer float that proved my theory that judging a restaurant by its sign is never a bad idea. 

But the standout of the entire trip just might be the incredible tombstone that my dad showed me while we were out walking his dog. It's in a field with two other regular stones in what is apparently a potter's field for an institution that is long gone. I can't think of a better stone I've seen in all of my cemetery exploits than "unknown skeletal remains." 

I'm continually annoyed with myself that I seemingly squandered so much of the time I spent living in Ohio not properly exploring, but it's nice to feel as if I have an entirely new state to explore every time I go home. 

Virginia Kendall

Despite having spent 27 years living in Ohio, I didn't get out and enjoy all of Ohio's natural delights nearly as much as I should have. Ohio is home to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park—comprising 32,572 acres—and I grew up only a few miles away. One place I did visit frequently was Virginia Kendall and I walked the ledges loop often with my dad, friends and alone. Millions of years ago (!!) fast-moving streams flowed into an inland sea covering Ohio, carrying sand, gravel and quartz pebbles that compacted over time and formed the ledges. 

I fell short trying to think about "Ohio" things to show David on his first visit to my home state (my list began and ended with lunch at Swensons) but then the ledges hike popped into my head and I knew it was perfect—David loves hikes and physical challenges of all kinds. The ledges loop isn't exactly a physical challenge, but it was nice to walk—after a few days of being back in car-centric Ohio I have to remind myself to keep moving my body.

I loved showing David around my hometown, but it was definitely weird to have my New York life and my Ohio life collide. I have this bizarre fear every time I go back home that my entire New York life has somehow been a dream and I never actually left Ohio. Having David there was a good physical reminder that my New York life is definitely real, and I kept saying that I wished for a way for us to go back in time and tell my teenage and early-20s self that everything really was going to work out, eventually. A large portion of my Virginia Kendall walks were angsty and alone—I wrote endlessly in a journal and confided in friends, but there's nothing like a contemplative nature walk to set your mind straight (for a while, at least).

World's Largest Cuckoo Clock

After exploring Achor Valley Cemetery and refueling at the Steel Trolley Diner, I headed to Sugarcreek, Ohio to see the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock. Sugarcreek, or the "Little Switzerland of Ohio," is part of a few towns that growing up we just referred to as Amish Country due to their large Amish and Mennonite populations. We used to take day trips there all the time when I was a kid and my mom had a crafts business—I've always loved any place where you can sample myriad dips, cheeses and chocolates.

The World's Largest Cuckoo Clock was built in 1972, and featured on the cover of the Guinness Book of World Records in 1977. It appears as if other clocks have since eclipsed its "World's Largest" status, but it's probably the biggest one I'll ever see and is certainly the biggest one in Ohio. The clock was commissioned by the family that ran the Alpine Alpa Restaurant, in Wilmont Ohio, and the clock was moved to Sugarcreek when the restaurant closed in 2009. The working clock is 23 feet tall and 24 feet wide and on the half hour a cuckoo bird pops out along with a Swiss polka band and a dancing couple.

Luckily, I arrived with only a few minutes to spare until 3pm and downtown was deserted on a Monday afternoon. Of course about 30 seconds before the hour, people seemingly emerged from nowhere to watch the clock, but I was still able to get a (mostly) unobstructed video of the clock working its magic.

I have a problem keeping clocks in my apartment because the ticking drives me insane, but I've always loved cuckoo clocks. They're whimsical, intricately carved works of art and their mechanics fascinate me. I once bought a cuckoo clock as a Christmas gift and kept it in the trunk of my car. Not realizing that it would still work fully (no electricity or batteries required), it cuckoo'd while its intended recipient was in the car and the surprise was (hilariously) ruined.

Sugarcreek is a tiny town but it's full of Swiss-style buildings with beautifully painted facades. A handful of the businesses even have scenes that include moving parts—like a train going through the snowy mountains—that have always reminded me of the mountain climber in the Cliffhangers game on the Price is Right. 

Steel Trolley Diner

My recent solo mini-road trip of Ohio started off only having one destination—the Achor Valley Cemetery—but quickly evolved into a whole day trip. It was only noon when I finished exploring Achor Valley, I had no other plans for the day and free use of my dad's car. I was having fun driving through rural Ohio with the windows down and the radio up (no iPod connections in the old, Oldsmobile) and I was eager to see as much as I could.

After Achor Valley I decided to go to Sugarcreek, nearly two hours west. I opted for the scenic route through back roads rather than highways, and Google maps took me right through Lisbon, Ohio. Lisbon is a tiny town in Eastern Ohio (in 2010 the population was 2,821)—it was the home of the first Ohio newspaper, hosts a music festival dedicated to the Appalachian dulcimer and is the name of an instrumental Bon Iver song. It is also the home of the Steel Trolley Diner, and as soon as I saw it I knew it was the perfect place to stop for lunch.  

The Steel Trolley Diner was built In 1954 in Elizabeth, New Jersey by the Jerry O'Mahoney Company, one of the largest diner manufacturers in the US. In 1955 it was moved to Salem, Ohio where it operated for 24 years as Aldom's Diner and in 1979, the diner was moved again to it's current location in Lisbon. 

The Steel Trolley diner is just that—a steel dining car—and the interior has everything I look for in a classic diner. I sat at the counter since I was alone, which is my favorite way to experience a diner. I texted my dad to let him know where I was, and he responded that he had eaten here twice and added "I think they use cheap ground beef!" so I ordered a hot dog. It had horsey mayo (is this an Ohio thing??), mustard and sriracha and it was delicious—when I took a photo, the cook turned around and said "It sure is a nice looking hot dog, isn't it?"

This type of diner is nearly extinct in New York City, but they're also endangered in small towns like this—depressed rust belt towns that are rapidly losing their populations to bigger cities and drug overdoses—but I'm glad that the Steel Trolley Diner is still serving baskets of real fries, hot dogs and questionable ground beef 24 hours a day.

Achor Valley Cemetery

Like most cool destinations in Ohio, I discovered Achor Valley Cemetery when Kaylah (aka The Dainty Squid) posted her amazing photos of the graveyard and abandoned church. I often lament that I never fully took advantage of all that Ohio has to offer in the 27 years that I lived there, but I'm trying to make up for lost time during my visits home.

On my most recent trip back, I borrowed my dad's car (my grandpa's beige, Buick Oldsmobile) and took a solo, mini-road trip through central and eastern Ohio. My first stop was Achor Valley Cemetery in Columbiana County, near the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. I can't find much information about the cemetery or the church, but it was definitely worth the hour-and-a-half drive through mostly rural back roads (at one point I crossed a one-lane bridge - eek).

The small church on the property sits abandoned and most of the windows are boarded up—except one. There was a cinder block and a brick underneath as a makeshift step, and I was amazed at how easy it was to get into and also how relatively nice it was inside. There was no graffiti, very little trash and all of the wooden pews are still there, dusty and covered in spiderwebs.

The graveyard was larger than I expected, and had some really lovely old stones. The property is right near an active country club and golf course, but I was the only one visiting in the middle of the day and it was very peaceful. I would love to know more about the cemetery and when/why the church was abandoned, but there's something nice to the mystery of not knowing as well. 

Abandoned School

After exploring an abandoned amusement park and motel on my recent trip back to Ohio, JMP and I drove to an abandoned greenhouse only to find that it had recently been demolished. As we sat in her car, soothing our disappointment with cupcakes, I told her that there was an abandoned school on our way back—with the caveat being that I knew next-to-nothing about it, other than its location.

The greenhouse had been my only "sure thing" of the day, and I had only been able to confirm that the school, 1. once existed and 2. had been abandoned—there was no guarantee that we could get in or that it would still be standing when we arrived. Luck was on our sides on both fronts, however, and not only was it still there, but we were able to get inside relatively easily. 

This was my first school, and despite looking as if it had just recently been abandoned and well-secured, it was pretty empty (we freaked out when we found one eraser)—even the chalk boards had been removed. I'm not sure exactly when the school closed, but a stone on the front of the building marks the build date as 1907 (an addition was added in 1922). 

The building was boarded up on the lower level, but the upper floors were so bright I actually thought the lights were on when we first entered. This was a real treat for us since we like exploring abandoned places to take photos and actually see things—it's no fun to creep around in the dark. The multiple layers of pale, peeling paint made for the most wonderful colors and textures, and despite being mostly devoid of stuff it was still a really visually interesting place.

Despite being an older, solid-looking building, the floors were surprisingly unstable. We were very careful, but it was still a bit unnerving. One good surprise, however, was the discovery of the gym/auditorium, with basketball hoops, a stage (creepy velvet curtain ✓ ) and a wrap-around walkway—from which someone presumably threw a cane that now dangles precariously on rusty stage rigging ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

We explored the school until it started to get dark, and it was a wonderful bonus on a day that was full of (mostly) successful creeps. I lament often that I didn't explore Ohio more while I actually lived there, but maybe I needed to leave to truly appreciate its virtues. New York City may have my heart, but it has nothing on Ohio in the abandoned building department. 

Abandoned Trailer Park

When I was back in Ohio recently, I got an Instagram message from Kaylah (of The Dainty Squid) asking how long I was in town and if I would like her to show me some abandoned spots in the Cleveland area. Luckily, JMP and I had set aside an entire day devoted to exploring abandoned Cleveland delights, so I replied to her a very enthusiastic (and exclamation-laden) yes, please!! 

We had breakfast at a great (and cheap!) diner in Ohio City, where my ham had a face so I knew it was going to be a good day. It was actually a great day—despite running into just about every obstacle you can run into when trying to explore abandoned spots—and I'm so grateful that she reached out. 

Kaylah posted about our (mis)adventures last week, and mentioned that she was initially mad when she discovered that I was in town and hadn't contacted her—which is exactly how I felt when I found out she had been in New York and hadn't reached out. Turns out that we're both just equally shy and didn't want to impose on each other, which we quickly decided was seriously misguided. I am forever worrying about what people think of me and I know I let my dumb insecurities rule in far too many situations so I'm glad that we were able to both kick aside our awkwardness for a minute and make a plan (a huge thank you to her boyfriend, Jeff, for being the voice of reason, and for the pizza!). 

After failing—pretty hilariously—at getting into most of the spots, we made a last-ditch effort to salvage the day by driving to an abandoned trailer park that Kaylah has visited multiple times. The park is a bit of a mystery as to why and when it was abandoned, but it looks like it was maybe a part-time or vacation community. There is a row of tiny one-room cabins on one side of a gravel road, and a row of colorful trailers on the other. 

The cabins had more interesting stuff inside of them—piles of books, dishes, couches, chairs, tables, beds, clothes—but the exteriors of the trailers are painted the most wonderful colors. They're sun-bleached, rusty, covered in crawling vines and brush, and the paint is peeling off in sheets, but each one is different and together they just look so damn cool. 

Jean-Marie and I had had such fantastic luck when we had gone exploring two days prior (if you don't count the Great Greenhouse letdown), that I guess the first part of this day was just the universe balancing things out a bit. I'm eternally grateful to Kaylah for reaching out and being such a good adventure companion, to JMP for driving us all over Ohio and to the burgers and curly fries that saved us all and gave us the energy to make it to this magic place. 

Abandoned Motel

After exploring the abandoned amusement park, JMP and I decided to take a gamble on an abandoned motel I knew almost nothing about. I had an address and the vague memory of a cool photo that had sparked my interest, but I suppose the uncertainty is part of the excitement of exploring abandoned things. We were both driving separately, but I wish I could've seen JMP's face when we finally pulled up to the motel—if she had seen mine, it would've looked something like this.

The motel owners—a husband and wife who died in 2012 and 2009, respectively— also owned the furniture store across the street, which appeared to be open when we went but Yelp lists it as closed. I'm not sure exactly when the motel became abandoned, but we just walked in the doors as if it was still open for business. 

There isn't much left inside of the rooms besides fixtures—lamps, curtains, toilets—but it was still thrilling to be able to explore an abandoned motel (a first for both JMP and me). Even if we hadn't gone inside, it would have still been worth the drive just for the exterior, which is pretty much perfect in every single way. From the huge, wooden M O T E L letters to the artfully placed creeping foliage, to the open doors slowly creaking in the wind—I couldn't have designed it better if I was trying to recreate a classic "abandoned motel" for a movie set.

I think the most important lesson I learned on this trip was to keep my expectations low when scouting abandoned spots. You can research for hours and hours on Google street view and Instagram, but you can't truly know about a place until you see it in person. After the motel, we drove to check out an abandoned greenhouse—one that I had read extensively about online—to find ... a pile of greenhouse materials. I'm not sure how recently it had been demolished, but it was a good reminder to appreciate these places while they're still standing.

Cathedral Buffet

When I booked my recent trip back to Ohio, I initially didn't know that it was for Easter weekend. I was bummed to miss the Fifth Avenue Easter "parade," which has become one of my favorite events to photograph, and my family doesn't really have any solid Easter traditions beyond getting together to eat. However, when my Uncle mentioned recently that my grandma approves of eating at just two restaurants—Chinese Buffet and Cathedral Buffet—a light bulb went off. We could go to Cathedral Buffet for Easter brunch—a place that could not only feed us physically, but spiritually.

We aren't by any means a religious family, but I do worship at the altar of weird and Cathedral Buffet (and its parent organization, Ernest Angley Ministries) has fascinated me for years. Angley's interdenominational ministry was originally based southeast of Akron, but moved to Cuyahoga Falls in 1994, after purchasing a large complex formerly owned by televangelist Rex Humbard. The complex includes a large cathedral, television studios and banquet hall, which is home to the Cathedral Buffet.

When I was confirming that the buffet was open on Easter, I came across an entry on Roadside America specifically for the Cathedral Buffet and its Life of Christ displays. Formerly unbenownst to me, the basement of the buffet is home to thirteen miniature dioramas, described as "a three-dimensional experience for the whole family." Sculpted by Paul Cunningham, a self-taught artist from Nebraska, the dioramas depict "detailed scenes from the earthly life of our Lord."

The figures in the dioramas were sculpted from clay and then molded from plastic and carved by hand. The scenes feature realistic nature and material elements including rice paper flowers, linen clothing, and etched brass leaves. But the main reason why I was so excited to see the dioramas was the fact that "human fingernails were used on many of the figures to give the display a 'living' quality."

It turns out that only three out of probably a hundred figures actually have real human fingernails—as their toenails—as far as we could tell. I went for the fingernails, of course, but I have to admit that the displays are definitely something. They're not necessarily masterpieces, per se, but they're incredibly detailed and were obviously crafted with passion. Some of the figures are more skillfully rendered than others, and the style is a bit uneven but the overall effect is definitely worth the dollar we donated for admission.

I can't believe I lived in the town neighboring Cuyahoga Falls for 23 years of my life without ever hearing about the dioramas, but I'm so glad that I finally got the entire Cathedral Buffet experience. And it turns out that we couldn't have picked a better time to go—two days after Easter the Cathedral Buffet closed, presumably for good.

Ernest Angley Ministries has been involved in a number of scandals over the years, including allegations of sex abuse and even a murder involving two Cathedral Buffet workers. But it was a recent lawsuit and eventual judgement against the church for not paying its workers that was the buffet's ultimate downfall—Angley was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in back wages and damages to former employees.

Officials from the church claim that "the restaurant always kept its prices low for families; it never made a profit; and the restaurant can’t run without volunteers." While the buffet's fate seems grim, I wonder what will become of the dioramas—and I still can't figure out exactly where they got all of those fingernails.

Abandoned Amusement Park

I recently took advantage of a four-day weekend (thank you, Passover!) to fly back to Ohio to see my family and friends.Two of the four days were set aside for friends and exploration, and as soon as I landed my friend JMP and I hit the road in search of an abandoned amusement park. The park was open for 100 years—from 1878 through 1978—and currently sits abandoned and overgrown, surrounded by small houses. Apparently the rides remained salvageable well into the 90s, but the 2000s weren't kind to the park and several of the buildings and rides have since been demolished or have burned down. 

Despite its current state of ruin, I was actually pleasantly surprised by how many rides are still there—I had done some research and was only really expecting to see the Ferris wheel, so everything else felt like a bonus. The park originally had nearly 20 rides, in addition to bathrooms, snack bars, a ballroom, a hotel, ticket booths, souvenir shops and an outdoor theater. 

One of the first piles we came across was what remains of the old ballroom. We spent some time wondering what the twisted metal could have once been—it looks an awful lot like a roller coaster track—but the bathroom remnants, chairs and appliances below the beams were puzzling. The ballroom is one of the buildings that was destroyed by a fire—one that must have been quite intense judging by the warped and undulating beams. 

The Ferris wheel was a definite highlight, and just as spooky-looking in person as I imagined it would be. Even without its cars it's still such an instantly recognizable shape that just screams "amusement park." It was a bit smaller than I expected and we thought at first we might not even find it, but seeing it rise out from the weeds was a major thrill.

Next to the wheel is a collection of three Tumble Bug cars, and we saw another one nearby in a neighboring yard. Only two Tumble Bug rides remain in operation today, both of which are in Pennsylvania. The buildings that remain, if you can even really call them buildings anymore, are all collapsing in on themselves, and others have long been reduced to piles. One building was recognizable as bathrooms, and one was probably a snack stand but they were all in pretty bad shape.

The other iconic amusement park silhouette is the coaster track, and I was so happy to find two. The first one had the most wonderful, colorful peeling layers of paint and its curves rising through overgrown vines reminded me of a dinosaur (specifically the Sinclair Oil Apatosaurus).

I loved the trees that were growing right through the coaster tracks—in some places trunks and branches even seemed to be slowly consuming the rusty rails. I'm glad we went before the trees really start getting their leaves. Many of the rides are so overgrown that they're easy to miss, and I can imagine that they disappear almost completely in the dense summer foliage.

O'Brien Cemetery

When I was back in Ohio recently, my dad asked if I'd like to go see a cemetery that he'd "been driving by for 30 years and never stopped to check out."Of course I said yes. O'Brien Cemetery is less than five miles from the house where I grew up, but I'd never heard of it before. I wasn't as diligent at seeking out cemeteries (or exploring in general) then as I am now, but my recent trip back made me realize just how little I actually know about the place where I spent the first 27 years of my life.

Fortunately, at least one Charitan has been paying attention, and it felt right that my dad and I got to see the cemetery together. The only thing my dad had seen was the tiny sign ("Get your camera ready," he said) at the end of a long driveway that disappeared into woods. We drove down the gravel road not really knowing what to expect, but it felt like the way a horror movie might start, so we were optimistic.

The O'Brien cemetery was established in the 1880s, however burials took place on the site as early as 1806. The area, on the west side of Hudson Drive in Hudson, Ohio, was once called "Little Ireland," and the cemetery residents are primarily of Irish descent. There is a map of plots and names, including a lot of O'Briens, McCauleys, McKenzies and Galloways, although the plaque acknowledges that since a lot of the records have been lost, "there are definitely errors in this listing."

The cemetery is very small with only about 175 residents. It's definitely one of the smallest cemeteries I've ever explored, second only to the Second Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, which is the smallest cemetery here in the city. Some of the stones are broken, some are in near-perfect condition, and others are adorned with fake flowers that probably seem like a good idea (they never die!) but somehow look extra creepy when they're tattered, sun-bleached and covered in spider webs.

At the entrance to the cemetery is a carved wooden monk, holding a tray on which visitors had left various offerings. Some of them made sense (coins), some were obviously just hastily taken from cars (the Little Trees air freshener, a salt packet) and others just made me laugh (a fossil collection diagram). I wasn't prepared, but I still felt as if I should leave something. I defaulted to the second category, hastily grabbed my Dinosaur Land wristband and offered it to the cemetery gods as a thank you for leading us to such a wonderful spot.