Indian Run Falls - Dublin

Today our adventures lead us to Indian Run Falls. This beatiful environment is tucked in an unlikely spot and once again it's amazing that we can be in the city, but feel like were are out in the Wild!

This is a georgeous spot with very well maintained trails. There are several board walks and stair cases to make this a safe and fairly short hike with the family. There were several business professionals in their work attire that must come there during lunch to eat & walk around!

I wasnt sure at first if we were allowed to go down into the water and the falls in one spot are VERY steep and not at all safe to play. but if you go to your right when you first come down from the parking lot there is a stair case that leads you right down to the water! Now the rules posted say that you are not suppose to get in the water. When we first got there, no one was in the water and we just followed the trail around to the end. where there in an old cemetary that we walked around and looked at the name and dates... 1834.... On our way back there were several people in the water and one Mom advised me that I would want to go UP stream with the kids... ok! so if you were to go down the stair case when you first arrive you could go into the water and go upstream and be safe. Which I'll admit, that is what we did! The kids loved playing in the water and exploring the stream and rocks. We had a friends 10 week old puppy with us, so I was paying very close attention to how deep it was and if there was anything that could hurt him or the kids. (dogs are allowed as long as they are on leash and you clean up after them!)

I'm happy to report it didnt get more than 1/2 way up my calf (about 6 inches) deep and there was no garbage or broken glass. It was a great afternoon! It was a Hot Summer day, but it was nice in the shade and the water was refreshing!

My only complaint, no bathrooms, so the kids made use of the trees, well the boys did anyway. Hopefully because it's so close to the real world bathrooms will be coming soon! They also had 2 covered picnic areas really close to the falls

Getting there

just off 161 near Post road.... your turn onto Shawan Falls Drive and the park is right across the street from the post office. Physical address: 700 Shawan Falls Drive, Dublin

Franklin County fair

I'm sure most of you have heard about the Ohio State Fair here in Columbus every summer. That is a huge Fair with tons of thing to do and see. The Fair will he here in town this summer July 28 - August 8th. (Monday August 2nd is Family Value day. )

But for me the State Fair can be a bit overwhelming! Too many people, too much stuff so luckily my hubby knew about the Franklin County Fair. The fair ran from July 17th - 24th. and is located in Hilliard, Ohio
Now I know this post wont do you any good this summer since the fair is over, but hopefully you'll remember it NEXT summer so you can get your fix of fried food and rides that spin you into oblivion! What I like about the Franklin county fair is that it still gives you the "fair" experience without the huge crowds and overwhelming expense. It had all your usual fair going enjoyment, livestock (and the smell that goes with it), the rides, the food, the grandstand events demolition, tractor pull etc.

Admission to the fair is/was $5

Parking Free
Rides- purchase tickets or a wrist band for $12 for unlimited rides
Food- Oh the fair food.... all deep friend or loaded with sugar but surprisingly not insanely over priced.
So since I'm feeling bad that this one was After the fact, I'll throw on their website address so you can jump over there and get all the details for the fair Summer 2011!!!
http://www.fcfair.org/

Graters- Bethel Rd.

Does anyone think I'm using this blog as an excuse to eat ice cream? Two Ice Cream companies in under a week! Geese! But hey, It's summer, It's hot and Ice cream is cold and yummy!

Today we hit the Graters on Bethel Rd. They have a delightful indoor play area for the kids (ages 9 & under) as well as a viewing area to watch them make ice cream.... oh and of course a place to buy/eat ice cream too!

The Entrance to the play area... looks good enough to eat! I found this just too cute, a banana teeter totter! slides and play area Such a fun time!

What I liked.

OK whats not to like, it was indoors (A/C), had bathrooms, well maintained, sweet smelling, and lots of fun! Make sure to wear or bring socks cause they require all kids to wear socks! If you forget they are kind enough to sell them at the counter for $1.

Getting there.

To the corporate office where they have tours and the play are you'll want to head to 2555 Bethel Road.... off 315. If you just want the ice cream, I'm sure you know where there is a Graters close to you, but visit their website http://www.grater/ for more info!

Velvet Ice Cream - Ye Olde Mill

The whole family went on this latest adventure, but there was the promise of ice cream so it's no surprise we had a full car! Today we went to the home of Velvet Ice Cream in Utica Ohio.

Velvet is a 4th generation family owned company, They proudly boast that the current President and VP's are women and direct descendants of the original owner. They are also very proud of "Ye Olde Mill" this baby is from 1817 and definitely the center of attention....Actually that's not true.... The ICE CREAM is the center of attention, and rightfully so! My hubby ordered this bad boy and I've never been so jealous of someone else's ice cream!

It was called The Buckeye Sundae.. chocolate, peanut butter, bananas, whip cream topped with mini-buckeyes! YUM!!We also treated our self to lunch in the restaurant and all of the items from the kids meal come served in a 1/2 gallon ice cream carton, without the ice cream of course, but the kids thought it was SO fun to get lunch in a box of ice cream!
After lunch we went through the gift shop and ice cream museum. There were lots of things to look at and read, one of my favorite is this GIANT ice cream scoop!


The Ice cream parlor had a cute little table and chairs for the kids to sit at!

What I liked.

Loved all the historic things, the kids learned about the mill and they had some old time machines. The Ice Cream parlor and museum were so quaint and really add charm to this place! Huge shelter houses with picnic tables and a fun little playground for the kids to play on.

What I was a little disappointed about.

The tour- It was 2 large windows with a young girl handing out free samples of the ice cream. Don't get me wrong the ice cream was good, but we couldn't really see them making ice cream, nor did we know what they were even doing. There was a TV screen and a microphone so perhaps if there had been someone talking about what we were seeing it would have been better. or even a video playing it might have been more educational! When we got there they were just finishing a tour so we thought we'd go to the next one, but by then the kids were ready to eat and play and so the tour was kind of a bust. I'm glad we went, it was worth the trip up there, but maybe not someplace you go again and again. They did advertise weekend entertainment and a farmers market so perhaps that would make it worthy of return trips!

Getting there

Velvet Ice Cream is 35 minutes East of Columbus and ten miles north of Newark on Ohio State Route 13.... Physical Address...11324 SR-13, Utica, OH, 43080

Franklin Park Conservatory

Today we visited the Franklin Park Conservatory. Most people in Columbus have heard of the conservatory, but I amazed at how many Columbus natives have never been!

The Conservatory bills itself as a Horticultural and educational institution. It is over 88 acres and has over 400 species of plants. The grounds really are quite impressive. We went tonight because the first Wednesday of every month is free from 5-8pm. Tonight it was also a member only exclusive preview of their new exhibit "Savage Gardens" so it was a pretty busy evening.
Now let me just say this, before I go ANY further...I don't consider myself sophisticated in the least.... and I'm OK with that, however, on this particular night most of the people at the conservatory were members, meaning that they buy a annual pass and come to admire the plants often. Most were dressed very nicely and walked around the conservatory with glasses of wine and cheese plates. My three year old tore threw a crowd of elderly people in his spider man T-shirt and was playing "secret Agent" so I must admit I felt a little out of place. However for those of you who know me, know I never let a little thing like "fitting in" keep me from having an experience and this was a chance to show my kids something new!

We let the 3 year old lead the way and he went straight to the Giant interactive Venus Fly trap. Then we just wandered in and around the different exhibits, the desert, the rain forest, the Japanese gardens just to name a few. The kids loved the Blooms and Butterflies exhibit the most. It was really neat to see the different butterflies, but they were hard to get a picture of! This part of the conservatory also has a look out tower for you to climb, huge koi fish and a waterfall.

This is where they played secret agent....

I have to say that this was a beautiful place and why we enjoyed going, it really does seem better for and older crowd. My 9 year old read some of the signs and liked the real Venus fly traps in the savage garden but the younger two got bored quickly and wanted to move onto the next room before we really had a chance to see anything very closely. That and the fact that we choose a day when it was 95 degrees made it darn near intolerable. I had planned to go walk the grounds, eat a picnic, play on the playground I'd heard was there. But it was just to dang hot!

They have several weddings at the conservatory and maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to go to one, in the mean time. They do have cocktails at the conservatory every Thursday night with live music and appetizers for $10 a person. It'd be a fun, swanky, not your run of the mill date night.

Dawes Aboretum

The kids and I headed out east to explore Dawes Arboretum, and all I can say is, how have I lived in Columbus for 9 years and have not gone here before? Every Wednesday during the summer they have Little Buckeye's imagination session at 2pm. so we went to check this program out. The class meets outside the visitors center on a wood deck that surrounds a giant American beech tree (See I did learn something about trees)

It started with the kids making names tags and then they were each given a picture with a bug on it. They talked about water bugs/insects. I have to say that my oldest (9) and youngest (3) were not to hip on this part. The 3 year old wandered around and was more interested in the water fountain and the 9 year old thought the singing was a little dorky... but the 5 year old listened with great interest. After the brief lesson about the bugs we all walked down to a clearing and played bug tag. You were suppose to act like whatever bug you had a picture of on your wrist. They all loved that. Then they divided the kids and the younger one's went over to buckets with water bugs in them and got to fish them out with little nets and put them on a white tray with water to look at them a little closer. The bigger kids got to use BIG nets and went to a small pond to try and find water bugs. They found snails and beetles, and some other little creatures and they LOVED finding them all by themselves.

After that the kids and I had a little snack on the picnic benches by the parking lot and they were thrilled to play/eat on the tree table and chairs. I'm not sure how much they ate but they sure did have fun and then we went on a hike. The trails are all gravel or mowed grass and very well marked. Pick up a map at the visitors center. We went and saw the Japanese garden and the log cabin. Both very cool! They have markers all along telling you what kind of tree or plant your looking at. At the Japanese garden there is a sign that explains what each of the garden features stand for. When the kids started to whine about being hot & tired I decided it was time to go. I made the impulse decision to drive through the park on the auto tour and I am SO glad that I did. We got to see so much and didn't have to lug the kids the whole way. There were places to pull over along the drive so if there was something you really wanted to stop and see a little better you could. The kids insisted that we stop at the observation tower. I will warn you that if your at all afraid of heights... you should stay on the first level. We went to the top and I about had a panic attack. It's completely safe and well maintained but then some of our fears are just not logical! The kids thought I was CRAZY!!! That aside... I am so excited to have finally discovered Dawes Arboretum! It is breath taking beautiful! It's a great way to get out into nature without coming home completely covered in it! You'll want to bring the whole family, have a picnic and then walk the trails. All the trails that we were on would be stroller friendly.
The bottom of the visitor center is an nature center. It has a bird watching garden and a working beehive. They also had snakes and turtles for the kids to look at up close. The arboretum has several events that go on through out the year. check out their calendar of events on their website. http://www.dawesarb.org/events/

Over all rating A+... great environment, great facilities, family friendly, and FREE!!! We will definitely be going back it is worth the drive!

Getting there

It really doesn't take that long to get there. I live on the West side of Columbus and it took me 44 minutes door to door so don't let the drive scare you off. Take I70 east toward Newark. Take the Ohio -13 exit 132. and go north 3 miles.

Physical address 7770 Jackstown Rd. Newark, Oh 43056

Gantz park

Gantz park is home to Gantz farm which has a huge barn that has been converted into a rec center of sorts. There are all kinds of activities for the kids and even summer camps. The farm is mostly know for the huge herb garden and the Arboretum. I'll be honest we didn't see the garden or learn anything about trees. In fact we didn't even see the east side of the park. There was a incident involving a water bottle, a nose, and an abrupt ended to our trip, Darn kids, but we did have alot of fun while we were there.

The playground is fun, swings and slides... the usual... they was even a mini climbing wall. My 9 year old was not overly impressed and started to wander. It didn't take him long to discover a little creek or crick (depending on what side of the Mason Dixon line you grew up on.)
It started innocently enough throwing rocks trying to walk across by stepping on the rocks that were sticking out of the water. I knew it was only a matter of time and the kids were wading in the shallow waters. There was work done on a damn that someone else had started and a few tadpoles that the kids feverishly chased after. As we were wading in behind the kids and watching them have so much fun, My friend made the comment "this is what childhood should look like". I have to say I agree. They had so much fun. They were a little nervous at first, but that did not last long. Thankfully I had a change of clothes and a towel for them in the car.What I liked.

This is an over all great little park. Huge picnic shelter with bathrooms (You'll be mad if you don't pack a lunch because you don't get access to a spread like that very often.) Well maintained. Oh I almost forgot if you cross the bridge there is a huge pile of bushes that seem like just a wild untamed mess.... but if you go in... its the coolest little fort. There were kids running in and out and all around.

Didn't care for

There was alot of wrappers and pop cans floating in the water. (But that can change if we all pick up something while we are there) and at one spot there seemed to be broken glass so next time the kids will definitely have on shoes.

Getting there

From I 270 take the Grove City Exit US62/OH3 and head south take your first left (Home Rd) and the park is down a ways on your right. For my Map Quest friends, 2255 Home Rd, Grove City, OH 43123