Tag: Ohio

A Colorful Adventure

We experienced some colorful adventures on our trip. One being in the “American Sign Museum” in Cincinnati, Ohio.

After seeing some neon sign pictures recently, I became intrigued. I wondered if there was a neon sign museum anywhere in the U.S. I searched the internet and found a few…the largest being The Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California. There was also The National Sign Museum in The Dalles, Oregon, The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio and The Lost Highway Museum (a private collection in Washington).

Note: 15 cent hamburgers!

I thought if our undetermined route takes us near Cincinnati, it might be possible to check out the American Sign Museum on our way home from our recent roadtrip…and we did. The museum is small (it’s hoping to expand) but it was full of fun signs (not all neon) and signage history.

We enjoyed our time looking at all the different types and styles of signs and we felt it was worth the stop. I would consider going to other sign museums, if there was an opportunity to do so.

I was impressed by all the figures neon signs could portray. They are truly works of art. Each one unique.

Color, color… wonderful, bright color.

Who knew it would be so interesting to see a collection of old signs, but it was!

It is great to know neon signs continue to be crafted.

On our way out of town, we drove past this old Dairy Queen with its own antique signage.

Color, color… so much color. This was one of two colorful adventures on this trip. Stay tuned for another one.

Roses, Butterflies and Colored Glass

I enjoyed my first adventure in “retirement” with my girlfriend, on our 28th annual get away. We began our outings together when our boys were young, in 1989. This year I flew to Indiana where she lives and we started our road trip to Columbus, Ohio. The criteria we use to choose our trip locations are: it must have gardens, a body of water, and antiques/thrift stores.

Yellow rose with bee.

In Columbus our first stop was the Park of Roses, one of the largest public rose gardens in the United States.

We were fortunate to be there when the 11,000+ roses were in bloom. It was so pretty. We strolled along and enjoyed smelling the roses and reading the creative names for all the different varieties and colors. We tried hard to capture the beauty on our iPhones. You can’t capture the fragrance.

We checked out many antique stores and thrift shops in-between our park visits – another activity we really enjoy doing together – and we each found a couple of treasures to bring home.

Another park we visited was the Franklin Park Conservatory which offered many fun surprises…from Chihuly glass displays interspersed in the plants, to animal- shaped topiaries, to the butterfly garden which releases many beautiful butterflies daily. They were flitting all around us.

We both are fans of colored glass and to see this display of Chihuly’s beautiful glass artwork was special. We didn’t know it was on exhibit at the conservatory when we planned our visit.

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We also enjoyed time sitting near the Scioto River, walking down the cobbled streets of the German Village and dining at good eating establishments.

We had a delightful time.