We did not do much this morning but I need to back up to last night. Yesterday I created the blog entry early, before we went to visit our friend and my military comrade Ernie Reid and his family. They live about 20 minutes north of the campground in Granville OH. We drove up and were there for a couple hours. Ernie and Rhonda's daughters were there with their families and it was great to see everyone. Ernie took me into his garage where he showed me his 1972 Chevrolet Corvette that he has been working on for quite a while. It is a driver and he had done a great job with it. We both appreciate old cars and can relate to carburetors, distributors, mechanical fuel pumps and the sound of Hooker headers!!
So back to today, Ernie's family was headed into Columbus to do some shopping, so Ernie drove his Corvette down to the campground to see us and our new Alliance coach. We had a great time talking about our military years in Maine and what our families have been up to. We both came to the conclusion this whole adult thing is overrated and that growing old simply sucks ha ha!
After Ernie left, Doreen and I headed down to Buckeye Lake and on the way we stopped to see the lighthouse house that Doreen spotted as we originally entered town. The lighthouse was added to the lakeside cabin by the owner who is a lighthouse enthusiast. It measures 33 ft tall and has the master bedroom on the first floor, a daughter's bedroom on the second level, and the lantern room is on top. According to the owner's wife, he did all the work himself except the foundation. I told Doreen not to get any ideas! http://www.lighthousedigest.com/Digest/StoryPage.cfm?StoryKey=1844
From there we parked at the North shore state park boat launch and headed out on a walk along the shore. From what we learned, this is the site of the old Buckeye Lake Amusement Park that was quite the attraction back in it's heyday. The only thing that remains of the park now is a fountain. The park's attendance dropped after World War II and in 1966 a severe storm destroyed the centerpiece Dips rollercoaster. There was apparently an attempt to save the park but it closed for good in the early 70's.
Buckeye Lake State Park is the oldest state park in Ohio, designated that when the Ohio DNR came to be back in 1949. The lake's origin can be traced back to the early 1800's and the Ohio and Erie Canal days when it was used as a feeder for the canal. Between 2014 and 2015 the Army Corps of Engineers completed a study and the results said there was risk of catastrophic failure of the earthen dam that held back the water. The Ohio legislature with the support of the Governor and DNR funded a rebuild of the dam and it was completed in 2018. Now it serves as a recreational lake for the area with vacation homes surrounding the lake on nearly all sides.
We called in a pizza order to the Pizza Cottage restaurant which is next door to our campground and while we were waiting for our order to be completed, we drove around the west side of the lake to the Leib's Island marina. There is docked a tour boat that takes passengers out on weekends. We "missed the boat" today and will be gone by next weekend.
We introduced ourselves and I recognized their names from the Alliance Owners Facebook group that I serve as one of the administrators. Ken and Linda Trumbauer live in their Alliance 372RK (rear kitchen) model full time and are also in route to the Alliance Rally in Elkhart Indiana as we are. It is always fun to meet FamAlly, what we call other Alliance owners.
No plans yet for tomorrow.
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