Road Trip Across Ohio

Finishing Ohio’s Counties | Visiting Serpent Mount State Historic Site | Afternoon in Dayton | Visiting the Wright Brothers Museum & Bike Shop | Thomas Dambo Trolls | August 2026

Today was another exciting day for us on this road trip: we were planning on visiting our last 5 counties in Ohio to complete the state! And unlike some of the states we’ve been working on recently (Kentucky and West Virginia), we were able to plan a route that was mostly straightforward on roads that were a little less painful! We got up early at our rest area South of Athens and got on the road, ready to take on the day.

We drove to Athens, then headed Southwest towards Jackson. We then went West towards Peebles, where we made our first stop of today at Serpent Mound State Historic Site. This spot had been on Curtis’ radar ever since we visited Hopewell Culture NHS, and at first we didn’t think we had enough time for it today, but when we realized a different attraction we had planned to see was closed, we decided it was a sign that we needed to stop here. And we’re so glad we did, because it was even cooler than I had imagined it to be! Serpent Mound is a very impressive Effigy Mound, made to look like a snake, long with lots of twists and turns. It’s difficult to take in the whole thing at once, which is why we were very glad to see that they recently built a tall tower that overlooks the entire thing! I still don’t think I got very good pictures of it, especially with the morning shadows from surrounding trees, so you’ll have to trust me that this is a site worth seeing in person. After climbing up the tower, we walked around the short loop trail, which we had all to ourselves besides a family of turkeys that was walking across the mounds. It’s actually against the rules to walk on the mounds, but I don’t think they could read, so we’ll let that slide.

Even more surprising was the fact that Curtis was actually able to find a letterbox. He has a horrible track record for finding them in Ohio… maybe just because he wants to find boxes in places where we actually want to visit, and not in cemeteries, but I digress. I guess the state decided he was worthy of finding boxes today since he was *almost* able to say that he’d been to every county.

With that, we got back on the road, and continued heading West into our last counties! Ohio has 88 counties, and it took us 22 different trips across the state to be able to finish it, and it’s officially our 16th state completion! The funny thing is that for all but one of those trips, we were just passing through, maybe spending a night or 2 at a rest area or campsite. The one time that we came here for the sake of coming to Ohio was in June of 2024 when Curtis had a one week assignment at a plant along Lake Erie. But even then, that job was just a job that was on the way from one job to the next, North Carolina to New York. But despite all the times we’ve crossed this state, we wouldn’t come close to saying it’s the heart of America as it claims to be. We’re hard pressed to even call it a Midwestern state.

But since we’re here, let’s take a second to think about our favorite memories here. How about on our honeymoon, when we had to basically drive across the entire state at night trying to find a hotel that would let us check out a room because we were only 20 years old? (Old enough to get married and join the Navy, not old enough to have a place to sleep for the night.) Or what about the night when we tent camped at Kiser Lake State Park on our way to the East Coast, only to have a thunderstorm roll through in the middle of the night and turn our site into a flowing stream, flooding our tent? Or we can talk about how awesome its state high point is. Or contemplate how expensive visiting and camping in its state parks are — oh but wait, it’s so worth it because the state parks are stunning and absolutely worth being priced the same as what we’d pay for a national park! Speaking of which, let’s discuss its national park, Cuyahoga Valley, which in the words of the Ford administration (who signed the bill that made the park into a national recreation area), “possess no qualities which qualify it for inclusion in the national park system”. If I could give it a superlative, it would be “state in which we’ve seen the most presidential gravesites”. We can’t help but wonder how it produced the second most number of Presidents (after Virginia). We’ll wrap this up by wondering how much money we’ve spent crossing the state between the Midwest and the East Coast on the tollway.

Ok, I’m sorry, I had way too much fun reminiscing and joking about all that. One thing I know for sure, my favorite memories in the state mostly revolve around sleeping at their rest areas, like I mentioned in my last post. All that to say, today was a pretty fun day between what we had just done and what we would do in the afternoon, so maybe the best is yet to come… *crying laughing emoji*

After getting our last county, we continued driving up to Dayton where we planned to spend our afternoon. We had two national park sites we wanted to see, but since Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument was closed today, we turned our focus to Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. It looked like there were several sites spread around the area for this national park site, but the one that interested us the most was the Wright Brothers Museum, so that’s where we went.

When we arrived, we found a free place to park nearby and had a quick lunch in the van before beginning our tour. We walked over to the Wright Brothers national museum, and when we arrived we heard that there was about to be a tour of the Wright Cycle Company Shop, so we waited around for that. It turned out that we were the only ones on the tour, and we thoroughly enjoyed having that time with the ranger to learn about the Wright brothers and how they contributed to Dayton, the history of bicycling, and how that led to them turning their sights to the skies and going towards aviation. I wasn’t expecting to learn so much about bicycles during this tour, but walked away knowing more about all the different models that led us to what we have today. After that, we went back into the museum and took our time walking through all the exhibits. Besides the bicycle shop and aviation, we also learned about the printing press that the Wright brothers also ran, with exhibits about authors and literature around that time period. And we also learned a little about the rest of their family that we knew very little about before today. Finally, we ended with collecting our stamps, including the second half to a two-part stamp that we had gotten in Kitty Hawk at the Wright Brothers Memorial, which when lined up correctly, makes a propeller. Unfortunately on the first try we didn’t line it up right, so we may have to take another trip to Kitty Hawk just to correct the stamp in Curtis’ logbook…

While there were other sites we could have visited to continue learning about aviation, we instead decided that we would rather go in pursuit of other goals which would include more time hiking in nature. And so we drove 20 minutes North to the Aullwood Audubon Center. Here is where Thomas Dambo has placed three of his troll creations, and while past us might have said no to visiting because it has entrance fees, present us is now out to see as many trolls as we can, and so we were willing to pay to see them today.

When we arrived, there were signs to both the East and West saying the road through this area was closed, so we ended up parking in a park across the highway with a half mile walk to get into the park. It turned out not to be necessary, but oh well, more exercise for us. After paying our admission fee, we set out on a walk to see the trolls. Unfortunately now that we were out of the Appalachians, the summer heat had found us once again, so we were thankful for any stretch of trail that was in the shade. Except then it followed a stream, which meant the mosquitoes were bad, and all of a sudden we were back to everything we had dealt with earlier this summer. But on a positive note, at least the trolls were cute! It ended up being a 3.5 mile long hike, including our trek to and from the area where we had parked.

After returning to the van, we decided to say goodbye to Ohio for this trip and continue driving West. We took I-70 into Indiana where we stopped at Culvers for dinner, and to loiter in the air conditioning. We had been planning on camping North of here at Hoosier Hill; Indiana’s state high point, but upon further inspection we decided that since it’s technically on someone’s property, and they are kind enough to allow people access to visit the high point, we shouldn’t take advantage of that by overnighting there. Given our limited options, we decided it was time to experience a Vanlife first: we camped in a Cracker Barrel parking lot! It only took us 1424 nights of living nomadically to have to resort to this. We stayed at Culvers for as long as we comfortably could, then drove over to the Cracker Barrel lot and parked in the back. There were a few other travelers that we shared the lot with, and while we can’t complain about staying somewhere undisturbed for free, this one is right next to the interstate so it wasn’t exactly a quiet night. Now the question is: will we/when will we finally give in and stay at a Walmart?? Only time will tell!

The next day was Friday, the day we were to arrive in Michigan to begin our time with family. We started by driving North to Hoosier Hill, just because we were here and so close. We arrived and found it just like how we remembered it, a small bump in the middle of a cornfield, surrounded by trees. And all I could do was think about our last time here with Charlotte. Not to end this post with a giant bummer, but that’s just our life now I guess, going places and remembering being there with her in the ‘before times’. As sad as it makes me, I’m also glad to have a reason to play out those memories in my mind, to remember things I had forgotten over time, to feel her presence with us in these places.

2026 / 2021

After that, we got back on the road and drove the remaining 5 hours to Michigan, knocking out a good number of counties in Northeastern Indiana along the way. Now we only have 6 more counties to complete this state! The miles rolled by easily, and in the early afternoon, we crossed into Michigan.