This Art Is Cool

Actually, cold would be a better word.

We drove yesterday to Charles Mill Lake to enjoy the scenery. It was very cold yesterday, although not nearly as cold as it was earlier in the week. We took the back roads to get there, and we were rewarded with beautiful winter scenery in the rolling hills of the Mohican Forest. It took us nearly 2 hours to make the drive, but that was due as much to the state of the roads as anything else. The snow was blowing and drifting, and I suppose we could have made it in 90 minutes or less in good weather.

The Mohican is a popular destination in these parts. There are ski trails, white water rapids, miles and miles of walking trails, and some of the most beautiful scenery in Ohio. Malabar Farm is in the Mohican Forest, and is probably best known as the place where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married in 1939.

We made our first stop at a little place near the Charles Mill Dam, the Wayside Inn: The Best Bar By A Dam Site, as it was explained to us. There were just a few locals there, and it was obvious to them that we were from somewhere else. The people were friendly, though, and through them we learned that there were ice sculpture displays in Loudonville, about 12 miles away. We had a couple of cold ones to go with our bratwursts, then we took a drive around the lake and the marina, then we set out for Loudonville, which is known as the Canoe Capitol of Ohio.

The merchants in this little town must have loved the weather. You'll see from the pictures below that there are not a lot of people walking down the sidewalks to view the ice sculptures. That doesn't mean there weren't a lot of people in town; they went into the stores to stay warm.




These are just two examples of the sculptures. They were lined up on both sides of the street, and I would guess there were probably 30 in all. It's still well below freezing, so anyone in the area who wants to see them, now is your chance. I hope they'll be gone by next week, but based on the weather forecast, they'll probably be around another couple weeks or so.