Random Ohio

I saw a feature in a magazine ("American Demographics", it was called) once where a guy drove across the USA in an old Lincoln and took a picture every X miles (I forget - maybe every 10 or 20). It turned out the USA is pretty boring when you randomly slice it up that way, but today I found myself 130-some miles from home, with a camera. So I figured it would give me something to do (besides drive...) if I snapped a picture every 10 miles. The rule was it had to be when the trip odometer hit the exact multiple of 10.0.

Oh, also, this is the quickest way from McConnelsville (in SE Ohio) to my house (in NW Ohio), and it happens to be mainly along 2 lane state highways. It took three hours, almost even.

Mile 0.0. We start in the town square here in McConnelsville. I've grown to really like this little town. It is an island unto itself, out in the middle of nowhere.

Mile 10.0. Just happened to be crossing the county line into Muskingum County (as depicted on the sign there). This is State Route 60 headed north. The Muskingum River is just out of sight to the left, paralleling the road.
Mile 20.0. Further up 60, headed for Zanesville. Lots of little extraction businesses around here, mining the sand and gravel out of the earth.
Mile 30.0. This last leg got us pretty much clear through Zanesville. I was hoping for a shot of some City sight, like crossing the river, or the big ol' Genesis hospital I passed, but you gotta play by the rules. This is the "outer reaches" of the city on the northwest side. That smear on the windsheild was bothersome; I took care of it when i gassed up in Mount Vernon.
At mile 40.0, I shot this picture on the fly through the right window. There in the middle of the field, walled like a fortress, was someone's family cemetery. You can see one of the larger obelisks (?) poking up there. Kind of odd, I thought, how history treats places like this.
Mile 50.0 Nothing spectacular; just an intersection somewhere south of Mount Vernon.
Mile 60.0. Closing in on Mount Vernon. I passed through the small town of Martinsville or Martindale; never can remember what follows "Martins". Maybe it's Martinsburg. Yeah, that sounds right. Anyhow, here we have "Yoder's Cider Barn", out the left window. Sounds Amish, and Amish abound in the area, but with these trucks sitting around and what looks like an RV over there on the right, I'm thinking it is not very high order.
Mile 70.0 and over halfway home. Ah, the urbanity of it all! The sprawl of it all! Coming into Mount Vernon. It is that city's bad fortune that my random odometer reading came up in this relatively ugly,nondescript, could-be-anywhere location, rather than a mile back, with lovely old homes and Mount Vernon Nazarene College, or a mile further, in their lovely central business district. I do have some emotional attachment to this area though, as it is roughly the location of what was Beck's ice cream establishment. In my college days, bunches of us would visit Beck's for the best ice cream sandwiches I've ever had. Now it's Golden Arches, kids.
Mile 80.0. Inexplicably, around Fredericktown, State Route 13 goes all four lane, limited access on you. Not sure why; the traffic counts are not spectacular. It just blosssoms into a highway of some note, then four miles or so later, it's back to the two-lane again. This cannot be due to the incredible local traffic generated by Fredericktown; trust me on this! But someone must have known a Congress person or something around here to get this feat accomplished. Pork!
Mile 90.0. Drove right through Belleville, a nice little town that used to have a smorgasbord everyone knew about, famous for its frogs' legs. The place is out of business now, and the Belleville frogs are sighing in relief. Anyhow, here we are north of Belleville on the road to Mansfield.

Mile 100.0 even. Coming out of downtown Mansfield. It was a roll of the dice with this place; could have shown some unsavory areas, or could have seen the fairly nice central park area. All told, for Mansfield, this ain't too bad a shot...
Mile 110.0. back in the "sticks" again. A fine little slice of Americana here further up 13.
Mile 120.0. Oh, the hours I have spent over my lifetime waiting at this particular crossing! They are slated to build an overpass here some day, but evidently not soon, since they are in the process of paving the road right now. The trained eye will spot the pavement texture indicating that it has been stripped for a new coat of asphalt.
Last shot at mile 130.0. This little guy was welcoming me home, I guess. Not that this barn or farm is home. But I live less than ten miles from this spot, so the random experiment in capturing Ohio was over right here.

I draw few conclusions from the whole enterprise, aside from the fact that it sort of kept me occupied and made the trip go a bit faster. I do not recommend it to anyone, as I suppose there is some danger in photographing the landscape while piloting a car hurtling along a country road at 55+ miles per hour. I didn't really work too hard at looking at the image on the screen, and pretty much just took what I got; I've done this a lot over the years, for various reasons.

I guess one conclusion is that, for the most part, this state is pretty dang rural, acreage-wise. I could have taken the Interstate, but it zig-zags to get up where I needed to be, not very much as the crow flies. Maybe a severely impaired crow that had imbibed a bit too much of the corn squeezin's. Anyhow, along the Interstate, you still would have seen woods and fields in most shots; just a lot more concrete and a lot more traffic.