Damaine Vonada
It was 25 minutes past noon when I scored the last serving of the Friday lunch special — scalloped potatoes and ham — at the Auction Restaurant in Shipshewana, Indiana. Just seconds after I ordered, a young man sat down and asked for the special too. “It’s all gone,” said the waitress, a pleasant, middle-aged woman wearing an apron, plain blue dress, and white bonnet. “Well, I was wanting it all morning,” he complained, then settled for a prime rib sandwich.
The horse is Kentucky’s icon, and no place celebrates all things equine better than Kentucky Horse Park.
Located just outside Lexington, the park is like Disneyland with horses. Pristine grounds and specially designed buildings echo the beauty of the surrounding Bluegrass horse country, while programming and activities harness humanity’s relationship with horse breeds throughout the globe.
When people patronize Carillon Brewing Company in Dayton this month, they’ll discover a Valentine-worthy beer — beet ale — that’s vibrant, earthy, and perfect for winning over hearts and waking up taste buds. “It’s a red ale, made from beet sugar, that’s sweet and very tasty,” says Brady Kress, the Dayton History president and CEO who masterminded Carillon Brewing.
Along a narrow road that snakes through the woodsy hills north of Zanesville, Ripple Rock Farms sits on 15 country acres where Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative members Craig and Traci Bell have lived for several years.
Long before mothers were blogging about their daily lives, Erma Bombeck’s syndicated newspaper column — “At Wit’s End” — acquired a legion of faithful followers by mixing her musings about marriage and motherhood with healthy doses of humor. Born and raised in Dayton, Erma certainly knew her subject. She and her husband, Bill, had three school-age children when, at age 37, she began writing the column on a makeshift desk in a bedroom of her suburban Centerville home.
