An All-American Road Trip Through Ohio: Amish Auctions, Fried Chicken and Rock & Roll

Day 1: Cincinnati to Logan

199 miles

From the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport rental lot, travel back in time via KY-20 East. Follow signs to the Anderson Ferry. A hair-pinned road leads you down to Kentucky’s Ohio River bank, where for $5 (plus $1 tip) a ferry operating since 1817 will float your car over to Ohio pioneer-style. Head east to downtown Cincinnati on US-50. Enervated vinyl-sided houses and warehouses punctuate the drive, but your destination, Over-the-Rhine, is fizzing. The neighborhood’s 19th-century corniced tenements, originally crammed with German immigrants, form the country’s largest collection of Italianate Revival architecture. Neglected for years, OTR is now coated in creamy paint and optimism, and restocked with bright young things and craft breweries. Busy Washington Park is fun to explore.

Leave Cincy via US-52, paralleling the great river east to Ripley. This antebellum town was an important Underground Railway terminus commemorated by an abolitionist monument and the restored home of John P. Parker, a former slave. At Portsmouth take OH-104 North to Chillicothe for a salad at Paper City, a sunny coffeehouse on South Paint Street (papercitycoffee.com).

Head north on OH-159 then east on OH-180 into the Hocking Hills. Possessing deep gorges and mossy waterfalls, it’s arguably Ohio’s most scenic real estate, a deciduous Kauai. The topography makes GPS navigation spotty here. Nab a map from the Hocking Hills Welcome Center in Logan and overnight in one of the Hocking Hills Tiny Houses. Hand-built, these three “Zen dens” on pretty Lake Logan exude Nordic simplicity (from $119 a night, hockinghillstinyhouses.com).

Glenlaurel Scottish Inn’s six-course dinner (prix fixe from $65; 72-hour advance reservation encouraged; glenlaurel.com) fortifies a postprandial moth hunt conducted by lepidopterist Chris Kline at his Butterfly Ridge Conservation Center. The safaris are 9 p.m. to midnight most summer Saturday nights (butterfly-ridge.com).  If the moths are unavailable, the John Glenn Astronomy Park, named for Ohio’s famous astronaut, offers star-gazing and the occasional lecture instead (jgap.info).

Day 2: Logan to Columbus

60 Miles

Spend the morning exploring the trails around Hocking Hills State Park. The mile-long Rock House loop is a good introduction to the park, or you can follow the rock-hewn steps down to Old Man Cave, J.R.R. Tolkien’s elfish Rivendell come to life. Should it rain, linger over breakfast at the Hocking Hills Diner (hockinghillsdiner.com) or call on Lockhart Ironworks (themakersofhandforgediron.com), a small family firm making high-end artisan cookware forged by cheerful blacksmiths clanging away out back.

The drive on U.S. 33-W to Ohio’s capital passes quickly. Home to Ohio State and the third largest population of fashion designers in the nation (thanks to chains like Abercrombie & Fitch and Express and newer brands like Eloquii), Columbus may not be Milan, but it’s abuzz with youthful style. Shop the Short North. The vibrant neighborhood’s emporia include Samson, a men’s store selling summery short-sleeve shirts and  quality barware (samsonmensemporium.com), or Quinci, stocked with Ohio-made Mosser milk-glass water pitchers and Italian dry goods (quinciemporium.com). Hill Market Downtown will make to-go sandwiches, or you might pick up kebabs and cucumber-laced yogurt from Charmy’s, their Persian pop-up (thehillsmarket.com, charmyspersiantaste.com), for a picnic in Topiary Garden Park, where gardeners have fashioned a shrubby “Sunday on La Grande Jatte” after George Seurat‘s pointillist painting. The Columbus Museum of Art’s current hit is an exhibit of local artist Aminah Robinson (columbusmuseum.org).

Clean up in a 1927 skyscraper at the Hotel Leveque (from $219 a night, hotellevequecolumbus.com). The building’s unique style—call it Byzantine Moderne—and dramatic exterior lighting allegedly made it a 47-story navigational beacon for aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Eat a patio dinner at vegetarian Comune. Menu favorites: the cauliflower tempura and the crispy rice with kimchi, egg and avocados (comune-restaurant.com). Columbus nightlife is exuberant, but a twilight spent strolling the tree-lined streets of German Village watching the fireflies float among the restored 19th-century brick houses exerts its own urban magic.

Day 3: Columbus through Amish Country to Cleveland

174 miles

Take US-62 East past sweet-smelling meadows, a covered bridge and the occasional horse-drawn Amish tricyclist or buggy to Berlin. Just before town, detour south about 2 miles to Miller’s Bakery for cheese tarts and doughnuts stuffed with in-season fruit jams (4250 Township Road 356; 330-893-3002). Berlin is likely clotted with tourists ogling the rural-themed souvenirs. The real action is further north at the Mt. Hope Auction, where Amish farmers bid and buy livestock. The arena’s competitive excitement is good fun to watch (mthopeauction.com). Cross the road to Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen for a lunch of fried chicken, egg noodles and green beans served buffet style.

Continue north to Kidron and Lehman’s, a sprawling, old-timey hardware store (lehmans.com). Cuyahoga Valley National Park—a crazy quilt of forests, farms and fields—can be explored by bike. Continue north to OH-21/I-77 (Exit 138) to Botzum then up Riverview Road through the woods to the village of Peninsula, where Century Cycles (centurycycles.com) will kit you out with a bike rental for a whiz down the Ohio & Erie Canal towpath (the 6-mile round-trip along the Cuyahoga River to Boston Mills Park Visitor Center is a good bet).

Continue on Riverview Road until it deadheads. Head to I-77 North and Cleveland to the brawny city’s University Circle neighborhood. Glidden House, a boutique hotel on Case Western’s campus, feels like a cozy faculty club (gliddenhouse.com, from $179 a night). Extra credit: Cleveland’s Botanical Garden is across the street, though the horticulture might face competition from the vintage automobile collection at the Western Reserve Historical Society a few doors down (wrhs.org).

Dinner at Zhug, a sleek nearby bistro, offering surprising mezzes such as harissa peanut hummus and smoked pastrami short rib (zhugcle.com). If the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is rocking its summer concerts, cruise there in a lime-green Dodge Charger stretch limo (440-288-5466)—a motorhead-ed finis to a drive from C to shining C.

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