After finding coffee on Day 3, I headed to Bucyrus Ohio hoping to meet up with folks from Ohio Mutual Insurance Group That I used to work with. Nobody showed, but it was my own fault. I gave late notice that I was coming. It was good to drive around Bucyrus, OH (home of the Ohio Locomotive Crane Company). I had dinner at Baker’s. To be sured, I’d been to Ohio before. I was here for a 2 week training stint back n 2012. I was able to explore the Native American Mounds in Chillicothe and the National Road and Zane Grey museum along US Route 40. It was the first federal highway commissioned in the United States.
The big thing that I noticed as that most manufacturing that was here as left and has been replaced by retail and warehousing. Bucyrus is trying to re-invent itself like most of the central part of the country that has been abandoned by corporate America and the farm bailouts that go the industrial farmers and not to family farmers. It’s sad. Bucyrus is a beautiful little town. There is a lovely little theater downtown. The old train station was once being turned into a museum and attraction, but that project looks abandoned. There is a ton of railroad infrastructure there. Much more than we see on the east coast. They are working on major infrastructure projects. I don’t get drive through liquor stores, though. Drive through bratwurst stations, on the other hand tend to be messy, but delicious.
I headed back up to I-90 and headed west. I stayed in the last travel plaza in Ohio overnight. It was still summer weather overnight. My luck with the weather was holding up. Though I knew that wouldn’t last. After all, a storm dumped 4 feet of snow in northwest Montana and was headed in my direction.
