Entrance to the Village

This is the Luken's House which was built on this site. It is where they served the pancake and sausage breakfast. Even tho the house looks large on the outside the dining area where we sat wasn't very large but it did have a huge fireplace to keep it nice and toasty warm inside.

 

two younger girls in pioneer garb

Some of the buildings at Pioneer village

Meeting House at Pioneer Village. This is where our maple syrup tour started with a short movie on how syrup is gotten from the maple trees.

 

Caesar's Creek Pioneer Village Waynesville Ohio

We have been to Caesar's Creek State Park in Waynesville Ohio a couple of times before but just really did a quick drive thru the past few times we have visited. I had read in a local paper that they were having a Maple Syrup Festival at the Pioneer Village in the park. Dennis and I have never been to one so we said what the heck, we might enjoy it. So off we went. Waynesville is about 40+ miles from Cincinnati straight up interstate 71 north.
After parking in their gravel parking lot (leave your rv at your campsite) we walked up the gravel driveway to the Meeting house where the tour begins. Most of the buildings would not be open today and we will have to come back for another one of their events to see every building.
We were shown a 15 minute or so movie about how to get syrup out of a tree and all the work involved. Its was very interesting and Den and I both learned alot. After the movie we met our tour guide Mike. This was his first tour ever as a state park volunteer so he appologized in advance if he forgets anything. Up the gravel road we go to the Sorghum Complex where we watched a man and women watching the syrup boiling up to boil out all its water, which can take up to two weeks! We were given a sample of what the syrup tastes like at that stage and I was shocked as how sweet it really was!
After leaving the sorghum complex off the woods we went to a spot where they showed us what the indians had to go thru long ago and how much harder they had to work to get the syrup out of the trees with what tools they had.
It was a very interesting tour and I learned alot and Mike did a great job on his first tour! :-)
After our tour we headed to the Lukens House where pancakes, sausage, coffee and hot chocolate was served. Yum! They used the syrup that they had gotten from the trees on the grounds of the village and again I was surprised at how sweet it really is! I know I used less of this 100% maple syrup then the syrup I purchase at the store because of it being so sweet.
We really enjoyed our tour and our breakfast. Since we got done earlier then expected we thought we would go ahead and check out the new dam and picnic area and maybe some other areas of the park.
We checked out one of the recreation and picnic areas which happened to have a nice trail and since I am trying to lose some weight and exercise more we decided to check it out. It was a nice walk about a mile or maybe a little less.
Along the way we saw signs for a visitor center which last time we had been there was closed, so this time we got lucky it was open and went inside. I was surprised as to how big it is. To me it was like a museum! We could have spend sooo much time there but knew that we still wanted to check out the campground for future camping so we promised ourselves that we would come back in a couple of weeks to REALLY take our time and go thru this visitor center.
Just a few more words about the Pioneer village. They have all kinds of attractions year round there, to find out more information just go to www.caesarscreekvillage.org or phone: 513-897-1120
Some of the events for 2006 included but not limited to,Tour thru history, open house, ole tyme music festival, civil war encampment, pioneer harvest festival, candlelight tour, trick or treat night.
I will be adding pictures of the new dam and picnic area soon.

A Few Things Off Our List!

Getting things done around here can be a very slow process! Money is a big problem but I think even the bigger problem is we run around every weekend instead of getting what needs to be done! I finally got to looking our to do list and we have accomplished a few things lately. So here is a list of items that we can now take off our to do list YEA!

POWER WASH THE DECK (EVEN THO WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DO THIS RIGHT BEFORE WE PUT THE HOUSE UP FOR SALE)

STAIN THE DECK ( WILL ALSO HAVE TO BE DONE AGAIN

TEAR UP RED TILE IN DINING ROOM

NEW KITCHEN CEILING FAN

PAINT 2ND BEDROOM CLOSET

HAVE PAID OFF 3 MEDICAL BILLS AND HAVE PAID ANOTHER 14000,00 OFF OF THE HOUSE!

RESTARTED DENNIS 401 K CONTRIBUTIONS

KEEPING BUSY !

We have been keeping pretty busy so far this winter. We have been going to alot of Madelines and Amanda's indoor soccer, basketball games. Dennis and I both have started getting out and walking. I try to get some sort of exercise 5 or 6 days a week and he comes with me on the weekends.
We both have gotten to a couple of RV shows one in Dayton Ohio and one in Northern Kentucky. This weekend we will be heading out to another RV show in Mason Ohio and will be going to one of Amanda's Roping Rockets shows.
I have been getting back into getting rid of some of our clutter. I got into my clothes closet the other day and found 7 or 8 suitcases, totes and backpacks. We have trimmed it down to a couple of suit cases, and 1 backpack. I guess I will try to get a few dollars out of them on Ebay.
That's about the news from here. We are planning on getting out and do some camping as soon as things get warmer around here. Which we hope is sooner then later!