Lexington, Ky - Ohio - Erie, NY

With the World Equestrian Games over we headed north on Monday 11 September, via the Armish country in Ohio to the shores of Lake Erie and the town of Erie in the State of New York.  A two day trip put us in comfortable driving of the Niagara Falls.

Near Maysville just below the Ohio border we called into a furniture shop stocking beautifully made Armish furntiture and these wagons in a shed.

Early buildings generally well preserved in the small towns.

While Washington was labelled an historic village everything appeared shut.  No coffee here!!

However there were interesting buildings to drive past...

...of various shapes and size.

However the names of towns made us wonder where we were had passed through with European names such as Manchester here,  Paris just out of Lexington, we stayed the night at Athens, passed through Rome, Portsmouth, Chauncey, Glouster, nearby to Cambridge, through Dresden, Warsaw and stopped for coffee in Berlin.

Some things reminded us we were still in USA with Halloween coming up.

...and old log cabins.

Also the next model historic house.

To the more a recent sign of community affluence.

A bit of history in Millersburg.  See the trough below.

If connected to water it could still be of some use today as you will see later.

But not outside the Court House where is is now located.

...which had the appropriate car parked outback.

Very expensive "junk" being browsed in Millersberg.

Berlin turned out to be the hub of Armish activity with dedicated tie up rails at the supermarket carpark.  The water trough may have been of some use here.

This John Deer stationery engine was driving an ice cream making device outisde the supermarket.

A stop at Farmerstown, between Berlin and Sugarcreek, to check out the livestock auction further broadened our experience.  Horses and carts all orderly parked in one area and cars in another.

Some stock arrived behind a tractor and trailer...

...and two calves arrived in the cart...

...while others arrived or departed in larger trailers behind trucks.  The auctioneer and assistant were in Armish attire and very expert at the job but we are sure could only be understood by the gallery of vendors and (two or three) buyers.

"Granny" moving at a fast clip along the road.

Autumn was well advanced and graced the countryside and towns.

A very tidy country side with neat and orderly farms.

Some historic cultivation methods were still evident.

Others had current technology drawn by horse teams but modern machinery was evident in the farmyards of what appeared to be larger holdings.

Then some small areas of stooked corn was seen.

Not far from a large scale cattle operation.

We left one of the best kept rural areas we had seen on our tour when leaving central Ohio.  Then travelled through the built up areas of Cleveland and along the Lake Erie coast to the town of Erie in New York State.