Summer 2021, Day 25

I’m well past the longest vacation I’ve taken since, well, since I’ve been working, and I’m not even ready to quit! But it’s winding down whether I like it or not – there are just three days left to it after today.

As I’m in Columbus, I started my day with a walk around Antrim Lake, one of my favorite spots here. The walk included a side trail to a small dam and an area of river rocks.

After that pleasant bit of exercise, I headed to Cincinnati to visit a store I learned about earlier on this trip, Jungle Jim’s International Market. What a place! They have over 200,000 square feet in each of two locations, with – they claim – over 180,000 products from around the world. The outside gives you an idea of what you’re in for – a cross between a store and an amusement park:

Inside, you can easily get lost (and I did, until I pulled up the store map on my phone). I could have taken lots of photos, but here are a couple. First, I ran across a large display of Lodge cast iron; I’ve never seen a store carry any of it, much less ALL of it! This picture is about 20% of the full display:

Imagine my surprise when I saw EVEN MORE of it in the kitchen utensils department! Now that was a place I had to drag myself away from … talk about cooking porn … name anything you’d want to have in your kitchen that isn’t electrical and they probably have several versions of it, including really famous name brands. Wow.

This photo, which omits my dropped jaw, is the beer department. Everything you see here is beers from around the world, and on the other side of it there’s a wine department that is at least as large if not larger, followed by a state liquor store! (Somewhere, there’s also a bar where you can sample beers and get your growler(s) filled, but I never stumbled across it …)

I was good, though, and only bought a very small number of imported food items that are impossible to get back home … but am seriously considering this as a destination for a future trip. (Note to self: arrive with empty car and full wallet!!)

After that, I was ready for some more laid-back entertainment. I headed for the archery range at Deer Creek State Park, a spot I’ve been to several times. I wasn’t dressed for the archery walking course so stayed on the static range, but still had a pleasant time with some good shots on target.

Those targets are set up at 10-15-20-25-30-35 yards so there’s a good variety of shooting distances to practice on.

And then it was on to Second Meal™️ and the highlight of my day, Schmidt’s Sausage Haus Restaurant in Columbus’ German Village. See the other blog for those tempting photos 😉