Sunday morning small towns tour

[the Ferret]

For this mornings ride I decided to give you and idea of the area I live in, which is rural sw Ohio. Made up of small farm community towns.

Going east on State Route 125 from my house the first village you come to is Bethel



Bethel has 2 traffic lights, a theatre which as you can see has limited offerings and play times,
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at least 5 churches on the main drag,
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and this cute little 50's style eatery featuring Mr Hot Dog and Mr French fries lol

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on the way out of town is a street name sign I complained about for all 24 years I was in the Highway Traffic Safety business. The state came along and finally put up a new one, even though it wasn't their responsibility) but since then no one has removed the old one lol

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Continuing east we come to the village of Hamersville. No lights. Not much there. Bit of a speed trap.

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Houses are cheap there, but you don't get much

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They do have a gas station that only serves regular. Since the CB was down to 2 bars I went ahead and stopped and filled up. If I were on my ST which requires Premium I would have had to drive 5 miles further east to a bigger town

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That next town in Georgetown. The UDF there has premium lol. Anyhow Georgetown has 2 lights on the main drag.

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Georgetown has 3 claims to fame. They host the County Fair at the fair grounds. Famed wildlife artist John Ruthven lives there, and 18th President Ulyses S Grant lived there about a dozen years when he was a kid.

Here is the Courthouse, which is pretty old..and cool.

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In Georgetown I turned south on Rt 220. In these parts, any road running north to south is a good one if you like curves. They will generally follow a creek, in this case White Oak Creek.

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the flat rocks from the creek have been used for a century to build rock walls and foundations for buildings. believe it or not they were dry stacked which means no mortar, and many are still standing 100 years later. there are miles and miles of these dry stack walls along roads like this

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This road dead ends in a town called Higgensport on the Ohio River on St Rt 52 aka the Ohio River Scenic byway. From here we will head west.

More to come.....


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[CA200_imp]

Cool - I love riding through small towns. Since I have retired I have noticed a lot of small towns in the south
and central US have a lot of churches, up here you don't see that much but small towns in Wi. always have a lot of small bars and taverns. Guess we just like our beer more here.

 

[redbirds_imp]

Cool ride Ferret. Love the character of small towns anywhere.

 

[jimbo9867_imp]

Hey Ferret,
great report as usual. I took Hwy 220 out of Georgetown earlier this Spring for the first time and loved it. I rode from Lebanon down to Georgetown Ohio across the river and on down to Georgetown KY. To my surprise, the ferry was closed. I had to go down to Aberdeen to get over the river. It ended up taking me five hours one way to get to Georgetown KY. A little longer day than planned! Love your photos. Glad you take the time to stop and snap pictures.

 

[Cormanus]

Great photos and report, Ferret.

 

[the Ferret]

Once I hit 52 at Higgensport I turned west headed back towards home. Higgensport has no traffic lights but it does have wildlife. I no sooner got up to speed and a whitetail doe sprinted across the road followed by a fawn. Had plenty of clearance so I never even slowed down, all of a sudden another one squirts out of the underbrush. Almost got this one



anyhow, this is "downtown" Higgensport

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Like I said Rt 52 follows the Ohio river. At one time someone had a pretty nice stone house over looking the river. It has been abandoned as long as I can remember. once someone started fixing it up, cutting the grass and getting rid of the ivy and just as quickly they abandoned it again.

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not a mile down the road, this guy built this huge house that looks like a paddle wheeler

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Next town east is Chilo. No lights, one intersection... and a Dairy Isle where the guy smokes his own BBQ (see the pink pig on the left?). Pretty good too. It is only open from May to Sept or October

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Being a beautiful day and this being a scenic Byway, there are generally hordes of bikes going both east and west from Cincinnati and Portsmouth. Mostly Harleys in groups of 5 to 15. Some waved back, some didn't.

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Next town west is Neville. No lights, I post office, 1 church and a few houses

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Remember when I said there were foundations built on dry stack creek and river rock. here is one such barn

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Next town west is Moscow.. 2 claims to fame. About 2 years ago a devastating tornado went thru Moscow and destroyed about 60 % of the village. It is also home to the Zimmer Coal fired/Nuclear Power Plant.

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The next town west is the town closest to my house. New Richmond. No lights in town but there are 2 out on Rt 52 which actually bypasses the main drag now.
New Richmond's claim to fame is it's history with the underground railroad and it's mid summer celebration called River Days. About 8 years ago we got this uppity little café that served Paninis and upscale meals called the Front Street Cafe. Nobody gave this place a chance of surviving the first year. I mean it's hoity-toity for this county. It has surprised everyone by not only making it , but flourishing. Great place to eat. You should have seen how busy it was during last years floods. All the sight seerers from the city stopped to eat there. River was probably 2 feet from making it to the front steps of the café.

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These are the biggest towns for 30 miles around me. Great riding roads, very little traffic and a bunch of little farming and river towns. Probably boring for those who like "action" but we kind of like it here. Perfect for a bike like the CB 1100.

Thanks for riding along.


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[Cormanus]

Ferret, do you really like the food at the Front Street Café? Panini sounds a bit Italian to me.

I like your riding area. Small towns, windy roads work well for me.

 

[the Ferret]

Well to tell the truth not much there I will eat lol, but my wife loves it. A Panini is some kind of grilled roll. I usually get a sliced turkey sandwich on a ciabata (also a grilled roll) with regular mayo and chips. Most of the sandwiches has some kind of tomato basil mayo or something fancy like that, but I justaask for regular mayo. Also no American cheese like I eat, all fancy weird cheeses so I say no cheese.

http://www.frontstcafe.com/

 

[emptysea]

Nice theme. I love riding through small towns. I just need to ride an hour or so to find one. LOL

 

[Inhouse Bob]

Nice theme. I love riding through small towns. I just need to ride an hour or so to find one. LOL

Great ride-along. Thanks for having us!

 

[Rocky_imp]

Great pictures
Riding the back roads and through the small towns and villages is my kind of riding.

 

[HikerToo_imp]

Love putzing around small roads and towns, we happen to live between the "country" Amish Country, but also within 50 miles of Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore and further to DC and NYC.
I like to think its best of both worlds.......but seeing your glimpse into rural America reminds me why our country has so many different point of views and values..
When we were in Italy a couple months ago....Panini's were common and excellent.

 

[LouA_imp]

Cool pix ferret. I never saw a single octane gas pump. Must get out more

 

[the Ferret]

Lou, there are a slew of them around here, particularly in the s/eastern counties of the state. Seem to be Marathons for the most part.