Mansfield, I Never Get Your Depth

I love Mansfield, Ohio. No, I love, love, LOVE Mansfield, Ohio. To those who have heard the Bubba and Bo Incident, it will come as a surprise that I go willingly into Ohio, but I do it for sf conventions, and I do it for Mansfield.

We stopped there at random once, on our way to somewhere else, and we’ve kept finding cool things about it.

Kingwood Center Gardens

First, we discovered the Kingwood Center. It takes at least a day to really explore the gardens, and then there’s the house.

But there’s not just A garden, there are many, many gardens. I’d like to take a week sometime, and just spend every day wandering around those gardens. Maybe I’ll sneak a camouflage bag in there and just camp out year ’round. ~ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho~ Wait a minute, while I get up off the floor and wipe the tears of laughter out of my eyes. Yeah, me camping out. ~snort snort snort~

Anyway, it’s beautiful!

Then we discovered Malabar Farm, the home of author and conservationist Louis Bromfield. Malabar Farm is now a State Park and a historic landmark, but it was once a house and farm. You could spend another week or do just doing stuff there. If you don’t know who Louis Bromfield was, he hung out in Paris with Hemingway and Stein and all that crew. Here’s a Wikipedia article about Louis Bromfield. Oh, yeah, and Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married at Malabar Farm.

Another time, we went to the Carousel Works, where they carve and paint carousel figures. There’s also a HUGE carousel in downtown Mansfield, in a structure that can be enclosed in bad weather and open in good weather. Oh. Em. Gee.

Today, I met a young lady who comes from Mansfield, and she told me about a place I didn’t know about: The Ohio State Reformatory. No longer a reformatory, it’s now an event venue, a museum, a ghosty place, AND THE SET OF THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION!

So, if you’re wondering where to go this summer, guess where I recommend? 😉

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Look up a city at random and see what cool stuff is there for a character to do.

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Mansfield, I Never Get Your Depth

  1. Jane

    April 19, 2013 at 8:45am

    I used to dream of spending a night ANYwhere else. I’d check into a pretty little place with a nice courtyard and tall plants and trees and go there to write and laze around. Now, I want to go to Mansfield!

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      April 19, 2013 at 3:19pm

      Yeah! And I want to buy that apartment complex you used to live in where you had Tootsie, the Storybook place with the courtyard, and turn it into a writers’ retreat!

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply

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