day 3 - millersburg, oh to columbus, oh

So originally today we were scheduled to go check out some Native American mounds in the south of Ohio. However, while browsing through some of those "Explore Ohio!" magazines late last night, we found a couple of other things that we wanted to do. So our plan today was to leave the Amish and head to the Wilds, a wildlife preserve in the middle of Ohio, and then head to Columbus to see the city and spend the night.

(Currently, we're holed up at a Comfort Suites in Columbus, with blissfully free and unhampered high speed internet. Tomorrow, with Dr. Hsu's approval, we are heading to Kentucky to see horses! If Roy is indeed allergic to them, however, we are going to go down to Mammoth Caves instead. However, in both cases, we will probably be camping tomorrow night, meaning no internet and only short, Twitter-style updates til we hit Tennessee the day after.)

We left our wonderful hotel in Millersburg early in the morning, in time to see some Amish folks dressed up and heading to Church.



On our way out of Berlin, we discovered a flea market on the side of the road, in the woods...literally. People were hawking the same old used stuff, and I picked up some cheap and cute Beanie Babies from some old man.


Our main destination for the day was the Wilds. The Wilds is essentially a 10,000-acre wildlife preserve in the middle of nowhere in Ohio. Animals get to roam completely freely here, and they maintain breeding programs for endangered species such as cheetahs, rhinos, and other animals. They are also involved in a project to return the land to its natural prairie state, by introducing native plants and animals which were driven out after the land was affected by strip miners in the 1970s.

We decided to take what was essentially a safari. The great thing about the animals in the Wilds is that they are completely unafraid. Safari bus drivers aren't allowed to honk at them, so they'll come right up to the bus and hang around the road. I won't give too many details, but here are some pictures of what we saw.

Rhinos

Persian Onagers

Bactrian Camels

African Wild Dogs

Various grazers (sable antelope, eland, etc)

Seen but not pictured: Przewalski's wild horses, cheetahs, Szechuan takins, various endangered deer.

Caring for the animals is clearly their top priority, as suggested by the sign below...

We also got to feed some catfish (and a hungry trumpeter swan) which is a somewhat more disgusting experience than feeding koi. Catfish mouths are yuckier than koi mouths.

In general, the Wilds was a better experience than any zoo I've been to. The animals seem to be really happy roaming around on their own, and also look really healthy.

Finally, we ended our day's journey in Columbus, where we first hit up the German Village, essentially a section of town that has German-style architecture and restaurants.




We had dinner in the German Village, at Schmidt's Sausage Haus. It was alright - after a great appetizer of their renowned pretzel nuggets, my Hoffbrau Schnitzel and Roy's Bahama Mama platter (sausage, tons of sauerkraut) were decent, but were nowhere near the homey goodness of Amish cooking. Their specialty is a half-pound cream puff, which we split and shared, which is essentially a bigger version of Beard Papa's with better cream.





Afterwards, we strolled over to a local fudge house (also a Schmidt store) to sample their chocolate, which was delicious!



Finally, we drove through downtown Columbus to our hotel. Columbus is a nice city, although it felt a little generic to me; it lacked the character of Pittsburgh and the charm of Philly, but it certainly had some nice parts.


Off to Kentucky tomorrow!