Theater, Lavender Fields and a Covered Bridge

We traveled to Wilmington, Ohio, for a trade show this weekend. Setup was not until 1pm, so that gave us several hours to explore the area since we have never been here before. We looked on the internet for interesting things to see and off we went for an antique shop downtown. After spending an hour or so at the Old Mill antique shop we decided to walk around downtown Wilmington. It is a quaint downtown area, still looking a lot like it did in the 1940’s, with book stores, candy and sandwich shops, and hotels. We took a quick look inside the General Denver Hotel. We did not see a lot of it but it looks very interesting with really good prices.

Down the street was a local theatre that looked kind of interesting. It is our view that it never hurts to ask for a tour of anything that looks interesting. Delise went into the office and inquired about a tour. The lady had just come back with lunch so we told her we would come back in a little while. After checking out the local candy shop, The Crave Candy & Nuts, then going down the street and sitting in a great little hidden park we headed back to the Murphy Theatre.

We were we shocked when we went inside. We were greeted by Tanya Snarr, the executive director. She was Gracious, enthusiastic and very excited to show us this local treasure.  If you are ever in this area of Ohio it is definitely worth the trip.  When the Murphy Theatre was built in 1918 it would seat about 20% of the town – 950 people. The acoustics are just as amazing as the architecture!

We can never pass up anything blooming and it is the season for Lavender in Ohio. We saw several farms in area and decided to go to Peaceful Acres Lavender Farm about 10 miles south of here. As we pulled up we saw 4 people “bailing” lavender in the field. We talked briefly with one of the owners who was heading out to market with some of her goods.  She said we could pick as much as we could get into a small bundle for $10. The aroma of fresh lavender was almost overwhelming. Delise grabbed the cutters and headed into the field. After competing with the bees for a few minutes she had a nice little bundle!

The time was flying by and we really did have to get to work… As we headed back towards the convention center we happened up on the 70 foot long Martinsville Covered Bridge which was originally built in 1871. It rehabilitated in 2006 and is still in use today. We love covered bridges!

Did we mention that there are a lot of old barns up here…