Monday, November 06, 2006

Our excursion to Springfield, Ohio

As promised a few posts back, I gonna describe the exciting time that Lynda and I had in Springfield, Ohio last Friday and Saturday. (That's right--for fun we chose to spend the night in nearby, picturesque Springfield, Ohio. Hey, don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

The reason for visiting Springfield was to go see the Frank Lloyd Wright Westcott House, a Prairie Style home that he built for an auto-maker living in Springfield at the turn of the century. This is the only Prairie Style home in Ohio and was opened to the public in October 2005 after many years of restoration. I heard about the house from Jack Thunder and Cordelia a few months back and at the time, I said that I would go with them sometime to experience the glory.

But then . . . my parents came to visit and they kindly offered to babysit overnight so Lynda and I could have some go out on a date. Lynda agreed to see the Westcott, since Springfield is pretty close--only thirty minutes west.

While investigating the Westcott House website, I noticed that there was a offer for a tour package that included tickets for the tour, a special gift and book from the gift store, and a night's stay in the Marriott hotel in downtown Springfield, which also included dinner and breakfast at the fancy bistro restaurant in the hotel.

We'd never been to Springfield, and so we didn't really know much about what was there or the quality of the restaurant. But we were extremely pleased with the food. It was great and the amount of money we spent on the room and the food we ate were more than covered by the price of the tour package.

But Springfield itself was nice also. The weather wasn't as nice as we wanted, but the hotel downtown was in a nicely renovated area, which seemed to me to be a former train station area.


These are buildings across the street from our third floor room. It could be a church (frankly I'm not sure) but it might also be part of an old, renovated train station complex. There was a railroad line that ran through the area right next to the hotel. The hotel lobby offered complementary ear plugs to drown out any train noise, but it didn't bother me.

The next day, we visited the house.

On the way back home, we drove past this nice old power plant. I took a picture of it because during the tour, our guide mentioned that Springfield was one of first towns to get electricity. Now I don't know if that is true or not, but it made me appreciate this old building.


These posts don't really do justice to the whole experience of the visit. But it does give me a handy reason to use this opportunity to launch my latest web site addition to the Why Won't You Grow?! family.

Why Won't You Visit?!
is a thematic site, intended to list many of the sites, sounds, and things to do in the area. It is not complete yet, but I'll be periodically adding to it to provide a resource for those who dare venture up here to visit the family . . . if coming to visit me isn't reason enough, that is.

So, come for Burb, stay for the Frank Lloyd Wright, enjoy the wide variety of stuff. You'll be glad you did. I promise.

3 comments:

lulu said...

The Weekend Getaway Package Deal Blog Post Challenge is ON! Tune in to www.ruralfetish.blogspot.com sometime after Thanksgiving weekend for my own tale of a romantic overnight getaway--with free food and event tickets!!!--in a neighboring burg.

Text message your vote for the best post to . . . um, I don't have a text message-capable phone. But I WILL have a kickin' time in Cleveland, baby, yeah!

Cleveland will rock.

David said...

Bring it on Lulu! Wallow in your Rock and Rollness.

You can't touch the sheer variety of my posts--

Different Websites!

Photographs!

Reader Participation!

I cover all the bases and stimulate all the senses!

lulu said...

Oh, but I CAN.

Well, maybe not the different web sites. I don't possess that Starbucks-like drive to have a blog spot on every corner. I guess I'm just a wee bit higher on Maslow's scale?

; D