Timmy - Olentangy Indian Caverns

So. You've got an afternoon to kill, a fetish for rocks and no desire at all to be out past dark? Olentangy Indian Caverns is your ticket to a good, cheap time.

Apparently Michael Jackson's ancestors were Native Americans!

The caverns, located near SR315 on Home Rd (north of Powell-ish), are a scenic trip away from the city-slash-'burbs without being too far. No hotel reservation or plans to stay with those creepy relatives you only see at Christmas are needed, you will have plenty of time to get back home and sleep in your own bed.

Lynn and I purchased our "self-guided tour" admissions (buy-one-get-one with the coupon from the Entertainment Book, yay!), grabbed the smartly laminated (but mostly confusing) map and headed down the hill towards the cavern entrance, which apparently, is underneath the museum.

Exploring the caverns was a lot of fun; I mostly shuffled about futzing with the map and trying to avoid injury on low-hanging rocks (Over 6'1"? You may want to reconsider). Some kind of weird sci-fi mania overtook my normally squeamish partner -the same girl who yelled at me for touching the bottom of my shoe once- causing her to attempt to shimmy into each dimly-lit crevice of the cave we happened upon.

Yeah, Lynn totally wanted to explore that. No thanks, I said.

After wandering about the cave, listening to the disembodied voice describe assorted scenes of gritty, mossy, glistening or ominous cave-ness, we wound our way out and returned to the gift shop (must return map!) to peruse their selection. Lynn bought a ring, I considered some of their fine Olentangy Indian Caverns Dippin' Dots but alas, it was not to be.

We did partake in some old-fashioned-but-still-not-that-old-fashioned mining activity. We each bought a bag of goodie-enriched dirt and headed down to the sluice to see what we got.

Lynn's bag contained some fossils, a few teeth (sharp!) and this fine piece of gold!

Hahaha it's Fool's Gold (aka Pyrite), fool!

After playing with the dirt for a while, we headed for home. Overall the visit lasted us about 2 hours, which was well worth the price of admission (especially with the coupon) and short time to get there.

I'd recommend the Olentangy Indian Caverns to anyone looking to have some old-fashioned, slightly dirt-heavy fun on a weekend. Also a great excuse for adults to play with dirt, though it may be less obvious if you bring children as a cover-up.

Pros:

1. Cheap - Admission for the self-guided tour was only $8.50/person.
2. Close to home - Trip was ~25 minutes from downtown Columbus
3. FUN! - Explore a cave, walk in the woods, play with dirt and rocks like a kid.

Cons:

1. Dangerous - Tall people and small children may want to avoid. Lots of opportunity to hit your head and or fall into a hole that goes who knows where.
2. Unchanging - It's not like they add new rocks to the caverns.

Score: 8/10 - Skip the movie marathon on TV and go visit the Olentangy Indian Caverns!

Lynn - Olentangy Indian Caverns

Hooray for Staycation. Today Timothy and I had a two-parted adventure. We started out at the Wasserstrom Restaurant Supply Store, which sounds kinda lame, but it was actually really cool. I totally want to work there too. If you ever wondered where you can go to buy a neon flashing open sign, or a years supply of chopsticks, or a fridge for you mini mart with "ICE COLD BEVERAGES" across the top, then this is the place. I suddenly felt like I was part of the world of Columbus chefs too, which was pretty fun. Ever wonder where people get those black baggy pants with the white pin stripes!?!? sheeeeit, man.

The reason we went there was to find some shallow dishes for a lil project I want to do, and we did in fact find the perfect one, unfortunately, it was just the one, and I needed several. They recommended Bed Bath and Beyond!! WTF?

Oh well, It would definitely be a good place to go for cheaper party supplies like mini umbrellas and things, and it was just fun to explore.

After Wasserstrom we started on our journey to the Olentangy Indian Caverns. We arrived and it seemed pretty dead, but if you know me, that is a good sign. It made me a little sad that no one was there, but I was still glad. We checked out the lil gift shop, but didn't buy anything but our tickets at first. I felt kinda lost at the beginning because there was no big sign that was like HEY ENTER THE GIANT CAVE HERE! instead it was a creepy cellar looking door at the back of a small house.

So we headed down and were pretty much down there by ourselves. It had old recordings in a lot of the cavey rooms, that told history and interesting facts n stuff. I turned into a kid in there though, Tim kept warning me that I was going to get us in trouble. There were all these tunnels that had been drilled out in order to find other rooms but actually led no where. There were tunnels only a few feet wide, but for some reason I had this outrageous need to explore them. Tim reminded me that we weren't allowed to leave the given paths or touch the walls. FINE! So instead we just shot flashlights down the tunnels and took pictures. I liked how not safe the whole thing was, there were some spots that a kid could easily topple down into cracks and break their head. I did at one point have a morbid thought of wondering how many people had died down in there... ooOOOooo... The chance of severe injury, arrest or death made it more exciting.

After the caverns we went back to the gift shop where things were surprisingly cheap. I got a hematite ring and we also got bags o dirt for the mining/washing/whatever its called you do to sift treasures out of dert. Tim got the various gems bag and I got the fossils one. It was actually really fun to do, we couldn't stop expressing how big of dorks we were. Not quite renaissance dorks, but still...

After the rocky fun, we kinda just walked around the area and took more pictures, we saw some creepy statues, and I apparently humped one of them. We walked through a woodsy area which kinda led to nowhere and took some pictures of a bluebird. It was such a perfect day for it, since it was the same temperature outside as it is inside the caverns year round. I ganked a brochure that lists other caverns in Ohio, and Tim and I have agreed to venture to some of the other ones soon. I do remember the stalactites at the Ohio Caverns from when I was little.

STAYCATION RATING:
Funness: **** - quite fun and interesting
Educationalness: **** - yay indians and rocks! indians chillin with rocks!
Cheapness: ***** - we had a buy one get one admission coupon, and the tickets were only 8.50 anyway. The gift shop stuff was super cheap. Some things I couldn't believe the price.
Journeyness: **** - short trip, with pretty stuff to look at on the way.
Busyness ***** - not busy at ALL, especially considering we were there on a Saturday afternoon.

Overall ***** - We both lurved it and had a good time.

Our upcoming staycation ideas: The Ohio Historical Society, Ohio Caverns, The Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum, Budweiser Factory Tour

Lynn - The Renaissance Festival

Welcome to Lynn & Timmy's Staycation Saturday BLOG!!!!! YA!!!!!! WOO!!!! WHORES!!!
Made to log our adventures in the exciting state of Ohio!
I shoulda started this a few weeks ago, because that is when the adventurousness began. Apparently at my ripe old age of 25, I have grown bored with the activities of sleeping all day, staring at facebook, and hitting the same bar night after night (I still love you, Pointe Tavern!). But It all started with a strange desire to go to the Renaissance Festival.
I had been there once before when I was in about 3rd grade, but I didn't remember much about it other than lots of creepy people pretending they were actually in that time and slightly British. And really, that's about all it has to offer, pretty weird people, and a lot of stuff to buy. So we looked at the weird people and the stuff. I bought a blue glass ring for 2 bucks, a Tshirt (because I was retarded and wore a bulky sweater that day), and a bag o "the king's nuts."
The trip was long, and we didn't really stay that long either. We felt kinda like we didn't know what to do with ourselves the whole time we were there, and there were a lot of smelly d&d nerds. For our first trip, it was kinda lame, but the adventures will continue nonetheless!!

5 STAR STAYCATION RATING:
Funness: ** - we were kinda just lost. we stayed for about 45 minutes.
Educationalness: *** - uhh it might have been, but I don't think it was really that accurate.
Cheapness: ** - tickets were almost 40 bucks combined and didn't include any activities.
Journeyness: * - too long with not a lot to look at and not a lot of payout.
Busyness ** - it was pretty damn busy, hard to even get into the shops.

Overall ** - (pretty lame-sauce) you'll prolly only be into it if you like to pretend you're a knight or you have a lot of money and too much freetime (aka scary nerd)