Ohio Valley Antique Mall

One of my favorite antiquing destinations is the Ohio Valley Antique Mall in Fairfield. That’s in the greater Cincinnati area so it’s a bit of a haul over there but always worth the trip because they have so much stuff and typically good prices.

Best of all, there’s not a lot of the flea market junk we have at some stores closer to home. Instead, there’s a lot of quality booths brimming with treasures.

Someone likes green. This entire booth is devoted to items in various shades of green. It’s the only place I’ve ever seen this done to this scale. This is actually less than one half of the booth.

Then there are the suitcases. So many suitcases!

And a fair amount of ingenious upcycling.

Booths like this always make me think there’s a guy out there who got married and whose new wife wouldn’t let him keep his man cave. I mean, it looks like some dude’s rec room just got packed up and moved to a corner booth!

If you’re into Fiesta, there’s a booth packed with new Fiesta items. Honestly, they have so much stuff here that if you can’t find it, you probably don’t need it.

Want to go? Check out their website for hours and information. They do have restrooms, vending machines and a snack bar. There are also a couple of fast food restaurants in adjacent parking lots.

Road tripping adventures

Mr. Wonderful and I spent our long weekend adventuring through parts of Kentucky and southern Ohio. As is true of most fun times, this weekend went far too fast and I’m a little sad to be home. But we have a lot of memories and pictures to keep us company until our next adventure.

We are reasonably tame as adventurers go. No ziplines or lion taming here. I won’t bore you with all the details but here are a few highlights.

We were two of four people on a tour of Ashland, the Lexington home of Henry Clay. The tour was very informative and the house beautiful. Pictures inside the home aren’t permitted but I could take all the pictures I wanted of the grounds and gardens.

Isn’t it lovely?

I have a thing for architectural elements. This guy was too awesome to not share.

Tours of the home cost $9 per person and are worth every dime. Our tour guide was informative and the home is beautiful. I think you can walk the grounds for free though.

We also toured the Wild Turkey Distiliary. I’m not a drinker but still enjoyed learning about how this product is made. It amazes me that it takes just three days to make but years to age. Wild Turkey ages for at least six to ten years in a world where we expect everything to happen instantaneously. Few companies would invest in a product they can’t sell for a decade.

In case you are wondering, the tour was free so it was a great value!

Another place with great photo ops was the Kentucky Horse Park. This place is sprawling and, if you enjoy horses, you could literally spend the entire day. We just had a few hours so we only took in the highlights.

Admission to the horse park is $16 per person but that includes admission to all the museums, the shows and even a horsedrawn trolley tour of the park.

We also ate really well (or badly, depending on your perspective) on this trip. One great meal came from Billy’s Bar-B-Q which is near the Henry Clay Home in Lexington. We had the special that day – a delicious pulled pork plate with two big sides and cornbread. Their  cornbread, a combination of cornbread and white bread, is tasty!

It was seven or eight dollars per person and a great value for the money. As an aside, our fast food meals later that evening were about $6 per person. Sigh. What a rip off.

But the centerpiece of the trip was the Bob Dylan/Leon Russell concert at Riverbend in Cincinnati. Bob doesn’t allow cameras so I have no pictures but I promise you it was a great show. I’m not a big Bob Dylan fan but Mr. Wonderful is a super fan. He was in seventh heaven and I enjoyed seeing his zeal.

So that’s the weekend in a nutshell. If you’re planning a weekend or vacation and you’re within driving distance of Lexington I would highly recommend this city. The city has an amazing mix of historic and modern elements and is a very southern town with great hospitality.

I feel guilty because this isn’t an especially frugal post but trust me when I say there are a lot of things to do that cost little or no money. We opted for some of the more costly activities because we had limited time and those were the things that interested us most. Since we saved a lot on the hotel by using Priceline we could afford to splurge a little in other areas.

We are already talking about going back sometime to take in the things we couldn’t do. Isn’t it wonderful to leave a place feeling there is so much more to discover than you could experience? That leaves the door open for future exploring!