A Day of Midwestern Excellence

July 31, 2025 by Brigham Barnes

We celebrated June 19th 2025 with a quick drive to West Liberty, Ohio for a visit to the famed Ohio Caverns caverns (“America’s Most Colorful Caverns”). We went whole hog and did both of their available tours — the historic tour (where you visit the first cavern discovered by the farmer who farmed the property and the muddy treks people used to take through its tunnels (fortunately for us they are not muddy anymore!)) and the Wonders of Nature tour where you tour a more recently-discovered cavern. Between caverns we visited the gift shop.

Here’s the gift shop that I mentioned earlier…

Time for the Nature’s Wonders tour! Should mention now that these tours were given by local teens who really knew the tour script backwards and forwards. Great job, teens!

Now at the Ohio Caverns we saw these pamphlets for a “castle” nearby so, hey why not? We went and toured Mac-A-Cheek Castle, a mansion a gentleman farmer built after returning from World War I (if I remember right). And after walking around Mac-A-Cheek we looked at the outsides of Mac-O-Chee Castle, which was built by the gentleman farmer’s gentleman brother just like a mile away (it’s an event venue now and not for touring).

So it seems like a pretty great day so far, right? Well guess what? It gets even better! Because we drove to nearby Urbana, Ohio and got little burgers (and sliced hot dogs!) from famed little hamburger shop Crabill’s and guess what? Those little burgers (and little sliced hot dogs) completely sent me to heaven. They were just so magnificently good, don’t know how to account for it. Magic assembly of onion, pickle, relish and brown mustard? Plus a little dip in the griddle grease? A recipe for magnificence.

And the day still isn’t done! Because we went to Batelle Darby Creek park to get a Metro Park Passport for to memorialize all our metro park visits in…

AND THE EXCELLENCE CONTINUES! On the way home from the park we discovered a … uh … petting zoo without petting? Where you could buy feed cups and feed animals through the fence, just maybe three miles from our house! How fun! There was an ostrich, goats, a zedonk, and a water buffalo! Maybe other animals too?

And THEN we got milkshakes. What a federal holiday it was!

A Memorial Day Trip to Utah

July 01, 2025 by Brigham Barnes

May 24:

Liz and I celebrated the last week of May by taking a little direct flight out to Salt Lake!

We kicked off the trip by standing in line for our rental car but that’s ok, we have a kitty cam now so it was a good time to check on Cornelius and confuse him by talking at him through it. Also, my friend Emily (you know, Mary’s sister?) spotted us in line and said Hey — which was great because it had been ages. And you know what I found out when I got to the counter? I have Premiere status or whatever and could have skipped the line. No one told me! I checked my receipt, it didn’t say I was special. Oh well. Like I said, we got to check on Cornelius.

First Stop after we get the car? Slackwater for some calzones! Next time: we’ll just split a calzone. Next stop? Visiting Doug and getting schooled in a variety of games. The Next Next Stop? We go visit Liz’s college and music friends Lacey and Elijah!

After some conviviality with her pals, I walked a big downtown SLC loop while they continued their catch up fun. No pics but there is a REAL nice public restroom on Temple Square now. Yes, lots of stuff is under contstruction, but the restroom is up and flushin’!

We concluded our day of activities by visiting Jake and Natalie and Ooops I did not get a picture. We visited lots of great people on this trip and, well, did not get a picture of all of them. We were having too much fun!

May 25: A dream come true day! We drove down to Canyonlands and checked off Liz’s final Utah National Park.
When we were nearly there we stopped at this tourist trap jerky shop and got trapped into spending SO much money on chips jerky and candy but, oh well, it was vacation! Ka-Chow!

Our visit to Canyonlands hit a small snag when we found ourselves in a, what was it, hour and twenty minute line to get into the park? But we persevered and then we got to see the canyons and walk around!

May 26: A chill Memorial Day in Highland. Started with a trip to a great Mexican grocery store in Orem to get ingredients for our dinner and then we got kolaches, and then we chilled out by the pool and stuff until we made shader & chorizo tacos and then we went and had a blast at Mission Impossible : Final Reckoning!

May 27: First, I took a Highland walk. A yard guy complimented my Spy t-shirt. Great walk.

And then we headed up to Provo for … a PROVO DAY. First stop? DI! Second stop? Liz’s best college friend Liz’s house and next-door under construction house! Third stop? In n Out with Liz and Liz and Liz’z kidz!

And then? Up to BYU where I met up with College roommate Dan to talk about the book he’s writing while Liz chatted with Tawna. And then after my Dan visit was done I did a quick BYU campus loop. It needs more trees. Badly.

And then? A real, real treat … Don Joaquin’s with my mission companion “Elder” Gomez and his wife. What a joyous reunion! What fun to visit and how nice to have a wife that loves going to Mexico City and talking about Mexico City.

And then … we met up with the Edwards for colonial-themed ice cream and met my nice-in-law-to-be London for the first time and, as usual, there are not photos.

May 28: First - petting the puppies and taking a Highland walk!

Then a Layton trip for fried chicken with the Beans (oops, no photo) and thrifting with the Beans (oops, no photo), a visit with the Pearsons (oops, no photo) and another visit with Doug and Amy (oops, no photo).

May 29: First, a great taco lunch with Cory before heading up to Heber for our first visit to Hawk and Sparrow Brick and Mortar!

And then we drove on down to Ephraim (Ephraim!), checked into our nice hotel (no photo) had a Mexican dinner and enjoyed a great visit to the Manti temple. Wow. If you want to talk about the Manti temple I will talk about the Manti temple!

May 30: Now I sort of forget that the “point” of our Utah trip, or the impetus at least, was that I was speaking at my 3rd Mormon Scholars of the Humanities conference which was being held at Snow College this year. Friday morning I went to the conference while Liz enjoyed her old college stomping grounds and then we met up for a pizza lunch.

And then we went back to Snow and I presented on Arno Schmidt and, honestly, it was a bit of a hit? He’s an interesting guy so the room got interested! I presented, I had my slide show, and then I got to answer plenty of Q’s during the Q&A. Another great thing about the conference? My Freshman English teacher was there! Always awesome to see Paula! When the conference was done we zipped up to Highland for Indian with the Edwards and, yeah, no pictures except for this one of me and Liz.

After Indian we walked to and around Alpine with Kristen and Cory (look! a picture of them! kind of!) and watched a movie in the basement because actually on this trip we watched a lot of movies in the Edwards basement … like, 3, maybe!

May 31: And then, shoot, May was over and our trip was over! One more Highland walk, one more visit to Doug, and then we flew on back to Columbus and our cat (who we had been watching on the kitty cam all week long).

February through May 2025!

June 09, 2025 by Brigham Barnes

This isn’t just a blog about trips, it’s also a blog about what Liz and I do here in Columbus. Let’s get caught up!

February 2: Nice walk around our neighborhood.

February 9: Liz sang at the Columbus Art Museum but it looks like I just have pictures of the art.

February 15: Belated Valentine’s because Liz had a big gig the night before…we have a tradition now, burgers and milkshakes for Valentine’s. This year: Burgers at Johnie’s Tavern, shakes at Graeter’s, and then Paddington 3 to wrap it up.

February 16: Reorganization of the ward, reorganization of the bishopric, but we’re not leaving either.

February 20: Liz had a gig at an indoor amusement park attached to a quiet mall.

February 21: Hibachi with Anne!

February 25, March 9, March 18: Walks in our neighborhood. We look at the cats in the other houses and say “Ooh, a kitty! Cornelius would not like them.”