Unique Places We’ve Visited
US Places
Canadian Places
I don’t want to be a travel writer. I don’t write about how pretty that waterfall was or how majestic the mountains were at sunset. However, I really enjoy seeing these sights and one of the highlights of my life is to visit unique places. The good news… there are a gazillion unique places—often local, sometimes tiny, usually interesting, occasionally free, but always a bit different.
So, I’m sharing my list. Here is a tiny sampling of where we have been and what we have seen. I have gleaned out what I thought were the more unusual and/or exciting to me. Some are well known. Some are almost unknown.
[Author note… I receive lots of questions about why some well known places are not on my list. If it’s not here, it means I haven’t visited it yet or thought these were more unique. It doesn’t mean I didn’t like them. I would visit them all if possible!]
Do you have some neat places you’ve visited, if so, let me know at… rej@gte.net
Restaurants, too.
I tucked my great restaurants into the list. These are unusual. I placed asterisks (**) at the beginning of the entry. Some are top dollar and first class—$$$—others are low dollar and no class but all are good. (Please, no comments about the health benefits of my food choices. This is my website. Start your own.)
Why We Visit Unique Places
That was just a sampling of places we visited in the past few years. We “meander” the USA and Canada—four or five days in one place is a long time. We are willing to stop anywhere at anytime to see anything. There is no “master plan” for our travels. I don’t have this scheduled years in advance. Most of it isn’t scheduled weeks or even days in advance.
We never try to see everything on our loosely planned route and always assume we’ll be back. Plus, we stumble onto some really neat places by accident. One excellent example of this was Greenville, Ohio…
We were at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (I’m retired military, have this privilege, but that’s another story.) and visiting the Air Force Museum. I was online looking for other interesting places in southwestern Ohio and stumbled onto the Whirlpool Corporation. Their plant in Greenville manufactured the Kitchen Aid mixer and they offered factory tours. We both cook so a tour seemed like a different thing to do.
I called. The woman suggested the afternoon factory tour and use the morning to visit the Garst Museum in Greenville. I’d never heard of this place so I called them. To my surprise, this museum had a major exhibit about Annie Oakley!
We arrived at the Garst Museum early, had a great visit, and were impressed with the Annie Oakley exhibit. At lunchtime, we asked a docent to recommend a local place.
She didn’t hesitate and told us to walk to the “Maid Rite.” This tiny building is home of the “Maid Rite Loose Meat Sandwich“—a local mixture of ground beef and whatever. What you get is simply a hamburger that is made with “loose” ground beef—not a patty—served on a bun. It is simply wonderful and cheap, too. I’d go back.
Visiting by Accident
Our visit to Greenville was totally by accident. We had a wonderful time there and learned where to save big money on appliances. I would definitely order that sandwich again and the Annie Oakley exhibit was outstanding. We even considered moving our coach to Greenville for a couple of days but we didn’t—I don’t remember why. Likely, we found something else to do or some other unique place to visit. Hey, it’s what we do.