Trip to Ohio

Well, the summer is nearly over but of course we had the mid-Ohio race to attend which meant that I got to hang out with Malissa while Darren did things at the track, autographs of course.  The drive went well, and since this trip have come to realize that I sleep quite great in cars usually in 2 hour increments.  This is helpful when the trips are longer ones and of course Darren would rather talk than let me read.  Or his talk radio becomes too loud to enjoy my movie during the drive.

Malissa took me to Mansfield Reformatory, it was awesome!  We were about a half hour late for the tour so they just caught us up with the group.  Malissa had been to a tour previously, it was slightly different as they have 3 different tours but she filled me in on certain things considering that we were slightly behind the group getting images as the rooms emptied out.  The group was probably about 30 people if not more, nice size, and the guides were very helpful.  The architect had many decorative designs in the Prison which was great to see & how it was incorporated.

The Reformatory became a maximum security prison before it was closed in 1990.  It was slowly becoming demolished in the sense of the government took out a building and were taking things out, a fund is in place to keep it in its original form thanks to the Historical Society.  There have been movies filmed here, including Top Gun- the Russian prison, The Shawshank Redemption.  Signs of the films and music videos are noticeable throughout the tour.  Lil' Wayne used a cell and "pimped it out" for a music video and unfortunately left it that way.  Malissa also let me know that person whom was a prisoner at one time went back to his cell and had it set up the way it was while he spent his years there- unfortunately that was not on our tour.  A prison & maximum security prison are behind this one, we were able to go up to the roof above the Library but were not allowed to take photos of course.  Prisoners who died there were plotted not too far behind their stone only has their prisoner number and nothing else, how sad, to be remembered as a number.

They also do ghost hunts, public & private overnight tours, were more free reign of the prison is allowed.  People rent it for weddings, a school uses it for prom and more.  We hope to do an overnight tour sometime. 

It was a great tour, great trip, relaxing and a nice race to round out the weekend.