Ohio attractions

Location: On a 100-foot-high bluff near the Great Miami River in Miamisburg Mound Park.

Location: The only place in the world where KitchenAid stand mixers are produced is the KitchenAid factory at 1701 KitchenAid Way in Greenville.

Ask Nancy Stranahan, “What’s the point of preserving plain old woods?” and you’re certain to get an earful.

“I’d say guilty as charged, except for the word ‘plain,'” Stranahan says, explaining that southern Ohio’s hardwood forests are the last best chance to save an ecosystem that has one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. “The fact that 100,000 multicellular native organisms are at stake takes ‘plain’ out of the discussion.”

Location: Main Street (U.S. 62/State Route 39) in Berlin, a Holmes County village in the heart of northeast Ohio’s Amish Country.

What’s Cow Patty ice cream? According to Dan Young, CEO and chief ice cream scooper at Young’s Jersey Dairy, that’s customers’ most common question. Folks need only glance at the pasture where Young’s Jersey cows graze to figure out what inspired Cow Patty’s name, but Young considers the question an opportunity to interact with guests.

Location: Adjacent to U.S. 23, about 14 miles north
of Marion.

Throughout the nation, baking — and eating — Christmas cookies is as time-honored a tradition as mistletoe and candy canes during the holiday season.

In Ohio’s Amish Country, the Christmas Cookie Tour of Inns elevates the beloved custom to a whole new level.

Dan and Linda Downs had an easy time scheduling this year’s Christmas open house at Pine Acres Reindeer Farm for Dec. 22 — turns out, it’s the only Saturday before Christmas that their reindeer weren’t already booked. “We’re busy taking reindeer to events throughout Ohio from Thanksgiving through Christmas,” Dan Downs says.

Pumpkin pie may rule on Thanksgiving, but at Lebanon’s Golden Lamb, Sister Lizzie’s Shaker sugar pie gives it serious competition. The cream-style pie, a perpetual customer favorite, is based on a recipe that was accidentally discovered after Robert and Virginia Jones purchased the Golden Lamb in 1926.

Location: In addition to its headquarters and roasting and training facilities on Alum Creek Drive in Columbus, Crimson Cup Coffee and Tea owns and operates two coffee shops in the city’s Clintonville and Upper Arlington neighborhoods plus another inside the Greater Columbus Convention Center. The company also has a fourth location in the Akron suburb of Tallmadge.