Washington Courthouse & Chillicothe, Ohio

Washington Court House, Ohio 

Well…it was another day driving from Athens, Ohio, to Washington Court House, Ohio, and I was on the look-out for something interesting to photograph… even though the leaves are gone, the amber waves of grain are gone, the brilliant snow and blue skies are not here yet, and spring is so far away I don't even want to think about it. There was not a single interesting farm vehicle lumbering down the road. (If you want to see past sunny and snowy scenes of this same area, click HERE and/or HERE.)

Washington Court House is located west of Columbus, Ohio. We live in Southern Ohio, though, so I approach it from the south, taking the Appalachian Highway west toward Cincinnati, but cutting up on Rt. 35 at Jackson to Chillicothe and then to Washington Court House (thus named due to the Revolutionary War heroes who settled there, and were loyal to George Washington). 

There are many beautiful old homes, new homes, and wonderful new school buildings there. Chillicothe is located a bit farther south. I usually zip past it on my way from one place to another, but today I decided to get off the highway and see what the downtown looked like. It'd been a while since I'd seen it. 

I was drawn to the old things today… 

But I am also continually amazed by the smoke (?) pouring out of a factory of some sort in Chillicothe (you'll notice it too in a photo at the links noted in paragraph one). Today I wanted to see it up close and, boy, was I surprised to find it is just a block away from a school. Kids coming out of school see the white smoke just floating all around. I don't know what it is, but I put my car's air intake setting on "inside air" when I was there, just in case. I mean, it's got to be okay, right? But, jeepers, there were clouds of "stuff" coming out of there. I was wishing Erin Brockovich was in the car with me to tell me if I needed to worry….

Okay, enough editorializing… here are the photos!

In Washington Court House, I stopped to take a photo of this cool truck, which was at a junkyard, and noticed something through the trees.

Here's the junkyard from my car.

Here's my favorite photo of the day! Taken with Hipstamatic "Jimmy" lens on iPhone.

Which do you prefer: the photo taken with my Canon of the truck or the photo taken with the Histamatic iPhone app?

This shape, above,  intrigued me.

I liked this view above because in the distance is what seems to be an abandoned school, from the 1960s, perhaps (they have two beautiful new schools in town. And then there's this even older building in the foreground. Both discarded from different decades. 

So, here I am approaching the smokestacks. The school is just down the road here, to the left of the stacks.

I pulled up alongside the front of the administration building. There was a loading dock just past it and there were a few guys on their way to work.

I wanted to see if I could get a good photo from another side of town, and when I pulled over to take the photo below, this image above was just out the car window to my right. I really like old textures. This reminded me of the institution door on the cover of "My Beginning."

Letting go of my fascination with factories, I headed toward the "downtown" and noticed this house….

Here is a little trump l'oiel! Also, about the only people I saw on the street at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Here is a shot of downtown Chillicothe.

I didn't know what a "New System" bakery was, especially since it had another sign that said it had been in business for 90 years. It required a photograph. I required a peanut butter cookie. It led me to doubt the new system. 

Since the New System Bakery told me they could not sell me coffee but would give me coffee but it was probably "old" having been made "two hours at least" earlier; I had to stop at Krispy Kreme where I did NOT buy anything but a cup of coffee; and it was pretty good. I liked the windows in this place.

Right by Krispy Kreme is the Mission for Christ led by Pastor Vickie somebody. 

I took this photo for my husband, Mark.

All photos copyright 2011 by Janice Phelps Williams. All rights reserved.