Spur of the moment side trip in Ohio conjures lots of fond, family memories

For many years in the 1990s, the period when I was helping to raise my four children in Indianapolis, I would treat them to a meal out of the house on Saturday nights. More often than not, we'd end up at a Bob Evans restaurant, which had a menu offering a lot choices.

The meal choices included popular items on the special kids' menu, which made eating out for the five of us pretty affordable on a weekly basis. The kids had their favorites (one of my daughters made it a point to frequently order two potato sides -- french fries and mashed potatoes -- with her entree). They probably remember that I ordered the fried (and, for a while, cajun seasoned) catfish dinner and side garden salad with Italian dressing (but no onions) more often than not.

All my kids are over 30 years of age now, but I still think about them -- the small, dependent versions -- every time I pass a Bob Evans.

In 2014, when Lee Ann and I started making trips from Indianapolis to North Carolina to visit her son and his family in the Raleigh suburb of Cary, we'd drive along U.S. 35 in Ohio, and I'd again think about the kids when we'd pass the exit for Rio Grande, where the Bob Evans Farm Restaurant Museum attraction is located. (Bob's first restaurant opened in 1946 in Gallipolis, which isn't far from Rio Grande). In all the many times we'd drive that route, I'd often thought about taking the Bob Evans Farm exit to check out the attraction, but we never did.

On Monday, we were eastbound on U.S. 35 in Ohio, returning to North Carolina from a short trip to a family wedding in Indianapolis, when we both realized we were hungry, and Bob's sounded like a good fit to address that. It had been a long while since either of us had been to a Bob's.

The restaurant on the Bob Evans Farm property isn't anything special. That's it in the picture leading off the post above. I don't recall seeing catfish on the menu when we were there, so I opted for the cornbread coated fried cod. It wasn't as good as I had hoped, and Lee Ann wasn't fond of the turkey dinner she ordered. So in that sense, the visit was a slight disappointment.

The farm itself -- which had hosted its annual festival the previous week (and remnants of the celebration were still evident) -- was interesting from what I could see. We hadn't planned to spend a lot of time checking it out (in fact, Lee Ann went to the car as soon as we finished our meal, so I scurried to take the landscape photos in this post).The farm has several buildings and a few markers and lots of acreage.

Above and below: The two sides of the same historical marker telling the Bob Evans story.

Above and next three below: The area where they hosted the farm festival the weekend of Oct. 12-14.

Above: As I  mentioned in the text above, I didn't spend a lot of time grabbing these pictures. I didn't learn the background or history of this home, but as the red sign on the far left indicates, the long green cart with red wheels in front of the home is offered as a place for people to stand for pictures that put the home in the background.

Above: An attempt at something artful in at least one of my pictures. I don't know ...  

Perspective and closeup shots (above and below) of a barn whose history is explained in the sign in front (second photo below).  

Above: The restaurant road sign promoting the farm festival is still up, even though the festival was the previous weekend.