A hot day trip to Flint Ridge

It seemed like a good day for a trip.  The weather was warm (70s to 80s) and everyone else in the family was off doing other things for the whole day.

I left right after breakfast and drove to the east, via US 42 to South Charleston and London, Ohio.  I left London via state route 142 to US 40 which I took into Columbus and the Broad Street entrance to I 70.

I had looked at downtown Columbus on the map and decided to forego the fun of all those lights by taking I 70 through town.  However, on the far east side of town, I hooked north to US 40 in Reynoldsburg.  This was a small mistake.  The traffic was pretty heavy and all the roads were choked with construction.  It would have been much easier if I would have stayed on I 70 to  exit 118 (an additional 6 miles) and the little town of Etna. 

Regardless of the construction, I continued easbound to Brownsville, near exit 141 of I 70 and took 668 north 3 miles to the Flint Ridge state historical site. 

I have a historical site pass for the year, so I was able to avoid the entrance fee. 

The museum at Flint Ridge is built around a flint quary used at some remote time in the past.  The small museum shows what a working quary would have looked like - with its central hole about 10 feet deep through the limestone crust of the ridge. 

Seeing the museum prepared me well for the mile long day hike I took.  The woods were full of unexcavated holes just like the one I had seen in the museum.  There were dozens and dozens of them.  Some much bigger than the museum one, and many about the same size.  Each one was filled with wet leaf mold and the products of forest debris and water collecting in the quary pit.

After walking through the woods (and finding many flint chips in the root balls of trees that had been blown over) I started back via a different route.  I drove to Newark along Flint Ridge Road and then a connector.  I headed west on SR 16 to SR37 ending up in Delaware, OH.  From there I took US 42 all the way back to Xenia and from there took small county roads to my home. 

This return route took about a half hour longer, but completely avoided Columbus and the interstate. 

I enjoyed this trip to Flint Ridge and the quary sites that have been used by Native Americans for 10,000 years.