Paula, John Olesky & World's Tallest Cuckoo Clock

I went a bit cuckoo . . . and loved it!

Some people say I’m a bit cuckoo. So why not visit the 24-foot-tall “World’s Largest Cuckoo Clock” in Sugarcreek, Ohio?

So that’s what Paula and I did during our all-day Thursday trip that included visiting Lehman’s Amish Hardware Store in Dalton, Ohio, hiking in Mohican State Forest in Loudenville, visiting a “castle” that didn’t look much like one to me compared to the one we visited in Wales and topping it off with dinner at Dutch Valley Restaurant in Sugarcreek.

The cuckoo clock, built in 1972, was moved from its Wilmot, Ohio home to Sugarcreek, The Little Switzerland of Ohio, in 2010.

On the hour and half-hour, a three-foot-tall plaster couple on tracks dance the polka to Bavarian music played by a five-piece robot oompa band. The lady circles the gentleman throughout the tune. I recorded it on my SmartPhone.

Lehman’s is incredible. There was a stove that reminded me of the one that my Grandma Olesky had on Walnut Street in Monongah in the 1940s, 3-D artistic farm scenes etched out of wood, farm tools, Amish-made wood furniture, oil lamps. Hell, we must have wandered through this massive store for a couple of hours.

Landoll’s Mohican Castle is in Loudenville. It’s an amazine architecture, but it doesn’t look much like the Cardiff Castle that Paula and I visited in Wales with its tall wood ceilings painted with gold leaf.

The Mohican Lodge was a perfect vista for viewing Pleasant Hill Lake, created by a dam, after stopping to enjoy the Clearfork Gorge, a never-ending expanse of trees tightly hugging each other.

Paula, as usual, researched and planned the day. I just traipsed along behind her and enjoyed it. That’s what I’ve been doing for 13 years now, to 55 countries and 44 states and, on Thursday, going even more cuckoo than usual.

It was even more fun than playing golf. And I don’t usually say that about many things.