My family has a tradition of going on a Grand Adventure from time to time. Basically, we have a vague goal in mind and a vague destination, and there ya go: A Grand Adventure! So yesterday, the folks and I went on a Grand Adventure to Bellefontaine.

It all started with a Groupon coupon that my mother had bought for Blue Jacket Dairy (BJD). BJD shows up regularly at one of the Farmer’s Markets we frequent, so we were familiar with their cheese. The Groupon, OTOH, is only valid at their store, which is in Bellefontaine. The Groupon was going to expire soon, so we finally planned our Grand Adventure.

We packed a cooler w/ ice pack and headed north and east. We found the Dairy with only one turn-around (we do tend to travel by limits – think calculus) and entered the tiny storefront. It had to be the noisiest room I’d ever been in. Poor dad couldn’t hear a word that anyone was saying. Turns out they had sold out of a lot of their cheese just the day before, but they had my favorite (houtz – a hard goat cheese) and quite a few things that I wanted to try. The folks found some stuff they wanted as well.

Our next stage of the Grand Adventure was lunch. We drove around Bellefontaine looking for a nice lunch place and were disappointed. Their downtown was lacking shops and restaurants. We then looked for the ice cream shop associated with BJD, but there was no place to park and only outdoor seating. So we headed south to West Liberty.

There were some nifty shops to peruse here in the downtown area and one of the shopkeepers recommended Liberty Gathering Place for lunch. (West Liberty > Bellefontaine, even though it’s much smaller.) So we ate lunch there (I had a nice turkey club with fries & slaw, followed by a very yummy peach crumble pie a la mode) and then backtracked a little to Marie’s Candies for some chocolate.

As soon as we entered the store, they gave us all a sample. Then when we were perusing their various choices, the attendant asked what sorts of candies we liked, so she gave us samples of their equivalent. (Well, I’d started off by saying that we were from Winans country and here for the first time and I think she wanted to show us Marie’s was just as good, if not better, than Winans.) So I got $9 worth of chocolate candies (most with nuts but a couple of mints too).

The cooler, it turned out, was great for holding not only the cheese, but also the chocolate. Our Grand Adventure now over, we headed back south & west to home where mom & I went out to be Swimmin’ Wimmin. 🙂