Marietta, Ohio

  

click photo to enlarge		 During a visit to Ohio, we decided to drive down to the Riverboat town of Marietta.  Marietta is one of our favorite cities in Ohio to visit.  It is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers. This is a view of one of Marietta's main city streets. We have always found an abundance of very good, very reasonably priced restaurants there. A few times, we went to Marietta on motorcycles so we could drive of the wonderful roads in the area. Some of these roads are well known by sport bike riders because the roads curve along Appalachian foothills, rivers and streams.

click photo to enlarge		 This is the riverboat Becky Thatcher, built in 1926, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Today it functions as a restaurant and theater doing Melodrama. It is anchored on the Muskingum River.

click photo to enlarge		 This is a picture of a tug pushing barges of coal up the river. The barges are three wide and 5 long. It was fun to sit and watch the sunset over the river and the tugboat traffic pushing their barges along.

click photo to enlarge		 This picture is of Front Street taken from the balcony of our Hotel. I don't have enough room here to put pictures of the Village of Harmar but it is a short walk across the Muskingham Rriver. It's a great place to look at old homes, train museum, Coke Museum and enjoy the advertised "Sure To Be Famous Baloney Sandwich" at the Harmar Tavern. We always stop in at Schafer Leather Store to visit with the friendly folks there. They have always given us good information on things to do, and places to eat.  One time, they even lead us on a motorcycle ride through some of the wonderful roads in the area. Like most of the stores downtown, they have photos of the 2004 floods, and the folks at Schafer's are happy to show you their pictures.

click photo to enlarge		 This is a picture of our hotel, The Lafayette Hotel. We always stay in either of the two rooms that have the balconies shown in this picture. From the balcony you can watch the sunrise and sunset over the rivers. Sunrise is over the Ohio and the sunset is over the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio. The two rooms 203 and 304 are wonderful and large. Each September they have a Sternwheeler Festival in Marietta. We have heard the festival is a lot of fun, but we have never attended it.