I'm a nature watcher, from way back. I like to get outside as much as I can and see what's happening. There are always birds and animals and plants to watch. There's always something different to see. Clouds, snowflakes, nothing is ever not unique in this ever-changing world. In short, there's never a moment to be bored. Life's just too fascinating and too beautiful.

I've been in Ohio for close to two years now. After a life spent in the foothills of the Pennsylvania mountains, living in flat-as-a-pancake,at least by my standards, Ohio is like stepping into a whole new world.

Of all the things I've come to know and love about Ohio, there's one that will always top the list. You can travel all over the world. You can see everything it has to offer. But for sheer, everyday beauty you'll never find anything to surpass Lake Erie sunsets. You may find a lot of things that are equally beautiful, but I'll bet you don't find anything more beautiful repeated in endless variety almost every day. Lake Erie sunsets. There's nothing like them.

Cincinnati has the distinction of having had four ships of the US Navy named in its honor. That's more than any other Ohio city. But then, Cincinnati got an early start. The story of the four ships to bear the name of Cincinnati starts with the Civil War.

The first Cincinnati, shown in the picture, was an ironclad river gunboat. It was built in 1861 and served on western rivers throughout the course of the Civil War. The vessel was one of the few ships that sank and was raised, not once, but twice. The Cincinnati took part in the Battle of Vicksburg, in 1863. After four years of being under heavy fire in combat, the first USS Cincinnati was sold for scrap in New Orleans.

The second USS Cincinnati didn't come along until 1892. It was much larger, a cruiser, in fact, and was a sea-going vessel. The Cincinnati saw action in the Caribbean during the Spanish-American War, in 1898. After that it was used for goodwill missions around the world. The ship was decommissioned in 1919.

In 1921, the third USS Cincinnati was launched. It was another heavy cruiser. She spent most of her career in the Atlantic and Caribbean, before being decommissioned in 1945.

Finally, there was the fourth USS Cincinnati. This one was a nuclear powered submarine, built in 1974. The fourth Cincinnati once played host to former President Richard Nixon for an overnight cruise. That was in 1980.

I'd have to say that four US Navy ships is a very good record for a city so far inland.

Have you ever thought your house or apartment was a bit blah? Most people have. It doesn't have to be that way, though. You might try adding a piece of architectural salvage.

Every year, old buildings are torn down. A lot of them have beautiful woodwork, stained glass windows, stone carvings, or even just a nice brass doorknob. All that isn't usually hauled off to a dumpster. It's usually salvaged and made available for people who think their home needs that something extra.

Believe it or not, one of the USA's most well-known purveyor of items like these is located right in Downtown Toledo. It's called Architectural Artifacts and you'd be amazed by their store, at 20 South Ontario. It's packed. The first floor has the real gems. There's everything from wooden mantels to life-size marble statues. Upstairs, you'll find doors, stair rails, hardware, and everything you could possibly use to decorate a building. Other interesting antiques aren't neglected, either. Be sure to say hello to the two very friendly resident cats. If you're a cat person, I am, they might supervise your tour themselves.

Can't make it to Toledo? Try the website at the link below. Architectural Artifacts does a lot of e-business. One more thing. If you need something they don't have, which is hard to believe once you've seen the place, just let them know. You never know. It might just turn up the next day.

Ohio cities have a long record of providing names for US Navy ships. Toledo is no exception. The current USS Toledo ( SSN-769 ) is the second ship to bear the name. This time we got a nuclear submarine.

The USS Toledo is a Los Angeles Class attack sub. This class of vessel broke the old tradition of naming submarines after sea creatures. The Toledo was launched in 1993 and is 360 feet long.

Since her launch, the Toledo has taken part in Operation Iraqi Freedom, been involved in drug interdiction in the Caribbean, and patrol duty in the Persian Gulf. She is best known, however, for something she wasn't involved in. There's a conspiracy theory floating around that claims the Toledo, along with the USS Memphis, sunk the Russian submarine Kursk back in 2000. The notion is based on the fact that the Toledo was ordered home for repairs three days after the incident. Well, that is unusual. This type of vessel is usually short on problems. But, while other subs were in the Barents Sea at the time, the Toledo apparently wasn't one of them.

Award winning architect Frank Gehry is known for his work all over the world. Among his designs in Ohio is the University of Toledo's Center for Visual Arts.

Cincinnati is a rather unusual name and a challenge for spelling classes. Just where did it come from? Well, the answer comes in two parts. It goes back to January 4, 1790. That's when Arthur St. Clair, the first Governor of the Northwest Territory, renamed the settlement of Losantiville Cincinnati.

Why? Just what is a cincinnati, anyway? Well, that goes back to the fact that St. Clair had been a general in the Revolutionary War. He was also a distant cousin of mine, but that's neither here nor there. He, along with a lot of officers of the revolution was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. The Society was open to a select group of veterans and to the French officers who had helped the USA achieve Independence. It had one curious feature that was very controversial. It was set up to be hereditary. The membership was to pass to the eldest son of the original member. You can imagine that didn't go over well in some circles, but the Society was close-knit and, at the time, influential. So the City of Cincinnati was named in honor of the organization and its members.

But that still doesn't explain how they got to be called Cincinnati. Simple. Cincinnati is the Latin plural for Cincinnatus. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, to be exact. In the early years of US history, there was a lot of interest in and fellow-feeling for the ancient Roman Republic. Cincinnatus was a well-born, but poor Roman. He was respected by the whole city for his wisdom and virtue. One time, Rome was about to be attacked by the Aequi and the Volscians. The Senate decided the city's best hope for victory was under Cincinnatus' leadership. They sent a delegation to offer him the position of dictator with absolute power. Cincinnatus, who was plowing a field at the time, knew he could defeat Rome's enemies, so he accepted. To make a long story short, Rome won. Cincinnatus immediately resigned his power and went back to plowing his fields.

Cincinnatus was regarded by the officers who founded the organization named in his honor as the perfect example of the "citizen soldier". He was a role model for the whole generation that founded the USA. And that's how a city in Ohio came to be named after a Roman farmer.

The Toledo Museum of Art, in keeping with its reputation as one of the top ten museums in the USA, has a widely varied collection. Most periods and parts of the world are represented. If the art of ancient civilizations strikes your fancy, the museum has a lot to offer.

Egyptian work is well represented. My favorites are a small chalice of faience. It's only about six inches high, but it's covered with an intricate relief of animals. I'm also partial to a stone hawk, symbol of the god Horus. He's from the Ptolemaic Period but he's so stylized that he could fit right in on a twentieth century building. There's also plenty of sculpture, a papyrus scroll, a model boat, and one of the "mummy portraits", a highly realistic portrait on wood that was placed over the subject's face when mummified.

The selection of Greek and Roman art is superb. There are dozens of Greek vases, including one by one of the great masters of the art, Exekias. If you're interested in military history, you'll like the very rare Corinthian bronze helmet. There are several Roman portraits, including one of the Emperor Domitian. The guards like to point out that he wrote a treatise on hair care, but he's wearing a wig. Be sure to notice the mosaic floor from North Africa, as well.

You'll find work from Babylon and Persia, Sumeria and Petra. There's a fine display of Etruscan art. You can see some of it in the picture. The terra cotta bust is their sun god Apulu. There's so much to see and enjoy in the Classical Hall that you could spend a whole day just in this one room.

Oh, yes. One other thing. At the back of the room is a little alcove leading to a door. If you look through it, you'll see the Peristyle, the museum's auditorium. Putting the Classical Hall next to it was an appropriate move. It's a beautiful room in the purest Classical Greek style. But that's another story.

There isn't much that will cause a building to stand out from the crowd quite so much as the use of different and contrasting colors. Toledo's Lasalle Apartments is a good example. The limestone of the upper and lower parts is accented by the mellow brick of the middle. It's sort of like an architectural layer cake. The icing is provided by the copper cornice with its green patina.

The Lasalle was built in 1917, for the Lasalle and Koch Department Store, or "dry goods" as it was called then. Lasalle and Koch was one of Toledo's oldest businesses, having been founded in 1865. To design their new store, they hired the New York firm of Starrett and Van Vleck. This firm specialized in large retail structures. Their work could be found all over the eastern USA, including Polsky's in Akron. I've been told they built an almost exact duplicate of the Lasalle in Atlanta.

Starrett and Van Vleck's design for the Lasalle is in the Renaissance Revival style. The two-story arcade at the base would fit right in on a street in Florence. For extra variety, the columns are made of polished granite. Another two story colonnade adds interest to the upper floors

The Lasalle has the distinction of being Downtown Toledo's first important commercial to residential rehab project. In 1996, after standing vacant for twelve years, it was converted to apartments. To show how big the building is, there are one-hundred-thirty of them. It's success led to a long string of similar projects, which make downtown a surprisingly trendy place to live.

Toledo's Martin Luther King, Jr. Bridge has been subject to short closings lately. It's about to be out of commission for a longer period. The structure is in the process of getting a complete overhaul, and will close today so the central drawbridge section can be replaced. People will have an easy time remembering when they'll be able to cross it again. It opens two days after Valentine's Day.

The Cherry Street Bridge, as it was first known, was built between 1910 and 1914, at a cost of one million dollars. That may seem like pocket change for building a bridge these days, but back then it was the most expensive public improvement project in Toledo's history. Like most expensive public projects, the building of the bridge was controversial. There were a lot of people who thought spending a million dollars on a bridge was just plain crazy. They lost the argument, but managed to get a few corners cut in the budget. For example, the best part of the design, four tall, column-like towers were never built. Two of them were to sit at either end of the drawbridge to house the lift mechanism. That's a shame. I've seen the plans and they were impressive. Everyone likes to save money, but no one liked the plain wooden sheds that were built instead. It was a long while before they gave way to the current structures, which are an improvement, but nowhere near as nice as the towers.

One other interesting thing about the building of this bridge, it was constructed right next to the old bridge it replaced. No traffic problems there.

It's not too early to think about baseball season. I couldn't resist posting this view of one of the gates at Fifth Third Field, home of the Toledo Mud Hens. If you don't know what a mud hen is, it's a bird otherwise known as the coot.

There was a time when wealthy Americans could buy historic buildings in Europe, ship them across the Atlantic, and reassemble them. These days, few could afford it, even without Europe's strong antiquities preservation laws. That's probably a good thing. Still, I can't complain about Toledo's share of the spoils.

As part of the increased interest in Medieval art in the first few decades of the twentieth century, the Toledo Museum of Art was able to buy small parts of three monasteries in the south of France. Each was an arcaded wall from a cloister, a covered walkway around a courtyard. The three arcades were reassembled, in 1932, to form Toledo's own cloister. Since the museum was only able to buy three side, the fourth was made by builders here in Toledo. To avoid confusion and distinguish it from the authentic parts, the fourth arcade is just plain wood. I wish I could say I haven't seen tourists oohing and aahing over that one, but I'd be lying through my teeth.

The oldest arcade came from the monastery of Espira de l'Agly. It's in the Romanesque style and was built sometime between 1134 and 1146. The next, the one you see in the picture, was from St. Pons de Thomieres, and dates to the late 12th or early 13th centuries. It's also Romanesque. Last is the Gothic arcade from Notre Dame de Pontaut. It's from the late 14th or early 15th century. All of the arcades are magnificent pieces of stonework. Each of the columns has a capital, the top part, carved with scenes from the Bible, the life of St. Pons, animals, or foliage. In the middle, you'll notice a square object. That's a marble wellhead from Venice. It was made in 1467. Like the capitals, its sides are carved. Each side has a pair of mythical or symbolic creatures.

So, why does the lighting look a it odd? That's one of the little surprises the Toledo Museum of Art is so good at providing. The Cloister can be lighted to simulate both day and night. The ceiling can look just like the night sky. It's a wonderful effect.

But wait. That's not all. In the Cloister, you'll find part of the Museum's collection of Medieval art. There are paintings, of course, and sculpture. Stained glass and ivory carvings. Embroidered textiles and Limoges enamels. It's a dazzling display worthy of a world-class museum. That's exactly what the Toledo Museum of Art is.

Valentine's Day? You're asking the wrong person. That's for sure! I'm happily single and past that stage. But I'll gladly offer an opinion on just about anything, so here we go.

We'll start with restaurants. If you want an in-depth discussion, you could look at Toledo Restaurant Reviews, a local blog. It hasn't been updated in a while but it's useful.

For world-class continental cuisine you couldn't go wrong with Fifi's. It's even listed in Ochsner's Pocket Guide to the Finest Restaurants in the World. If your taste runs to Italian food, like mine Carrabba's and Ciao are good choices. Steak? You'll find that, and just about anything else you want, at one of the four Mancy's Restaurants.

How about a romantic atmosphere with good food, as well? No question there. Any of the restaurants at The Docks, in International Park will provide both. You can find seafood, Mexican dishes, Italian, Cajun, and who knows what else. While eating, you can watch the lights of Downtown Toledo reflect off the Maumee River. It's an impressive sight.

I could go on all night here, but that's enough to get you started. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe you're a gourmet cook and want to make your own romantic dinner. Don't go overboard and wear yourself out. Pick up dessert at Wixey's Bakery, on Glendale. They're the best in town. The only thing they lack is a website. The same can be said about my last suggestion, Superior Chocolate. Believe me, it is superior. How do chocolate covered strawberries sound?

Northwest Ohio has a good variety of small to mid-size businesses. One of the best, and certainly the easiest on the nose, is Swan Creek Candles. I've been to their store in Toledo's Warehouse District, right across from Fifth Third Field, so I can vouch for the fact that the company's promises about fragrance aren't exaggerated at all. Their candles are long burning, too.

Swan Creek Candles has been in business for twenty years and, considering their expansion to six outlet stores, seems to be doing well. What's their secret? Their products aren't the usual cheap paraffin candles. They're made from a blend of American soybean wax and natural botanical waxes. This makes the candles lead free and cleaner burning than most. I know people who swear by them.

Another good point about Swan Creek Candle outlet stores, they have a really nice assortment of candle holders and gift items. This is in addition to all shapes and sizes of candles, in more than fifty scents. You'll find trendy smells like kiwi watermelon and crisp cotton, as well as old favorite like lavender, lilac, and patchouli. Hey, what can I say? I survived the sixties. Patchouli is an old favorite of mine.

If you'd like more of an introduction before visiting a store, check out their website at the link, below. There are stores in Toledo, Swanton, Vermilion, and three in Michigan. If you can't resist candles, you'll love them all.

Big buildings are not unusual in Ohio, but Akron has a structure that makes "big" a bit of an understatement. In fact, when it was built, the Goodyear Airdock was the biggest building, without interior supports, in the world. It's vast. At its farthest points, it's 1,175 feet long, 325 feet wide, and 211 feet high. You could fit eight football fields inside with room to spare. The structure is so big that a legend developed about rain falling inside it. That's exaggerated, though. In high humidity, the interior gets misty, but it hasn't actually rained.

The Goodyear Airdock was built for the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation in 1929, at a cost of $2,200,000. Why so big? It was made for building airships, large, lighter-than-air craft, such as dirigibles and blimps. At the time, a lot of people believed that airships were the future of travel and military strategy. The burning of the Hindenburg and structural problems in vessels that used non-explosive fuels put quite a crimp on the idea.

To accommodate the enormous dirigibles, the ends of the building incorporate huge semi-spherical doors fastened at the top by six-foot long pins. The doors are set on wheels that open them by rolling on a track.

In its days as a construction site for airships, the airdock produced many vessels, including two US Navy craft, the USS Akron and the USS Macon. Even with a very much reduced demand for airships, their construction at the airdock didn't end until 1960. In later years, the facility was home to the photographic division of Goodyear Aerospace Company. It is currently owned by Lockheed Martin.

By the way, do you notice the silver squares about halfway up the building, in the picture? They're the windows. It will give you a sense of how big the place is when I tell you they're a hundred feet off the ground.

I tell people, probably until they're sick of hearing it, that you never know what sort of interesting sight you'll see next, if you just look. Ohio cities and towns are anything but boring. The problem is that most of us get so caught up in our daily grind, not to mention our walkmans and cell phones, that we could walk past a lion dancing the waltz with a hyena and never notice. This is a pity. There's so much to see.

Let's have a look at one of my favorite examples. The building in the picture looks like it could have been built anywhere from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It would fit right in on the streets of a lot of small cities in Europe. People spend a fortune travelling to soak up period charm like this.

Well, guess what? It's in Downtown Toledo. Sits right on Madison, next to an Art Deco skyscraper. It was built, in 1929, as a realtor's office, but is used by a jewelry store now.

You've seen houses like this. They're all over the place. People call them "Tudor", though the correct designation is "Mock Tudor" or "Tudorbethan". The Tudor dynasty ruled England from the time of Henry VII to Elizabeth I, late in the time things like this were built. It's one of the eclectic styles of architecture that were popular in the early twentieth century. You see, along with the new, more "modern" styles of the time, some people preferred a return to older forms. Their work, as in this case, was an accurate re-creation of buildings from the past. Williamsburg comes to mind, the same sort of idea.

This particular building is a good example. The half-timbering is well done and looks authentic, not just tacked on. Maybe it is authentic. A lot of buildings like this used, not only the style of old buildings, but the construction methods, too. I like the contrast between the stucco on the main wall and the bare brick in the gable. By the way, that arrangement of beams up there may look like an upside-down peace symbol, but it would add a lot of extra strength to the wall. The small-paned casement windows on the second floor add another note of authenticity. On the whole, this is one of the best examples of the "let's build like the old days" attitude I've ever seen. Believe me, I've seen a lot of it. Oh, yes, one other thing. Building something like this would be expensive. Look at the side wall on the right. It used to be hidden by another building. Authenticity is good, but why waste money on something no one will see? The side wall is just plain brick. I suppose the builders didn't expect the rush to tear things down for parking lots. Their consternation would be softened by seeing that someone's painted a nice mural on it.