Gas Card contest works for Race Fans too
May 17, 2010Mansfield, Ohio courts visitors with a $50 gas card
Apr 28, 2010 11:03 - By: Jamie Rhein
MANSFIELD, OHIO
Mansfield, Ohio is offering visitors the chance to win a $50 gas card if they snap a Mansfield related photo, write about their Mansfield trip and upload their handiwork on the Mansfield and Richland County Convention and Visitors Bureau website.
Each Monday, beginning on May 17, a winner will be randomly drawn from the entries and awarded a gas card. The contest, run by the Mansfield and Richland County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, ends September 6. Sixteen cards in all will be given away. I’d say the odds are favorable that you might snag one. With or without the chance to win a gas card, Mansfield is certainly worth the drive.
When I first visited Mansfield, breaking my pattern of zipping past the I-71 exit on my way to Cleveland or back to Columbus, I found it to be a destination that says, “Don’t take the towns close to home for granted.” With a number of lodging options and much to do, stay overnight.
I stayed at the Best Western Richland Inn just off I-71. The recently renovated room was tastefully comfortable and the continental breakfast did not disappoint. Although I didn’t use the pool, I made a mental note that my son would find it splendid.
Located right off the Mansfield exit, the Best Western is an ideal location for taking in all that Mansfield and its surrounding areas offer. Here are five suggestions for what to do if you take Mansfield up on its gas card offer:
1. Visit Carousel Magic, one of the only places where wooden carousels are still made in the United States.
Richland Carrousel Park
2. Ride the carrousel at Richland Carrousel Park. Also located in the historic downtown district, this beauty is one of the Mansfield’s calling cards. In addition to its 30 horses, an animal menagerie circles round and round.
3. Walk around the grounds of the Ohio State Reformatory. This elegantly creepy stone building was once a boy’s reformatory and the centerpiece for the movie “The Shawshank Redemption.” Other Shawshank Redemption movie locations are throughout the area. The Shawshank Trail, a do-it-yourself driving tour brings you past them.
4. Stop by Oak Hill Cottage. This house was made famous by Pulitzer Prize winning writer Louis Bromfield’s novel, The Green Bay Tree. I have yet to go inside the house, but it’s a gem of a building and considered the best Gothic house in the United States. A person I was traveling had visited the house and was smitten.
Oak Hill Cottage
5. Tour Malabar Farm. Malabar Farm State Park is not in Mansfield but closeby. This is where Louis Bromfield developed his eco-friendly farm and where Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married. The farm is still a working farm with various farm and nature related activities throughout the year.
After my Mansfield visit, I returned to Malabar Farm with my family for the Maple Syrup Festival, one of Ohio’s finest maple syrup events. In May, Spring Plowing Days and a Night Haunt are on the farm’s calendar of events.
If you do go to Mansfield in the next few months, remember to take plenty of pictures. You might snap a winner.
For more information about Mansfield, check out the Convention and Visitors Bureau website. I only touched a bit on the bounty. Here’s the link to the page about the free $50 gas card contest.
Mansfield Convention and Visitors Bureau contact info: 124 North Main Street; ph. 800-642-8282.
Photos courtesy of the Mansfield Richland County Convention and Visitors Bureau
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