My husband, Tony, and I spent a four-day weekend in Ohio. We visited many movie locations, enjoyed delicious meals and stayed at a wonderful Airbnb.

We wandered the downtown area of Mansfield, Ohio, along the Shawshank Redemption movie site trail — with 15 locations that make you go, “Ohhh, I remember this in the movie!” We immersed ourselves in the location to reenact the scene and later scoured streaming sites to find the movie for the purpose of identifying the actual scene to where we stood earlier that day.

Along the driving tour, we came across Carousel Antiques, a charming little antiques store with shelves and shelves of nostalgic and unique items from the past. We did manage to find one thing we couldn’t live without: a miner’s lunchbox from way back when. An awesome find.

At Brown Derby Roadhouse in Ontario, we enjoyed a scrumptious dinner of wood-fired salmon and a steak buried under mushrooms, accompanied by a proper Guinness beer. After dinner, we attended the ParaPsyCon V.I.P. party to rub elbows with a variety of paranormal “celebrities” and discuss where we think Bigfoot is hiding.

The Ohio State Reformatory opened in 1896 in Mansfield. It’s a beautiful, enormous building rich in history, spirits and props from Shawshank Redemption; featured on several paranormal shows; and the venue of ParaPsyCon 2023. The paranormal investigation conducted after hours intrigued us with voices from the past telling their stories through electronic equipment designed to pick up frequencies the human ear cannot. It was worth the drive through downtown Chicago and the speeding ticket on the Indiana back roads.

While at ParaPsyCon 2023, we talked with Andrea Perron. Have you seen The Conjuring? Andrea strips away all the Hollywood effects to relay the real story of what happened in that house. It’s a story more chilling than the movie portrayed.

The Airbnb where we stayed in Bellville is a beautiful place where we enjoyed privacy and peaceful relaxation. We had the whole house to ourselves and will definitely return on our next trip to Mansfield.

— JoAnne Feddeler, guest blogger