Landoll’s Mohican Castle
January 2022
My husband and I had just gotten engaged in the fall and were deep in the perils of wedding planning. We (I) decided we should go to a wedding vendor showcase at a local university to meet local vendors. As we were walking around this showcase, a booth caught my eye. A large vertical banner displayed a picture of a breathtaking castle, built of stone and oak. The sign on the table read “Landoll’s Mohican Castle.” They were there advertising their property as a wedding venue. Unfortunately, the one vendor we had already signed with was our venue. I grabbed a brochure anyways because I wanted to consider going there for a weekend trip.
If you’ve ever been to a wedding showcase, you might be familiar with how they operate. They’re free to attend, and when you arrive one person, typically the wife in heterosexual couples but if not whoever registers for the event, gets a name tag with a number on it. At the end of the event, they do a raffle for all attendees with prizes from every vendor, with the grand prize being a one week all expenses paid honeymoon (typically courtesy of a time share company). They hook everyone in to stay with that promise of a free honeymoon. We were no exception to this, and we sat in the crowd hoping to get that grand prize, but honestly being fine with any prize because weddings are SO expensive.
Landoll’s Mohican Castle was giving away a certificate for a free night stay at their hotel. Much to my suprise, my number ended up getting called. Out of all of the coupons that had been raffled off so far, this one was actually the one I had been most interested in outside of the grand prize of a honeymoon. I excitedly snapped a picture to send off to my mother (of course).
As an Ohio transplant, I had taken an interest in discovering my new home state during the pandemic. Because of this, I have a relatively large guide in my map app for places on my TBV (to be visited) list. I looked Landoll’s Mohican Castle up and was delighted to see the area surrounding the hotel light up with pins from this TBV guide. Specifically a state park I had wanted to go hiking at and lots of stops on the road through Ohio’s amish country. I quikly saved the hotel to the same guide.
We both immediately got sick with Covid from this event and proceeded to forget the whole thing (womp wooomp).
Fast forward to April and our free certificate sat unused in a magnetic clip on or refrigerator. Both of us were burnt out, the stress of work and wedding planning having taken its toll on the both of us.
“I need a vacation like yesterday.” I said to him as I packed my lunch for my last night shift of the week.
“Same,” he replied, staring off at the fridge. “Hey, why don’t we book our room at this hotel this weekend?”
“Ooh, that would be fun! We can check out Amish country, too!”
“I’ll call them in the morning to book it.”
I spent that night deep diving into stuff to do in Amish country. Looking up the actual hotel had slipped my mind entirely. We shipped the dog off to my brother in law and packed our bags and our favorite snacks for our road trip.
We had no idea just what this hotel had in store for us.
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