Uncle Buck's Public Riding Stables And Dance Barn

I woke up last week feeling claustrophobic.  I had to get out of the city.  I called my friend and asked her if she wanted to get the hell out of town for a bit.  She said, "yeah, if I can wear my pajamas." Done.  We drove aimlessly east for awhile until I remembered that I had a friend that worked at Uncle Buck's.  I'd never been there, but I'd heard that it was pretty sweet.  How could a dance barn not be sweet?  I called and got directions to the stable.  An hour later we crept past a trailer-settlement of gawking locals until we reached our destination.

We arrived the day after the last music event of the year.  Apparently The Rarely Heard, a bluegrass band that's famous among bluegrass fans, had played the night before.  A showing of 200 hundred people is pretty amazing for a dance barn in the middle of nowhere.  My friend was scrubbing and cleaning, as she had been for hours, trying to recover from the previous night's show.

We bummed around the place, checking out the horses and meeting the tour guides.  I hung out with Uncle Buck for awhile until the horses were ready.  Uncle Buck was relaxed and amiable, talking mainly about past shows and bands we were both into.  He told us to check out Moonville tunnel on our way out, just past the second steel bridge heading south.  It's worth seeing.  You can find more info here:  

<a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forgottenoh.com%2Fmoonville.html&s=a9cc4db48c4aa24c7b8f1daec5edd51fc2d03a4e70b201ad7f9085a484e06318" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.forgottenoh.c…</a>

Uncle Buck's has a full bar, an outdoor patio/beer garden, a stable, and a stage on a sprawling plot in the middle of Zaleski Forest.  Between Zaleski, Lake Hope, and Uncle Buck's, you can make a pretty sweet day trip an hour and half outside of Columbus.  The horse rides cost $25 for an hour trip.  It's worth the cost if you like horses.