June 28-30, 2026

As Pippa prepares to begin her junior year, we are stepping into the world of college tours. For our first venture we took a short road trip over to Ohio to check out Case Western Reserve University, Oberlin College, and Kenyon College.

But it wouldn’t be a Barlow trip without some ice cream. We started out in Cleveland’s hip Ohio City neighborhood and met up with our United Church of Christ friends Elizabeth, Paul, and Elena for a chic dinner at Le Petit Triangle. We skipped the tempting French desserts in favor of a trip to Mason’s Creamery, and were rewarded with some of the best ice cream we’ve had so far (and that says a lot). We loved every bite of our bubble waffles, a genius invention that involves ice cream wrapped in a freshly-made warm waffle. Pippa tried a special Filipino-inspired flavor, Calamansi Citrus Square, and Liddy enjoyed Strawberries & Cream.

The next day, we had a lovely tour at Case, then drove over to the town of Oberlin for delicious lunch, our second college tour of the day, and a visit to Oberlin’s historic First Church (thanks, Pastor Dave, for showing us around!). We then drove through the absolute middle of nowhere for a while and ended up in Mount Vernon. While Mount Vernon doesn’t have much, it does have Whit’s Frozen Custard, which features tasty homemade treats. Pippa had a Raspberry Peach Cobbler Whitser and Liddy tried their patriotic Red White and Blue custard. We enjoyed the beautiful sunset over the Kokosing River and read lots of historical markers.

For our final day of our trip we drove to Gambier and had an enchanting tour of Kenyon’s gorgeous campus. Afterwards we grabbed sandwiches (which were also exceptional; shout out Ohio for the great sandwiches I guess) and some Breyers ice cream bars before beginning our journey home.

Fun Fact:
Mount Vernon, Ohio produced an unusual quantity of pioneering women in medicine, including first Black female immunologist Dr. Ella Mae Simmons, early physician Dr. Jane Payne, and Civil War hospital administrator Mary Ann Bickerdyke.