Sometimes Ohio is not Mars

I've never been to Ohio, but I have a couple of mental images of what it must be like. One mental image is based on fragmentary images I have seen in film and TV, probably of Cleveland and Cincinatti. The other is from Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles - where our main glimpse of Ohio is a fantasy: made real by  Martians, out of memories of the crew of the third expedition to Mars.

Admittedly, that is going to be one very distorted image...

In the Cape Gazette, Denis Forney tells of his recent "Ray Bradbury ride across Ohio", a cycle journey through the heartland of the state. What he saw is a combination of stunning scenery and post-industrial landscape. He mentions that some of the buildings still evoke the old Bradbury image of the state, but the photographic evidence suggests that it has moved on somewhat - if indeed it ever did look anything like Bradbury's characters recalled.

You can read Forney's photo essay here.