Hotel treks are still haunting knees

Sarah the ghost seems to be haunting my knees.

Let me explain, or try to.

Valentine’s Day didn’t really lend itself to a romantic getaway at our house, so it was a week later that I proposed getting out of town for a couple of nights at The Golden Lamb.

It’s something my wife and I had talked about for more than 20 years — maybe more than 30 — but had never gotten around to.

The Golden Lamb, to those who have never heard of the place, is the oldest hotel in the state of Ohio. It was founded in 1803, and the current building dates to 1815.

It’s also home to a multi-star restaurant with a national reputation.

Our great friend Ruth Ann Widman is a big fan of the place and has urged us for years to give it a try.

Trouble is, there’s no simple way to get there from here.

The Golden Lamb is located in Lebanon, Ohio.

And Lebanon, Ohio, is in a sort of no-man’s-land as far as highways from here to there are concerned.

It’s about midway between Cincinnati and Dayton, and it benefits from both of those metropolitan areas. Folks can make an easy weekend trip from either city, and that translates into a vibrant retail climate in the historic downtown.

But if it’s a hop, skip and a jump from Dayton or Cincy, it’s something else again from Jay County.

We set out on a Friday afternoon, and immediately the navigation system in my car was confused. Connie was using the Ohio Gazetteer that I keep in the car along with its Indiana counterpart.

So sometimes we argued with the car. Sometimes we followed its instructions. And sometimes we got lost. (Because of new road construction, my navigation system insisted for a while that we were off-roading in a cornfield.)

But we got there. It took the better part of two and a half hours, but we got there.

And the place did not disappoint.

I’d made reservations via Expedia on Thursday night and learned then how rich it was in history. Multiple presidents have stayed there along with such luminaries as Charles Dickens and Mark Twain and Harriett Beecher Stowe. The guest rooms, in fact, are named for famous visitors.

When I made reservations, there were two rooms left: The Ulysses S. Grant and The Ronald Reagan.

I’ve always been fond of Grant, but that room had a double bed while the Reagan room featured a queen. So Ronnie it was.

President Reagan had stayed at The Golden Lamb, though I’m not sure whether it was when he was in office.

But I have a hard time believing that he actually stayed in the same room we had booked.

After all, it was on the fourth floor.

With no elevator.

And steep, 19th century stairs with higher-than-normal risers and shallow treads for 19th century feet.

OK, we figured, that’s part of the charm of an old hotel.

So up we hiked and down we hiked for dinner and up we hiked again afterwards.

The next morning we hiked down again for breakfast, only to be told the hotel doesn’t serve breakfast on Saturdays. We were directed down the street, but it was cold. So I hiked back up to the room and gingerly made my way down again with our jackets.

After breakfast, it was simply a matter of wandering the downtown and enjoying the kinds of shops that are possible when you are midway between two metropolitan areas. (Artisanal cheese, anyone?)

With tired feet, we headed back to the hotel. And — once again — hiked up four stories.

Dinner meant another trek down and another back up to bed.

At breakfast Sunday morning, we had the same waitress who had served us at Saturday night dinner.

So, she said, did the ghost bother you?

Ghost?

The fourth floor is reputed to be haunted by the daughter of a 19th century owner of the hotel. Her name was Sarah.

We didn’t hear a thing, but we both suspect that Sarah had asserted herself on our throbbing knees.