Ohio in October

You may have seen the post about Ohio last October - the one with the scary lodging we quickly ran from... Well, here's the rest of that trip.

Our lovely friends Jess & Jen live in Ohio and we're sad that we don't get to see them more often. This 10 days or so gave us the opportunity to visit with them several times. Our wonderful times together included several tasty meals, lots of stories and laughter, a wide variety of fandoms with a healthy proportion of Doctor Who, and a day trip to the Renn Faire. We had some tasty food, saw lots of fantastic costumes and crafts, avoided the loud noises as much as possible, and generally had a fantastic time together.

Jess & I started off the Faire with a selfie while our wives bought us drinks. This is the first photo of the two of us together - in five years of friendship.

Gandalf agreed to a photo on his way back to his carriage

group selfies - not easy

yay! all of us together

sometimes art is weird

Lovely stained glass art

I nearly bought this journal

So, Heather and I wandered into one of the little shops and walked along opposite sides of a shoulder-height shelf lined with journals (see below). A few minutes later, we turned to each other from opposite sides of the store and said (in almost perfect unison) "Sweetie, look at this one!" The store owner laughed as he saw that we were holding up the same journal, only mine was in silver and hers was bronze toned.  Take a look below and see if you can guess which one caught both our eyes.

If you guessed the one with the t'ai chi sign and bamboo, you've met us once or twice. ;P

This is all hand sculpted metal, hand painted, too. So beautiful - the photo really doesn't do it justice...

Constellations around the TARDIS

Yeah, there were a lot of wonderful crafts there, but finding other fandom geeks in the midst of the Renn Faire geeks was just a bonus.

Weird, Cool, & Unusual Along the Way

So, as we wandered around various parts of the country, we saw a number of ... interesting things. Some were cute and funny...

Found in a Dollar General - yes, that's the freezer case of ice cream treats that Anna is sitting on.

Some were just bizarre and confusing... like this unidentified object seen on our way out of Buffalo, NY.

And then you get closer and it's all pink and wrinkly...

              

WTF is this thing on the side of the road?

Early in the trip we saw someone driving a rather large boot down the street (yes, some of you have already seen this)

 

And we can't forget the Kermit riding on the back of a motorcycle...

I feel like he should have a helmet or something. I worry.

This was an... interesting? piece of art at the Renn Faire. It came from Aradani Studios, in case anyone's interested. I liked some of their other stuff, but this one creeped me out (I really didn't like the IT clown, but who did?) so I had to share.

This one, well it was part of a whole collection of celebrity high school photos. I just had to share this because teenaged Helena Bonham Carter looks WAY more like Emma Watson than I ever imagined she would have.

In the Youth section of the Lynchburg, VA public library - Harley Quinn. :)

Heather had to come to the back deck and save me from this monster praying mantis. That's an entire wooden plank it's sitting on - like 4.5 inches, and it's at a diagonal. It was HUGE. I'm pretty sure in went off to take a substitute teaching job when she scared it away.

I had to text Heather because it wanted to eat Xander!!!

And last but not least, you've all seen this before, right?

Well Highway 100 in Vermont has an asphalt version ...     

Ohio - the Good, the Bad, and the Horrid Crack-house Lodging

We still have a bunch of Vermont stuff we'd like to post, but I'm skipping ahead to the 1st of October and a few days after, as we arrived in Ohio to visit people in the Dayton and Cincinnati areas.

We arrived Thursday evening to find that our temporary apartment wasn't ready for us (i.e. had no furniture in it, despite us making a reservation with security deposit so we could check in that day.) So, a trip to Red Roof Inn in Miamisburg it was. On the plus side, it was super close to friends Jess & Jen, so we were able to meet them for breakfast Friday morning before they took off to get paperwork to legalize their marriage of six years. They had a tiny little private ceremony & signing on Saturday, but I was just thrilled to find Sew Dayton, a wonderful small business owned by two ladies who were so sweet and welcoming to me. I got to go in there, use a sewing machine, cutting table, ironing board, etc. while I completed a wedding gift for this really sweet couple (who are essentially me and Heather, only younger, and one is left handed.)

Not the best of pics, and I had to fix a bit in the top left corner after I took this, but you get the idea. These are their fave colors, and the embroidery blends purple & green together in a variegation. I can see all sorts of uneven spots and crooked bits, but really, I'm quite proud of how it turned out. Oh, and the white bit at the top is a pocket so it can hang from a dowel or curtain rod on the wall. :)

 We ate at a wonderful little cafe during a Saturday visit to Indiana - www.cafepatachou.com, where they not only had a decent gluten free selection (rough to deal with sometimes when you're on the road) but even put a little flag in my sandwich to show that it was GF and that they had paid attention to my needs (i.e. changing gloves, cleaning work space, etc.). I was highly amused by these bathroom doors, too, especially the fact that they are considered unisex bathrooms, and people often don't get that because of the gendered images on the doors.

                                   

Horrid Crack-House Lodging (aka apartelusa.com, Dayton location) began on Friday, and ended early Monday morning when I reported that we still had bedbugs even after they replaced the infested sofa. I won't go into all the details here, but suffice to say I am covered in bite marks and it was gross and scary. While we were packing up and waiting to move to our new, non-scary lodging, there was a fight, a domestic issue, cops called, and a screaming match between a "crack whore" and a "bald bitch." It was like being in the middle of a Jerry Springer episode, and I've never liked his show.

Monday afternoon, we moved to Cathy & Dan's (found on airbnb.com, a much better option based on all our experiences) and spend the first bit of our time just lounging in the hammock and enjoying the wooded back yard.

                                            

Heather and Sandy, being cute.

So really, the first lodging was awful in many ways, and the second was amazing in just as many. The best part of our trip, though was visiting with the people of the area. Jess & Jen are among our closest Chosen Family, despite having only seen each other 4 individual times before this trip. I think we managed to get that number up to 9 with our various days/evenings spent together. The Renn Faire will be a post all its own, and there really aren't any photos of other times together, but that's okay. We shared many stories (old and new), and Jess & I worked with sticks and strings while our wives watched with grins (as usual).

We did also manage a visit to some Cincinnatti peeps we don't know very well but had a great evening with! Ocean & Skylark were incredibly welcoming, and again there were shared stories (some of mutual friends) and really good food (they make tasty Thai, which might have something to do with Skylark living in Thailand for a while).

All in all, Ohio was a good trip. It's kinda nice, but also kinda weird to be home again.