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.

Out of Touch in Vermont

So the trip from Virginia to Vermont was more of an adventure than we expected. We arrived in Wayne, PA around 5:30 Monday afternoon, discovered it was an adorable little town with lots of stone houses, friendly neighbors, great gardens, and a really close-by greenway where we went for a walk before dinner.

Discovery of a couple tasty local places for our dinner that night and breakfast the following morning put Tuesday off to a great start. 

Fresh Peaches & Vanilla Cheesecake in a GF Buckwheat Crepe!

Non GF Crepe with Sauteed Mushrooms, Bacon, and Cheese!

We were on the road before 10am and heading North again. Then, we passed a sign telling us how far it was to NYC via various tunnels and bridges. They were all in the 35 minute range, and I said “hey, want to see if Na’ama is free for lunch?” We fully expected this would add about 3 hours to our trip. It ended up adding about 7, and we wouldn’t trade a moment of it. It’s not often people from Tennessee can turn up in Long Island for lunch because “we were in the neighborhood.” 

This is the kind of friend you can't pass up the chance to see.

Oh, and the lunch we got! There are no pics of the food because it didn’t last long enough, but I had roasted beet tacos with mango salsa – so good! Heather’s gnocchi with pesto smelled amazing, and Na’ama gave me a few bites of her roasted beet salad, too. Everything at The Witch’s Brew was delicious, including the crème brulee we all had for dessert.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful (another tasty dinner find on our way up, and we got to compliment the chef personally, so that was cool), but long. We arrived at The Gathering Inn around 2:10 AM, and stumbled in to explore our new short-term home.

Some of you may have seen brief mention of a phone call from the innkeeper yesterday – she has a house next door to the inn, and offered us that 2 bedroom, 2 bath space, just for us, for the whole month, instead of the room in the inn we had previously arranged for. Those of you who’ve known me for a while, know how I really like having my own space. With Airbnb, we’ve so far been in the house with other people, but had our own room. I’m okay with that – I can go retreat to my room when desired, and if Heather is in there too, well she’s my Heather; it’s okay. But if I’m offered a 2 story place with our own living space, kitchen, and an extra bedroom for guests (yes, she said we can have guests visit), and it’s not going to cost me a dime extra? Yes, I’ll take it!

There is one sorta downside to the house. The wi-fi signal doesn’t reach us. We’re welcome to use the signal in the inn, and she said it will even reach the picnic table out back, but it does mean our access to social media will be severely limited this month. Add that to the fact we have NO cell signal here, can’t send texts or make calls at all, and we’re gonna be a bit more out of touch than usual. It’s a good trade-off, especially since we’ve both said we wanted to do more non-internet stuff (read more books, study our interests, practice our crafts, play more games, go outside more, etc.). This is going to make those things much more likely when we don’t have the familiar internet habits to slip into as easily.

So far today we’ve walked to a nearby hotel/restaurant for breakfast, and I’ve walked the 4-5 minutes to the White River to see the little trickles there. We had a couple busy days of travel to get here, and I don’t expect there will be anything else today but relaxing and possibly picking up groceries (and at some point, carting the laptop to the inn so I can actually post this entry for you).

Knowing us, we’ll be checking in with our usual internet communication every couple days, but I imagine we’ll have more to share in between those times. J

Madison Heights, VA

Our first stop is a small town called Madison Heights, just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia. We're renting a room in a house, and the owner, Tiffany is a hoot! We knew from her Airbnb profile that she'd be easy-going and fun, and we were right. Our room is nice, and the animals that live here are great. A couple of the cats seem to be particularly interested in napping on us, especially Opal.

Tiffany and her teenage daughter Astrid have been very welcoming to us, and have become fast friends. It's like spending time with family you don't see often - lots of storytelling and laughter and catching up, even though we never met before last week. I kinda love that, and I love the fact that the Airbnb places will give us a variety of experiences. This one is a family home, next month is a small inn run by a lady named Kathleen. I expect it will feel different in some ways, but I'm sure it will still be lovely.

In admiring a bunch of needlepoint art in her house, I discovered that she did most of them herself, and then got an offer to learn some new techniques from her! She's a crafter, with about as many interests as me, so there have been several conversations about patterns and yarns and quilts and more! It's kinda awesome. She's even going to let me use her sewing machine to work on a project I thought I would have to do at home (or completely by hand, which wasn't likely).

Heather and Tiffany have spent lots of time chatting over a shared love of travel, languages, and living in Europe, so I'm certainly not the only one feeling welcome here.

Completely unrelated to the people, the house is quite comfy, too. The back deck has become one of my favorite spots, and I've spent a lot of time out there, from early mornings to late afternoons to middle of the nights. It's so quiet and peaceful, the breeze blowing by, the trees all around the back yard, the butterflies fluttering past, the sounds of wind and birds in the trees. I love it.

All About that View

We explored today! We actually started our fun with a picnic at Explore Park in Roanoke.

Trailhead Selfies - should they be a tradition? Discuss.

That Forestry Education Trail was going to be our first hike here, but just a few minutes into it I realized I really didn't have the spoons for it, especially with today being the hottest of the week (still cooler than Murfreesboro, but not by much). My amazingly supportive beloved helped me get back to the car safely, made sure I had water, and turned on the AC as quickly as possible. Then we adjusted our plans to come back and check this out more later, and to take a nice relaxing drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway today instead.

As you can see, the views totally sucked up there.

We stopped at several of the scenic overlooks, sometimes just to pause and take in the view from the car, sometimes to get out and take pictures, stretch our legs, or walk a couple minutes of the Appalachian Trail when we ran across it once. :)  We've now hit parts of it in Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia.

And among the beautiful mountain views...

              ... there were also beautiful smaller and closer views...

There's a couple mountains here called the Peaks of Otter (more about them later after we visit them for real) but we drove past them today, and checked out the welcome center and hiking info. The hikes to the top of either one are "strenuous" and therefore not something I'm prepared for, but one has a shuttle bus that goes almost to the top. The area also has a winery and fruit farm, a lodge, a restaurant (where the head chef came to speak to me personally when I asked about gluten free options for future reference), and of course, gorgeous views.

On the way back, we also stopped at Thunder Ridge parking area, which is a small lot, maybe a dozen cars long. Each end of the lot is one end of a 10 minute loop. Why stop for a 10 minute loop, you ask?

Here's why.

Yes, this was the perfect time to break out the panorama mode. :)

Sitting on the wall at the edge of the observation platform

Heather did a lot of smiling at the view. (Not that I didn't.)

 I think one of the most interesting things is that even today, on the way back to our temporary home (which I will post more about in the next few days, but it's pretty awesome) we were still saying to each other "we're really doing this. We're on the road, doing our thing, seeing new places. It's really happening." Like that moment a week or a month or so after you get married when you make a reference to your spouse or something, and suddenly it hits you, "holy crap, I'm really married." Why does it take our brains so long to adjust to these kinds of changes? (Hell for that matter, we're still trying to wrap our brains fully around Heather's book release and that was in March.)

Okay, here's a sneak peak of the airbnb - the view from the back deck where I've spent many hours already just listening to the sounds of nature and a quiet country road.

I think we'll be making use of this grill sometime during the month.

It was a fairly low-key kind of day, but still an excursion and lots of fun. I will say I'm learning things with every trip we've taken recently and every activity I want to do - and how to adjust to them with my health limitations. I have a list of health issues that all cause low energy and chronic problems, but I've decided they won't take over my life and keep me from the things I want to do. Hence, this walkabout. So far, so good.

Readjusting

So its, (checks calendar to be sure) Tuesday evening. We got here Saturday night, which means we've had 3 full days here now. Sadly, due to exhaustion and fibro, these 3 days have been mostly in bed for me. I know this is a thing that happens, fibro flares are just an aspect of being me, and the best I can do is listen to my body and take care of myself. This has meant lots of sleep, Heather being amazing and getting food for my picky stomach, and really very little else. We've organized our belongings a bit more, and looked at a few books on waterfalls and weirdness in Virginia that our host has on hand.

Our host - We're staying with a lovely lady named Tiffany. She's got a boyfriend I haven't actually met yet, and a daughter (16 years old) who I've seen briefly, but is currently staying with her dad. There's another tenant in the house - a guy who mostly keeps to himself. It's a nice place, lovely trees, away from a lot of city and traffic, so it's nice and quiet out here. I've spent many hours already just sitting on the back deck and looking out at the trees. Definitely not a bad start if that's all I've got the energy to do. :D

Heather mentioned the animals here - they're all very sweet, but Opal is definitely the one who pays the most attention to us.

We've Moved... to the other end of the house

Today was moving day, when Heather, Katie, Justin, and I swapped bedrooms. It may not seem like a big deal, but if Hogwarts were addressing letters to us, they would have to direct it to a slightly new location. The kids are very excited about having a larger space, a larger bed, a larger bathroom, separate closets... and Heather and I are adjusting to our drastically pared down "stuff" in a much smaller bedroom.

As we travel on this Walkabout, we'll be in a variety of different rooms - probably of different sizes, and with different features (good and bad), so this is a good transition-stage for us, I think. Still, it's new, and smaller, and wow is our HVAC unit loud!!!

We're getting closer and closer, 15 days and we'll be on the road for real. We've been collecting links and posts and notes about all sorts of interesting and fun things to do in Virginia, beautiful trails to hike, waterfalls to picnic near, giant pencils to visit, and more. I'm not sure how, exactly, we'll narrow it down to an actual, reasonable list for the measly little 31 days we'll have there, but at least we know we have options. Once we get there, we'll also be picking our next location and booking our Airbnb spot for September.

I would have included photos of the debris left in the wake of packing/moving/sorting/selling, just in my studio alone, but my phone is in another room, and really, if you've seen one messy room, you've seen them all, right? And if you haven't seen one messy room, who the hell are you and how did you manage that?