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 ...