Since I have been home, the adventures have only continued.
I have truly enjoyed spending time with my family.
Since my Mom got married over the New Year, she moved out of
her house and into her husband Ken’s house. Thus, my stuff got unceremoniously
tossed into my grandfather’s spare bedroom. So the first thing I got into after
coming home was reorganizing that room and moving some stuff over to Ken’s
house. Within 48 hours I had gotten my room at his place all set up and taken
two carloads of stuff over to the Salvation Army. After that task was complete,
I could relax a little more. I spent time with my cousin Meridith, who was
visiting from Alaska with her three small kids. It was great to get to spend so
much time with them, since we all see each other so rarely. Her oldest son
Jackson and I played baseball like five times the first week I was back. He is
so good for a six year old! And I think he was equally impressed that I was so
good for a girl! We took a family trip to Lake Laura too, which was Meridith’s
first time there. It was fun helping the kids swim and enjoy the beauty of Lake
Laura, which is still lovely even compared to the epic lakes in Canaima!
I also got to spend time with my grandfather too. We had
breakfast together most mornings at “the restaurant”, basically a hole in the
wall country place where all the old men get together and gossip and eat things
smothered in sausage gravy. On Thursday, granddad, myself and eight other
oldies but goodies took off for a motorcycle ride through West Virginia. The
weather was PERFECT- beautiful, warm but not hot, clear with a few puffy clouds
in the sky. We went way back to a place called Ice Mountain, where we stopped
at the Main Street Grill for some surprisingly good lunch (for being in the
middle of West Virginia). On the way back, we hit a pretty major hairpin road
and before I knew it, granddad and I got an up close and personal tour of a
ditch. Thankfully, neither of us were hurt too badly. I was fine because
granddad broke my fall, and all granddad had a road rash on his arm. The bike
didn’t have a scratch- just some dirt. We were really lucky and in the end, all
we managed to do was hurt granddad’s pride and scare the shit out of everyone
riding behind us. And let me tell you-
at the restaurant the next morning, Granddad experience “getting thrown off his
hog” was the talk of the town. He handled the ribbing like a champion and I
learned where I got my self-deprecating sense of humor from. By Friday night at
the Fulks Run VFW I learned that his accident was still the talk of the town
when I showed up there for blue grass. I was a minor celebrity as Gene
Nesselrodt’s granddaughter who lives in Venezuela AND survived getting thrown
off the hog.
The blue grass was great and I enjoyed spending the time
with Mom, Ken and granddad. Saturday I helped mom with stuff at her house, as
they are trying to get it on the market ASAP. Then I came home and packed for
the next three weeks, as my travels are taking me all over kingdom come! My
travels started on Sunday, when I headed down to my dad’s house so he, Debbie
and I could take off for our vacation together in Ohio. I know, I hear you.
Ohio? Yes, Ohio. As it turns out, Ohio is pretty awesome. Additionally, the
Grimm Family travel group is also awesome, as we were in sync, from waking to
eating to walking, as three people could be.
We drove Sunday afternoon to Huntington, WV, stopping on the
way at the New River State Park to see the New River. We stopped for the night
at the Hampton Inn and headed for Fat Patty’s, a restaurant my dad found on
Trip Advisor. The whole trip, we stayed at Hampton Inns and found Mom and Pop
places to eat at on Trip Advisor and never once did this pattern steer us
wrong. At Fat Patty’s, I ate a cheeseburger that I have suffered from ever
since. After dinner, we wandered around Huntington, exploring the town center
and the Marshall University campus.
Monday we were heading to Cincinnati. On the way, we stopped
at an amazing national park that displayed the Hopewell Indian Earthworks. The
museum was great and outside we explored the giant patchwork of earthen mounds
that were constructed by a little known Indian civilization over 2000 years
ago. It was truly amazing to consider how this ancient civilization built these
mounds with bare hands. Like Stonehenge or the Pyramids, the construction
defies reason and the imagination. After the Hopewell Earthworks, we stopped in
Cincinnati at the Taft Presidential Museum and Home place. All I knew about
Taft before was that he was pretty fat, but at the museum I also learned that
he was the only president to also serve on the Supreme Court, as the Chief
Justice no less. He also served as the governor general of the Philippines,
sent there by President Teddy Roosevelt. Who knew? After our Taft explorations,
we went to an amazing museum at the old Cincinnati train station, the Cincinnati
Museum Center at Union Terminal. There, we found the world’s biggest model
train, built to represent the entire city of Cincinnati at the turn on the 20th
century, an underground exact replica of a city street, complete with a dock,
water and steamboat and a natural history museum. Suffice to say, Ohio was
turning out to be way more interesting that I thought it would be!
On Tuesday, we headed to Dayton, where we began at the
Wright Brothers museum. Growing up close to Kitty Hawk, had assumed that the
Wright Brothers did most of their aviation stuff in NC. I was wrong- most of
their advances and their later, more functional planes were flown eight miles
outside of Dayton in a cow pasture. The museum and the national park produced
video were amazing. The curiosity and grit the Wright Brothers showed was
incredible, especially if you consider that they did not have high school
diplomas and were entirely self-taught. I cried- the “Yankee Ingenuity” they
showed was truly inspirational. And by the way, national parks are free. FREE.
FREE INSPIRATION. FREE LEARNING. Awesomeness. Next, we went to the free Air
Force Museum. It was like the Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian museum near Dulles, only
better. They had six complete hangers absolutely jam-packed with planes and
displays throughout. It was incredible. We started at the beginning of flight
with the Wright Brothers into World War I, World War II, the Korean War,
Vietnam War, Cold War and a space shuttle and space shuttle missiles! WHOA. We
ended our day Tuesday in Columbus, where we toured the historic German Village
neighborhood and explored one of the largest independent bookstores in the
country, that had 32 rooms of random discount books and nic nacs. We finished
the night off at a Columbus Clippers game. Again, the weather was perfect (at
least until the seventh inning!) and the stadium was gorgeous. I had two big
baseball beers, a quesadilla and enjoyed a great baseball game- I was pretty
much as happy as I could possibly be!
On Wednesday, we travelled to the Harding Memorial in Marion
Ohio. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful memorial. Then, we went looking
for the Fallen Timbers battlefield….only to realize that there was in fact no battlefield
or park, just a big, newly constructed town center. We settled for a Subway
lunch and then visited the Miegs Fort, a state-run museum and park with a
reconstructed wooden fort that is the largest stockade fort in North America. It
was ten acres of wooden stockades, log houses and earth mounds. The fort was an
integral asset for the Americans fighting in the War of 1812 and the fort
itself was never taken. Also impressive, the thing was built during the
1811-1812 Ohio winter with pick-axes. Talk about that American ingenuity…. Next
we drove through Toledo to see the banks of Lake Erie. We found a nice state
park that had a lovely beach, where we hung out for a little while and enjoyed
the sun and view. We continued on to the Hayes Presidential Museum and house,
which was just as well done and interesting as the Taft museum. Hayes served in
the civil war before taking the office of president. He was also really dreamy
when he was younger.We ended our night in Tiffin, Ohio Wednesday night at a
Hampton Inn in the middle of a wheat field.
We headed off Thursday towards Canton. In Canton, there was a lot to do.
We started at the First Ladies Museum and the Ida McKinley house. Ida McKinley
was the wife of President McKinley and she was RICH. The house was incredible,
and we learned that on her 16th birthday, her father gifted her a
diamond mine. And you thought the Kardashians were over the top. After the
house, we visited the McKinley memorial and museum. Again, it was really well
done! The memorial was as big as something you would see in Washington DC…probably
the nation felt bad he was assassinated and all so they went over the top on
the memorial. There must have been a lot of spare money floating around the Fed
in 1907. The museum was huge, complete with a planetarium and another natural
history section! We ended our day at the Canton classic car museum. Along with some
really well preserved old Model T’s and Packards, the museum was filled to the
brim with antiques. They called it “a walk down memory lane” and it CERTAINLY
was. It was so well decorated and interesting- and priceless! A really neat
visit and a great way to end our explorations. That night, we had the best meal
of the trip at a place Mulligans Pub, did a little shopping at the local mall
and then enjoyed the biggest suite of the week at the good ‘ol Hampton Inn. I
caught up on some work, Debbie worked on her pictures and Dad yelled at the
weathermen on the weather channel as they feverishly reported on the impending
Hurricane Arthur as it came up the Carolina coast. Some things never change!
Our final vacation day was a travel day- 385 miles from
Canton Ohio to Staunton Virginia. Dad of course opted for the scenic route,
which was the best choice given that the day was absolutely glorious. It was
clear, 70 degrees and the mountain and valley landscapes we saw all through
West View were breath taking. We stopped at Seneca Rocks in West Virginia and
then at the overlook in Germany Valley. Both stops were beautiful examples of
why West Virginia has the nickname “Wild and Wonderful”. We arrived home in
Staunton around 3:30 and proceeded to go into full-swing 4th of July
cookout mode. Dad and I went to the store, Debbie got the grill going and
within two hours, we had the full spread ready to go- burgers, hot dogs, fresh
from the garden lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, grilled squash and zucchini. Two
burgers and two beers later, I was happier than a pig in dirt, full and ready
for some fireworks. We stopped at my favorite ice cream place- Klines- and then
on to Gypsy Hill park. The Fireworks were SO HUGE and really good- one of the
best shows I have seen in years, if not ever. We were home by 11pm and passed
out cold by 11:05, filled to the brim happiness that only a successful vacation
could bring.
All in all we had an incredible vacation and a truly wonderful
time together. It was great to get to spend so much time with my Dad and
stepmom, and they truly are two of my favorite people to spend time with. Next
on my list, I am off to Tidewater to see Meredith and my girlfriends for the weekend,
and then on Monday, it’s off to my first OACAC conference in Tampa Bay!
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