Vacation, Day Twelve: in which I’m still technically on vacation, but am writing this from my home PC after having returned, unpacked and eaten dinner. Or something like that.
To be honest, I’m experiencing the same-time-zone driving equivalent of jet lag, if such a thing exists. I’m so happy, and had such an amazing two weeks, but I’m also remarkably exhausted. So rather than try to write anything that requires a whole lot of critical thinking (poetry aside, of course), I’m just going to throw a recap up here. This is admittedly for myself, so I have something to reference if anyone asks me where I went while I was in vacation in Ohio. But just in case anyone wants to know how to spend a week in Ohio on vacation… well, here you go.
Thursday, May 20 (Day 0): I packed at a leisurely rate, then drove 90 minutes south to leave my car at my parents’ home so we could all drive up together in the same vehicle.
Friday, May 21 (Day 1): We drive for twelve hours, from Southwest Florida up through Georgia and South Carolina, before stopping for the night in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was a surprisingly nostalgic trip, as I used to make the drive several times per year but hadn’t done so in more than a decade and a half.
Saturday, May 22 (Day 2): We drive up to Davidson, the college from which I graduated, and tour the town a bit (so different in some areas, while so unchanged in others), then return to the Interstate Highway system. We drive through North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, before finally reaching our destination state of Ohio. Altogether, only eight hours or so worth’ of driving. We meet up with—and have dinner with—my brother and sister-in-law, the first of whom is graduating from Nursing School. This is the first reason we are even in Ohio to begin with.
Sunday, May 23 (Day 3): We spend the day with my brother and sister-in-law, mostly touring a variety of state parks and a quaint little town in the vicinity. I clamor over rocks and rivers, see waterfalls and trains, and drive down many scenic country roads. Maybe a few too many scenic country roads, but today it is fine.
Monday, May 24 (Day 4): Our second day in central / northeastern Ohio, we spend a lot of it driving down new scenic country roads, as well as some increasingly-familiar ones. We also visit a vintage chocolate shop (where I buy a bit too much candy), the largest hardware store I have ever seen, and an off-off-Broadway museum by the name of the Blue Water Majesty Museum that turns out to be one of the hidden gems of the entire vacation. Lots more time is spent with my brother and sister-in-law, crammed into the back of a four-door pickup truck.
Tuesday, May 25 (Day 5): On the positive side of things, we spend half the day at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and I am reminded how much I freaking love music and music history. We also visit another, larger chocolate shop, where I buy far too much candy. On the negative side, however, a combination of not enough food, not enough sleep and too much time spent in close proximity with members of my family proves to be too much for me. I snap, I offend several members of my family, and I learn the importance of thinking before speaking and eating before thinking. Lesson are learned, apologies are offered and (hopefully) all is forgiven.
Wednesday, May 26 (Day 6): Sleep is good, food is better, time to myself spent in self-care is best. We drive from Akron to Cleveland (having only visited the city the day before to visit the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame) to spend the night. We also visit the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Greater Cleveland Aquarium, two of my favorite varieties of attractions.
Thursday, May 27 (Day 7): We travel from Cleveland to Columbus. The attractions of the day include the Columbus Museum of Art and some sight-seeing in Germantown. Not a whole lot else happens, but it is certainly a great day regardless.
Friday, May 28 (Day 8): The temperature drops dramatically overnight, and suddenly I’m wishing I’d brought a jacket. It had been so warm just the day (and week) before. Now it’s raining. Plans to visit the Columbus Zoo are cancelled, as it would just be too miserable to walk around outside. So instead, we wander around in search of interesting and entertaining places to visit. We end up visiting the Columbus Area Fire Museum and a 32-room bookstore known as the Book Loft, which might be my new favorite bookstore of all time (sorry Haslam’s, but you really need to reopen soon!).
Saturday, May 29 (Day 9): It is still too cold to do anything outside, but at least now I’m wearing a long-sleeve shirt. We find another off-the-beaten-path museum in the form of the Early Television Museum, and I have more fun than I should wandering around an indoor amusement park filled with arcade machines, extreme laser tag rooms and an indoor rollercoaster. We also relax a bit in the afternoon, simply enjoying the peace and quiet of the hotel room.
Sunday, May 30 (Day 10): In the afternoon, we drive out into the country to see my cousin get married. This is the second reason we are even in Ohio to begin with. This is also our last day in Ohio. A country wedding (in every sense of the phrase) is not my thing personally, but it is my cousin’s, and she was beautiful, and we all had a lot of fun, and I had a chance to reconnect with members of my family I haven’t seen in far too long. So all is good. There is some final packing in the evening, too.
Monday, May 31 (Day 11): We set out to return home. We drive for twelve hours, from Ohio back south via a different route, through Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, before finally stopping for the night in Valdosta, just ten minutes north of the Florida border. I personally drive for a five-hour leg of the trek. In fact, I can now say with an odd degree of pride that I have driven straight through the middle of Atlanta, Georgia on I-75. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it was supposed to be; I blame the holiday for light traffic on the road. Happy Memorial Day, by the bye.
Tuesday, June 1 (Day 12): We complete the journey home, driving five or six hours to my parents’ home, where I transfer my luggage back into my own vehicle and drive the last 90 minutes north, to my own home. I also stop for dinner on the way, because there is no way I have it in me to cook anything tonight. I unpack, I eat dinner, I decompress a bit, and I sit down to write a diatribe for the Artist and the Engineer… this diatribe. 😊
What an amazing journey. I can honestly say that I made some amazing memories, learned many new things, had fun and relaxed and recharged… and I am so thankful for the opportunity to take a vacation like this. I’ve never taken a two-week vacation in the entirety of my adult life, and it has been many years since I took any sort of actual vacation that involved actually leaving town and seeing interesting places. I don’t take for granted that I could do something like this. It was fantastic.
Thanks for joining me on this journey, if you have done so. I’m sure I’ll get back to the typical content here over the next day or two. As for now… good night!
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…and Home Again
And now, I have come home again,
My journey at its end.
And while I try, with page and pen,
This writing to attend,
I find myself in awe, as when
An artist may transcend
The flesh before a forest glen
Or mountain trail ascend.
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Written while listening to Gravitational Balance (Psychill and Downbeat Mix) (2018), posted by AniccA on YouTube.
The Artist and the Engineer 