Letchworth State Park waterfalls at half speed
Same video at half speed. More relaxing.
Same video at half speed. More relaxing.
These videos were shot December 11, 2011, with an Olympus Stylus Tough pocket camera at a very crowded exhibit. I risked my life to get this close without upsetting any parents. A soothing way to spend a late autumn day.
When passing through Cuyahoga Valley National Park, I stayed at Shady Oaks Farm Bed and Breakfast, which I think may have been for sale.
The house was large with an impressive dining room fireplace, but what I loved most were the rooms. To get to one of them, you went down a few steps, then up a few steps into the next room, all connected, set up for children. I can’t get enough of houses with oddities like this — multiple levels on one floor, attic rooms, mysterious little slanted doors or floors that sort of thing.1
As a farm, Shady Oaks featured horses, with two or three in a pasture and a pony in the stable. The B&B could accommodate travelers with horses too. On their website, they warned fussier visitors that theirs was a working farm, so there might be equipment, hay, etc., about the place. People had complained. Between the horses and the comfortable porch overlooking the pasture and the long drive ahead, I found Shady Oaks very hard to leave.
1 My favorite was my aunt’s second floor apartment in Altoona, Pennsylvania. When you walked through her bedroom and maybe down a step or two (memory fails), you found yourself in another bedroom — in another house. Those houses have since been torn down, and I doubt their like will be seen again in our present-day bland, cookie-cutter modern housing.
Standing tall on Route 66 in Wilmington, Illinois, the Gemini Giant welcomes you to the Launching Pad. The giant is one of the Muffler Men listed at Roadside America (many with photos). You can learn “How to Identify Muffler Men.” Accept nothing less than the real deal.
I’m devastated — DEVASTATED — to find out only now there are Muffler Men variations in Springfield (here’s one and here’s the other), Peoria (Vanna Whitewall!), and Metropolis. I missed them all on visits to those towns.
But I’ll always have the Gemini Giant in Wilmington.
Not a Muffler Man, but I saw Superman in Metropolis.
And even Clark Kent, who’s more two dimensional than I expected.
This is another Belt of Venus, this time taken in Wisconsin on Lake Michigan, November 28, 2015. Different from this one and this other one in Chicago.
My dad, persistently frustrated by cheap cameras, would be amazed by what you can do with something that fits into your pocket. He would be more amazed and likely appalled by how much such a thing costs. I know he’d envy my photos and videos of Letchworth, though. From late May 2015.
Four years later, I realized I never wrote about a quick spring visit to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. Luckily for anyone who finds this, I don’t remember much detail.
What I do remember:
Toward the end of the second day, we made a quick stop at Shades State Park but didn’t see much. Then we headed back down sunny country roads as the weather soon turned threatening.
Some but not all of the stops according to the Swarm app:
With a short visit to Starved Rock planned to see bald eagles (maybe), I decided to look for a place to stay in or near Utica vs. Ottawa. I wasn’t optimistic, but to my surprise I found one only a couple of miles from Starved Rock. For some rooms, they didn’t require a two-night stay. Feeling northwoodsy (or nautical), I booked the Mackinac because it looked comfortable. I wasn’t disappointed.
I told the owners about the themed room at Ann Arbor Bed & Breakfast, including how my favorite room, the Maine Woods, earned its name and decor from the rich green carpet. They said they too named their rooms for their favorite places. They mentioned the Aspen room upstairs. Why Aspen? I must have looked puzzled. Because it’s on the top floor. Yes, I’m slow.
The Mackinac has a big gas fireplace, which we tried briefly. After dinner, we found Trivial Pursuit in one of the comfortable public rooms and played until too worn out to continue. The questions were more difficult than I remember, even in my better categories (science and nature, history, geography).
The next day we had our choice of bananas foster or eggs Benedict, along with muffins, cereal, fruit, etc. A gas fire warmed the breakfast room, which looked like it’d been decorated for Valentine’s Day. You can’t go wrong in a dining room with book-lined shelves, one fronted by a realistic morel mushroom knickknack.
The Mackinac has a large whirlpool that I didn’t take advantage of . . . this time. The room overlooks a couple of corn mazes that would be fun to try when grown. I did turn on the fireplace again and kick back in the recliner. Ahhh.
On the way out, I picked up a jar of aronia berry jam and a candle — I have enough candles for a couple of lifetimes.
Next time — the Aspen?
Last year’s Maple Sugar Time at Chellberg Farm was not productive. The daytime temperatures were too cold for maple sap to run. I remember someone saying they used water in the sugar shack — there wasn’t enough (or any?) sap for the demonstration. It was still fun and informative, even without the star attraction — maple sap.
This year’s a different story. Maple sap is pouring out of the sugar maples — literally. This extractor was filling every five to six minutes. At 2 p.m., the tub was about one-third full. By 4 p.m., it was nearly two-thirds full.
The warm air, sunshine, and freely flowing sap gave the day and everyone involved energy. We had our traditional Lions Club breakfast at 2, then checked out all the stations on the trail to the farmhouse.
After picking up some goodies (maple syrup, maple cream, maple water, and an Indiana Dunes National Park mug), we also visited Chellberg Farm’s current animal helpers, starting with Belgian team Bill and Jack.
After a stop at the Schoolhouse Shop and Tiger Lily’s for dinner, time to go home and rest my own sap.
It’s high time I wrote about some of the places I’ve stayed — not the chains, but bed and breakfasts, inns, and other local places.
Temple Hill Bed & Breakfast, built in 1826 in Geneseo, New York, as an academy of higher education for young men, is nestled amongst older trees across from Temple Hill Cemetery, which dates from 1807. It’s a grand house, with a circular driveway that makes you feel like you’re entering an English estate on a BBC series. Why I don’t have a photo of the exterior baffles me.
The owners have a dog and some free-range cats. I stayed in the Academy Room, where I made a big thud when I fell in the Jacuzzi tub. I don’t have photos of the room either.
Although it was too early for the pool to be open, we did get a peek at the garden, complete with a tea room pagoda in progress. I’m a little fuzzy on the details as already more than two-and-a-half years have passed.
Upstairs there was an open room with books and games that reminded me of a scene early in the film Moonrise Kingdom. It was hard to leave that too, even if I didn’t have time to spend there.