Next Weekend, All Planned Out.

“Kindled by the dying embers 

Of another working day,

Go upstairs take off your makeup,

Fold your clothes neatly away, 

Me, I’ll set and write this lovesong 

As I all too seldom do,

Build a little fire at midnight

It’s good to be back home with you.” *

Goal, Relaxation

One week from today, actually one week from last Thursday, we will be at Shawnee State Park in southern Ohio. It might be a little premature for a kayaking trip but we can always light a fire, open a bottle of wine and relax. Sometimes it is good to just stop and take a breath. Life can seem like the episode of Star Trek with the tribbles, everything piles up too quickly, and you are buried under small, insignificant tasks. Life can be strange sometimes.

It is a small cabin, which, from the pictures on Instagram and Trip Advisor, is almost exactly like the cabins at Lake Hope. Small, comfortable, and wonderfully adequate for a couple of days of leisure. Ohio Department of Natural Resources really did a great job with these small treasures scattered around the state. When you look at the world from those windows you see the world, our country in a whole new way. The sense of isolation is palpable, just the two of us, in the wealth and glory of Nature’s splendor, and there is less than 100 feet to the next cabin.

Preparation

To make sure we have all the information we need I put the Shawnee State Park in Entune on our Tacoma. I installed Portsmouth, the nearest real town, on the weather app on my phone, and check it often. Thursday is predicted to be 58 with a chance of rain, Friday cloudy and 53, Saturday sunny and 49 and Sunday cloudy and 60 degrees. It has changed several times in the last week. But, any of those days might work for a quick paddle around either lake. Or, they might stay in the back of the truck. We will be prepared though. 

Plus, I know exactly where the Kroger is in Portsmouth. My wife loves Kroger. She says they have the best deals and the most polite employees. She is a coupon clipping machine, and shops the sales with a keen eye for detail. I always check for a Kroger, anywhere we go. If the pictures are any indication the Portsmouth Kroger is much nicer than either the Athens or Nelsonville Kroger. It might even be as nice as the Kroger Marketplace in Gahanna, but I am not holding my breath. 

We will do some hiking, too, on the trails running through the ancient forests, with all of their secrets, and smells, sounds and natural mystery. But we will also walk along the river front and hike through downtown Portsmouth. Every town and city we have walked through had a story to tell, and it was always a good story. A tale of survival, struggling through difficult times, enjoying the wealth and warmth of economic growth. America lives and breathes on those streets, America will walk with you as you walk down those streets.  History at a relaxed stroll.

One of our favorite ways to find out about a place is to try appetizers at small local restaurants, local delicacies, born from legend or need, growing with the times, evolving from simple origins. You are what you eat, and you are definitely what you serve to people who happen in and ask what is good.

Taking a Detour

On the way home we are going to swing by Cincinnati and stop in at Jungle Jim’s (also installed on the navigation app in the pickup). It is a place we have to stop by whenever we can. It can be crowded, the help can be a little testy at times, but the place is spectacular. If it is food, and it isn’t at Jungle Jim’s it probably isn’t really food. They have miles of rows of shelves. We find things we can’t find anywhere else. Plus, it is just fun, wandering the aisles, looking at the selection, and thinking this is a crazy grocery store. It is a destination, we can kill several hours just looking, and we always find something we want.

Sometimes, I think we spend too much time walking through grocery stores. Maybe it is our way of reaching into our long lost past, hunter gatherers, making our way through life, harvesting our food, preparing to meet the challenges of the tumultuous week ahead. Work, alarms clocks, traffic jams, lunch in the break room, coffee in a mug you found in the the cupboard, it might be anybodies, the tension of the potential, “Hey, that is my coffee cup,” ringing through the building, everybody looking. So much tension, so much stress. Preparing for the awful requires dedication and calm. Zen and the art of grocery store browsing. I’m a subscriber.

* Fire at Midnight by Jethro Tull.

Good Times Ahead if I live that long.

Today I have good news. And I have bad news.

The good news.

I am only 6 days away from a three day weekend. A three day weekend complete with our annual trip to the Swapper's Day extravaganza in Johnstown, OH. Home of the Johnstown Johnnies.

Unless you are from Johnstown you probably don't care too much about the Johnnies, that is the mascot and namesake of the high school sports teams. I just think it is a great name for a team. So, I gave them a mention. If you read this blog send an email to the school saying "Go Johnnies!" and reference my blog. They won't have any idea what you are going on about, but they will appreciate the sentiment and they might read my blog. It is what sales people call a "win-win scenario." Everybody loves a winner, right.

Swapper's Day is fantastic, it is a huge sale, almost a yard sale in a yard the size of pasture, with hundreds of different "yard sale vendors" (if that is the right term). There is something for everybody. Fishermen, hunters, collectors, people who are obsessed with knives, oh there are knives, bayonets, machetes, swords. Crafts and arts, clothing, and crowds.

Not from Swapper's Day, Just a picture to add
texture and visual appeal.

Popup covers run down long lanes radiating from a central point. Spokes of a giant wheel, and on the edge, where the business part of the wheel would be, runs the biggest tents of all, the booths of the gun sales people. It is serious out there. RVs sit behind tables and racks loaded with guns. People talk about guns, bicker over the price of guns, discuss the distance at which a certain gun is no longer accurate, occasionally they will bicker about that, too. Displays of guns by kits to clean guns next to books about guns. There are boxes of straps and handles and accessories to carry guns. One trip to Swapper's Day and you will never worry about the well being of the second amendment again.

And at the hub of the wheel is one of my favorite parts, the food vendors. Most of the time we dine on the cuisine of a local organization for youth. Sometimes the PTA will have a booth, or the 4H selling chicken and noodles or pulled pork, maybe street tacos. Volunteers sweating in the cramped, hot shacks hawking the value of their work and the taste of their food. Often they will have several children employed cleaning tables, handing out napkins, or just smiling and saying hello. Who could refuse?

As long as we started with good news;* In two weeks I will spend three and a half days at Lake Lifestyles of the lower middle class and unpopular airs again. This time the cabin is a little more appropriately sized for two, not as luxurious, or well equipped. And the lake is smaller, farther away and probably pretty forgiving when compared to Gitche Gumee. It probably has very few deaths, and will gladly give them back. Just a bit of boating, grilling, a little wine, a little relaxing and enjoying life. It is the stuff of paradise. Just my wife, our  kayaks and me.

Lake Hope lies in the middle of Southeastern Ohio. An area that was once a thriving hub of iron mining, iron smelting and munitions manufacturing for the civil war. Bricks, tiles were made by the thousands, trains steamed across the region. Now, it is mostly just forested hills cut through by lonely highways going places mostly forgotten. Two lane roads that wind through dark, dense woods eventually taking you to Washington Courthouse, or Nelsonville where you can jump on a real road. Multi lane, controlled access expressway, with bypasses so you don't have to waste your time watching the small parts of America dry up and die. You can hurry to the coast, or the mountains or, in my case, the lake.

And that's the good news, in a depressing way.

Now for the bad news. I have to get through today, tomorrow and all of next week. Somehow I have to find a way to claw, fight and will my way through the next six, or so, days. Then a long weekend After three days off it will be the desperate struggle to get through two and a half days to reach three and half days off. Give me strength.

*Please note the semicolon, I was told never to use one, and then in a class I took on self editing (a practice I am still learning) the teacher said it was alright; the semicolon is back.

Kayaks, Mexican Food and a Ghost, or Two.

My wife tried kayaking on Lake Superior. She did very well. She did so well we are thinking about getting her a kayak. Her kayaking success didn't really surprise me, she is very talented, and thoroughly stubborn. I have told her, several times, "just because it was your idea doesn't mean it will work." But, it almost always does. It is the maniacal optimism, and fanatical attention to detail that makes things work. I have never known anyone who can see things so clearly, but I have never known anyone who can look at something with such power and precision, such laser focus, sometimes it scares me.

Anyway, our trip, our date week, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was such a smashing success we have decided to recreate it. On a much smaller scale of course. Nobody can catch lightning in a bottle twice. But, a long weekend before the slog of the school year and the agony of holiday shopping madness is preventative medicine at its finest. Dr. Clark, and his All Star Medical Chorus.

We are going to try to take a long weekend in September and rent a cabin on Lake Hope in southeastern Ohio. My wife, two kayaks, a small, comfortable place to stay, and a three day weekend kayaking around a beautiful lake. Could it get any better?

Oddly enough, yes, it could. Lake Hope is less than a half hour from Athens, OH, home to the only Taco John's in Ohio. As far as I know the only Taco John's east of Iowa. Taco John's is the home of Potato Oles. Small, deep fried pillows of shredded potato covered in some sort of spicy seasoned salt. They are delicious. Burritos and tacos and taco bravos, and some of the spiciest green sauce in the fast food universe. A staple of our wasted youth in Colorado and Nebraska. Only a half hour away, could it possibly be any better?

Interestingly enough, yes it could. Turns out Lake Hope is only three and a half miles from the Moonville Tunnel. Wherein lives the Moonville Tunnel Ghost.  You might think the Moonville Ghost would live in what remains of Moonville, a ghost town. Just a few foundations sticking up from the ground, a scattering of forgotten artifacts of hurried construction and patient decay. He doesn't. Or in the Moonville Cemetery, a small patch of land just south and west of the tunnel, where the few remaining headstones mark the mostly forgotten passing of some resident and whose failing conditions mark the passing of time. He doesn't. Not according to legend, anyway

The Moonville Ghost lives in the railroad tunnel. It is said he (or she, depending on the legend, and I have always been an equal opportunity coward) was killed in a terrible accident in the tunnel. Or a malicious act of anger and jealousy. Once again, it depends on the rumor. Either way, it is the tunnel that is haunted, though some people have claimed to see odd things in the abandoned cemetery as well. So who knows, maybe more than one ghost, or just one ghost who likes to get out and boogie around a little, and that is ok with me.

Kayaks, tacos, ghosts, and my little maniacally stubborn, stubbornly optimistic angel. It should be a good time. Don't worry, I will tell you all about it. With pictures, and possibly a movie.

Kayak episode two.

My first kayak trip was a success. Actually it was a smashing success, a grand slam homerun, an endless celebration of man and machine working in harmony to overcome the difficulty of getting from point A to to point B, and then back to point A. Point A is where the car was, and the cooler full of bottled water, and snack crackers. And my wife, my patient, lovely wife, who agreed to come with me, and help me get started. She knows I get nervous, she knows I watched so many videos, and still had no level of comfort.

She remembers when I decided to quit smoking and asked the doctor for Chantix. She remembers how I read the personal accounts of the character altering horrors of the drug. I started having side effects before I even started taking the drug. I went from Doctor Meek to Mr. Hyde based on the power of suggestion. Oddly enough, I had all the side effects from the reading about the side effects, and didn't have any from the drug.

Where I kayak, the only time I have kayaked, there is a small boat ramp and several muddy beaches to launch a kayak. I chose the muddy beach, because of the hundreds of videos I watched about launching a kayak the beach looked the least likely to end in humiliation, and if it did there were fewer witnesses, and mud is kind of dirty, but it is a lot softer than a concrete boat ramp. Point A.

Point B was almost everywhere else. I just cruised, and stopped, and looked at the choking, strangling trees that crowded the shore everywhere. It was so peaceful, even knowing that humanity and all of its problems were only minutes away in any direction. For a few brief seconds I was sailing around in a world of my own, Except for all the other kayaks, and a few motor boats, and a lot of people standing on the bank fishing. Richard Byrd, James Bruce, Lewis and Clark never felt the sense of serene amazement I had paddling my little plastic boat around the tiny island.

In fairness they probably did not think, "man, think of the poison ivy growing in that jungle." So I guess it kind of evened out. And they probably did not have a cold bottle of sparkling water waiting for them, and a patient wife who listened to the entire trip as if it were a mission to the moon.

I am going out again this weekend, my wife has agreed to take some pictures of me cruising in my "yak" (that is what us kayakers call them, I guess we are too busy for both syllables) and I will post them here. Next month we are going to vacation on Lake Superior. And I will have my kayak on the big lake, the one "they call gitche gumee."* Trust me, my wife hasn't heard anything yet.

*Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot.