Monday, October 19: Yellow Springs, Ohio Girls Weekend

What the heck is this, you might ask?? This is Kathi in some sort of head gear that was at one of the "import" stores I spoke of in yesterday's post. The gal who was working the store told us that, to her knowledge, no one had every actually put the thing on before. This, of course, was something that Kathi just couldn't let be, sooooo, she became the first person on the planet to actually put this thing on her head. When I mentioned that I MUST have a picture of this, the gal working in the store told me that, actually, no one was allowed to take photos in the store. WHAT???? Why the heck not? I seriously doubt that any of our friends are going to want to run home and knit one of these things for themselves. This "thing" looked the same, front and back, as in, there were eye holes and a mouth hole on both sides. Anyway, Kathi and I backed into a corner, and I took this photo, without the giveaway flash, because we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a picture of this!

Ok, so, let's see. Monday. Our last full day of Girls Weekend 2009. ***Sigh*** It was another absolutely beautiful fall day, so we decided that we would hike in Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve and visit Clifton Mill. This turned out to be a good choice. The hike was beautiful. It was here that we actually did get views of the river at the bottom of the gorge and enjoyed the beauty of the colorful autumn foilage. It was the perfect day for a hike in such a place.

We worked up quite an appetite on our hike and as it turns out, there is a nice little restaurant inside the Historic Clifton Mill, so we grabbed a couple of burgers there with a view of the river outside the window. We could also see the guys that were putting out the lights for the gazillion bulb Christmas light display that they have every year at the Clifton Mill .

We were hoping to walk around to the side of the mill that sits on the river to get a picture, with the mill wheel but the Christmas light guys wouldn't let us climb the fence (that had a No Trespassing sign posted on it) to get the photo we wanted. So we gave the camera to one of the dudes to take the picture for us (because he WAS allowed to be on the OTHER side of the fence). He didn't frame it quite the way that I would have, so you can see some piles of Christmas lights in one corner, but you can still see just how pretty the mill is, sitting there on the bank of the river. Apparently the best shot one can get of the mill is from the covered bridge, but the Christmas light dudes had it closed off because it was absolute loaded down with strings of Christmas lights. Now, while this was not really a pretty or pleasant site on a beautiful fall day, the resulting light show looks to be spectacular (at least in the photos found on their website). From here we headed back to town, but decided to make a stop at an orchard that we had seen while driving about. This was a charming place, too, that was run by two cute farmer lady types who, obviously took great pride in the products they sold at their store, since all the produce was grown right there on the farm. There was a table laid out with all kinds of "edible squash", many of which were labeled with their name and a description of how they tasted when cooked up. Kathi, in particular, was fascinated with this and decided that she was going to buy some and try cooking them up once she got home. We both learned that there is a significant difference between jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins. I, personally, have just always bought my edible pumpkin in a can (courtesy of Libby's...thank you very much) and had never really given much thought to what type of pumpkin one would buy to cook with, should one want to cook pumpkin up fresh!! While there, we ordered up some hot apple cider, but also sampled some frozen cider..........pretty tasty!! Kathi came away from Peifer Orchards with some unusual squash and pie pumpkins to experiment with at home and I came away with lovely photo.
Once done at the orchard, we headed back to the room, where we settled in for a little e-mail, a little scrapbooking, a little journaling, some TV time, a little nibbling on things we had left in the fridge before calling it a night.

Sunday, Oct 18 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

The second floor is our home away from home on this trip. Isn't this just the cutest little jailhouse you've ever seen???



We decided last night that we wanted to participate in a cool movie/eats combo deal that the little movie theater and two of the restaurants in town have teamed up to offer. There are 2 packages. One is dinner and a movie for $20 and the other is brunch and a movie for $15. Quite a deal, huh? The one movie theater in town is called The Art Theater and the two restaurants are the Sunrise Cafe and Winds Cafe (which, you know if you have been reading this blog at all up to here, we have become quite fond of because they have fantastic, funky food!) The theater has the newest Michael Moore movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, up on its marquis, but we noticed that an art movie titled David and Fatima is playing there on Sunday at 12:30pm. We decided brunch at Winds Cafe followed by the art movie would be a good way to start our day. Alas, we arrived for brunch and found out that a group named Screenpeace actually rents out the theater for special screenings occasionally as a fundraiser and when they do this the movies they run are NOT part of the brunch/movie deal. So we decided to have brunch, anyway, but skipped on the movie. Which turned out to be a good decision, because it was, once again, a beautiful day and we had not yet really browsed the shops of the town and decided to devote the day to doing just that. Once done with brunch, which, I must admit, was a little bit of a disappointment, after the fabulous lunch we had had here a couple of days ago, we took off to do just that. One interesting thing that the artist community of Yellow Springs has done throughout the downtown area is "yarn art". Many of the telephone poles, stop signs and park benches have colorful patches of knitted and crocheted pieces wrapped around them. It is quite charming and definitely unique to Yellow Springs!



Along with many art galleries, there are also many import stores in Yellow Springs.
Kathi and I both really like the clothing that one can find in the import stores and these stores had lots of interesting sweaters, tops and skirts and the prices were actually quite reasonable. I came away with a very interesting top, while Kathi ended up buying a throw for her love seat back at home. Kathi also bought a bead doorway type of thing at one of the "import" stores that was basically a "head" shop. I haven't seen that many hookahs, bongs and pipes in one place EVER in my whole life!! Of course, they had a sign up that said that all of the items were intended to be used to smoke "specialty tobaccos" in. Uh huh.........sure. We also each got some incense from this particular place and upon returning back to our little studio apartment, I decided that I wanted to burn some of the peach vanilla incense I bought. Kathi stretched out on the couch while I lit the incense. Kathi commented on how cool the smoke from the incense looked as it rose through a shaft of sunlight (I promise that she did NOT smoke any "specialty tobacco" from any of the hookahs, bongs or pipes found in the last shop that we were in) and we decided that we should try and take a picture of it.

Ok, so the photos of the smoke aren't nearly as cool-looking as it was in real life, but one has to work with what one has, right? (I have no idea why all of that last sentenced is underlined....I have noticed that at times when typing here on Blogger, things seem to take on a life of their own!) Once "in" from our walk around town, we were in for the evening. We did our usual techno-geek girls thing of checking up on e-mail, browsing the internet to look at whatever caught our fancy and Kathi started preparing dinner. She had brought with from home some boneless, skinless chicken breasts as well as a boxed dinner made by Macaroni Grill restaurants for Chicken Picatta. The box came with the noodles, the cooking wine, the spices; basically with everything but the butter and the chicken. It was really quite tasty!! We sat down to eat just as book club was beginning to discuss the book (The Last Lecture) back in Indianapolis and one of the gals there called Kathi on her cell phone, which she put on speaker phone so that we could be part of the discussion. It was almost like being there!! Kathi and I both liked this book, even though we are both really more partial to fiction than non-fiction. It was sad, of course, because Randy Pausch, whom the book is about, had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer before being asked to give a lecture in the Last Lecture series at Carnegie Mellon University. The book explores his thoughts and feelings about giving this last lecture as well as his thought process about the topic of his lecture. It could have been a very depressing book, but I found it to be uplifting and full of hope. He chose to focus on the many blessings that he had experienced throughout his life and talked mainly about the fulfillment of childhood dreams (many of his which he saw!) He had been told that he had only a few months to live and he used this time to focus on spending time with his family (he leaves behind three young children) and wanted the lecture to be a gift to them as well as to his students and the many people who had been an influence in his life. Once the discussion was over the book chosen for the next month's meeting of the book club was revealed. The book is The Life of Pi. Kathi was not overly excited by this choice, but one must remember that one of the points of a book club is to get one to read books outside of the genre from which one usually reads. Not actually being a member of the book club, I do not feel obligated to read this book but I may read it anyway, because, like Kathi, this is not one that I would choose for myself and it is good to read "out of your box" every now and then! I am currently really looking forward to reading (actually I think I will be listening) to Dan Brown's latest book, The Lost Symbol.

After the book discussion was done and dinner was cleaned up we watched a bit of television. We FINALLY ate the apple for a late night snack, along with some cheese and crackers. Then.........., drum roll, please...........the tossing of the states. If you recall we were down to New York and Arkansas. Lori's turn to toss.......what will it be????

Oh yes!! ARKANSAS! The look on Kathi's face and the groan that escaped her lips were priceless. I wish I had gotten a picture. She was holding out for New York. We would have done New York City, even though we have been there together twice (MANY, MANY years ago) and Kathi goes nearly once a year to visit her dear friend, Aeisha (please forgive me if I spelled that wrong!) While I would have LOVED to make a trip to New York City, I am really OK with Arkansas. Kathi was hoping to knock off the state of Oklahoma at the same time, but I don't see ANY town near the Arkansas/Oklahoma state line that looks the least bit interesting. We have a year to research, so we'll see what we can come up with. If there is one thing that Kathi and I have learned over the years, it is that we seem to be able to manage to have fun together regardless of where we are!

Saturday, October 17, in Yellow Springs, Ohio

Ok, today we are determined to get outside and enjoy the great outdoors here because there are, at least, three park areas within 15 minutes or so from here to hike in and the leaves are absolutely beautiful here. So, after sleeping in until 9 or so we decided that once the temperature warmed up a bit (at 9 am, it was only 36 degrees outside) we would venture out to John Bryan State park to take a hike. While waiting for the temp to warm up we browsed our e-mail, scrapped a little, journaled a little, talked a lot and just kind of generally hung out together. After listening to a bit of the Cathedral versus Brother Rice football game that Ridley was cheering at in Detroit, Michigan (Cathedral scored the first touchdown in the first 15 minutes) we headed out. Once in the park, we found a trail head , parked and set off down a path that runs parallel to Clifton Gorge which was carved out by the Little Miami River.

We hiked for about an hour and a half and took a number of pictures of the autumn foilage. Aside from the group of yelling boys who were close behind us at the very beginning of our hike, we enjoyed a nice, peaceful walk through the woods on a gorgeous fall day. Much to my disappointment, we never really did get an unobstructed view of the gorge, but being outside and breathing in that fresh autumnal air was very refreshing.

After our hike we decided that we deserved some ice cream so we headed off to Young's Dairy. Turned out that we were not the only ones with this idea on such a beautiful fall day. Young's Dairy is not only a working dairy but also the site of a pumpkin patch, hayrides, miniature golf (in fact, their mini golf course is cleverly named Udders and Putters)

and a restaurant that features homestyle cooking. Kathi and I decided to try the homestyle cooking of the restaurant before having that ice cream. I must say, that these Ohio folks know how to cook!! We went from yesterday's delightful gourmet meal of squash and pumpkin lasagna to today's Amish style beef and noodles and cheesy baked potato soup and buttermilk fried chicken salad following the appetizers of cinnamon applesauce, coleslaw and sweet potato bread with honey butter. OH MY GOSH!!! Once all the plates, platters and bowls were set upon our table, Kathi and I just looked at one another, then the waitress, and asked if we could just go ahead and get a doggie bag then, because there was no way on earth that we were going to eat all of that food in one sitting!!! The coleslaw was nothing to write home about, the cinnamon applesauce was good, the sweet potato bread was incredible. The Amish-style beef and noodles were fabulous, the cheesy baked potato soup was delicious and we didn't even touch the buttermilk fried chicken salad. We then ambled over to the the pumpkin patch area of the place and checked out the cows and goats in the barns before slipping into the line for ice cream. Kathi chose a scoop of pumpkin along with a scoop of cinnamon, while I went with a scoop of pumpkin and a scoop of chocolate. Mmmmmm, mmmmm good! Completely full, we decided to head back to our home base. Once back in town, our curiosity got the better of us and we drove around a bit in search of Antioch College which we knew was in Yellow Springs somewhere, but had been told had closed down at the end of last school year. We found the campus and it was a sad sight. All of those buildings just deserted. Through many of the windows we could see furniture; desks and bookcases full of books. It was like everyone just up and left, leaving everything behind. Further in we saw that many of the windows in the buildings were boarded up. When we got back to the room, we did some research on Widipedia and found out that less than 200 students had attended the college during the 2008-2009 school year, it's last operating year. Apparently many alumni have banded together with the intent of saving the college and reopening it in 2011. Best wishes to them. We went back to town after this little detour and picked up some wine and some Bailey's for the evening. We listened to The Last Lecture, which was the book chosen for Kathi's book club which would be meeting the next day. We planned on calling in to the discussion so we wanted to finish listening to the book. We topped the evening off with that and went to bed.

Ooops, I forgot to talk about the traditional tossing of the states. Kathi threw the states and we were left with these two. Talk about two totally different places!!! We'll see what happens.......

Kath & I at Winds Cafe in Yellow Springs, Ohio

By the way, that apple?? Still sits whole looking pretty as a picture!!

Friday morning. We slept in until about 8:30... a luxury for both of us (although 8:30 here is 5:30 Oregon time!) and after having some coffee, browsing our e-mails and waiting for it to warm up outside (kind of a gray day), we headed downstairs and outside. Bob (our "landlord") was downstairs doing some work on the downstairs of the jail.....apparently it is being converted into the administrative office for his wife's veterinary business. His wife's holistic veterinary practice, that its. Like she does animal acupuncture and treats them with Chinese herbs. Hmmmm..... Anyway, we were in search of a grocery store this morning, so Bob offered to give us a quick tour of the town in his ice-cream cone topped golf cart, the main part of town being only a block away and covering about a 5 square block area. We were also in search of a cup of coffee and breakfast and after our tour, (by now it was about 10:30) we were quite hungry and decided that we wanted to have brunch at the funky restaurant that I mentioned in yesterday's post, but they didn't open until 11 am. So we settled into one of the town's two coffee shops and lingered over cups of coffee until 11 and which point we moseyed down to The Winds Cafe. This place is everything that I love to find in a restaurant. It's quirky. There is art by a local artist hung throughout and the smells emanating from the kitchen are mouth-watering. One of us ordered the squash and pumpkin lasagna and the other ordered the Field of Sunflowers (not really descriptive of the dish). The lasagna is described this way in the menu: "roasted, mashed squashes layered with fresh sheets of pasta and cheese and baked, then drizzled with roasted shallot cream and fresh sage oil." (they should have just said a slice of heaven). The Field of Sunflowers is described thus: ".....a big bowl of rustic beans stewed with white wine, garlic, dark leafy cooking greens and Herbes de Provence (a French herb mixture), served with hot rice, a dollop of goat cheese and a spoonful of tapenade." Both were incredibly tasty and we couldn't eat it all, so we boxed it up to take home to snack on later. After this wonderful meal, we decided to check out the two bookstores in town. The first one, Sam & Eddie's Open books, was a little too New-agey for my taste. Books on Wicca, Gay and Lesbian relationships, reading Tarot cards, that kind of stuff. We didn't stay in that one too long. We then moved on to Dark Star Books, which has a "scary" name and we thought it would be the new-agey store turned out to be a much more normal used book store. It had it's own little quirks, however. The first being that I believe that they had outgrown their space. What would lead one to believe that? The fact that toward the rear of the store, there were books lining the floors in front of the shelves with cards pushed in here and there describing what category this line of books belonged to. The other quirky thing I noticed was that there books were shelved and categorized in this manner: Science Fiction and Fantasy; by Men. What? Not only by subject matter, but subdivided one step further, by gender of author. Upon asking, we were told later, that some people collect that way, so the owner decided to arrange the store in that manner. Kathi and I, who are both serious book people and have visited countless bookstores between us have never heard or seen such a thing. After browsing the books for a while, we were offered the opportunity to participate in the stores' "Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans" contest. This involved choosing a "bean" out of the bowl, and consuming it, then trying to guess the flavor. Now, I don't how much you all know about Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans (this is what jelly beans are called in the Harry Potter book series), but they include flavors like vomit, boogers, grass, etc.... Gross, I know, but there it is. So participating in this contest was a bit of a risk, but Kathi and I were both game. Kathi went first and after a few minutes of rolling that bean around in her mouth decided that hers was apple. She was close, it was pear. I chose a yellow bean and it took me a few minutes to determine, correctly, that mine was banana. It was a good thing I got that one instead of Kathi, because she abhors bananas and would have been likely to spit that one out!!

We finally made it to the grocery store and upon exiting and realizing that it was pretty darn cold outside, we decided to just walk back to jail and hang out there for a while. We made vague plans to go out later and listen to live music, but once we were settled in and warm and cozy in our "cell" we ended up staying in, doing a little scrapbooking, listening to music and watching some TV....both of us being somewhat addicted to crime shows, CSI:Miami in particular, because Horatio Caine is Kathi's boyfriend :-)

Oh, that apple??? Still sitting in it's entirety on top of the microwave.

All flights went smoothly and well. I read my current book (The Gargoyle) on both flights. That was nice......I rarely get or take that kind of uninterrupted time to read. When I got off of the plane in Dayton, the televisions were running a live news story about a giant, homemade, helium-filled balloon that had somehow escaped the top of the house that it had been tethered to and was careening wildly over rural Colorado. What made this story news, was that it was believed that the 6 year old son of the man who made the balloon was INSIDE the balloon as it floated out of control. There were military helicopters and other aircraft following it so that when it landed they could get to the boy quickly, because there wasn't really anything else they could do. Turned out that the boy was NOT in the balloon after all (THANK GOD) and was, instead, hiding in a cardboard box in an attic at home because his Dad "had yelled at him and scared him" while they were on top of the house looking at the balloon. Weird story!

Anyway, back to Girls Weekend. Kathi was running a little bit late (she drove to Dayton from Indy) due to traffic and a fairly bumpy start to her day. The night before while she was out in the car with Ridley driving, they were pulled over because Ridley was speeding. While the police officer was nice enoughtto let Ridley off with just a warning, Kathi received a ticket for expired plates!! So, she had to go to the Indiana BMV and renew her plates and registration before driving over to Ohio for Girls Weekend. Upon arrival at the BMV, she found that she could not just do the renewal on the machine outside (for reasons unknown), she had to wait until the office opened which was another 1/2 hour away which would seriously impact her schedule. This caused her to be late for picking up her Mom to go to her adult day care place and this caused some stress between Kathi and her Dad. BUT, she finally hit the road and started to let the stress melt away.

Once Kathi arrived, we loaded up her car with my "stuff" and headed off to Yellow Springs, which is only a 30 minute drive from Dayton. We chatted and did some catching up on the drive. We arrived in Yellow Springs and easily found the Yellow Springs jail, our accommodations for this trip. Yes, you read that correctly. We are staying in what was, originally, the Yellow Springs jail, which now, of course has been converted into a cute little studio apartment dubbed the Jailhouse Suites which has a small kitchen and living space and is just perfect for us.

Once settled in, we decided to take a little walk around the town, the main drag being only a couple of blocks away. What a cute little town!! Full of art galleries, shops, restaurants, cafes. We stopped in at Brother Bear's coffee shop for a cup of coffee and a little local atmosphere. After warming ourselves up with our coffee we explored the town and found the spot where we decided to have lunch the next day. The Winds Cafe. It had things on the menu like Pumpkin Squash Lasagna and Ranch Buffalo burgers. Didn't I say we ate funky food at funky places?? From there we meandered back toward the jail, got a little bit lost on the way, then found our way again with the cool GPS function on my new phone and returned to the warm coziness of our little apartment. We chatted some more, had some chili that Kathi had brought with her from home along with some wine and caught up on e-mail. From there we moved to the couch and watched CSI and The Mentalist. At that point we realized that we were both pretty exhausted and decided to listen to the audio book The Last Lecture and go to bed. Before turning in, however, we did the ritual "tossing of the states", which is how we determine which state we will be traveling to for the next year's Girls Weekend. I am rooting for a west coast state, because many of our recent trips have been to the midwest. But, Kathi and I both know, that wherever we end up going, we will have a marvelous time, because we always do!

So…. I have an apple in my coat pocket to atone for the sin of the chocolate croissant that I indulged in upon arrival at the airport this morning along with my usual morning mocha. But the question is….will I eat it?

(What is it about vacation that makes me feel like I can push my usual boundaries out a bit? Ok, more than a bit, a LOT. I eat things that I would normally NEVER allow myself to eat, I spend money on indulgences that I would normally NEVER allow myself to spend money on and I allow myself to lounge around and do NOTHING while on vacation. This phenomenon, particularly the spending money portion of it, is something that my husband has certainly become attuned to. He KNOWS that the best time to ask me if he can make a somewhat expensive and usually unnecessary purchase is while on vacation. Am I the only one who experiences this phenomenon? I would be interested to know. I suspect, or maybe I just hope, that I am not!!)

I realized last night as I was changing into my pajamas that I forgot to bring socks. I have ONE pair. The pair that I wore yesterday. Hmmmmm…. Then, this morning, once I was at the airport and went to check my watch for the time, I discovered that I had left both my watch and my reading glasses sitting on the night table back in the motel room. I am usually WAY more careful than that. Is this old age, or does it have more to do with the above-mentioned aside regarding expanded boundaries (far less attention to detail than usual being another part of the “vacation-mind” phenomenon)? Oh well, one should not have to pay a lot of attention to time while on vacation, anyway. Right?? (More “vacation-mind” phenomenon!)

I will let you know whether I eat that apple or not.

Girls Weekend Twelve

A tank full of gas. A wallet full of cash. A bellyful of Jamba Juice Pumpkin Smash. I am on my way to Girls Weekend number twelve! I have a goofy smile on my face and a light feeling in my heart. I cannot hear the call of the washer, dryer, vacuum, broom, mop, kitchen, husband or kids. I'm not saying I don't love them all, that I won't miss them (well maybe I won't miss the washer, dryer, vacuum, broom, mop or kitchen too much), but nothing makes me feel freer than these few days away from it all with my best friend, Kathi. We will eat funky food at funky restaurants, we will scrapbook, we will drink wine and talk into the wee hours of the morning. We will walk the streets of the unfamiliar place that was chosen for this Girls Weekend and see and do and absorb as much of its uniqueness as we can in the time we have. We will learn new things and reminisce about old ones. We will feel refreshed at the end of our time together and be better to the people we love as a result of it. I LOVE GIRLS WEEKEND!!!