Explorations

Well, as promised a few weeks ago, posting has been light!
We've been busy with the last leg of our move. I mentioned to John this morning that it has been one year since we began this journey. It was last year this time that I was in negotiations to go part-time at work and we started writing our to-do list for selling our Columbus home. And now, here we are, getting our last boxes from the cabin and the storage room at the Columbus apartment, and putting things in place in the home we hope to live in for many years to come.
Wow, no wonder. No wonder that we sometimes feel exhausted, physically and psychologically, but also happy down to our bones.

Yesterday we took a break, just the two of us, to explore Marietta. I had never been there before and it is only forty-five minutes from here. I love exploring the small towns around Ohio. Or, I should say, the small and smaller towns--size becomes relative when you get outside the large metropolitan areas. Heck, Quaker City is pretty darn big compared to Salesville, and Marietta is downright huge! The larger small towns ususally have a Main Street, even if it isn't called that, with historic storefronts and a courthouse. Thankfully, the Burger Kings, Wal Marts, and Radio Shacks are built along an outerbelt of sorts. I love finding antique and gift shops and restaurants along the Main Streets and marveling at the odder tenants ("Tanfastic" is my favorite shop name in Cambridge). And I love finding the mansions that always lurk in the surrounding blocks. If a town has any size or any historical significance at all, there are always these gorgeous, turn-of-the-century, gigantic homes in the few blocks right off of its Main Street.

I took the camera with me, but didn't take one photo yesterday (yay for me). However, I found the website of a wonderful photographer who has done a much better job than I could ever do. Take a look here to see some of the homes that I saw yesterday. Marietta has quite a few of these beauties, since it was the first settlement of the Northwest Territory (from the Eurocentric point of view anyway).

Along with home-ogling, we had a micro-brewed beer and locally raised buffalo burger at The Marietta Brewing Company. That was after some antique malls and a leather store where John got his Christmas Present From His Mom--always a challenge. He got a Tilley Winter Hat in which, I must say, he looks dashing.

And now it is Monday. Back to work. I've got Christmas presents to finish up and some major organizing of the desk to accomplish (so that I can find the bills). I am anticipating the solstice in just a week. Longer days, even if imperceptible at first, will be most welcome.