Home is where the bed is!

Northern Illinois to Columbus, Ohio, and back...

It's good to be home once again--if for no other reason than my bed is so much more comfortable than the ones I was forced to lie upon on our recent sojourn to the wilds of Ohio! Nevertheless, the trip was fun and well worth the many miles invested between here and there and back again. We saw some wonderful, rolling farmland as we made our way south to Columbus from Catawba Island, avoiding all major highways and Interstates.

The weather was cooperative in that it was sunny and clear--just darned cold for the most part! It didn't really bother me as much as it did Carolyn as she tramped about the various cemeteries in search of many markers of her ancestors. She would return to the car where I waited and demand that I crank up the heat as her hands were frozen! Through it all, however, all things went well, and our "adventure" to Columbus, Ohio, was a wonderful success. 

We visited the Columbus Public Library and spent a few hours poring over microfilm of newspapers from 1919 and 1927. I somehow managed to get caught up in the "surrounding" news and sports stories of the time and almost believed that I had taken a step back in time. When I realized that I was reading the actual news and sports stories of that particular date and time, I had a strange feeling altogether. Here we were, searching for a simple death notice or obituary of one of Carolyn's relatives, and I found something intriguing in the stories of the day: Babe Ruth's home run feat in 1927; the Dempsey-Tunney fight; and of course the always popular Ohio State Buckeyes football situation. Even in 1927, their fans were quite obsessed with Saturdays at Ohio Stadium! To say the least, I found myself enjoying that part of our "expedition!"

And so it was on the road after that. A short jaunt over to the Dayton area where we were to meet with an uncle and aunt and some cousins of Carolyn's the next day. All went well, the conversations were good, and everyone enjoyed the visit. We bid farewell in the early afternoon and set out on roads and bi-ways neither one of us had ever been on before. We had lunch in a charming restaurant--The Castle--in the rural villa of Mechanicsburg, somewhere in Champaign County, Ohio! 


We made it back to my mom's late that afternoon and then on back home here yesterday. And all I could say upon crawling into my own bed last night was: "Home!" And that's a good thing I've discovered. 


Down another road we go...MLA