On the road again…. (Part 2)

So, as we talked about in the last post, Scope, Wednesday and I took a big family vacation in Ohio a couple of weeks ago. (For part 1 of this story, click HERE.) Here’s what happened next….


DAY 3:


Our third day was kind of an odd one. First, we went to Milan (pronounced as “MY-lan” for some mysterious reason—????) where Thomas Edison was born.




We had hoped to take a tour of Thomas Edison’s childhood home, but they weren’t giving any tours that day. So, we took a quick glance around the cute little town square and then hopped back in our cars.








Scope’s sister wanted to go take a tour of the local basket factory she had seen advertised in a nifty-things-to-do-while-vacationing-in-Lake-Erie guide book she’d picked up, so we headed there next…. only to discover that the factory had long since shut down, so there were no tours to be given there either.


(Really, Milan?)


(Really?)


Okay. Fine. So we gave up on Milan and packed some quick lunches and headed over to Nickel Plate Beach instead.








The beach was all kinds of globs of giggly fun. Well…. at first. Wednesday was happily skipping through the water and collecting itty bitty shells on the beach.




Scope got his kicks posing like Superman.




And I was thrilled taking pictures of the lighthouse and this bizarre, lanky bird who was slowly creeping through the water.




He crept several yards out into the lake as if he was stealthily stalking something.




Then he just inexplicably turned around and walked right back to the shore. Fascinating and funny fella for certain! But anyway….


All was well and spiffy while I was on my feet, taking pictures and laughing at Wednesday and Scope and their beach-y hijinks. However, as soon as I sat down in the sand to eat lunch with everybody—*POOF!*—that all changed. Instantly.


There was a scent—nay, a funk—in the air at the beach that day that was hard to describe…. kind of like sweaty gym socks and burnt peanut butter mixed with old dead walrus. It’s pretty much what I imagine ‘Tan Mom’ smells like.




(Sorry.)


There was no breeze that day to dilute the sickening aroma of burnt dead things or to alleviate the suffocating heat. The food, the funk, and the temperature was suddenly more than I could take. A wave of nausea hit me like a tsunami and I leapt up and ran off the beach…. well…. as fast as a girl can run on loose sand while willing herself not to spew, anyway.


I had seen some trees and a patch of shade in the parking lot away from the beach, so I headed straight for that. It looked like heaven twinkling in front of me, I swear. But when I got there? Not so much. The funk was lurking there too. AND I was suddenly accosted by a ruthless gang of biting flies.


Nature, you suck!


No, really!


Scope and Wednesday rushed over to see if I was okay and saw me losing my battle with the demonic carnivorous flies, so we decided to go back to the rental house. The rest of Scope’s family had grown sick of the beach too and wasn’t too far behind us. And THAT was a very fortunate thing.


Upon arriving back at the house, Scope’s sister told me to go look at the strange sky looming off across the lake in our backyard. I went to check it out and she was right, the colors were simply surreal.




And they were getting more and more surreal as I stood there . So bizarre.




Even more bizarre? The majority of the ducks, which typically fled in terror into the safety of the water whenever we appeared at the lake shore, didn’t flee this time. They stayed put, huddled together on the rocks as the winds suddenly kicked up something fierce.




Hmm. Yeah. Something told me I’d better get my derriere back to the house, and fast. Something bad was coming and I was right in its path, perched precariously atop a pile of rocks with my camera like an idiot. So, I bolted back to the house just before the tornado sirens started wailing. And then—BOOM!—this is what hit.




It was like a hurricane out there! Tree limbs were slamming into our house as the rain came crashing in like a herd of spooked elephants. Mother Nature was throwing one mammoth temper tantrum and it was really quite alarming. Can you imagine if we had stayed at the beach when that sucker hit?!?! Yikes!


We came close to losing a glass door in the storm. It chose that particular moment to freeze wide open for no reason whatsoever. Several of us tried to reason with it in the rain, but it remained stubbornly stuck open, rattling dangerously in the wind…. until Scope got on the floor beat the pin right the heck out of the pneumatic piston, and then the bratty door gave in and closed like a good little door should.


(He really is Superman, folks. That pose on the beach wasn’t for nothing!)


After the storm passed, we decided to go out to dinner. On the way, I got this shot of a pansy in our front yard.




And I got this shot of a grain elevator being demolished on the side of the road.




(There’s something you don’t see everyday, huh?)


We all met up at i-5’s for dinner.




I got a kick out of the goofy little tiki dudes they had sitting outside. And the food? Awesome! I had teriyaki tuna, which was soooooooooooo delicious.


On our way back to the house, this sign caught Scope’s eye.




But, naturally, he reasoned it would be a million times more brilliant if the sign said ‘ducks’ instead of docks. True dat. So, I tried to help make that a reality.




*snicker*


[….to be continued….]





© Coracabana