On the road again…. (part 5)

Scope, Wednesday, and I took a big family vacation with my in-laws to Ohio a bunch of weeks ago, which I have been sloooowwwwwwwly telling you all about. (For part 1 of this story click HERE, for part 2 click HERE, for part 3 click HERE, and for part 4 click HERE. *whew!*) Here’s what happened next….



DAY 6:


The sixth day of our stay in Ohio was pretty low key. First we went to Milan to take a tour of the house where Thomas Edison was born.







While waiting for our tour to begin, they actually allowed us to hold Thomas Edison’s Grammy. Pretty cool, huh?




Our tour guide was amazing. I hate to admit I’ve already forgotten his name though. It might have been Larry…. Or Lawrence…. Or Leonard…. I’m just not sure, but he was spectacular. He truly delighted in telling us quirky little tales about “that odd Edison boy” who burned his family’s barn down at the age of six and who was thought to be a complete idiot by his teachers and, well, pretty much everyone else he crossed paths with, except his mother.




Our tour guide (let’s call him TG) had the most intoxicating voice, like all the little stories and tidbits he was whispering were deliciously juicy secrets he had been saving up for years and years solely to share with us. He often started sentences with, “I shouldn’t tell you this, but….” and we would lean in closer and closer as he’d let fly gossipy nuggets of information on Edison, like how his daughters were bright but his sons were dim…. so dim that Edison eventually got disgusted enough to actually ask Thomas Edison Jr. to give up the Edison name.


Ouch.


I swear, TG could take over the world if he wanted to. He was practically hypnotic. We were hooked on his every word. He took us all through the Edison home and showed us all kinds of things Edison-related, like some of his inventions, and even the actual bed Thomas Edison was born in.




Eww, huh? I know. But anyway….


After Edison’s house, we stopped for lunch at Invention Restaurant which looked really cute and inviting on the outside, but was a complete disorganized dive on the inside.




Oh well.


Before leaving Milan, we poked around in a couple of antique stores, where Wednesday was utterly baffled by the old rotary phones piled up in there.




”But…. but…. but how the heck do you dial it?!?!” she sputtered.


*crickets chirping*


Wow.


I grew up with a rotary phone. Did you? It wasn’t that long ago, was it? It was, like, the 80’s, right? It never occurred to me that someone—and a brainiac straight A high school honor student no less!—wouldn’t know how to work a rotary phone. How can that be a dead knowledge when Katrina and the Waves still gets radio play?!?! Holy sh*t!


*deep calming breath*


So, I taught Wednesday how to dial the “ancient freaky phone”.




After the “weird” phone-dialing lesson, we left Milan and went back to our rental house with the rest of Scope’s family to change into matchy matchy outfits for a big family portrait session with Maybelle Photography.


We met our photographer at an arboretum and, after doing a slew of shots there, we migrated back to our rental home for part 2 of our session. It was almost 100 degrees and windy as all hell that day, so I didn’t have high hopes that our pictures would be anything but comical, sweaty, windblown messes. But I was wrong. They’re actually really good! Here are two of my favorites that she cleared for sharing online.








Photoshopping the sweat off of everyone’s shirts must have literally taken DAYS. Dang. That’s service. Way to go, Photo Girl!


But anyway….


That night we attempted to go out for a game of outdoor Goofy Golf, but the golf place had already closed down for the evening when we got there. This was definitely one of those blessing in disguise thingies though, because a vicious, cutthroat lightning storm hit out of nowhere about five minutes after our goofy golfing dreams were crushed to a fine paste. Here’s a big ol’ yay on that! So, instead we went back to the house to charge our camera batteries and otherwise get our act together for the next morning when we would be invading (….drumroll please….) Cedar Point Amusement Park.



[….to be continued….]






© Coracabana