To Huron and Back
Last Wednesday, Jackson and I headed west to attend the American Whippet Club's National Show in Huron, OH. I have a friend who lives about 100 miles south of there, so our plan was to go to her place Wednesday night, head up to Huron Thursday, stay at the hotel Thursday night, come back to Baltimore OH Friday and then come home Saturday. And that's exactly what we did! Some thoughts on the trip:
Heading west on I64 there was rain, fog and smoke. The first two helped with the third, and when we came back on Saturday the smoke was gone, and everything smelled charred. You could see in places where the fires nearly came to the interstate, and why it was closed for several hours earlier in the week. Hopefully the ongoing rain has helped put them all out.
Sheetz Brothers have expanded their empire into West Virginia, so I was able to get coffee for me and gas for my little red car and a bag of the world's cutest animal crackers for Jackson and I to share.
I do love my Sirius radio - I got to listen to an hour long concert by Midnight Oil recorded live at Glastonbury in 1993.
There is a Jackson County in West Virginia - if it wasn't raining, I'd have stopped and taken a photo.
The Capital Building dome in Charleston always looks pretty, even in the rain the gold glows.
It occured to me that if you could take a photo of Interstates 64 and 77 from the side, they would look remarkably like the state abbreviation - WV. Lots of downs, followed by long, steep climbs. You know when you get a sign saying 'left lane - no trucks' that you've got a long climb ahead of you. At one point there is a 4.5 mile descent at 7% grade - I'm sure that stretch did wonders for my mileage, I didn't have my foot on the accelerator nearly the whole way down. And my little red car continues to impress me - she sat between 70 and 75mph without a problem.
Of course, once you leave the interstate system, that top speed drops to 55mph, which feels incredibly slow.
Along US33W in Ohio there are several 'park and ride' signs - which is all very good, but ride to where??? Columbus is a hundred miles away...
There was also a sign for the 'Fur Peace Ranch and Concert Hall' - no idea what that is.
Both Jackson and I got to visit my friend Judy's office - I'm waiting for her to tell me that when she went back the next day there was a sign saying 'no dogs'. :)
Judy's dog Henry is very sweet, and he was quite disappointed that Jackson did not want to play with him. Hard to explain to him that Jackson doesn't want to play with anybody (although we discovered there were a few pretty girls at the National he would have made an exception for!).
Years ago, the family and I were coming back from Minnesota, and we'd come through Michigan's Upper Peninsula and across the bridge between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Of course, we've seen Lake Superior many times. And we thought well, Lake Erie is just near here, we'll go take a look and once we came through Toledo we took a small detour into some little industrial town that - theoretically - is on Lake Erie. And ... we couldn't find it. We spent maybe half an hour looking, but no luck. Huron, OH, is on Lake Erie (yes, I don't understand the naming logic either) and here it is, with Jackson nicely standing in front of it, to prove it exists:
We met up with my friend Leslie at the National (Leslie owns Cricket, who is my Sawyer's littermate) and we looked at whippets, and toured around, and looked at more whippets and decided there was no way we could ever judge something like that as they were all gorgeous. We shared a room, and Jackson deemed the bed okay:
Friday afternoon Jackson and I participated in the rescue parade, with four other lovely dogs and after that we headed back to Ohio. We spent the night with Judy and family, got ice-cream (black raspberry!) and then headed home Saturday morning. Jackson slept most of the way:
Apparently Adele did a cover of The Cure's 'Lovesong' on her latest album - best estimates is that royalties from that earned Robert Smith around $3 million. Not bad!
Coming back into Virginia from WV there is a big sign that says 'Drive Safely - Come Again Soon!' but, oddly, it's on the other lane. I'm guessing the other side is the 'welcome to West Virginia' sign, but it still seemed strange.
At some stage I need to go see the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is, according to the signs, 65 miles off I64. Also the BlueDogArt Cafe in Buena Vista, which is much closer.
Jackson has forgiven me for forgetting his bear, but has slept near it most of the time since we've been home.
Next year's National is in Oregon, so I doubt I'll make that one, but the year after is in Maryland - just up the street!
Heading west on I64 there was rain, fog and smoke. The first two helped with the third, and when we came back on Saturday the smoke was gone, and everything smelled charred. You could see in places where the fires nearly came to the interstate, and why it was closed for several hours earlier in the week. Hopefully the ongoing rain has helped put them all out.
Sheetz Brothers have expanded their empire into West Virginia, so I was able to get coffee for me and gas for my little red car and a bag of the world's cutest animal crackers for Jackson and I to share.
I do love my Sirius radio - I got to listen to an hour long concert by Midnight Oil recorded live at Glastonbury in 1993.
There is a Jackson County in West Virginia - if it wasn't raining, I'd have stopped and taken a photo.
The Capital Building dome in Charleston always looks pretty, even in the rain the gold glows.
It occured to me that if you could take a photo of Interstates 64 and 77 from the side, they would look remarkably like the state abbreviation - WV. Lots of downs, followed by long, steep climbs. You know when you get a sign saying 'left lane - no trucks' that you've got a long climb ahead of you. At one point there is a 4.5 mile descent at 7% grade - I'm sure that stretch did wonders for my mileage, I didn't have my foot on the accelerator nearly the whole way down. And my little red car continues to impress me - she sat between 70 and 75mph without a problem.
Of course, once you leave the interstate system, that top speed drops to 55mph, which feels incredibly slow.
Along US33W in Ohio there are several 'park and ride' signs - which is all very good, but ride to where??? Columbus is a hundred miles away...
There was also a sign for the 'Fur Peace Ranch and Concert Hall' - no idea what that is.
Both Jackson and I got to visit my friend Judy's office - I'm waiting for her to tell me that when she went back the next day there was a sign saying 'no dogs'. :)
Judy's dog Henry is very sweet, and he was quite disappointed that Jackson did not want to play with him. Hard to explain to him that Jackson doesn't want to play with anybody (although we discovered there were a few pretty girls at the National he would have made an exception for!).
Years ago, the family and I were coming back from Minnesota, and we'd come through Michigan's Upper Peninsula and across the bridge between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Of course, we've seen Lake Superior many times. And we thought well, Lake Erie is just near here, we'll go take a look and once we came through Toledo we took a small detour into some little industrial town that - theoretically - is on Lake Erie. And ... we couldn't find it. We spent maybe half an hour looking, but no luck. Huron, OH, is on Lake Erie (yes, I don't understand the naming logic either) and here it is, with Jackson nicely standing in front of it, to prove it exists:
We met up with my friend Leslie at the National (Leslie owns Cricket, who is my Sawyer's littermate) and we looked at whippets, and toured around, and looked at more whippets and decided there was no way we could ever judge something like that as they were all gorgeous. We shared a room, and Jackson deemed the bed okay:
Friday afternoon Jackson and I participated in the rescue parade, with four other lovely dogs and after that we headed back to Ohio. We spent the night with Judy and family, got ice-cream (black raspberry!) and then headed home Saturday morning. Jackson slept most of the way:
Apparently Adele did a cover of The Cure's 'Lovesong' on her latest album - best estimates is that royalties from that earned Robert Smith around $3 million. Not bad!
Coming back into Virginia from WV there is a big sign that says 'Drive Safely - Come Again Soon!' but, oddly, it's on the other lane. I'm guessing the other side is the 'welcome to West Virginia' sign, but it still seemed strange.
At some stage I need to go see the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is, according to the signs, 65 miles off I64. Also the BlueDogArt Cafe in Buena Vista, which is much closer.
Jackson has forgiven me for forgetting his bear, but has slept near it most of the time since we've been home.
Next year's National is in Oregon, so I doubt I'll make that one, but the year after is in Maryland - just up the street!