Marblehead Lighthouse

As mentioned in my rescue blog, twice this past week I've ended up at Marblehead Lighthouse, as well as the rest of the town of Marblehead. I've been there 3 or 4 times over the years and have yet to make it during a time when we could climb the lighthouse and look out over the lake. Without that aspect of the experience, there's not much to it. According to the website, it's the most photographed landmark on Lake Erie, and since I'm always happy to be a cliche, I dutifully lined the kids up and took a couple of pictures. They were especially impressed you can see Cedar Point across the bay, so we fed quarters into the big binocular-things (hey I tried to find a proper name on google with no luck) in the hopes of focusing in on someone screaming on a roller coaster. Judging from how many people were coming and going while I was there, it's a popular park. I suppose the romantic notion of lighthouses is a bigger draw than hiking 5 miles down a rocky beach hoping to see an eagle. It's definitely worth seeing though. The lake there is especially pretty as well.

I've probably mentioned it before and most assuredly will mention it again but I love Lake Erie. Just everything about it! The parks, the birds, the wildlife, the beaches. I'm not sure why I live so far "inland" but it's a situation I plan to remedy eventually. I have every intention of spending my golden (just around the corner) years in a ratty camper in some dive campground along the lake; just me, my coffee cup, a library card, and a couple of mean chihuahuas.

Art In the Wild

On our way back from White Star Quarry after watching my son take his SCUBA certification testing, my daughter and I drove through the small town of Gibsonburg, Ohio (pop. about 2500.)

You wouldn't expect all that much from a town that size so I did a double take when I noticed a group of sculptures alongside a small lake in the middle of town. We decided to turn around and see what it was about. The few I'd noticed from the road lead to more and more, maybe 2 dozen encircling the lake, all by different artists. It was like happening upon a small roadside museum, just...there, with no explanation at all. In this little War Memorial Park in this tiny town. It was amazing and very cool.

Apparently it started a few years ago when one local artist was asked to display more of his work, and he invited others and it's gone on since then. I'm not sure it would be worth making a long drive but if you're out that way at all, it's definitely worth stopping to see. I'm really glad we came across it.
Small Town, Big Art

County Fairs

We went to the Fulton County Fair on Sunday. The fair is one of the truly great things about the rural area where I spent my childhood. That there are basically no other great things is why I don't live there now.

Still, the website doesn't do it justice. This is a true country fair. They have buildings packed full of livestock, horse shows, a building full of floral displays, needlepoint and quilts, arts and crafts, another full of homegrown fruits and vegetables. It's a tradition there to gather up the best of whatever it is you do best, and enter it in the fair.

I drag my kids from place to place, exclaiming at all the different varieties of chickens (as though we've never seen them before), wondering how we can ever eat a turkey after staring at them eye to eye (we get over that by November.) We pet bunnies, and horses. (Watch their ears! That one will bite!) Every time we walk through the goat and sheep barn, I tell my son the story AGAIN about when he was in his stroller, and got scared half to death by a big loud BAA!! in his face by a sheep, and how he wouldn't go back in that building for the next few years.

My kids of course go to ride rides. Unfortunately they're at an awkward age now, too big for the little kids' rides, but with a mother who is too neurotic to let them ride most of the big rides. (Hello, they put them up yesterday?! All it's going to take is one loose bolt and that flying thing will be flying right on down the midway!) So they mostly end up riding the bumper cars over and over.

I am a grown-up so of course I go for the food. We have a routine. First, we go to the french fry booth. Not all the others that offer fries but rather THE booth, the same one in the same place with the same fries (maybe even the same grease) in a paper cup I have been eating every year since I can remember. Next to that is the Dairy Barn for milk shakes and THEN to the Beef Farmers' Booth for either a roast beef or rib eye sandwich. (Sympathy for steers rarely enters into the equation. Steers are big and rather un-cute, plus when they're in their stalls all you see is their butts.) Before we leave, we get a box of fresh donuts from the Band Boosters under the Grandstands. The Grange people also grill up the best chicken halves anywhere so I usually grab one of those to go, too.

When we were kids, we all did 4-H. I started off taking sewing??? All I can come up with is my girl cousins did it, so I did too. Once. Then we had lambs. You care for your lamb all summer, feed it, keep records of the expenses involved. Before the fair, someone comes and shears it of its wool. Then you care for it all week at the fair and take it to the required lamb show. Then at the end of the week everyone takes their sheep (and other livestock) to the jr fair auction where various businesses pay higher than market price for your 4-H project. Afterwards you say goodbye to your little friends, knowing they're headed off to become someone's dinner, and collect a check. Farm kids are a tough lot.

Crane Creek (no longer a) State Park

"Sunset at Crane Creek," courtesy of Sally Wehner, Sally's Photostream

Living in rural northwest Ohio, we mostly swam in ponds, pools, and at some of the smaller lakes in Michigan, where we'd spend the day at family cottages. Those were magical times: jumping off the docks, taking peaceful rides on a pontoon boat, running across rough wood floors in our sandy bare feet. For a child who grew up with so little water in her life, there's no explaining my love for it now. I understand the draw of other landscapes: the majesty and beauty of mountains, the quiet stillness of forests, the beauty of great architecture, or the thrill of walking through the world's grand cities, but for me, I would pass on it all to be on an ocean beach. As a rather landlocked Ohioan, what I have instead is Lake Erie.

From the first time I spent a day at Crane Creek State Park, I was smitten. For 30 years, in spite of the fact it was never a convenient trip from the places we lived, it was a regular destination for summer days. In the early days we swam on the smaller, less well maintained beach, with Davis-Besse nuclear power plant lurking along the horizon. We had so much fun, scouring the beach for trinkets, creating monuments from driftwood.

Later they turned that beach over to the birds, so we would walk along the shore there after a day in the sun, or take the dogs to run and swim.

We had picnics and parties on the larger, busier beach. The seagulls were bold there, bold enough they would sometimes steal food right off hot grills. That beach had breakers, so if the wind was right, we could play in big waves. Most of the time though it was a peaceful place to sit and read a summer novel, watch boats and birds go by, and then watch the sun set from the same spot on the beach where the first photo here was taken.

For ages I whined about how I had never seen a bald eagle, even though there are dozens in this area, and I spend a lot of time on the lake and hiking along the Maumee River, in areas where they're known to be found. Last summer I would have missed my chance, if it weren't for excitement of the other people on the beach calling our attention to one as he flew by. This one was the doing the flight equivalent of "booking," straight down the shoreline, singlemindedly heading to wherever it was he needed to go, oblivious to the awe of those of us on the beach underneath where he flew.

For a few years after it was opened, we defected to Maumee Bay State Park because it's closer. It is a truly beautiful park, more polished than Crane Creek. Eventually though, I realized for a few more minutes' drive, I could go back to the beaches at Crane Creek, where the waves came in along the breakers, where we could take long walks along the shore as the sun was setting.

Since one of the reasons I loved it there was how quiet it had become, and how often we were amongst only a handful of people on the beach on any given day, it might have occured to me that eventually they would stop keeping it open just for us. Still I was saddened when the state closed the beach this summer and added the entire park to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Of course more shoreline for nesting is a good thing for the birds, and the park itself is still open to visitors. We took a drive over there one day, after leaving Maumee Bay because of afternoon storms. It was completely deserted and somewhat unnerving. Already the beaches are becoming more wild and unruly. We explored several places within the larger park that we'd never taken the time to investigate before. Now that spending time on the beach is out of the question, we will make the drive over there to walk the trails and look for birds and wildlife, which is after all what the real purpose of the parks should be.