Category: Adventure

We All Want To Move to Hudson, Ohio

Post author By Vanessa
Post date September 6, 2014
1 Comment on We All Want To Move to Hudson, Ohio

If you’re ever been on a Hollywood studio lot, like maybe you’ve done one of those Universal Studios tours, or you’re a famous actor, or like me, you once went to a party at the Paramount lot, for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer who met online, then you’ve seen the quintessential small American town from every movie and TV show ever. And maybe you think, why did someone go through all the expense to build this fake town when a million real towns just like this exist everywhere? Wouldn’t a real town be more convincing, and also cheaper?

I have now learned the answer to this question. The quintessential small American town does not exist. Oh sure, when you exit the Interstates and drive down the narrow roads to real America, you’ll come upon plenty of small towns. With strip malls, Walmarts, and the occasional Hardee’s. I rely extensively on Walmart to provide my RV toilet paper needs and frequent overnight accommodations, so I’m not complaining exactly. But that’s a different kind of movie.

Remember that scene from Say Anything where John Cusack goes down to the Gas ‘N Sip and seeks out the wisdom of the guys who hang out there on a Saturday night? it’s kind of that like.

Sometimes, you do come upon a town square with maybe a statue of the founder and quaint buildings all facing in. But when you look a bit closer, you mostly see boarded up windows and closed signs.

So you understand that when I came upon Sandusky, it was proof that the world wasn’t built on lies after all.

And then I got to Hudson.

I came to Hudson accidentally. I was in Ohio for Sandusky. After leaving there, I was driving along the turnpike towards Washington DC, the next scheduled stop on my calendar. I started getting a little hungry.

I noticed a KOA wasn’t too far away, so I figured I’d stop there for the night and find something nearby to eat. (It was a nice KOA, although as you can see, my site wasn’t quite level. And while the photo shows clear blue skies, it rained later, which made the unhooking process in the grass a little muddy.)

Yelp told me a town with highly starred restaurants was nearby, so off to Hudson I went.

Hudson is quite possibly the platonic ideal of a small American town. Hollywood should shoot every movie here. It’s beautiful. And tranquil. The people are suspiciously friendly.

I had dinner at the bar of a great restaurant called Downtown 140. Everyone agreed their town was wonderful, although no one could really pinpoint how that came to be. Hudson only has 20,000 people in it and isn’t super close to any large cities (it’s about 20 minutes north of Akron, but at a population of around 200,000, it’s not huge either). The bartender told me to stop back on my way back through to update them on my trip.

And then there was the library.

Yes, they were having a lecture on bitcoins. And yes, they had an amazing garden patio. Free wifi. An entrepreneurship center. Comfy chairs. Outlets. A cafe right in the middle of the library with couches and coffee. I just… might have to move here.

As I was sitting in a coffee shop later, I family came in. They were house hunting. They drove through the town one day and liked it so much, they decided to move.

That’s what happens when you come to Hudson.

Adventure Nostalgia

Sandusky, Ohio: The Town With the Non-Unique Boy And a Boot

Post author By Vanessa
Post date September 5, 2014
3 Comments on Sandusky, Ohio: The Town With the Non-Unique Boy And a Boot

I’ve never been to Sandusky, Ohio. I’ve never been to Ohio at all. But I’ve been hearing about Sandusky all my life. Sandusky was my grandma’s home town. My grandpa was stationed near there before shipping out to World War II and that’s where he met my grandma. They got married there, in her family’s Catholic Church.

I never knew Cedar Point, the amusement park, was something anyone else knew about but me. I envisioned it as a tiny boardwalk that my grandma would go to as a kid. Even now when someone mentions Cedar Point, I think, how do you know about that place? Did you hear my grandma’s childhood stories too?

I got to Sandusky by way of Hannibal, Missouri, and Chicago, and the RV Hall of Fame and Museum in Indiana, stories for another time.

I found an RV park just outside of town and pulled in without warning, as I generally do. As is often the case, I was a novelty to the staff: a girl by myself, not even any pets, no reservation, in a funny little Roadtrek. A big class A pulled in at the same time, also from Washington state. They were relieved to finally get there, as a bridge was out and they had a hard time following the detour signs.

They joined in the wonderment of my situation.

A spot was found and no sooner had I pulled in that I pulled back out again, followed the detour route, and headed to downtown Sandusky.

I had a burger and a beer right on Lake Erie at the Sandusky boat ramp. Sometimes, you can overnight for free at boat ramps, which I’m assuming is what the permit would be for?

I drove to my grandma’s childhood home and then walked over to the Holy Angels Catholic church right around the corner. My grandparents got married here in 1946.

It was closed. What? Aren’t Catholic churches open all the time, in case you need to escape from vampires or a safe refuge from being tracked down by a secret branch of the government for a crime you didn’t commit? Hollywood has tricked me yet again.

But maybe not with the small town America stuff.

As I drove towards the beautiful town square and the beautiful brick buildings, right on Lake Erie, I thought: the small town of the movies really does exist.

I had gotten there just in time for Cruisin’ By The Bay, the big annual car show. My grandpa would have loved it.

My sister told me to track down the boy with the boot. What boy with the boot? I found him in the town square. A town square, by the way, which puts every town square in America to shame. First, there’s this:

Does someone fashion flowers with today’s date every day? (Apparently yes.)

And here’s the boy with the boot:

I read that he was a replica of the real boy with a boot, who was encased in glass in the county courthouse. So off I went.

So he’s the official symbol of Sandusky, but why? Neither the plaque nor the official decree explained.

Roadside America (an awesome site, with an even awesomer phone app, which I first learned about from my awesome friend Kieca) notes that lots of towns have boys with boots, all for apparently unknown reasons. It also notes that some of them take the statues in for the winter. The downtown Sandusky statue’s plaque noted the same! (The version of the Sandusky statue origin story recounted on the Wikipedia page is debunked by Roadside America, and if we can’t trust Wikipedia about the boy with the boot statue, what can we really believe in this crazy, mixed up world?)

But wait, what? The official symbol of Sandusky is not unique to Sandusky? There are at least 24 and perhaps hundreds of others of towns with the same symbol? (Apparently one is even in Seattle?!) Yeah, that was news to Sandusky as recently as 2013. Just look at this sad headline from the Sandusky Register:

The article notes that the supposed German immigrant turned successful Sandusky businessman, who presumably had returned to his home country to bring back this unique statue, was actually born in the United States (and likely had never set foot in Germany) and had ordered the statue from a New York catalog as a kind of marketing display for his hotel. He created a local park with several statues, including “this little boy, cast from zinc, was in the center of a fountain, surrounded by statues of Venus and of dolphins.”

And wouldn’t that have been a site to see.

Adventure

Crystal Bridges: The Secret Museum of American Art

Post author By Vanessa
Post date August 24, 2014
1 Comment on Crystal Bridges: The Secret Museum of American Art

Sometimes places, towns, states surprise you. Stereotypes are true and stereotypes are lies and it’s hard to find anything that’s not seen through a prism, trues colors shifting with the light.

And by that, I mean, how do you feel about Arkansas? I lived there twice, very briefly, as a kid. If I were to conjure up a list of the most affluent states, Arkansas likely would not be on my list. And yet, if I were judging states by their rest areas (and kind of, I am), Arkansas would be at the very top.

Arkansas rest areas are beautiful (actually, several states have beautiful rest areas; and several have awful scary rest areas that you worry stopping at will put you front and center as the star of your very own horror movie).

Arkansas is one of the states that lets you park overnight to get some sleep. (What is up with these states that don’t allow that? I get they don’t want you to camp there or live there. But isn’t a big part of the point to have a place to REST if you need it so that you don’t fall asleep on the road and crash into a school bus?)

I drove over the state line from Oklahoma (where I encountered zero rest areas, by the way) and drove into a Ozarks paradise at the first rest stop. Rolling hills, wooded picnic spots, flowered meadows. I walked into the welcome center,. The man behind the counter sprung into action. Can I fill that travel mug with coffee or water? Why yes, yes you can. I could have hung out in the welcome center all day. The man assured me that I did not want to miss Crystal Bridges in Bentonville. Have you heard of Crystal Bridges? I had not.

I drove on to Bentonville, home of Walmart. I don’t know what Bentonville is actually like, but my snap judgement based on only driving around is that it’s a lot like Redmond, WA, home of Microsoft. Lots of tax dollars available for great public spaces like parks and hiking trails. It’s beautiful and spacious and peaceful.

Onward to Walton Blvd and the original Walmart. You have never seen a Walmart so organized, so full of inventory, so brimming with helpful salespeople. It is a study in contrasts, truly.

Next stop: Crystal Bridges – the museum that Walmart built. I’m not even kidding a little bit. The first thing you see as you walk up to the entrance is the sign that says “admission to Crystal Bridges is sponsored by Walmart. There is no cost to view the collection”.

Serious money is behind this museum. They are, for instance, moving an entire house here.

The grounds alone are amazing: hiking trails, streams, ponds, art all around. And inside is American art from all the artists you know.

Here was one of my favorite pieces, by Georgia O’Keeffe:

And then I headed north towards Missouri, where the sun is hot, but the beer is cold, and the river is just down the road.

Adventure

The One About My Hip and Glamorous Lace (Fingerless) Gloves

Post author By Vanessa
Post date August 20, 2014
No Comments on The One About My Hip and Glamorous Lace (Fingerless) Gloves

Tulsa is only 70 miles from Stillwater.

But 70 miles is a long way to go without libraries, coffee shops, cafes, wifi, or even just a quiet place to sit and work. Sure, a high school kid could make the drive. It might be inconvenient, but it would be doable. After all, when we lived in Jennings, we made the weekly grocery trek to Tulsa. But not every high schooler has a car, or one that is reliable enough to drive out of town, or gas money.

Anyway, by the time I got to Tulsa, I was ready for some wifi. And some vegetables. https://bluebonneths.com/buy-motilium-online/

I never lived in Tulsa, although I lived in Broken Arrow, a kind of suburb, when I was in first grade. When I think of Tulsa, I think of this huge city. My first real concert was at the Mabee Center in Tulsa when I was in third grade (Amy Grant). When I was in high school in Tahlequah (70 miles east), one of my more thrilling moments was going to a club in Tulsa with my Kentucky Fried Chicken coworkers and a fake ID. https://bluebonneths.com/buy-finpecia-online/

Tulsa has around 400,000 people so it’s not a small town, but it’s maybe not the booming metropolis of my youthful perception. Downtown is almost quaint, and I was super excited to find my pick of coffee shops, hotel lobbies, and restaurants. https://bluebonneths.com/buy-fildena-100mg-online/

But then here’s what happened.

The thing is that when I was growing up — when I lived in Oklahoma — I was super blonde. Not highlighted blonde, but actual blonde. Like here’s me at my 8th grade graduation and yes, I actually am wearing lace fingerless gloves and shut up because that was 1986 and Madonna had made lace gloves very hip. Like you have no idea how hip. I WAS HIP DAMMIT YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW.

About seven years ago, I decided to go dark. I was basically entirely gray by then anyway. It seemed like a fun change and I wondered if having dark hair might cause people to take me more seriously professionally. It did. But I’m 42 now. Surely I don’t need dark hair to function in the professional world. So I decided to lighten up a bit.

Before I left Seattle, I went somewhat lighter, although no where near back to my 8th grade graduation color. Once I got to Tulsa, that had been a while, and the grey coming back was really bugging me. So I decided to get a touch up. A touch up.

The hairdresser made me as blonde as I ever was. Maybe even as blonde as when I was three:

Unrelated aside: I always remember my grandparents’ furniture as being covered with sheets (exhibit A: photo avove). Do you think that was because they had so many tiny-size grandchildren running around (including having my sister and me living with them for a while when my mom moved back home)? Because at the time, I just thought it was weird. Now I’m thinking it was pretty smart.

Anyway, back in present day, the hairdresser saw the look on my face. “Too blonde?”

She toned it down. It’s still about 8th grade graduation color.

Related aside: I was wrong when I thought being 42 would mean that I could be taken seriously as a blonde. The comments (that I rarely heard with dark hair but always heard as a blonde) have come back with a vengeance.

So now here I am, about to head to the town where I went to high school. About to walk through places I haven’t seen in twenty-five years, back when everything was new: my first kiss, first job, first idea of what it might mean to be an adult. With the same super blonde hair. Oklahoma has magic powers and is secretly grasping at me and pulling me back to 1988.