L&K Take America

We set out from Niagara relatively early and headed towards the Midwest. I had never been to Ohio, and it was the first stop where I would be meeting up with a local friend. I had traveled to Detroit for work for about 3 years from May 2009 to March 2012. One of my co-workers during the beginning of that time lives in the Cleveland area. I had reached out and asked if he would like a visit and he thought that wasn’t a terrible idea, so I researched local campgrounds and asked him how Geneva-on-the-Lake was. His response was something along the lines of a suspicious “It’s fiiinnneee…whhhyyyy?” I thought that was somewhat of an odd response but simply assumed that he thought perhaps I was asking him and his clan of 3 small children to meet me there. I explained that I was looking for a place to stay and that I would come to them from there. His tone seemed to change and he told me that it would be a good spot and convenient, just about 20-30 minutes from where they lived. I didn’t think much of it and booked the reservation.

I arrived on Friday afternoon and wasn’t meeting up with him and his family until Saturday morning, so after I set up camp I decided to go investigate the “strip.” He really should have prepared me. I guess I should get better about independently researching locations as well. However, I blame my friend for this one. The “strip” (yes, that’s what it was actually called) was something out of the 80’s. It was as if they had given a bunch of 10 year olds arcade games from the 80’s, plywood and paint and said “have at it!” It was VERY strange. All the signs seemed to be hand painted (including one for an establishment called the “Effin Burrito”) but not in an artistic way. There were more old arcades than I think I’ve seen in my lifetime combined, and the best restaurant was a hamburger stand type of place, where when I asked for a lemonade, the girl explained that was something at Dairy Queen (which was attached), not there. My apologies.

Upon sending my friend a text at my surprise of the lake-side town, he said “oh yeah – that’s some white trash central,” which he followed up with “AND there is a bikini shop with a chick that gives out free hugs I think.” Information that would have been helpful BEFORE I went there. Anyway, I ate at the burger joint and it was decent, the campsite was not on the strip and it was perfectly nice, and the lake views were beautiful:

On Saturday morning I went to meet my friend and two of his three children at his son’s all-star 6-year old baseball game. Yes, they ALL got medals at the end…don’t get me started. We then we had lunch at my own personal hell; a playground. It makes total sense that we did so after trying 3 different restaurants to see if we could have Luna on the patio without any luck. Mentor, OH is not a dog friendly town. However, playgrounds give me so much anxiety. They are designed for children to get hurt, I swear. I don’t breath regularly the entire time I’m at one. To top it off, my friend’s little girl is a maniac dare devil. She was practically doing double back flips off the equipment. Not sure my unborn children will ever go to a playground.

After lunch, Luna and I attempted to go to the Vintage Ohio food & wine festival which was at a farm, so I thought this was a no-brainer dogs allowed venue. Unfortunately, upon arriving, I was informed that BECAUSE it was a farm, no dogs were allowed. Humph… so, we decided to go into Cleveland. We parked near the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Latin Festival was being held on the pier. We walked around there before heading to see the World’s Largest Rubber Stamp. Janice had put in a request for me to find this, and I thought it would be a great place for a rest and photo session. Unfortunately, as soon as I started to take pictures, I was verbally assaulted by a hostile homeless man sitting next to the Stamp. He started screaming “Curb your “f***ing dog! Curb your dog or you’re going to jail all day and all night…TONIGHT! Curb your f***ing dog now!” Yikes! She was on a leash that I admit I had let go of, but it was no more than 5 feet from me. She wasn’t even moving! It was rather off-putting and made me sad. These are the only photos I was able to get:

I was done with Cleveland after this so we headed back to go check out some of the local sites around the camp. There were a number of wineries and covered bridges. Apparently, Ohio is the Napa of the East. I have never heard of an Ohio wine, so this was somewhat of a shock to me, but hey…what do I know. I didn’t hit up any wineries but we did go check out the longest covered bridge in the US before heading into the cute little town of Ashtabula, Ohio where I got take out dinner for us to take back and eat in the camper.

We got ready for an early departure the next morning and headed to bed. We met my friend for breakfast at 7:30 the next morning. While we went into Panera to order breakfast, I tied Luna to a picnic table outside where I could see her from inside. There was group of about 5 people probably in their 60’s sitting at the window where I had tied her. When we went outside and they were leaving, one of the men stopped and complimented me on Luna’s behavior and then told me how concerned they all were that we weren’t feeding her. “We weren’t sure if you were going to feed her or if you already had. Are you getting her something? Has she eaten?” Luna is a sausage. She by no means looks like she is underfed. Needless to say, I was cutting up her turkey sausage and egg whites as he was speaking to me, so I think I put the poor guy’s mind at ease. Geez…made me feel like I was neglecting the world’s most pampered pup in the 30 seconds that she didn’t have food.

After breakfast we headed to our next stop. It was wonderful to see him, but there never seems to be enough time to catch up. I realize I’m just parachuting into people’s lives, I just wish we could freeze time, catch up and laugh more than we ever seem to have time to. Such is life!