We spent the waning days of May on a roadtrip to and from Ohio.

Russ and Sunna and estin with the gals

We camped the first night of the trip in a state forest in Pennsylvania and stopped the next day at State College,Pa to visit our friends Russ and Sunna and their 10 week old son Estin. We met them at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival 4 years ago when they spied my Photons T-shirt and asked if I was from Alaska. We discovered that Sunna had Girdwood ties and that i had seen Russ playing in a bluegrass band in Anchorage. They have land in Western Massachusetts and are living in State College while Russ gets his Phd in Mathematics. It was nice to catch up with the again, hard to believe 4 years has passed since we last saw them.

We drove on Friday night into Ohio for the Mayapple Stomp contra weekend and camped out in a deluge at the lodge on Lake Logan where dance takes place. The dance is put on by the Columbus Contra community which is where Colleen and i met so this was an anniversary of sorts for us.

The rain departed in the morning and we drove into the town of Logan, named for a Shawnee Chief, for breakfast and then drove out to Conkle’s Hollow for a hike up the gorge to the waterfall.

Hiking into Conkles Hollow

the waterfall

Entranced by the falling water

Back at the Mayapple Stomp we helped set up and visited with our Columbus contra friends.

Our campsite

My beautiful gals

There is a great potluck before the dance and Ambiana pigged out on desserts and passed out on my lap with Jakobi as the dance began.

Colleen was tired as well so she went to sleep with the kids while I danced till the wee hours of the morning.

On Sunday we went to COSI for the afternoon and then spent the night with our friends Colleen & Mike. Monday was my 45th birthday and we had dinner with Curtis and Susan and then headed to the Limberts for ice-cream and cake.

Sheri and I share the same birthday and we have never until that day celebrated it together. As a special treat I had Sydney chop off my hair and then Sheri sheared what remained with dog clippers. Nothing like a fresh start for the 46th orbit…

On Tuesday afternoon we drove to Mason Ohio to visit with Stormy, Dave and their 3 kids and to meet Indica for the first time. Last time we were here Stoney was Jakobi’s age. Slip n’ Slide was the highlight as it was in the 80’s and muggy our whole trip. Jakobi has no fear of getting wet.

We spent 2 night and on Thursday we drove North to Cleveland to visit Denise and Brian. We made a fire in the backyard and Ambiana had a fun flying off the giant concrete ball. On we Friday headed out to the Lake for a day at the beach.

Friday night we drove to the Scahill’s in Webster, NY stopping at Niagara Falls just after sunset for the view and were treated to a a light show and fireworks and found hole-in-the-wall Indian restuarant with excellent food

We spent the weekend with the Scahills and then headed to Gaelen’s home in Massachusetts, camping by the Conneticutt River on Sunday night and his backyrad on Monday. We went to Lake Laurel with him on Memorial Day and hung around on Tuesday to see him play baseball before finally driving back home on Tuesday night.