So I spent a bit more than a week in Ohio. We flew up, bought a mini-van (yes yuppie suburbia I have joined your ranks so BEWARE!) and drove it back with several stops along the way. The trip was a bit adventurous for me as we got to have a lot of firsts with the kids, and some firsts for me as well. It may not be RPG related, but this is what you get. Read on and enjoy!
My wife’s parents own a nice little house in a place called Negly. It is a small Ohio town and they have a nice chunk of land out there in a nice little out of the way place. It is nestled quite nicely in a heavily forested type of area, with a nice stream rolling nearby and a set of train tracks not far. At night the yard is alight with a festival of fireflies. During the day colorful birds flock in and out to feed on what is possibly the largest collection of bird feeders per square foot I have ever seen. A deer, named Baby, frequently comes by to visit my mother in law, and they play together. The deer made one visit to us and was immediately nuzzling up against us in greeting.
In all aspects this place is the complete and utter antithesis of the life I have always known. To say that things are slower and calmer here is an utter failing. It make crawling look hurried. Its beautiful, and natural, and quiet. I LOVE IT!
For my kids, it is something else entirely. My wife puts it best when she calls it Wonderland. For them it is freedom and childhood, and all those things they can’t do in a city. It means playing outside with the dogs and not having mom or dad around top make sure some horrible nightmare doesn’t happen. They laugh and play and enjoy a life kids should always get to have. Just hearing their play drift in from outside puts a smile on yopur face and makes you wonder why you ever go home.
We spent a week there, as I said. Mother and Father in law have their house conveniently located next to my sister in law. We take a nice little footpath through some trees, running not far from the stream, to a newly built foot bridge (a beautiful peace of work I might add by my father in law).
On the first full day there I helped Father in Law clean Sister In Law’s pool. I am a certified pool operator so I have experience and knowledge that hel;ped solve a lot of their problems. I got a sunburn (don’t ask me how a Florida native gets sun-burnt in Ohio but it happened). We grilled out, and people complained about the hot 80 something degrees (it was nice and cool to me 
).
We also got to camp out an a tucked away chunk of land far from view of any home, but close enough in case of emergencies (we have a 3 year old who got sick our first day there so we were very cautious). We roasted marshmallows and I blew up a bratwurst. It was good fun.
Out there it is very conservative. The family goes to church twice a week (more if they can I think) and everyone seems to have a closet full of guns. Now I am a fan of gun control. Being from the city and having a gun pulled on ou in violence twice does that to you. However, out there it is a different world and gun control is a violation of a right. I see their point of view and completely understand where they are coming from. Having never had to live with gun violence there is no threat of gun violence there. Father in law took myself and my son and eldest daughter out to shoot off some 22s. The wife also joined in. I got to shoot a 12 and 20 gauge, a 9mm, and a 357 as well as the various 22s. It was a lot of fun, and my first time shooting a firearm. It was fun to actually get to experience some of the stuff I had to write about and come up with rules on. My sources for that were good as the weapons fired and behaved almost exactly as I expected.
The food there is also a treat. I got to have what is now the best pie I ever had in the form of my mother in law’s strawberry rhubarb pie. There were two family picnics (one for each of my wife’s side of the family).
When we finally left we drove back in a new mini-van. We stopped in Virgina for one night to stay at my brother in laws. We played Rock Band and some games on Wii. The next day we made it to Jacksonville to stay with Willie Santana, long time friend and co-founder of Ironwood. The next morning we went with the Santanas to St. Augustine and visited the old town by Castillo de San Marcos and showed my kids the cannons and a nice chunk of wall littered with bullet holes that could only be the remnants of a firing line for executions. We had ice cream at this place that oozed with all kinds of wonderful smells as they make a wide variety of their goods in the store, including their waffle cones. At $4+ a cone it was well worth each cent and more.
A few hours later found us home. I got little to no work done, but I feel invigorated by the experience. I look forward to this week, catching up, and getting on. However, this week will live on in memory as perhaps one of the most wonderful weeks of my life.
