Taking Ohio By Storm

This last weekend was the long awaited (and not just by us) Great Lakes Group Letterboxing Gathering,
"Columbus Cluez-in." On Friday, Christa, Emily & I all piled into the Vue and headed over to Ohio, to take part in this glorious event. Our original plans had us continuing to Connecticut to do more letterboxing and visit sisters, brothers in law, aunts, uncles, cousins, & nieces, but sadly the winter weather forced too many snow days, so Christa needed to return to work on Monday. Despite that setback, we still attended the event on Saturday.

I'll begin the narrative on Friday, 'cuz that is when the fun really started. In an effort to leave as early as possible Emily & I drove Christa to school, with the intention of picking her up and leaving right from school. Unfortunately, it is true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Emily & I spent the morning running the usual last minute errands and baking cookies and banananananana (I just never know when to stop) bread for the drive and Saturday's potluck. My goal was to get all of the packing finished before it was time to pick up Christa, but as the day wore on, it was evident that we were going to have to pick her up and bring her home with us. After arriving at home, we began the process of packing all of Emily's essential items. As you can see from the picture the car was full. As a reference, the black bag & the pink bag belong to Christa & I, the cooler is for all of us, and everything else is Emily's. She has not yet discovered the joys of packing "light." Anyway, by the time the car was packed, it was almost five o'clock. To add to the delay, we had been expecting a package with items that we had wanted for the weekend, and since the UPS website said it was out for delivery & we usually get our packages between five and six, we decided to wait, since we were already late. When it had not arrived by seven and we had quite a distance to cover, we gave up and left. (A look at the UPS site shows the package was delivered at 7:50 pm) As we were leaving, a huge storm was blowing up around us, so we had the joy of starting our drive in a wind & rain storm, with the added effects of lightning and thunder. It would rain on and off for the rest of the drive to Ohio.

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful. As usual, Christa & I were ready to go right away, but Emily was dragging her feet. We did not arrive at the gathering until about 11:00, we immediately signed in, and as it was almost lunch time, settled in doing some exchanges, getting the event stamp, and finding others that had been hidden around the shelter. Shortly after our arrival, the clouds opened up and there was more thunder and lightning. With the rain and several people discussing the number of ticks they had been encountering, we decided that we would spend our day socializing and doing exchanges rather than taking Emily out on the trail. Emily was famous! I can't tell you how many times we heard people exclaiming "Is that Emily?!" It was almost as if we didn't exist, something we are becoming more and more used to. Even "Cow" had his fans, which to be honest, cracked me up. Our hosts did an excellent job putting together this event and we had a terrific time, even though we never left the shelter. We were finally able to meet people that we had only emailed, found boxes by, or talked to on the list. Many of these same people had sent us notes of encouragement and later condolence, and also donations for the Ronald McDonald House and March of Dimes. It was very nice to be able to say thank you in person.

After the gathering, we returned to the hotel for a quick swim, which was made quicker by the rude and inconsiderate kids who were very poorly supervised at the pool. I did not feel comfortable having Emily in the water with the reckless jumping, splashing, screaming, and rough-housing that was going on, so we decided to go sit in the hot tub. (Don't worry, Christa & I took turns sitting in the hot tub and holding Emily, so that Emily would not get too hot.) Even in the hot tub we could not escape the annoying brats (the kids, not the sausages), so we went upstairs to our room to watch a movie, but promptly fell asleep.

Sunday was our return home and in keeping with the weekend theme, we spent a healthy portion of it driving through storms. Emily did very well in the car and seemed to really enjoy herself. She did some napping and some playing with her cow & hanging toys. I was very impressed that she never complained about the amount of time she spent in her car seat. This is very encouraging for the trip we are still planning to take to Connecticut this summer to letterbox, and see the amazing shadow puppet exhibit at B.I.M.P.

This year's Great Lakes Gathering took place in the Alum Creek state park in Delaware, Ohio. We were down at the picnic pavilion below the dam.

Steve went to go sign us in and meet the hosts (Mn8X & Eagle Eyes) while I got Emily ready to meet her fans.

Fungus Woman (whom Emily met at SILO, in February) came over to say hello to Emily and was taunting her by wiggling her fingers above Emily's head. Emily's mind was spinning, so many targets, so little time . . .

Meeting her fans and signing autographs is exhausting. Emily soon decided to take a break and get some beauty sleep.

Once she was awake, Emily said hello to some of the friends she had met at the last gathering, Martini Man & Wisconsin Hiker. They were very excited to see Emily again and had lots of questions for her about Girls' Weekend.

We were very excited to meet some new friends Doodle & Deedlebug.

Fungus Woman came back for some more Emily time. This is perfectly understandable, I mean, who can honestly stay away from this little girl? We're happy to report that if Fungus Woman did not make it home with all of her fingers, it was not Emily's doing. Despite the earlier taunting, Emily did not make a meal out of Fungus Woman's fingers. (Steve thinks that this may be a sign that Emily shares his distaste for eating mushrooms.)

Getting some quiet time with Daddy.

One of the Illinois letterboxers, JACKS, was not able to attend the gathering, so she sent a proxy in her place with it's own letterbox and logbook. Emily thought that "Zamboni" was really fun and wanted her picture taken with him, however, always the goofball, she waited until just before Mommy snapped the picture to stick out her tongue. What a crazy little girl!

There were just so many things here that had Emily excited, who can count them all? Daddy's fingers, the green tablecloth, her ribbon tabbed blanket, the numerous stamps and stamp pads that are not in this picture, but were close by, the list just goes on and on . . .

Team Rabbit was kind enough to take a couple of family pictures for us. Thanks, fellow bunnies!! We appreciate your kindness and really enjoyed seeing you again.

What was a fun family picture soon turned deadly as Emily noticed that my fingers were poking her in the nose and decided to get revenge.

That was fun, Mommy? Thanks for the smooches.

After the silliness subsided, it was time for Emily to get a picture with Team Rabbit. She was very happy to meet them as she had been hearing about another letterboxing family of bunnies from Ohio. Emily likes being able to put faces with the names that she hears.

Coyote is a member of the letterboxing trio, the Scoutdogs. He was taking a break from begging for food, for the moment. Another sucker would be by soon enough.

The gang's all here! Look towards the center and just to the left of the yellow rectangle at the top of the slide to find us. (You may want to click on this picture to enlarge it.)

One of the Dr.'s B was showing off his talent for the bagpipes.

In between attacks, We were able to quickly snap off a few pictures of Emily in the pool.

She was wearing a new bathing suit, as she has grown out of her first one already. This one is a two piece, and she was not sure if her Daddy would be accepting of this new bathing suit. You can see from the picture, that he conceded and let her wear it.

Emily & Daddy swimming. They'll be doing this a lot this summer, as we plan on signing them up for Daddy/Daughter swimming lessons at the park district.

While we waited for a table at breakfast, Emily was remembering all the good times she had over the weekend and hopes that she'll get to see all of her new friends again soon.