Adventures in Toledo

While Brad and I had the misfortune of crash landing in Toledo, we found ourselves with an excellent opportunity to explore a new place! Here’s some of our highlights!

We waited a very long time for our cab to show up, which we had called earlier that morning to reserve. Eventually we called the taxi company to see why they were running late, and the woman on the phone said “Sorry, we’re all booked up. You’ll have to call someone else.” We had chosen that company because they gave us the lowest estimate. We couldn’t afford anybody else. Luckily we were offered a ride to Toledo from a lovely woman who called herself Mystic. She was truly a lifesaver, and refused any payment we offered her for her kindness. If you come across this post, Mystic, thank you so much; you will be remembered forever.

When we arrived at the bus station, we got our tickets and had our bags taken care of. Then it was time to get something to eat!

We stopped at this very spiffy sports bar called Table 44. The service was great, and they played soft jazz as we enjoyed our meal. We happened to be the only customers in the place, but it looked as though it would have been pretty packed if we had wandered in at night.

As an appetizer we ordered these “potato cups,” which are generally filled with cheese, bacon, and scallions (the latter we asked to exclude).

Afterwards we took a long walk around Toledo to kill time until we boarded our bus and found ourselves near some docks along the Maumee River. We walked along the river and found this pretty lady overlooking the river, too.

I guess she decided she would have better balance without the flip flops. Eventually we decided to head to the nearest dollar store we could find to get some headphones for the long bus ride home when I spotted my very first real-life yarn-bomb!

And the second! I was so excited that I just had to get some pictures.

We noticed that the people in Toledo are considerably nicer than the people in the Wilkes-Barre area. Everyone we encountered along our walk was very pleasant, and I didn’t feel like so much of a tourist running around with a camera and a bad case of sun burn. Although we had a bad experience, it was nice to get some unexpected traveling done.

Bonus! Did you spot Brad and me in the pictures above?
Hint: We’re in two separate pictures.

Creek Critters

Today Brad and I earned some extra money for helping a friend move! Because it was such an incredibly hot day and moving is a terrible bitch, we decided to go to Sullivan Falls and dip our feet in the cool water with our friend KT.

The bad news is, I’m having trouble finding my camera and I was unable to take pictures.

The good news is, KT did, in fact, have her camera and got a few shots of some cute little animal buddies to share. She’s pretty awesome like that.

While we were dipping our feet in one of the immensely cold pools eroded into the top of the waterfall, we noticed this little guy triumphantly scaling the mossy rock face beside us.

Upon further inspection we noticed he had a big fat belly, probably full of little baby salamanders. We stopped calling him “he.”

In this picture you can get a great view of the little bitty dots all over her underside, as well as the awesome circle-spots on her back. You can click any of these images to zoom in.

Just when we thought our adventure was over and we climbed the path back up to the parking area, KT shouted! She almost stepped right onto this little brown snake. When I was a kid, I would have picked him right up and let him slither all through my fingers. Now, I’m not so brave. I carefully picked him up with a stick before trying to touch him to make sure he wasn’t dangerous. While KT tried to get a picture of him hanging from said stick, my hands were very very shaky, and those photos didn’t turn out so well. We said goodbye to the little snakey with a gentle pet on his back. Or tail. Maybe both.

Photo an Hour: Traffic Control

Hey, internet! I’m back! I spent all last week in West Virginia for work, and I totally let my blog go. I did, however, do some exercises to help  me find my niche and really focus my blog, and make some more changes since I’m all sorts of fickle. More on that later. Today I’d like to give you a little peek into my life, or more specifically, what I do at work through the creative lens of a photo-an-hour. Here we go!

8:00am  I’ve been standing here for an hour already, and I just had this great idea to take these pictures. This is my taper. It’s called a taper because it is the line that indicates one lane tapering into another. It’s a pretty easy concept, but I’ve seen some terrible looking tapers in my day.

9:00am It’s time for a bathroom break! Since I’m out on a country road in the middle of nowhere, there aren’t any public bathrooms around, and I couldn’t get a ride to the Porta-John, so I managed to climb down this very steep hill and hide in the tall grass.

10:00am I’ve been moved up the road a few hundred feet, and now I’m overlooking this cute little cottage. Later in the day I would be able to move closer and discover that it’s a garden shed.

11:00am The weather was very nice on Friday, but very sunny and very hot. Around this time there was a slight breeze I managed to capture.

12:00pm Tiger lilies.

1:00pm This is my Rite in the Rain Waterproof Notebook. I originally wrote this blog post in this little notebook, and it is amazing. The pages themselves are waterproof as well, which is 100% necessary. I once got sprayed by one of the water trucks on site with a thick black notebook in my pocket, full of tons of notes and ideas and doodles. My notebook was completely destroyed, and I was absolutely pissed. It will never happen again.

2:00pm There were at least 3 dogs on this road that just roamed free. All of them were very friendly and it was so much fun to watch them run around and play with each other and chase deer. On this day I tried so hard to get a good picture of the two that were playing near me all day, but they would never sit still for long enough, so this was the best I could do.

3:00pm I’ve been moved again, and I’m in a cozy little spot with a patch of black raspberries so close I can pick them. Too bad they’re not ripe yet.

4:00pm Oh, and this is my lovely mountain view from the little stretch of road I’m on with the raspberries. While it’s very nice, I wished I were in a less open area with a lot more shade.

Well, there you have it! By 5:00 my phone battery was dead, and by 6 I was on my way back to the hotel. I was pretty far from the actual road work that day, so it was all rather boring and I didn’t manage to get any shots of the equipment. Also, I wouldn’t have enjoyed being caught by the inspector or foreman while snapping photos. Mostly, when I’m out flagging I’m spending a lot of time alone, looking at the little things in nature and enjoying my time outside. It’s nice to have time to myself to cherish the great outdoors, and I hope you have the chance to do the same. Have a great week!