Sal Goes to Old Man's Cave

For people who like to walk in the woods and don't mind a little danger mixed in, a hike to Old Man's Cave is a perfect outing! There are gorgeous things to see, and slippery spots to traverse with care (unless one wants to fall down stone steps or worse -- a cliff or gorge).  I think this sign gives the general idea pretty well.

Gulp!

Despite these warnings, there were many people with small children and dogs enjoying nature's beauty on the day of our visit.  It made me nervous to see people carrying babies down the treacherous stone stairways, but everybody seemed to be doing fine.  I don't have any scary-looking cliff edge shots to share, as I wouldn't be brave enough to put Sal or myself in any sort of precarious situation, but I hope you can see that going to Old Man's Cave is a very cool experience -- even if you are a scaredy cat like me!

We came upon this lovely grotto -- and there was the perfect perch for Sal -- a stump in the very center at the water's edge.  It was an obvious photo spot, so I spent a few minutes taking various shots of Sal on the stump with the waterfall behind her.

After taking these pictures, I turned around and there was a ring of people along the edge of the grotto waiting for me to get the heck out of the way so they could take pictures without me in the very center!  Oops!

Brian and Anne crossed the little stream to pose for a Sal picture in front of this cliff o' caves.

Thanks, guys, for being such helpful Sal photo folk -- even if at least one of you may have been a bit exasperated with all of the stops I made along the way.  ;)

I took lots of shots of Sal inside this little Sal-sized cave, but she looked sickly green in every one.  I suppose the light reflecting off the moss was the reason.  I used some iPhoto tricks to mess around with this picture, and now I think it looks really cool.

After messing around with the previous photo, I had to try some things with this one, too.  This is Sal sitting on  a not-very-wide modernistic cement bridge -- with no railings!  For some reason I thought of the movie North by Northwest when I saw it.  Perhaps the bridge was built in the 50s? 

Sal inside Old Man's Cave.  I can't imagine actually living there -- though there really was an old man who did!  Just in case you are wondering, I didn't use any iPhoto tricks on this picture.

Sal Rides With the CCPL Cyclers in RideUNITED

Today was a big day for Sal and me!  We participated in RideUNITED, which is an annual event to raise money for United Way.  We rode with the CCPL Cyclers -- a group of Cuyahoga County Public Library staffers (with a couple of friends and relatives added to the mix).

Here are the CCPL Cyclers waiting to begin riding.  Sal can't be seen because she's in her case (which is attached to my bike) -- and there was no time to get her out before we had to take off.  I know I'm breaking my own rule of not using Sal-less pictures, but I really wanted to show off my awesome team!

Riders can choose to take routes of various lengths -- starting at 12 miles and going all the way to a Century.  The first year I rode 12 miles, last year I rode 24, and this year my intention was to tackle the 40-mile route.  Unfortunately, I did not get to train as much as I needed to, and realized that there was no way I could do the 40 miles -- especially since it was soooo hot today!  The biggest indicator of this -- in addition to extreme sweating (blech) -- was the many times I had to refill my water bottle during the course of the ride! 

Every year RideUNITED begins at Cleveland State University and travels through downtown before going onto the towpath.  This year's downtown route was a really neat one, and I wanted to stop and get some Sal pictures showing big groups of cyclists passing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, etc.  I didn't want to get separated from the team members I was riding with, though, so I decided to keep going.  As we were riding around the back of Tower City I couldn't resist the temptation to stop any more, so I did.  By the time I took some pictures and got back on my bike, I had to ride like crazy to catch up with anybody I knew.  Phew!

Here is the photo that caused me to fall behind.  Very cool view of the river and bridges.  Too bad that red car is in the shot.  Grrr.

At the first rest stop, I met one of my son's Seeds of Literacy coworkers -- who just happens to be a ukulele player himself!

Some of the helpful folks at the second rest stop.  There were volunteers at each stop handing out fruit and granola bars -- all donated by Dave's Markets.  There were also big containers of water from which I refilled my water bottle many times.  (A delicious lunch at the end of the ride was also donated by Dave's.  Many thanks to them for their generosity!)

After a piece of fruit and a drink of water, it was time to turn around and go back.

There were many photo temptations on the return trip.  I had to stop and take some shots of the new inner belt bridge under construction.

This is the traditional "we made it" shot at the top of the bridge.  Usually there is a picture of sweaty people posing here, but this year Sal had to get into the act.  It was a bit windy and I was afraid Sal might be blown off the edge of the railing, so I didn't spend much time on this!  (The railing is very wide, but you never know when a big gust might blow by.)

In the end, I have to say it was a successful day for the CCPL Cyclers!  A couple of team members rode 12 miles, some of us did the 24-mile route, and several riders continued on even farther.  On the way back I was disappointed that I was not able to make it up the super-giant hill at Steelyard Commons -- which I did last year.  Bummer.  (On the positive fitness side, however, the change in the route through downtown made the 24-mile route longer, so I ended up riding 26.9 miles.)  Then I went home and took a shower!  Felt great!

Sal Goes to The Ridges

My sister, Anne, and I took Sal to Athens, Ohio this week to visit my son, Brian.  We arrived late Wednesday afternoon, and set off for a walk at The Ridges -- a former mental hospital (1874-1993).  Many of the old hospital's buildings are now used by Ohio University for other purposes -- though when I see them I can't forget their sad history and the suffering that must have taken place inside.  Today's visitors can enjoy the Kennedy Museum of Art in the main building, which is open to the public, and the lovely Ridges Cemeteries Nature Walk -- a trail that takes hikers through woods, across fields, and near the graves of many of the hospital's former patients.  The four of us (three people and one uke) set off across a sunny field and then into the woods.  It was a wonderful place to walk -- even though it seemed to be mostly uphill!  ;)

What a beautiful sunny day it was!

I couldn't decide which "Sal on the bales" picture to share, so I'm sharing two.  Which one do you like best?  Feel free to give your opinion.

The light in this shot is lovely, I think.

We all enjoyed the walk!

For various reasons, I was not able to get all the pictures I wanted on our evening walk, so I woke up early on Friday morning and drove Sal and myself back to The Ridges for a morning photo session.

Sal on a fire escape on the side of the main hospital building.  Many sections are picturesquely decrepit -- with rusty window grates and vines that look like they are growing inside.  The coolest looking window sills were too high for me to reach, so the fire escape was the logical solution.  (If anybody from Ohio University is reading this, here's a message for you:  I know that money is tight, but please repair and maintain this historic building!)

It was a dewy and cool early morning --  perfect for a peaceful walk.

After being placed in the grass for a bunch of photos, Sal was a bit dewy herself.

Most of the stones are engraved only with numbers -- which is quite heartbreaking -- but some families added stones with their loved ones' names on them. 

This is my favorite photo from the visit to The Ridges.  The light is so beautiful on the stones, the grass, and Sal.

Even though I returned to the motel with wet shoes covered with grass clippings, it was well worth it.  I was glad to have spent quiet time taking photos of Sal in the contemplative atmosphere of The Ridges.

Sal "Meets" Frank Goldsmith

Last year was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  This was meaningful to me, as I am a huge Titanic nerd -- and, when my sons were young, we were all quite fascinated with it.  We had a membership in the Titanic Historical Society, and visited as many Titanic-related exhibits as we could -- including the THS's Titanic Museum, the Marine Museum at Fall River (which has a super Titanic collection), and Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit at the Great Lakes Science Center.  (We saw it again last year at the Henry Ford Museum and I'm excited to see it's back at the Science Center again.  It's a must for anybody interested in the Titanic!)    Our family read many books about the Titanic, too.  We've made paper models of the ship, had Titanic birthday cakes, and assembled a 1000-piece Titanic jigsaw puzzle.  We even had a dinner party on the 100th anniversary of the sinking, for which I cooked many of the dishes from the April 14th second class dinner menu!  Now that I've established that the Titanic is not just a passing interest of mine, it's time to bring Sal into the picture...

Because of the 100th anniversary, many new books about the Titanic were published in 2012.  As a librarian, I saw some of them come in -- and of course was anxious to check them out and read them.  One particularly interesting volume was Ohio Tales of the Titanic.  When I began to travel with Sal, I remembered this book.  There were quite a few people with Ohio connections on the Titanic, and this book is a goldmine of information about them!  I decided that Sal and I should go to some of their graves.

On Wednesday my sister and I took Sal to Ashland Cemetery to find the stone commemorating Frank Goldsmith  -- who was nine years old when he and his mother survived the sinking.  He is not buried in the cemetery -- his ashes were sprinkled over the wreck site in the Atlantic -- but when I saw the picture in the book, I knew Sal and I had to go to Ashland!

When we arrived at the cemetery, it was lunchtime and nobody was in the office, so we began driving around seeing if we could find Frank Goldsmith's stone without directions.  This was clearly impossible, and we ended up asking a man who tried to help.  He had seen the stone, and pointed us to the two places he thought it might be.  We tried in vain to locate it, however, and returned to the office where we met the gentleman pictured below, who was able to draw us a map that took us right where we needed to go.

We were very grateful to find somebody who could direct us to Frank Goldsmith's stone -- and who was willing to pose with Sal, too!

Here it is!

After we found the stone, the man who had tried to help us came by, and I asked him to pose for a picture with Sal.  He was very happy for us, which we greatly appreciated.

Thanks to this very kind and helpful gentleman -- for trying to remember where Frank Goldsmith's stone was located -- and for agreeing to pose for a Sal photo!  Too bad the very bright sun behind him is causing a big hat shadow over his face.  (Gotta love the moose hat anyway!)

Emily A. Illman was Frank Goldsmith's mother (who remarried after her husband went down with the Titanic).  Her grave is right in front of her son's stone.

 After our cemetery visit, we were quite hungry.  We stopped at a delightful place in downtown Ashland, called Downtown Perk.  The front of the place was a shop with handmade pottery, aprons, jewelry, and more.  In back was the restaurant, where we had a very pleasant meal amid the retro decor and Ashland memorabilia.

Historical postcards of local sites covered our tabletop.

It was a lovely experience!

Sal's Visit to the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum

After our visit to the McKinley Monument, Sal, Christopher and I walked next door to the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum.  The building contains President McKinley's library (which we didn't visit, as Sal isn't interested in digging into historic documents), an interactive science center, and historical stuff pertaining to Stark County.

 



The first cool thing we encountered inside was a Foucault Pendulum. 

You could be mesmerized by this pendulum - and we were!  We spent quite a bit of time watching it get closer and closer to a peg -- and finally knocking it over.

Then we entered Discover World -- a place I wish we had discovered when our kids were young.  They would have loved it!  (Actually, Christopher and I loved it anyway -- even though we are ostensibly adults -- and Sal is always happy to participate in anything fun.)  We saw an animatronic dinosaur and lots of prehistoric skeletons -- even a real mastodon skeleton which was found in Stark County many years ago.

To get the whole gigantic mastodon in the picture, poor Sal had to give up being the focal point just this once.

The rule in Discover World is that you can not go (or reach) past any ropes or chains, and I was good -- even though I was sorely tempted.  It was hard/impossible to get good shots of Sal without putting her inside these barriers.  Happily, there was a ferocious dinosaur head (obviously not real) that we were permitted to touch, so we tried to get a photo of it "eating" Sal.

Unfortunately, the lighting played a role in preventing us from getting a good shot of Sal inside the dinosaur's mouth.  Maybe I should add a flashlight to my bag?

All kinds of cool stuff can be found in Discover World.  Christopher thought I should take a picture of Sal by this diorama, and I thought it wouldn't work, but we tried it anyway.  It isn't so bad, which reinforces the lesson that one should take a chance, shoot the picture, and delete it later if it's no good.  You just never know...

Sal visiting prehistoric Ohio residents.  (This picture brings to mind old horror movies with giant ants and things.  I don't think anybody would be scared of giant ukuleles, though.)

Discover World also contains the aforementioned interactive activities.  These are just a few of them.  All three of us had fun trying them out!

Then we went upstairs to the historical portion of the museum.  We didn't have much time, as the place closes at 4:00 and we didn't go up there until after 3:00, but we managed to see quite a bit of the neat stuff on display.

I had to take a picture of Sal near the word "culture," as she is quite a cultured ukulele!

Since Sal is named after the mule in the song Erie Canal, I had to take a picture of this Erie Canal display!

This is a very strange exhibit...  or should I say strangely compelling?  It's a giant woman who laughs maniacally when you press a button.  She came from an old amusement park.

A really cool part of the historical section of the museum is the Street of Shops.  There were signs saying not to touch the artifacts there, and again I obeyed.  I wanted to put Sal on the counter in one of the shops, etc. but I didn't.  I took my pix in a totally legal way!

The printer's shop.

The general store.

After leaving (because the museum was about to close), we realized we hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast!  In my reading about Canton, I had found that there is an old-fashioned ice cream shop there -- and Christopher determined that it was very close to where we were.  What could we do but drive the short distance and have ice cream at Taggert's?  Our treats were yummy -- though the decor was disappointing.  It was not as old-timey as I was expecting.  This meant that Sal did not get her picture taken at an antique soda counter, but that's okay! Instead she got her picture taken next to our completely not disappointing sundaes.

You may be wondering why my sundae has five cherries on it!  The reason is that Christopher pulled a When Harry Met Sally and asked for his sundae with no cherry, half as much whipped cream as usual, and chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla.  I asked our server to refrain from putting whipped cream on my sundae, but to put Christopher's cherry on mine.  She brought it with five cherries on top!  A truly generous soul!

Although they were delicious, I have come to think we made a mistake when we ordered.  Apparently Taggert's has something called the Bittner, which is described on the menu thusly:  "A Canton Classic, 3/4 of a pound of vanilla ice cream with homemade chocolate syrup blended throughout and generously sprinkled with roasted pecans.  Popular since the 1930's."  This sounds sort of disgusting, but if it's been popular for so long and the place is famous for it, I should have tried it!  I guess we have to go back to Canton -- there are lots more cool things to do there anyway -- and I promise to order the Mini Bittner - not the original 3/4 pound job!  (This will be research for Sal's blog -- not an opportunity to stuff oneself with delicious ice cream with dire consequences to the waistline!)

Sal Goes to the McKinley National Memorial

History buffs will be glad to know that Sal and I share their interest in the past.  Today we went to Canton to visit the McKinley National Memorial with my son, Christopher.  Thank goodness Christopher is a good navigator, as I would have been completely lost!  (Getting lost is not unusual for me, but it is very frustrating!)

We arrived to find an impressive-looking structure at the top of a very big hill.  Many steps (108 to be exact) led up to the monument -- and those steps were liberally sprinkled with people running up them in Rocky Balboa style.  I began climbing and leaned Sal against the stone base of the McKinley statue located in the center of the stairs.  As soon as I did that, a man on his way down said "is that a ukulele?"  When I said "yes," he asked if he could play her.  Of course I replied in the affirmative and he proceeded to pluck away!  This is one of the fun things about traveling with Sal -- talking to people about ukuleles!

This gentleman lives in Canton -- probably too far away to come to our Cleveland Jumping Flea jams.

Christopher, Sal and I continued to the top of the stairs.  Christopher very kindly climbed over the wide stone railing and reclined on the incline to get an awesome shot of Sal with the monument as a backdrop.

Christopher's great shot of Sal with the monument behind her.

Here is Christopher taking the cool picture shown above.

We went inside and encountered the usual inside-a-monument issue -- very bad lighting.  Sun was shining brightly through the doors onto the front of the giant black structure that holds the remains of President McKinley, his wife Ida and their two daughters.  The rest of the interior was dimly lit.  After much trial and error, Christopher got the best interior Sal shot -- a picture of her inside a wreath featuring a plaque from McKinley's Masonic Lodge.  There were several other wreaths inside the monument -- all of them looking suitably historic (translate that to say they didn't look fresh and new -- which I liked).

Christopher's wreath shot.  All of mine had too much glare on the plaque.

We emerged from inside and saw a chubby lobster-red man sitting shirtless in the hot sun (a definite "fashion don't" in more ways than one).  He had been there when we went in, and remained there throughout our prolonged picture-taking session.  I predict a very painful night for him.

As we went downstairs I decided to get a photo of Sal with McKinley's statue in the background.  This required some contortions, which Christopher documented.

Sal with the McKinley statue -- and the long green lawn leading up to the monument -- in the background. 

Taking these Sal pictures requires lots of kneeling on hard surfaces!  (But it's worth it, I think.)

We got to the bottom of the stairs and came upon another cool Sal photo op.  And the day was not over yet!  Come back tomorrow for tales of the museum next door!

Sal Meets the Amazing Victoria Vox

Wow!  What a great night Sal and I had!  We were among the fortunate few to attend a Victoria Vox house concert at Marrell Music in Lakewood.   Opening for Victoria was singer/guitarist, Joshua Jesty  -- a friend of hers from way back.  He had a delightfully self-deprecating sense of humor and his songs sounded lovely.  They were very sad, but didn't depress Sal and I too much because they were beautifully done.  As a matter of fact, he was so good that I was not wishing the whole time he would stop and let the person we had come to see start performing (which is the unfortunate fate of many an opening act).  Hearing him was an unexpected pleasure!

I can't say enough about what a great show Victoria Vox put on!  Not only is she a wonderful musician, but she is funny and charming, too.  (I could go on and on, but nobody wants to read large amounts of gushing, so I'll stop.  Suffice it to say that if you ever have the opportunity to see Victoria Vox perform, don't miss it!)  After her totally delightful show, she took some questions and then there was a short break before a brief strum-along was to begin.  I asked Joshua and Victoria to pose with Sal and they agreed.  Now it's time for the pictures to tell the story...

Victoria and Joshua with Sal.

Victoria tunes Sal up!  I didn't think that Little Sal would be played tonight, but she is awfully cute, so what uke lover could resist her?  (She was terribly out of tune, I must admit.)

Lucky Sal is being played by Victoria -- an impromptu rendition of "Don't Get Around Much Anymore."  Lots of people got out phones and cameras to take pix and videos. Is this Sal's 15 minutes of fame?

Little Sal + Victoria Vox = Beautiful Music + Fun!

Check out this video of Victoria Vox playing Sal -- shot by one of the awesome Cleveland Jumping Fleas!