FUNKY OHIO

GRUESOME THREESOME: OHIO BLACK VULTURES PERCHED ON AN OLD SILO

BACKCOUNTRY BERRY FARM

THE LONGERBERGER BASKET COMPANY'S  ICONIC OFFICE BUILDING

THE MACINAC BRIDGE, ONE OF THE GREAT BRIDGES OF THE WORLD

EVEN FAST FOOD OUTLETS HAVE TASTEFUL LANDSCAPING IN OHIO

Monday,  9:00 AM.  65 degrees F at the ferry dock, 62 on the back porch.  Wind WSW, mostly calm with light to moderate gusts.  The sky is mostly overcast, the humidity 78%.  The barometer is relatively steady, now standing at 30.01".  It feels like rain, although none is predicted for today.
   We had a more-or-less successful Ohio trip, the details or which might be worthy of another post at another time.  We left Columbus, Ohio,  Saturday morning and headed home via Michigan, on I75.  Our route back to Bayfield was basically through north-central Ohio and then north through lower peninsula Michigan, across the Straits of Macinac (the waterway between lakes Michigan and Ontario) via the Macinac Bridge (one of the world's great bridges) and then west across the Upper Penninsula of Michigan to Wisconsin.  We wanted to get across the bridge the first day, and we did, but then found that there were absolutely no motel rooms for the night in the entire U.P.  We drove until 11:00 PM or so and finally stopped at a big Holiday Inn, where we were graciously invited to park in their parking lot overnight and to use their facilities.  That was very welcome, and more tenable than stopping along the lake shore somewhere.  We actually slept well, being tired, and got an early start towards home  Sunday morning.  Buddy thought it all a fine adventure.
   We lived in Ohio for five years before I retired from full time work, and are quite fond of that state, which has a number of large cities but a lot of exurban and rural countryside. Ohio is also arguably the center of the American nursery industry (along with New Jersey and California), so has a wealth of interesting landscaping and selection of trees, shrubs and perennials.  Even the fast food restaurants are likely to be beautifully landscaped.
   All this renders Ohio rather funky if one really travels across it.  Rural Ohio is more-or-less the vulture capital of the world, both turkey vultures and black vultures being present, and we found these interesting and somewhat sinister creatures everywhere.  There are small farms and rural sights everywhere between cities if one gets off the major roads.  The Longerberger Basket Company sells handmade collectable wooden baskets worldwide, and has one of the most interesting of any corporate offices, located just east of Columbus.
   To top off the trip, a gray wolf ran across the road about fifty yards in front of the truck on Minnesota Hwy. 28, on the western side of the UP, the first wolf we have actually seen in a long while.