Shopping on Vacation

 

Wow! We bought gas here on the way home
from Pyamtuning and bought something at
Dairy Queen (across the street) on the way there.

This is the ramp from the parking lot down to my
childhood grocery store. It is one of the few
things that is as steep as I remember it being.

Not my childhood grocery store.
I was surprised to see a whole window for lottery issues.

Hmm? How could we go shopping here?
The bakery is closed but for my dad they let us in

so he can pick up a special order. Mmmm!

We had a grand time at Ohio's best book store
and found a few treasures to bring home.

We were lucky to be in town for the annual art festival
and it was not pouring rain or miserably hot.

A. and I supported several artists.

I did buy a set of cards from this artist,
but now I wish I had bought this print!

Why Everything You Like is Ruining the World

Hosting the Olympics Is a Bad Deal - Even in normal times, the Games don’t pay off, argues the economist Andrew Zimbalist. 

Your Contribution to the California Drought - To fundamentally alter how much water the state uses, all Americans may have to give something up.

‘Worse Than Anyone Expected’: Air Travel Emissions Vastly Outpace Predictions

Little Free Libraries® - Interrogating the impact of the branded book exchange. "The visible positioning of these book exchanges, particularly on private property in gentrified urban landscapes, offers a materialization of these neoliberal politics at street level."

I am confident that I could also find and post links that argue exactly the opposite of each of these. I guess I will keep muddling through, doing the best I can, and trying to enjoy things despite their imperfections. Right now, I am enjoying the Olympics. I like seeing the different outfits from different countries, I like seeing the thrill of victory, the Japanese fans, and the scenery during outside events.

The men's road race in the Olympics began at 7pm our time

and I enjoyed seeing the all the flags at the starting site.

At some point the sound cut out and we just watched the cyclists. We could understand what was happening but it would have been nice to have some commentary. The funniest part was when the sound came back and we could hear tennis in the background and we guessed the announcer was watching the race on tv and broadcasting from near the tennis match. It finally dawned on us that she was announcing the tennis match and the feeds had been crossed. So funny that we couldn't figure that out immediately!!

Unfortunately for me the race was about six hours long and I wasn't able to stay up to watch the whole thing.  The women's race was two hours shorter(!) but started two hours later so we had to watch the highlights the next day. Yesterday I watched live swimming through a Canadian broadcast using a VPN (virtual private network). It is good to hear a different perspective and see different ads.

Citius, Altius, Fortius!

Topic of Conversation

I am fairly confident that my friends did not choose their second-born's name because it matched well with the first-born's name. It is unlikely that they considered that in junior high the second child could use the first child's phys ed shirt by adding a little line to turn the O into a Q. So convenient! And now the Cleveland baseball team can almost do the same. Instead of starting all over they can drop the In and add Guar to the remaining -dians (if you ignore the change in font).

I can't find a stand-alone link here is one that

includes the video narrated by Tom Hanks. How

can I not love something he promotes?

As a friend points out, it will take some education of fans and others because the Guardians of Traffic are not known to everyone. They are on a major bridge over the Cuyahoga River right near the baseball stadium, a bridge connecting the east and west sides of Cleveland. Did you know it was named the Hope Memorial Bridge in honor of Bob Hope's dad, who was one of the stonemasons? The Cleveland Museum of Natural History posted, "Did you know that The Guardians themselves are made up of Berea sandstone – a “Heritage Stone” near and dear to Northeast Ohioans? Local quarries, most notably in Berea and Amherst, have provided Cleveland with this material for more than 200 years. And The Guardian sculptures join a list of thousands of constructions across the country that were also built with sandstone from The Land."

I think the Guardians of Traffic are so great
that I took this picture just a few weeks ago!

If nothing else, the change is a good topic of conversation!

The Usual

 What would a trip be without little libraries?

This one is a few houses down
from where we spent a few nights.

We made a special trip to this one, but even more
exciting was the old-style mailbox on the right side of the photo.

If the weather had been better maybe I would
have taken a picture like this, which I found on Google Maps. 

The official website showed a little free library
at the campground and the weather was much better
the next day so I was able to go check it out. 

Scenes from Travel

Despite the very, very early start to the day the first leg of the trip went well, especially since I was able to watch live soccer during the flight.

It was beautiful weather in Chicago

and I could watch both soccer and the Tour de France in the airport.

I have many fond memories of trips to Detroit, but
I still was not excited to make an unexpected landing there.

Eventually we landed safely in the Best Location in the Nation

and I had great views of the city while riding the light rail.

I was happy that I was able to make the trip and that my parents didn't have to deal with it!

Scenes from a Run

 

So nice to have a change in scenery.

Not my new running partner

Saying Goodbye

 In February I wrote about the different color barrels used locally for trash, recycling, and green waste (leaves, etc.), plus the new yellow barrel for food waste.

The state is changing the fee structure, which is trickling down to the city. Those with two green barrels would be charged an extra $60 a year. We have had the same barrels for over twenty years, but we use both of them only a few times a year.

It was sad to say goodbye so I took a couple pictures. I am grateful for a neighbor who said we could use her barrel space if we needed it.

Do you think corn husks go in food waste or green waste?