Tales from the Love Shaque: It's my birthday month!

Wooo, I need to get caught up!

Yeah - my birthday is August 29!

Mine & Sis1's that is. I was her birthday present when she turned 13.

😂

So the last weekend in July, we made another trip down to Ohio but this time we added an extra day so we could stop in this town called Berlin - very cool place. It's in the middle of Amish country (the Amish are "simple" people who don't use modern conveniences like electricity or cars) so there is a lot of horse & buggy traffic but there's also a very neat shopping district with lots of antique stores, coffee shops, restaurants & just a lot of stores to check out. There's also a year-round Christmas store built in a 3 story, round building, which was the main reason we stopped again. There were tons of people there, too.

cornbread smothered in BBQ pulled pork!

From Der Dutchman, an Amish restaurant

Mom's birthday had been the week before, so they brought her out this adorable little cake!

Saturday, we got up and explored a little bit before going into Berlin to shop. We had a postcard on the table in the hotel with a covered bridge on it, so we looked up where one was - there were several in the area. We chose to go to the "Bridge of Dreams" but ended up underneath of it. I was expecting something more fanciful than this, but was still neat.

We also went on a buggy ride driven by a very interesting Amish man who told us a lot of stories about how they live and the area in general. The pic at the top of the page is Mom giving "Barney" an apple. She's not very comfortable around horses (even Sis1's horses!) so I'm glad I got a nice pic of her.

I've mentioned before that I like to explore cemeteries - we randomly stopped at a couple along with way, neat little old ones. I'd also researched a couple to check out Sunday morning when I had some time to myself. We ended up going to one of them Saturday night that I'd found on FindAGrave, Sis1 is always agreeable to explore so we left Sis2 and Mom in the car while we went to check it out.

There were houses nearby and we were on a church's property but it still felt pretty creepy! It didn't help that we got there right at dusk, too.

I don't often get the heebie-jeebies at a cemetery but this was one time that I wished the church had been of the type to have a cross out front, since I'd gladly have gone to touch it!

I'd totally go back.

Back home in Michigan!

Of course we stopped at Cracker Barrel and this came home with me....

When we got on these trips, we always joke that whatever you buy, you have to be able to hold it on your lap! But since I was driving, and I have the biggest car out of the 4 of us - this fit in the back nicely.

After-the-storm clouds

I was on my way home from Sis1's house last Thursday after search & rescue training and realized I had a headlight out! However, mine is one of those cars where the headlights turn with the steering wheel and it appears to require taking the front tire off in order to get in to the assembly from the tire well to change the bulb. (insert skull & crossbones emoji here)

Funny part is - that was Thursday - last night it was back on.

The grandson checking out ducks at a local park.

Yesterday we went to the little water park near Sis1's house. The granddaughter asked if I would go, too. Ugh - I would have rather stayed home in the peace & quiet but I did end up going.

Checking out a dead dragonfly.

Screengrab of the slides from Google streetview, since I didn't take any pics.....

It was fun. The only other time I've been there was back in like 2013 or so. I went on the slides a couple times, but I'm apparently getting to be an old fuddy-duddy since I started to panic on the twisty slide. I wasn't expecting complete darkness and thought it was never going to end and the water was cold enough to take your breath away. And I didn't like going airborne on the straight slide but I still went on it twice.

It was hot & sunny but the water was very nice and refreshing. The pool is only 3 feet at the "deep" end, but that's deep enough to just hang out in and the kids have a good time in.