In the Middle of Nowhere

Sunshine today and maybe reaching 30 for a high...could be worse, could be better, for the last week in February. Will drive to Wapakoneta(home of Neil Armstrong) this afternoon, pick up Sam at their local TA Truck Stop on I-75, and we will head south to Dublin-Jerome High School to attend the State Baseball Rules Meeting....time is growing short to get this done, and if you don't attend one State Meeting you get suspended from the Umpire World for the season...better late than never, so let's get it done...should be home about 8:30 or 9 tonight.

My calf muscle is getting better by the day. My main concern is not jumping up and putting stress on it too soon....so will take it easy on the workout front until a week before the scrimmages start on March 21st...of course that is an "iffy" proposition anyway, with March weather being what it is, I'll be satisfied to get a game or 2 in before the regular season begins on March 30th.

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Travels to Nowhere...

I've been lucky my nearly 60 years on this planet to have not had to live in the cities or suburbs of the country, at least for the most part. Born and lived the first 5 years of my life in the small town of Scott, Ohio,(population 250) surrounded by a small close nit family...then for the next decade to southwest Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico, many years before it became a overcrowded death trap for senior citizens...Growing up in Venice and South Venice, Florida, when the population was less than a thousand when we arrived, and still less than 3000 when we left in 1963.

It was then back to Ohio, where dad and mom bought a home near Montezuma, population about 200 in town, and a few hundered more along the back roads...by the time they moved from Montezuma the 5 miles to Celina in 1970, I had moved on to the Air Force. After that hitch, which included only 1 large city, that being Saigon, RVN, I was challenged with the wanderlust and lived in small cities like Rome, New York, where I stayed after my Air Force days...back to Celina, then rural Wausau, Wisconsin, Kokomo, Indiana, and Dodge City, Kansas, before moving back home to Ohio and to the farm on Coldwater Creek between Celina, and Coldwater...Finally in 1995 we purchased our current home on the western edge of Celina....I guess throughout my life, the most urban setting I ever lived in as a resident, was the 7 months in Kokomo.

In addition to living in small towns and rural areas, I have had the luck and privledge, to travel to rural and outback type settings. Give me the solitude of the Canoe Bountry Waters of Northern Minnesota anyday over a trip to the crude populace and stench of dumps like Washington DC or Chicago....if I have to travel to a medium or large sized city, my only thought is, "How soon can I get the Hell out of here?"

So, with this being the inbetween time of my year....a month or more layoff from Basketball season to my Baseball schedule, and the lousy weather destined to stick around for the duration{and frankly without a Hell of a lot else to write about, unless I want to continue to endless drone of Obama and his Marxist politics and the crashing economy}. I will talk about some of the "out of the way" places my travels have taken me, and add a few photographs that I have snapped along the way.....

Today's Photos- Top Left...The Old Pear Tree at the Farm on Coldwater Creek...this one is the Kids, Anissa, Sam, and Hal, from top to bottom...we lived on that farm from the fall of 1980 until the late summer of 1990...I can't imagine a better place to raise a young family, especially during the summer and fall months...winter? Not so much, but it was interesting all seasons. We had a chance to buy the place, but decided with the old brick house in need of some serious upgrades, to move into town...do I or Patricia regret it? Probably at times, but things work themselves out....

#2 My buddy Nick and I spent many weekends of the 1980s fishing at Lake Erie...we would put his 22 footer in at Port Clinton, and usually head out to the Bass Island area, where we would fish for Walleye...most times we would "park" the boat at South Bass, and hit the bars and clubs on Saturday nights...we would usually resume fishing complete with hangovers Sunday mornings, before heading back to west Ohio in the afternoon. One one occasion in June of 1984...we drifted away from the crowd of boats within a couple of miles of the Islands, and an hour or so later we looked up and the "Richard K. Reese" was upon us...we knew then we had drifed too far(about 25 miles off Port Clinton)...and into Canada...not something you want to do...The Canucks don't take kindly to fisherman with no Canadian License taking their catch...."Richard", and and we parted company, the vessel heading east towards Cleveland and Buffalo, when we hauled ass south back to US waters.

#3 In my days at the Van Wert County Health Department, I would usually take my camera...it was part of my job when investigating Enviornmental Violations....it also gave me a chance to take unusual shots of things that interested me. One foggy morning I was driving to a septic system inspection in northeastern Van Wert County, when I came across a long abandoned church that I had seen many times before...this day in 2000, it just seemed was a good day to photograph it....I thought it came out well.

#4 Bottom-In 1978 while living in northern Wisconsin, my North Dakota buddy, Jim Olson, and some friends of his planned a camping/canoing trip to the Boundry Waters of Northern Minnesota, near the Canadian Border...his handful of friends were already there when Jim and I hooked up in Duluth....Our trip to get our canoe and supplies at Tom and Woods Livery was a story in itself....the trip via Canoe with portages by 2 greenhorns, Jim and Me, was something ledgends are made of...and I will tell that story later on in these "Trips to Nowhere" writings. When we finally made it to our camp/fishing site, we ended up on this small Island that was a perfect spot...I doubt if I could find it today if I tried....it was in retrospect one of my all time favorite "guy thing" vacations...the memories are still clear as a bell over 30 years later. The Island we set up on is the highlight of this photo.

More photos and some stories in the next writing...

back later>>>>