While we were able to turn things around and enjoy our stay in West Virginia more than we had expected, we were still struggling with our mental and emotional health after the wheel bearing incident and were frankly just exhausted and cranky. After some fancy finagling we had secured a campsite at our next stop (Pastimes Park in Plain City, Ohio) a week earlier than originally scheduled. We woke up on the morning of Sunday May 19th excited to leave Jim’s Campground in Milton, West Virginia behind and head for “home”.
We were incredibly nervous about the trip (we obviously still didn’t have much faith in the axle repair for the tiny house) and I had my eyes glued to the tiny house for the entire drive. Even though the move went smoothly, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders when we crossed the Ohio border and every mile we drove closer to “home” I found myself feeling better and better. We pulled into the campground and were able to get settled pretty quickly. We spent our first evening back hanging out with my parents and my Grandma and eating Donato’s Pizza, a childhood favorite.
We had updated everyone as to our plans of coming back early and, between plans with loved ones and doctor/vet appointments, we had a pretty full calendar. We use an app that shares information between John’s phone and mine that lets us see one calendar that we can both add things to and it has been a lifesaver many times. These next 4 weeks were absolutely no exception.
The first week, I had dinner with my friend Donna (who I had met when we owned our bookstore back in 2013) at Red Oak Pub in Newark. We also hung out at my cousin Heather’s house and got to spend time with her husband, Obie, and her two girls. We met up with John’s best friend, Megan, and her wife, Andrea, for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Huli Huli in Powell-they have AMAZING cocktails and delicious lobster rolls.
John and I also managed to squeeze in a trip to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium for a special night-time event called “Unextinct” which uses projected light shows to display extinct and endangered animals in a really creative way. They had also put up several amazing pieces of art in the tunnel connecting the two halves of the zoo and lit them with blacklights. We even got to pet an echidna- she was so sweet!
I served as a docent at the zoo from 2013 until 2019 and was employed there from 2014 to 2020 and made countless trips there throughout my entire childhood. Some of the best friends I have ever had in my life were people that I had met there-coworkers who became like family to me.
Our second week in town included even more friends and family time, in addition to some vet visits for the critters. We cooked out with my parents, had John’s uncle and his girlfriend over to the campground for a picnic and I got to meet my friends Liz and Jesse for sushi at a cool restaurant where you pick your food off of a conveyor belt that runs next to all of the tables and a robot server brings your drinks.
My sister-in-law Cassie took me out for a fun “Sister Day”. We played games at a huge arcade (Scene 75 at Tuttle Crossing Mall) including putt putt, ski ball, carnival style games and more for hours. It felt just like being a kid again.
Our visit also happened to coincide with the birthday of my cousin Alex’s youngest daughter. We got to see my aunt, uncle, grandma, and a ton of cousins! John absolutely exhausted himself playing softball with the kids.
John’s aunt Michelle and uncle William and his grandparents came to camp with us for a few days, too. We hung out around the campfire each night and went out to dinner with them twice (once at The Grainery and once at Der Dutchman, both in Plain City).
I got to have a couple breakfast dates with friends Denise and Marge and my cousin Heather, and went Top Golfing with our friend Chris (who we have known for SOOO LONG – he was even a groomsman in our wedding!). We also finally got to have “Christmas” with John’s mom and sister (instead of sending gifts in the mail we just wait until we are back in town).
We were very fortunate to be in town during the Columbus Arts Festival as well. This is a yearly event in downtown Columbus that we really enjoyed for several years that we lived in the area. They shut down a section of downtown and have several streets that are lined with art and craft vendors, food trucks, and more. We always go and have a blast picking out new artwork to decorate our home. We limited ourselves to prints only this time instead of originals because we are trying to cut costs. We ended up getting several pieces for ourselves and a few for gifts, too. We also got to eat at one of our favorite Columbus area festival food stands, Island Noodles, and I got a Pina Colada sno-cone from Kona Ice (my favorite summertime treat).
They also had several music stages setup and we arrived just in time to see our vet, Dr. Thompson, perform with her tap group! We also found the booth for the soap business that is owned by our friend Austi and her husband Ryan. Austi had gone home with their son but we bought a few bars of soap from her husband and chatted for a while.
And that’s how we filled out first three weeks at “home”. The time definitely FLEW by so quickly. We hadn’t been up to much of our typical adventuring but it had been wonderful to be surrounded by people that we love and to revisit places that we special to us. We found ourselves with only a week left in town and still so much to try to fit in!
