Out and About in Sandusky–a collection of small adventures

Not everything we do on a daily basis is worthy of a blog post on its own, but there are lots of little things that I want to include, so I just put together a post covering some of the little things we’ve done over the last month.

One quiet weekday afternoon while I was working (I think I was dialed into a meeting, in fact), there was a sudden roar outside, and I caught a flash of yellow and blue outside my window.  It was a crop duster, but almost could have been an acrobatic plane, with the maneuvers he was making!

Tom was outside with the neighbors, and managed to get a few pictures.

He floated right over the top of the corn,

skimmed the tops of the trees along the edge of the campground, and did flips in the sky above us!

We’ve tried several restaurants in town, including a mexican place in Huron,

and a really good italian restaurant, where neighbors Jim & Nancy joined us – Bryce, too – it was one of his rare nights at home!

Tom and I finally spent a day at the beach . . .

Gem Beach is on Catawba Island,and it’s not a bad beach . . . for Lake Erie!  It was actually hot enough that we got in the water . . . up to our knees, anyway!

One day on facebook, I saw a post for a Brewfest in downtown Sandusky, in the park along the Bay.  We thought it might be worth a drive into town while we waited for Bryce to get home from work – you know, like Happy Hour.

We found it, but it was quite a bit smaller than we had expected – there were a few crafters, a couple of food and beer vendors, music,

and some games set up for family fun.

This Battleship game looked pretty cool, actually!

We did enjoy a great view of some nice boats,

but after about a half hour, we bailed and headed back to the campground for our own Happy Hour!

I stumbled onto the Farmers Market one Saturday morning,

and that was much more impressive, with multiple local farmers, some food vendors, and several crafters.  It was conveniently located right across the street from a cute Quilt Shop, too, so that was a double bonus for me!  I can’t believe I didn’t find it earlier in the summer!

Last weekend, we finally managed to get together with a friend from work who had retired almost two years ago.

He and his wife sold their house, bought a Ford F-350 and Mobile Suites 5th wheel, and set out to be fulltime RVers.  Their daughter lives in Ohio, so they spend the summer in a seasonal campground not too far from us.

Eagle Lake Campground is a great little park – very clean and quiet, and they have a great corner site!  We visited for a while in their beautiful RV, and then took a drive to a local winery, Chateau Tebeau.

It was a beautiful winery, right in the owners’ backyard, with a tasting room,

and lots of seating on the patio.  We enjoyed a cheese & cracker plate, along with a couple bottles of wine, while comparing notes on fulltiming, and just occasionally slipping into “Ford talk”!  They have live music later in the evening on the weekends, and he was just getting set up when we were leaving.

We picked up a pizza at a local bar on the way back to the campground, and enjoyed it outside before taking a walk to see the rest of the campground and enjoying the sunset over the lake (although the clouds got in the way!)

Those clouds almost look like mountains . . . but we are in Ohio!

Thanks for a great visit, Tom and Karen!  We were glad we finally managed to get together!

OK, so that wraps up all the little adventures we’ve been having.  Amazingly, the summer is winding down, and we’re getting ready to move on from here . . . Bryce has just a few more days of work, and then we’ll move up into Michigan for some “vacation” time before we move him back into Michigan State and start our fall travels!  We’re ready!

Meanwhile, down in Virginia . . .

Nicolas is getting acclimated to his new home and had a successful first underway.  Once they arrived back in port, the ship moved up the river to the Shipyard in Portsmouth for scheduled maintenance.

Sure looks big moving up the river!