October 24, 2007

After two and a half years of pursuing new things, it was time to visit something familiar. I wasn’t sure what to expect of our first trip back to Ohio. The anticipation reminded me of my anticipation of the halfway point on the drive up. Would this create feelings of regret? I was pretty sure it wouldn’t, but I had some doubts.

It was a good time to visit. Fall had practically run its course in Alaska and should have been peaking in Ohio. Due to the warm weather this year, fall is a little late in Ohio. The colors were developing during our 9 day visit, but they weren’t quite peak. Lots of leaves were down already so some trees were going right from green to brown. Fall has never been predictable, but even the worst is still very nice. We were excited to see red trees again.

The weather was unbelievable. It was warm and sunny many of the days of our visit. This did create a bit of a contrast upon our return. We scraped ice off the car windows at the airport. We have now had snow on the ground the last two mornings.

Ohio is a long way away. Our trip down was broken up into three legs with stops in Seattle and Dallas. I thought this was going to work out well since I feel I can handle a 3 hour plane ride and this was going to be just three of them. Unfortunately we sat in the planes in Seattle and Dallas for an extra 2 hours as they repaired the planes. In Dallas, we got to get off the plane briefly after almost 2 hours, but then got right back on to leave. The extra 4 hours crammed into planes was brutal. The return trip had one stop in Chicago, leaving us with a 6 hour flight for the last leg. This wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Maybe it was just by comparison to the torture we endured on the journey down.

The reality of such a trip after such a long time is that there isn’t enough time for visiting. As our plans developed, our schedule filled up without any appreciable gaps. It was nice to see the people we saw, but there were so many more that we didn’t get a chance to visit. We could have upped the pace and shortened the visits, but it was somewhat overwhelming as it was. Of the hundreds of people we know in Ohio, we saw about 25. In a way, that is disappointing. Perhaps it is just a dose of unanticipated reality associated with moving far away.

Our visiting was enjoyable (at least for us). We had dinner with Joyce, Jim, and Rich at our old standby restaurant on Friday. We spent Saturday with Kim, John, Ivy, Mac and Gordon and attended Gordon‘s football game under the lights at the high school stadium. Sunday was Gordy’s birthday party so we visited with the whole extended family. John and I golfed on Monday while Kris spent the day with her sisters and mother. Tuesday was the ball game with Jim and Joyce. Wednesday was breakfast on the east side with Kris’ parents, aunt and uncle then dinner on the west side with Rich and Barbara. Thursday was a visit with Kasie and Kate and a dinner at Kris’ parents to celebrate Kasie’s upcoming birthday. Friday was spent with Jim and Joyce, with a stop at Alpine Valley where we visited our old ski school director, and a small get together around a fire at Jim and Joyce’s. Saturday was Joyce’s birthday for breakfast and lunch with Kris’ parents before heading to the airport.

We managed to combine a few activities into our visiting. I played some golf. I didn’t shoot as horribly as I imagined I could after such a long stretch of not playing. I was mostly happy just to see the ball get up into the air, even if it flew into the woods a few times. Kris spent money shopping. I don’t know if the selection was better or if she was just in a spending mood. We visited a new casino in Erie Pennsylvania. It was a nice casino, even though no one won any money. We took a couple of hikes in the woods. It is nice to walk in the fall woods. We also went for a mountain bike ride at West Branch Reservoir. Significant trail improvements were evident since our last visit. Ohio actually has better mountain bike trails. When people build trails in Ohio, they look for creative ways to add challenges. In Alaska, they seem to look for ways to remove challenges and smooth out the trail.

One of our more exciting activities was attending an ALCS game. We haven’t been to an Indians game in a long time and we haven’t been to a post season game in a really long time. The home team won thanks to a seven run fifth inning. It was their last win of the season.

I tried to take a different road every time we drove somewhere. The familiarity was surprising. I even found myself changing lanes and speeds without really thinking about it, drawing upon the experience of traveling hundreds of thousands of miles on these roads. We saw a few dramatic changes such as buildings that have gone up or come down, but mostly everything was familiar, almost unchanged.

It is hard not to draw comparisons. The problem with comparisons is that they may only be justifications for our choices rather than objective analysis. I often fall for the temptation to bad mouth Ohio. It certainly bolsters my choice of leaving, but I can still find positives in Ohio. It was nice to see the hardwood trees again, especially starting into their fall colors. It was nice to see a major league ballgame. It was nice to visit some of our long time friends and family. These are things that simply aren’t available in Alaska. But we still had our twisted excitement as we boarded the plane to end of our vacation. We are going home!

Unfortunately, I caught a cold on our trip. I thought I was suffering from a sore throat because I was screaming at the baseball game. I thought I was suffering from aches from the mountain bike ride. I thought my nose was running from the smoke from the fire in Joyce and Jim’s backyard. On Sunday it became clear that I was actually sick. I am getting better, but I don’t think I have had a chance to adjust to the time difference yet. I have been getting really tired in the evening and falling asleep early. I have been waking up at 4:30. I now need to get back to Alaska time.