If you are any type of outdoorsy person you should definitely check out Park Passport – Ohio State Parks. (https://ohiodnr.gov/buy-and-apply/gifts-and-mechandise/state-parks-passport) Honestly, I’m a book nerd – a book has to FEEL right before I can look at it and enjoy it. This is a beautifully printed book detailing all of Ohio’s 88 state parks with pictures and lists of attributes. (It’s a coincidence that there are 88 parks and 88 counties in Ohio. There is NOT one in each county – I checked.)
I did my adventuring on a Tuesday this week. I like times when the rest of the world is working or otherwise occupied. I left early in the morning, hoping to be at my first destination before people were heading into rush hour, and made my way northeast across backroads and through small towns to CR 146 and Dillon State Park. The guide book says it has a beach so I put my metal detector in the passenger seat. (There’s a picture for you!) You’re only allowed to use the metal detector in state parks where there’s sand. I thought I’d give it a shot.
Dillon is in eastern Licking County where the land starts to have more varied topography. When I left the house it was very foggy, and I actually waited for some of it to burn off before I left. The hills however were still holding it in, and the park was wrapped in fog when I got there. The definition of beach is a sandy or pebbly shore, and in that context, Dillon has a beach. It’s really hard to use the same word for the beach at Dillon and the beach at Bermuda, or Bimini, or Clearwater. These have truly breathtaking white stretches of beach. I have no experience with beaches in Ohio. I’ll have to check that out and let you know how Dillon compares to Ohio beaches.
I did my metal detecting thing and found nothing – not even trash, which I always find. That’s a good thing – means someone is taking good care of the place! I asked a park ranger if people actually used the beach, because there was no trash. I think it made him feel good. There was evidence that animals were using the beach though, deer tracks the entire length and the ever-present goose poop. People were fishing and having some luck at it. I could see boats out on the water and there’d probably be a lot more of that as the day went on.
The rest of the day I spent in Coshocton County visiting my mom. I had to show her my machine, because that’s what we do. Good, bad, happy, sad, excited, we always want to go home and share it with mom. A couple months before he died, Damian decided he was going to spend as much time as he could with mom because he had missed out on seeing dad enough. A lesson we should all take to heart – kiss your loved ones and tell them they matter.
Juxtaposition – good word, right!? It’s placing two things side-by-side with a contrasting effect. Just like the beaches of Dillon and the beaches of Bimini. I was at the gas station putting fuel in the Slingshot for my trip and a car pulled up beside me. The woman in the passenger seat yells across the driver “I love that you are driving that”. She was genuinely pleased and proceeded to tell me with great pleasure that she rides a Harley. I told her I had always wanted a Harley but at this point in life a Slingshot was more reasonable and it totally makes me happy! She says, and it’s way more comfortable! No doubt about that. Harley’s vibrate – a lot.
It got me thinking about the juxtaposition of me and my machine. I suppose I could have taken offense to her words, but she was obviously excited for me and what I represented in the grand scheme of things. She had a point when I thought about it. My machine is beautiful, cool, some might even say sexy. I’m middle aged, physically on the round side, about as average as a person could be in most ways. So I’m driving down the street wondering if, for just a minute, my machine makes me one of the cool kids now. And you know, we all need that! The ability to find that moment every now and then where we are one of the cool kids. I truly hope you find your moment. And whatever you do, go at it like a four year old in a Spiderman suit!
He wanted to know if I thought he could reach the chandelier!
(Send me your comments. Let me know if you’d like to go along some day. God speed until our paths cross again.)