Inseparable Nomads

After spending the previous week on the Rez, Upstate, we moved on through our journey and found our way to Canton, OH.

My grandmother lives in Canton, OH, where (of all places) I was actually born! So it was a very special event to return to the place where I have lost memories of being a five year old boy before we started moving all over the world.

We were excited to spend some time with my grandmother. This would be the third time that Shelby met her and I was excited to show off my grandma’s cooking. She warned us ahead of time we were going to leave a few pounds heavier and she definitely wasn’t kidding. Since the first day (and literally every day thereafter) she had meals and desserts planned out for us. We gorged ourselves and drank plenty of wine and had an amazing, relaxed time. I couldn’t have been more relaxed in the Bahamas. Every evening we played a domino game called “Mexican Train.” It’s not a very typical game so it took is a few rounds to get used to the rules but it’s damn fun and Shelby and I made sure to grab a photocopy of the rules before heading back to Boston.

Mexican Train with Grandma!!

One thing I have to say about Ohio is that the laws are somewhat backwards. Besides a few really strange things, in particular we noticed that helmets aren’t mandatory for anything. So on the highway it wasn’t uncommon to see motorcyclists without helmets almost getting killed on the dodgy, rough asphalt. In fact I don’t recall seeing any motorcyclists at all with helmets…

A few highlights

Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame:

During the middle of the week grandma, Shelby and I drove up to Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. First, I’ll just say that it’s massive and while we spent two hours in there you could get lost in it all day long. My favorite parts were the 60’s, Punk, Elvis, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Michael Jackson exhibits. They were very detailed and featured loads of information and childhood artwork, poetry, etc. from all those individuals. I highly recommend checking it out if you find yourself in Cleveland!

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame

Amish Country:

While central and upstate New York feature a great variety of Amish and Mennonite territories, the one we went to outside Canton is definitely a very tourist-friendly one. They have (and are known for) large Cheese and Wine exhibitions where they sample dozens of types of Cheese, Wine, Fudge and other products. For ridiculously cheap prices. They have all kinds of cheeses ranging from linear flavors like white cheddar to delicious combinations of seasoning and meat flavors. Being the sweets fanatic I am, I went straight for the fudge and fell in love with the cheesecake and blueberry fudge flavors. The pineapple one was also delicious…just throwing that out there.

Andrew loves Amish Country

Shelby made a friend!

Family Dinner:

My uncle Scott, his wife Jen and their two daughters, Emma and Bailey came over for a nice family dinner with us one night. It was fun catching up with them and seeing those gorgeous kids already growing so fast…and of course dinner was delicious and filling. As usual after dinner we finished up with a bottle (or two) of wine and some Mexican Train. What a great day.

A new set of wheels on my car:

After thousands of miles being put on the car from the journey, it was time for a tune-up (afterall, a little vibration in the steering column had me worried anyways). I took the car in to check the brakes, tires, fluids, etc. and got a call back saying my wheels were shot. Apparently the two all-season tires I had on my car (I still had 2 snow tires on since the original other 2 all-seasons were completely shot) had worn down to the metal threading from my wheels. That is not good. So I got an entire new set of all-season tires and saved some life out of the remaining 2 usable snow tires I had. Those are going to come in handy this winter.

After showing Shelby my old house(s) that I lived in as a small child in Ohio, and spending time with my grandma it was time to move on and finally land in Boston. We packed up our things and begrudgingly left our relaxing time behind us as we pushed forward into our new life.

Whoisandrewgarcia.com:

I finally had a chance to officially launch the new design on my personal website http://www.whoisandrewgarcia.com. I was able to use grandma’s Windows based PC to finish browser debugging and compliance issues and finally launched it (see this post for more information)

A special thanks goes out to my grandmother for the wonderful time she showed us in Canton. We really enjoyed ourselves and you made our stay adventurous and relaxing. Love you grandma!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 6:44 am and is filed under Andrew's Family, Boston, The Move, Travel, family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.