The other June trip

I have a friend from high school, Christine Hubbard, who lives in Columbus Ohio.  She is always asking me to come for a visit, but the last time had to have been at least 8 years ago.

Now with no vacation leave or work schedule to worry about, I decided to pay her a visit.  She always finds the most interesting things to do.  We have quilting in common and one of our favorite areas to visit in the Amish area on south eastern Ohio.  We went down to Charm and Berlin on a day trip.  Fabric, Amish cheese factory, farmer's market, flea markets etc.

 

This piece, made from an old sewing machine was at one of the antique malls.  Very original, but maybe a waste of a good old machine.



 

 

At one of the shops in Berlin they had this sewing machine by the front door.  This is a hard to find National Two Spool machine.  I have heard of these but had never seen one.  You use one spool on the top and another whole spool fits in instead of a bobbin.  Think of the hours of sewing without a bobbin running out.  Why can't they do that with modern machines??

 

 

We also visited the botanical gardens in Columbus.  They had Chihuli (sp) glass and a wonderful bonsai exhibit.

 

 

 

They also had sculptures based on origami designs.

 That's enough for now.  More pictures later

 





 

 

The other June trip

I have a friend from high school, Christine Hubbard, who lives in Columbus Ohio.  She is always asking me to come for a visit, but the last time had to have been at least 8 years ago.

Now with no vacation leave or work schedule to worry about, I decided to pay her a visit.  She always finds the most interesting things to do.  We have quilting in common and one of our favorite areas to visit in the Amish area on south eastern Ohio.  We went down to Charm and Berlin on a day trip.  Fabric, Amish cheese factory, farmer's market, flea markets etc.

 

This piece, made from an old sewing machine was at one of the antique malls.  Very original, but maybe a waste of a good old machine.



 

 

At one of the shops in Berlin they had this sewing machine by the front door.  This is a hard to find National Two Spool machine.  I have heard of these but had never seen one.  You use one spool on the top and another whole spool fits in instead of a bobbin.  Think of the hours of sewing without a bobbin running out.  Why can't they do that with modern machines??

 

 

We also visited the botanical gardens in Columbus.  They had Chihuli (sp) glass and a wonderful bonsai exhibit.

 

 

 

They also had sculptures based on origami designs.

 That's enough for now.  More pictures later

 





 

 

Well, that's been a vacation. . .

I guess I need to back up a couple of months.  I retired on May 13.  I had a really nice going away party from the Law School.  About 80 co-workers, and professors came by to wish me well.
I and my mother had planned the next week to leave for a trip to South Carolina to see mom's sister, Patricia.  But during that week we had 2 uncles pass away.  Leo Waterman (pink shirt) and Mitchell (Butch) Bennett (2nd from right).  Unfortunately that means all my mom's surviving sisters are now widows.

Mom's bd Nov. 2015

 

 So our trip was delayed by a week. Pat came up from SC for the funerals and we left just ahead of her to go to SC.

 

I took a different route this time to stop at Mary Jo Fabrics in Gastonia NC.  A much talked about store for quilters. Only I had forgotten our altered schedule so we were there on a Sunday.  There webpage didn't have Sunday hours listed so we didn't bother with the detour.  We did hit it on the way back north and I got lots of fabrics for my veteran's quilt project.

 

It is amazing to me as I travel around how much this land changes in such a short time.  Michigan is nice rolling with lots of forests. Northern Ohio was flat.   Then you slowly starting hitting the hills.  Bit of a change for me.

 

 

 

 

We had a wonderful time visiting with Aunt Pat and members of her family.  A couple of days after we got to Edgefield, we left for Hilton Head.  It was nice but a tropical depression blew in while we were there, but wasn't much worse than some of our thunder storms.  We got to the beach a couple of times.  Here is what a couple of 80+s look like. 78 degrees in the condo and they're cold with the air on. They couldn't understands why I didn't want to cover up too.

 

 

All in all it was a wonderful visit.  And we really appreciate my aunt's hospitality.

 

Safe trip there and back, but were glad to get home.