Road Trippping to see the Black Squirrel

August 15th - August 17th

While the boys were hard at work getting ready for football season, Derley and I took a road trip to Kent State University where Derley had just recently earned her Masters Degree. This weekend was the actually graduation and we couldn't miss that. So Friday afternoon, Derley and I headed up to Kent, OH. We made it there is time to check out the bookstore before they closed on Friday evening.

The ladies in the bookstore were super helpful and one even had a sister that went to VT. They gave us a map, told us all the local places we had to check out and off we went. First we went and explored campus.

They have a beautiful campus and we had a great time chasing all the little black squirrels that there campus is known for.

On May 4, 1970, on the campus of Kent State, 4 people were killed and 9 people wounded after a peaceful anti-war protest got out of hand. Needless to say, this memorial hits home for Derley & I and we took some time at the memorial as well as the audio walking tour around the campus. It was very powerful. Kent State has done an amazing job preserving the memory of all there were involved.

The Visitor Center was closed when we were there

The field were all the students were protesting

The center of the protest

The pagoda where shots were fired at students

Memorial of one of the four that lost there life that day

After our time on campus, we headed out to dinner at Ray's Place, which was recommended by the ladies at the bookstore. We had a rocky stop to dinner, there were college reunions happening, a very grumpy bartender/waiter and what seemed to be an uninformed college student manning the door but we stuck with it and enjoyed our dinner and called it a night.

Saturday morning Derley met with a Professor for coffee so I tagged along and hung out at Tree City Coffee & Pastry.

Kent State's little downtown area is just too cute so we spent some time shopping, exploring and being silly.

It wasn't long before it was time to head to graduation so we did a really quick wardrobe change and headed to the ceremony.

The highlight of the ceremony was by far how completely wrong they said Derley's entire name! We later recorded it and now use it as her ringtone for when she calls. It is WOW. Just WOW.

After graduation, we spent the afternoon finding awesome places to take pictures of Derley in her cap, gown and fake diploma.

We headed back to our favorite bookstore and ran into our favorite Kent State ladies, swapped stories, told them all the places we had been and all the places we were going to try before we headed out the next morning and, oh yeah, bought a few Kent State items.

For dinner we made it to another local restaurant called Pufferbelly. This place is in an old train station so the atmosphere was really fun & the wait staff and food was great!

On our drive back to the hotel, we made a quick pit stop at their football stadium and a random, odd sighting.

Sunday was an uneventful day, we made a quick stop at what we thought were going to be outlets but ended up just being a mall and then drove home. There is nothing between our house and Kent so it was a pretty but quiet drive home.

Random Bucket List

August 10th

Today I was able to cross one more thing off the imaginary bucket list. For a few years I have wanted to participate in a Sprint Triathlon. We have one in our backyard and every year something comes up where we are unable to do it. I had my eyes set on completing this goal this year but I let time get away from me. I finally signed up and started training for the race 4 weeks before race day.

I was super nervous because they put me at the front of the swim line so the race started a little rocky.

With the swim behind me, I made my way to the transition area to hop on my bike for 10 miles.

The bike portion of the way was pretty lonely. I saw very few people along the route and many times I had to remind myself that I was "racing" and not just out for a leisurely bike ride in the mountains.

The final part of the tri was the run. I was a little worried about this as well since how do you train your body to keep going after swimming and biking 10 miles. But I guess the excitement of actually doing a sprint triathlon & the fact that I was almost done kept me going.

The run was the "best" part if you can say there is a "best" part of doing something like this because there were actually people all around. It kept me motivated not to quit.

John, Mary Beth & I

Danielle made it out right after I finished

At the end, I was really excited that I had finished, that I had crossed off one more thing on the bucket list and that I lived to tell about it. I think it will be a long time before I do that again (if ever) and next time I think I will try and train for the race instead of just thinking I can just jump in and do it.