Lots of miles, loads of traffic, tons of good stuff.  Ohio rocks!  I haven’t been here in about five years really other than some quick stops en route to somewhere else.  It’s about time I reshot many photos at my website of Ohio stuff that is 5+ years old — tiny, dingy, from at least two cameras ago.  But the focus of this trip is mainly on getting new stuff & reshooting things when it’s convenient.

I could complain about the weather — mostly grey, some rain in the morning, some nice sun once in awhile.  Very cool out — now remind me why I spent another $400 to fine tune my A/C for this trip?

Perhaps the biggest event of the day was a very long 30 minutes or so when Grem went missing.  She has been so good on this trip.  At a huge fenced dog park today, she stayed pretty close by.  She was actually “checking in” with me (dog world terminology for exchanging eye contact now & then = “keeping tabs” on me).  Early afternoon, I was trying to find a way to Whiskey Island to see the abandoned Art Deco former Coast Guard station (which I eventually found).  From a big industrial lot, I could see it in the distance.  Decided it was a clean & big enough spot to give the dogs a run — well, three of the four anyway.  As usual, I held onto Gremlin’s leash.  But then, feeling pretty confident about her attention to me and overall fatigue from barking all day, I let the leash drop for awhile.  She was still staying close by but then as my attention strayed to helping Nik find his ball, I got that look from her.  That look of “now’s my chance!” and there she went at 60mph full speed to anywhere but here.  Pink fee-fee girlie leash flying in the wind.  Gone.  Me yelling and calling and yelling and cursing and praying.  Asking people around if they’d seen her.  Looking for any garbagey spots where she’d be most inclined to be.  Nothing.  Nowhere.  But luckily no fast moving traffic anywhere.  I put the other dogs in the van so I could focus on yelling for her.  Which doesn’t matter anyway when she’s in that feral mood anyway.   Finally, I see a black blip on the horizon & know her vicinity.  In my most positive upbeat voice, I call her and fling chicken to the ground while I snatch the leash.  Jesus.  Here’s what could have been her very last photo — the brat (keeping it clean for the blog ya know):

And from the same industrial lot — Nik & Fix (some shots of Grip tomorrow I promise — today’s shots of her were unflattering).  Yes, Nik (on the left) looks this psychotic (and IS) most of the time.

Must.  Read.  Manual.  to figure out how to take movies of the dogs on this trip.  Yes, by the way, I splurged on a new camera a couple weeks ago (Nikon D90) — but I was working so much that I never got a chance to read the books I bought about it.  So I’m going all auto-everything & it seems to be working well most of the time. 

Today’s big treat — had to give East Coast Custard (a photo of their adapted Arby’s building at Flickr tonight) a few of my dollars.  Went for the Peach Cobbler sundae which had some crunchy brown sugary stuff, probably canned peaches, and as you can see, ample whipped cream over the vanilla ice cream.  It was actually hot & sunny for the first time that day so I considered it a sign that I should indulge.  It also gave me the opportunity to test my very first “portrait” setting. 

Pacific Northwest?  No — Parma Heights! —

Paris?  No — Cleveland! —

One bit of “serious” architecture before I move on to today’s emphasis on the weird & goofy.  A very nice mid-century fire house in Parma Heights:

A few oddities from Akron:  on the roof of a motorcyle shop…

… and on the roof of a bedding store in Akron:

A quick photo of just one corner of the award-winning Bow Wow Beach in Stow:
http://bow-wowbeach.com/

Yes, the kids had a great time.  Especially after the rather disappointing dog park we went to in Akron about an hour earlier.

I always have to stop and shoot these OK used car signs wherever I see them.  These were in Parma Heights I think.  Other photographers are out shooting bees, birds and flowers right now.  But I’m shooting plastic signs!  They kind of look like summer sunflowers though don’t they?

And this one I just had to shoot for the bizarrity of it.  The fake-o dog lifting his leg — and mostly the hilarious website address:

Dead tired & it’s after 1am.  I’ll send this one off without spell check or proofing.  What the heck, it’s only a blog not a term paper.  Tomorrow’s blog might be brief (or not at all) if I magically get on schedule and manage to hook up with a friend for the evening.  Time to call it a day.  Much more Ohio tomorrow.