Fall Festivals

It's a bit of old news at this point, but earlier this fall, I enjoyed going to two local festivals, and I snapped a few pics that I've been meaning to post. 

During the last weekend in August, I took our new ESOL faculty member and her boyfriend to check out the International Festival at the mosque in Perrysburg (about 20 minutes north of town). This is a great annual event with food, tours of the mosque, and even activities for kids. I've been several times, but I always enjoy going back, and it's particularly fun to take people who are going for the first time. We had a great tour guide, and I tried some very tasty food, including an Egyptian macaroni and cheese dish with seasoned ground beef.

I really love that the mosque hosts this event because I think it's so important for people to be able to have this kind of opportunity to interact with and hear from people from other cultures, countries, and religions. Especially in the political climate we have here in the US today, there's no better time to listen to and understand those who are different from us and to take a chance to see what we do have in common. Here are some pics of the beautiful mosque:

Out front with my new friends.

Beautiful stained glass inside the main worship space.

Each window has one of the
names of God in calligraphy.

Our tour guide.

The space where the Imam speaks.
Women worship on the left; men on the right.

A couple weeks later, BG had our biggest event of the year, the Black Swamp Arts Festival.  This event takes over downtown for the weekend with food, art, and music. Mark and I wanted to avoid the rainy weather on Saturday, so we decided to go on Sunday, starting our day with a visit to a church downtown, then staying for lunch and wandering around the booths. We didn't really catch any specific music this year, but it was still a nice day out. As usual, we ran into a few people we know, including our neighbors across the hall. The pics don't really capture the environment, but here they are anyway. 

Fall is a great time of year around here, and I'm so thankful to be back on my feet this year and able to get out and enjoy it! Walking from our place to downtown and back for BSAF was such a treat given that a year ago, I was on crutches and couldn't go at all. I'm looking forward to indulging in some other fall treats over the coming weeks, like the massive influx of all varieties of apples at rock bottom prices, the changing fall colors, and the open-window weather. :-)

Labor Day Getaway: Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Well, it's taken me two weeks, but I'm determined to get this blog posted! I'll keep it short. Mark and I decided to spend part of our Labor Day weekend, Sunday and Monday, visiting the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We'd been during fall break a couple of years ago, and since this year is the 100th anniversary of the National Parks, we thought we ought to find a way to get ourselves to one. This is the closest. :-)

We drove out on Sunday morning, had a picnic lunch, then spent the afternoon hiking all around some trails the park ranger recommended. We checked into our hotel in the late afternoon, and after a few glitches, managed to pick up some pizza and pizza nuggets for dinner (the first restaurant we tried was closed for the holiday, the second had very limited eat-in area, so we took it to go).

We ventured back out that evening to see if we could catch any wildlife in the Beaver Marsh area. It was already getting pretty dark by the time we arrived, but we did make out a shadowy great heron and some ripples in the water that a local told us were beavers swimming around. Night goggles (or something) would have come in handy, I think. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a local place for some ice cream, and we took advantage of the hotel's cable to watch a mini House Hunters marathon.

After wearing ourselves out with moderate to difficult trails on Sunday, we took things a bit easier on Monday morning, choosing some scenic but less challenging trails to hike. We had another picnic lunch, did some shopping at the National Park stores and wandered around downtown Peninsula (a small town in the middle of the park area).

By then, we were ready to drive home, giving me enough time when we got back to swim in our apartment pool one last time before it closed for the year. It was a quick trip, and we sure walked around a lot, but it was so fun to be out in that area again, and I was particularly thankful thinking of how I was physically able to do all the hiking when this time last year I was on crutches.

Here are some pics, though they don't really show how beautiful it was.