Shoptaw Family Vacation 6: Meigs County

Meigs County, Ohio, lies on the Ohio River with West Virginia on the other side. Here at Wikipedia, you'll see a map of the county, with the towns you'll want to know pointed out. So, as a quick key, here they are:

• Middleport--where Meron's mom lives.
• Pomeroy--the next town over, and between the two is the Ohio end of the bridge that spans the river and takes you into Mason, West Virginia.
• Rutland--where Meron's dad's mother lived when she was alive. Meron's Uncle Barry now lives in the house, and this is where we stayed while we were there.
• Racine--where Meron's grandmother and one of her aunts live. (Separately, but across the street from each other.)
• Harrisonville (not pictured)--where Meron's dad lives and works

So we get to Meron's dad's store, the Horner Hill Carryout. A carryout, for those of you unfamiliar with the term (and I was until I met Meron) is basically what we call down here a liquor store, though it also has soft drinks, microwavable sandwiches, candy, etc. Meron's dad is owner and sole employee, so if it's open, he's there. And it's open most of the time.

Like I said, we got there about 8. After greeting him, Peggy (who is technically Meron's step-mother, but Meron was grown when they got married, and you know how that is) and Adam (Peggy's son, Meron's step-brother), we decide, after the store closes at 9, to all go over to Middleport and have dinner at McClure's, a local fast-food type restauarant.

Thankfully, at least most of the time, there weren't many other patrons in the place, because Sarah was having none of it. She fussed and cried at the top of her lungs for the better part of our visit. I actually waited to eat so I could hold her and try to calm her down, but no dice. Meron took over when I was done and really didn't have much more luck. She apologized to the other people in the place, and we tried to hurry up and get out of there.

We then went over to Rutland and Uncle Barry's house. I hadn't been in it since Meron's grandmother died a few years back, so the changes made were pretty noticable and it looked very nice. However, there was one small hitch in our giddy-up.

See, we usually stay with Meron's cousin Christine, but she informed us that they didn't have air conditioning in their upstairs, and with a record heat wave running through Ohio, she thought that might be a turnoff for us. Of course, it was, so we hunted around to find another place to stay and found Barry's.

"Do you have air-conditioning?" we asked (via proxy).

"Sure!" he answered (via proxy).

The detail was, there was only one thermostat, and it controlled the downstairs. So you couldn't cool the upstairs with the AC without going to drastic measures. They had a fan sitting in the window to help cool things off, which helped, but it still was probably a good 80-85 up there when we started unloading our stuff. By that time, though, we didn't care too much because there were beds and we could sleep in them!

Instead of detailing every day (which I'm sure you all are incredibly grateful), I'll use some pictures to give some highlights:

This is Benjamin playing ball with Sweetiepie, Barry's dog. Benjamin loved having a dog that actually would play with him somewhat. (Dax, our dog at home, doesn't care that much for him.) He would play with Sweetie any chance he could. Sweetie didn't seem to mind too much, but she did wear out occasionally and have to stop playing.

This is Meron's dad joining Benjamin and Sweetie. Mike would throw the ball for the dog and Benjamin would just watch and laugh. Benjamin made a big impression on his grandfather, especially when he spent one evening hitting off the tee. Mike's a big baseball fan and just loved seeing him swing the bat.

We arrived in Ohio on Saturday. On Sunday, they had a get-together for Meron's dad's side of the family. Not as many people as they expected showed, but she got to see a few family members. This is her, Benjamin and Adam at the lovely old house the party was held at.

Benjamin and I spent a lot of time (with Mike and Adam as well) out on the front porch while most of the women oohed and aahed over Sarah. It was overcast and cooler, with a shower that popped up later on. There once came a clap of thunder right on top of us, which made Benjamin take a dead sprint from the top of the porch stairs straight to me on the couch outside. We both wound up taking a nap out there as well, which was nice.

They had put in a small park right down the road from where we were staying, so Meron called one of her high school friends who had a couple of boys and we all went down there one morning. Of course, it was blazing hot and Meron sat under the gazebo talking with her friend, so I had to chase down Benjamin. By the end of it, I wasn't in the best of moods, as you can imagine! Still, the boys seemed to have fun, even if Benjamin spent more time with me than them.

Sarah spent most of her time in her stroller and the boys were fascinated by her. I don't know how many little baby girls they'd been around in their lives. For her part, she really seemed to be interested in them as well. Just what I need, a flirt at two months.

Benjamin started playing a game at Grandpa Mike's store. He basically took candy (Chewy Sweet Tarts in this picture) and took it in and out of boxes, like he was stocking the shelves. He did this a lot with the Peanut M&Ms as well.

Mike is an eclectic guy. Of course, he's got the baseball history interest, as well as following today's players. He keeps an ear on politics, and really loves old radios and blues music. He also has a fascination with the paranormal, perhaps stemming from the fact that the circumstances surrounding the Mothman and the Silver Bridge (you may remember the movie The Mothman Prophecies from a few years back) happened just up the road. Anyway, he also has a lot of old records and a record player and one night, he played for Benjamin a couple of songs he called "train music". Benjamin, loving anything trains of course, was excited and asked for more. I'm not sure exactly what he played for him, but I probably should find out and see if they have it on CD.

To prove that we did spend some time with the other side of the family, here's Meron's grandmother and mother in a group photo. Meron really wanted to get pictures of the direct line of four girls (from Grandma Mae to Sarah) and we got some other family shots in this photo shoot outside Grandma's trailer in Racine.

Speaking of the Christian side of the family, we had a get-together with them one night as well, with a much better attendance than the Grueser one. I didn't get many pictures of everyone, but Benjamin spent a lot of the evening in the chair with me after playing some with his cousin Zachary and the other kids there. He wound up falling asleep on me there too--I'm pretty sure any time he took a nap in Ohio, it was on me!

This is a really long post, so I'll wrap up Ohio and our trip back in the next one. It's almost over, folks! Thanks for bearing with me!