We are Back

*Edit to add: To the person (scootsv) who commented on my Over the Hill card and wanted to know where the embossing folder is from, it is Cuttlebug Birthday Wishes by Provocraft.  Hobby Lobby carries it I believe.  Your Blogger profile was not active, so I had no way of contacting you directly.  I hope you see this answer. Thanks for visiting me :)

Hi Everyone!

Did you miss me?  Well, hopefully you didn't even know that I was away from home, seeing that I scheduled a couple of posts showing off some cards while I was away :)  

Rod used up a few more vacation days, and we headed off on a what Bridget Jones would call a Mini Break.  However, not being British, we call it a get away.  

We went for a couple of days of fun in Put In Bay.  It's an island in the middle of Lake Erie and I was only there once, maybe 15 yrs ago, so it was like new to us.  

We drove about 1 1/2 hours west of home, parked the car and hopped a ferry like this for a 20 min ride to the island.  

 

Here we are getting wind blown on the ferry ride.  I hope you like photos of this sort.  It's pretty much the only kind I have of us.  You know, you hold the camera out as far as possible and hope for the best...lol.

We grabbed a cab and dropped our bags off at our Bed and Breakfast before heading into town.  We stayed at Drake's Get Away Inn.

There is a charming park in town down by the water and we took a few photos there...

Some fountain, I didn't see a name on it...

I made Rod stand by this tribute to some fallen soldiers...

Across the park was the Beer Barrel Saloon which boasts the longest bar in the world. 

This cute carousel that played traditional organ carnival music....

As we passed these sights we made our way to the Perry's Victory and Peace Memorial.  We were pretty hot and pooped, so we were really happy to watch a 15 min. educational movie about Oliver Hazard Perry in an air conditioned theatre.  Supposedly if Perry didn't win the Battle of Lake Erie, I would be Canadian.  

The monument itself was closed that day, but it represents the longest lasting peace between Canada, Britain

and the USA.  I like that.   

We needed some sustenance about now, so we walked back to The Boardwalk and had a lobster roll at the Upper Deck.  I wish I could be a good blogger and take photos of all the yummy food we ate.  I tell myself I will do that from now on, but the minute the food arrives I begin to chow down and totally forget.  You will just have to take my word for it when I say something was delish.

Completely rejuvenated we headed off for more sightseeing....

I forgot to take photos of the winery tour...You can read about the history here.  Amazing thing, they sell 90% of the wine they make on the island itself.  And they can't keep up with the demand.  Crazy.  If you like sweet wine, or Ohio wine, or young wine it's probably the place for you.  Me, not so much.

Then we went down in the cave. Pretty funny that they sold this as a "tour".  A viewing would be more accurate.  It was one small room at the bottom of a steep set of steps.

There are those big crystals...Here is another one of those fab photos of us that I mentioned.

Some more crystals as we turned around and walked up the same steps we came down on.  Yeah, the "tour" lasted about 3 min. total.  Pretty funny!  I guess this cave saved the family business during the prohibition.  They were selling tours back then to survive.  Now they sell tours to suckers like us :)

Me.  Happy to out of the cave :)

Later we ate some fish for dinner at Mossbacks.  I did manage to snap this photo of Rod's Black & Tan.  How perfect does this look?  I always love the separation and the beauty of the two colors together.

Here we are suffering through some really bad Karaoke. Cheeseburger in Paradise, Bad Romance, Bad Medicine....Thank goodness it was a beautiful summer night.

Can you believe that was all in one day?  We didn't waste any time.

The second day we headed over to Perry's Cave.  (There are a bunch of things named after that Perry guy on this island!)  Bizarre that there would be another cave to see too.  It's vacation, so whatever.  Another cave it is.

We decided to go for it, and bought the combo ticket.  For a reduced price we could do it all! The Butterfly House, Mini Golf, and Perry's Cave! The lady was really selling it hard...lol.  

This butterfly thing ended up being totally worth it.  There were sooo many kinds, all flying free.  Really very cool.

This one was my favorite, the Common Blue Morpho. It was anything but common.   It looks like this when it has its wings closed...Beautiful right?

Here they are eating....

And this is what they look like when the wings are open!  The blue was spectacular!!!  Just. So. Cool.

I could have stayed in there for hours, if it wasn't a million degrees in the greenhouse!

On our walk over to the mini golf, I made Rod stand for a photo op.  Delirious from the heat, he'll do anything.

Too busy getting my butt kicked in Putt Putt, (called The War of 18 Holes) I forgot to take photos, so on to the next cave! 

This was a true cave, and at least it was a cool 50 degrees F.  As pretty as the crystals in the last cave were, this cave was its wet slime-y cousin.  It was so ugly and there was not much to see when we climbed down another set of very steep stairs.

See...

Yeah.  Here is our teen aged tour guide trying to tell us that this formation looks like a lion.  Whatever.

This is the contaminated lake...

And Rod, pretty excited he can't stand up straight down there.  I'm laughing all over again just writing this...

This tour actually lasted about 20 min. so I guess it qualified as real tour.  Not sure if that is a good or bad thing!

We were in need of some nourishment, so we went to The Goat (Isn't that a funny name?) for some perch tacos. Yum!  Whenever we are on vacation, one of our main goals is to eat outside whenever possible.  I think we managed to do that with every meal :)

On our walk back I snapped this photo of a sweet little church....

That was it, our mini break on Put In Bay was over.  I think we crammed in everything possible in those two days...Rod called it our "Appetizer Vacation."  He's looking forward to a week long vacation in the fall :)

Lastly, we stopped at a farm stand on the way home and picked up some, tomatoes, peaches and corn.  I was able to snap a photo of these sunflowers behind the little stand.

I love the happy faces of the sunflower.

Thanks for going along on the trip with me and I will be back with my usual posts of craftiness real soon!