Saturday, June 27, 2009
12: Pampered Tourists
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| Stoker's Log Day Twelve |
| 6/27/09 |
| Rest Day Two in Granville, OH |
We started our day at the farmer's market, enjoying homemade fruit tarts for breakfast and watching Anne's superpower: the ability to knit or spin anytime, anywhere.
She also dyes her own wool, by the by.
When we got back from the market our wedding gift from Anne was waiting for us: massages from her friend, who not only massages people but also works on horses and just a few days ago brought her dog back to life with her magic hands after it was crushed by a fence. I don't think many other masseuses can put "literal miracle worker" on their resume.
When we were (reluctantly) done luxuriating and devouring Anne's handmade pizza with fresh mozzarella, we decided to play tourist, so Anne took us to The Hopewell Mounds. The mounds are, well, mounds of dirt. They aren't that impressive to look at from the ground...
...but from the air they form precise geometric shapes, and the history and mystery behind them are actually rather fascinating. The geometric earthworks were constructed sometime in the first few centuries AD by a people known only by "Hopewell," the name of the farmer who owned the property when the works were rediscovered. They seem to be burial mounds but they have also been found to correspond to lunar and other astronomical cycles. Basically no one can be sure about anything about them, but the theories are certainly interesting.
We learned all of this in the one room museum and then wandered the park for a while. Kyle amused himself by documenting my photoaddiction:
We also walked through moth hatching season; without warning the trees were filled with their cocoons and the air with their fluttering bodies.
My other entomological moment of the day was FINALLY discovering the purpose of the purple boxes we had spotted hanging from trees throughout the Laurel Highlands.
Apparently they are used to measure the Emerald Ash Borer population, an insect that wreaks havoc on the local trees. I'm glad that Anne's mother started talking about them because the mystery had been bothering me for days. (Often there wasn't much to look at or think about on those endless uphills.)
Our final tourist stop was at the impressive Bryn Du Mansion, but a wedding was about to begin there so we only got a quick peek inside the gates. I was especially sad that our visit didn't coincide with the polo matches that sometimes take place on the ample front grounds.
Then it was back to the house for our favorite things: delicious food and complete relaxation, the kind that occasionally let us forget that tomorrow we'll be back on the road again... at sunrise.
Here's to our absolutely wonderful hosts... and to their hammocks...
| posted at: 08:29 |
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