Porchville, USA

Kathy and I start our nine day weekend now. We are both off next week. We have no kids in school to be here for, but no place in particular to go, so it’s Porchville USA for us. Well, it would be except that the porch was wrecked by the storm a couple of weeks ago. Now gas is $3.09 a gallon thank you very much, so how far are we going to go anyway?

At first we thought we’d go to Chatauqua, New York because we thought it might be fun and a nice place to see. I called and spoke to the husband of the owner of the place we wanted to stay. He didn’t know anything about room rates and said his wife would be right back. She never called. I tried later in the week and spoke to a young woman who also didn’t know what to tell me, but that the owner would call me back. Nope. When I finally reached her, I learned it would never work for us. No Smoking. The whole place is made of wood, so smokers are potential arsonists and are not welcome. Kathy smokes, ergo, no Chatauqua.

There was a neat cottage we looked at on line out in Conneaut, Ohio. It looked perfect, just like a place we had stayed in once over in Saugatuck, Michigan. Not a B and B, not a hotel, just a comfy cottage all by itself, complete with a little kitchen—a kitchenette, one might say. When I finally got ahold of the owner, she said it was closed for the season after Labor Day.

There was a B and B in southern Ohio (well, OK, everywhere is southern Ohio to us in Cleveland). They just never called me back, so I figured they weren’t interested in making any money, so here we sit.

We’ll go to an outlet mall, go to the movies, go to an Indians game, and go to a big deal expensive restaurant for Kathy’s birthday on Friday. We’ll make our own fun.