More from my trip...

More from my Ohio trip. I love weird road art! As we drove through the historic Village of Glendale we came a cross this giant squirrel, then another, and another. I love stumbling upon art in odd places, so I have to admit that I was a tad disappointed that this was another one of those city wide art projects and not just the work of some artsy person who wanted a giant squirrel in their yard. I decided I was more impressed when I read that squirrels have a little bit of history in Glendale. Besides the standard gray squirrels they have black squirrels, all descendents of a couple of imported breeding pairs imported in the ‘40s. I never saw the black ones but I saw many of the big decorated ones. I thought they seemed kind of comical in their “old fashioned” setting.

Glendale is tiny “town “ in the northern Cincinnati ‘burbs that’s actually a national historic landmark. I like driving through it because it’s a very quaint old town with lots of old homes and interesting architecture. I really like the “oldness” that can be found back in Ohio, Utah is such a young state, with a young population; it is very different from the Cincinnati area.

The “youth” of the population in my home state was recently pointed out to me. A couple of weeks ago my beadmaker friend Rosemarie Hanus was in Salt Lake on business. One of the first things she said to me when we met was “Where are the old people?” It seemed like an odd question, but after a week in Ohio I really saw what she meant. I work at a university and have teenagers, so I have a lot of young people in my life. But when you’re out and about you run in to many young families with a couple (or ton) of kids, or young “recreationalists” out biking or running. When we attend the local concert and festivals, at age 45 we definitely feel like we’re the old folks. But when I spent time at the Tall Stacks Festival in Cincinnati I didn’t feel like an old fart at all; there were tons of (*gulp*) middle aged couples, just like my husband and I, strolling about. The little cafe in my brother’s small town was full of grandfatherly looking farmers. There were plenty of “old people” everyplace we went. Rosemarie was right, it is different where I live.

More squirrels... when we were in Columbus we saw this cool albino squirrel!