secretlake

I just got home from a trip, I spent a short time visiting my friend Sarah in Ohio and Kentucky. We had so much fun, it was a real summer vacation. This is Sarah on her front porch in Cincinnati, note the name of the business across the street, it's called "R U MY KID," they test DNA.
 
We spent one day thrifting in Louisville Kentucky, on our way back I noticed this giant white creature in the back seat of a mercedes, when he finally turned his head to the side we laughed so hard.



One night we went to a bar where around 2 AM someone lit a silver foil helium balloon on fire and let go of it, it floated up to the ceiling and burned as everyone watched. It was surreal, the ceiling was getting scorched until the balloon finally burst and drifted to the ground. I was told that the bar regularly catches on fire, someone had recently burned down the women's restroom. Also I noticed that many of the patrons seemed to be wearing denim shirts, I texted this observation to my friend Jonee and he responded with "Sounds like Ohio." This trend was also evident in the thrift stores, there were denim shirts galore. In Kentucky the thrift stores were filled with boots, people there really seem to love boots. I found so many I mailed a big box of them home. There were some really interesting things behind the counter at several of the thrifts, you know how they display the items they decide are of the greatest value behind the register? I should have taken photos. One of them had a dead shark in a jar of formaldehyde, there was a realistic life sized baby for practicing CPR, a prosthetic arm and a taxidermied family of some kind of animal I thought was a possum but Sarah said that she knows possums well and they were something else. There were guitars and vintage radios, a jack in the box snoopy and the trashiest lingerie ever on hangers draped prominently above the heads of the cashiers. 

We also visited an art deco train station that had a dinosaur out front.


We drove over this famous suspension bridge too, it was designed by John Roebling who also designed the Brooklyn Bridge. As you cross it you are crossing the Mason Dixon line over the Ohio River, it's dramatic.


I had lunch at a waffle house, and at one point I found myself eating cool ranch doritos. Oh and there was the scary flea market, the weather was shockingly hot and humid and the stench of incense and fried meat hung in the air, people were selling strange bottles of brightly colored generic beauty products and machine parts. Jimi Hendrix was blasting from the open door of someone's van. I paused at one booth of fur covered animals when I saw poodles. I had to take a picture. 

The plane ride back was uneventful but I did finish a Sookie Stackhouse novel and SPOILER ALERT I was delighted to read that she is part fairy. The books are quite different than the show, there are werewolves, witches and werepanthers, the vampires aren't the only ones to worry about. Oh well, it's nice to be home but I will miss having a vacation to look forward to.