Athens Trip for Anniversary
Mar 11, 02:41 PM
Early August we got a call from Granmom and Grandpops Lahoda and they said that they wanted to come out and spend a weekend watching the babies for us so we could go away for our anniversary. Labor Day weekend would give us 3 days to get away and relax without taking extra time off. After a quick discussion we decided to take them up on their offer and that we’d go down to Athens for the weekend to revisit some of our favorite places from the beginning of our relationship. We also decided it would be fun to tackle Rob’s goal of riding the Athens/Nelsonville bike path end to end.
A search of the area found us “The cabin at Chimney Lake” bed and breakfast. Fortunately they had an opening that weekend and we were able to book the two nights of the 4th and 5th of September! We were pretty surprised that we got a room because this was move-in weekend for Ohio University. As we were looking into it, we realized that the cabin was owned and operated by Matt and his wife who used to run the Big Chimney bakery and coffee shop. We were excited to see them again and hopefully have some of Matt’s pastries that we loved so much. We also hoped to see Tucker, their Samoyed, who we saw when we’d go for breakfast.
Granmom and Grandpops drove out on Friday, September 3rd and we spent the evening getting them familiar with the current routine for the twins and making sure they were ready for their weekend. The next morning we got up and went in to feed the babies breakfast. We were surprised to see RJ standing up in his crib! He had pulled himself up with the rails on the side of the crib for the first time! After breakfast we finished packing and said goodbye to the babies and Granmom and Grandpops. They loaded the twins in their stroller to go for a walk while we finished loading the car. Rob put the bikes on the roof rack and we got in the car to head out on our trip.
A wave to the babies who were with Granmom and Grandpops taking pictures in front of the Westerville Town Hall and a quick stop at Subway and we were on our way! When we arrived in Athens we went straight to the cabin to check in and get our stuff out of the car. The drive up to the cabin was paved for about half of the way but then it got pretty rough. The last bit before the cabin was a steep dirt incline to the flat parking area.
The cabin itself was a pretty good-sized, rustic building with two large bedrooms and a third smaller bedroom. There was a communal kitchen and living room and when we arrived a man was writing in his laptop who was staying in one of the other rooms. He gave us the info about the house and where the food was and said that he and his wife were dropping their daughter off for school. We brought our bags upstairs and changed into our cycling gear before heading out to the car to go for our ride.
By the time we got to the trailhead it was already mid afternoon, probably around 3pm or so. It was pretty windy but we were excited to go. Once we got around the campus and into the trees the wind died down and we were able to have a nice time riding along. Of course, that was about 5 miles into the ride so we were getting a bit tired early on. It didn’t take much after that to realize that we were in for quite a ride. By the time we hit the halfway mark we were ready to head back for the car. We could have gone a bit farther and probably crossed 40 miles for the round trip, a distance Rob has not yet achieved, but we were both so tired that we decided to turn around at the beginning of the Hocking College campus. By the time we finally hit Athens again we were both totally exhausted and were ready to get to the cabin and shower! After cleaning up and getting comfortable again we were ready to hit the town for some food. We wanted to spend the evening hanging out at the cabin so Kristy could work on her book so we decided to get takeout. Kristy got Chinese food from Lam’s Garden and Rob got a calzone from DP Dough. After dinner Kristy worked on plotting out the details of the end of her book for a few hours while Rob started getting his camera gear together. He was hoping to work on some time-lapse photography in the darkness of the Athens wilderness. Kristy was able to make some good progress that night even though she was pretty tired and Rob was able to get the camera going for a little while but had some problems with getting the photo sequences to work the way he wanted.
The next day we got up and had a nice breakfast at the cabin followed by some relaxing time. Around lunchtime we went into Athens and walked around the campus and town a bit. We mainly wanted to spend our time relaxing, though, so we didn’t really try to do much but we hit Bagel Street Deli to start out. After walking around a bit and enjoying the afternoon we went to Goodfellas Pizza and got a half-sheet of pizza for dinner. We headed back to the cabin for dinner then spent the evening working on photos and writing. Later that night when it was really dark, Rob went out again to try to get some time-lapse photography captured and was a bit more successful than the first night. It was a little creepy, though, because we were the only ones staying that night at the cabin. The weirdest part, though, was when a small pane of glass fell out of the window in the middle of the night.
Finally, Monday morning dawned and we had breakfast at the cabin. Kristy spent a while working on her book while Rob went to see how the time-lapse sequence he had set up the night before worked out. After working on the pictures for a bit he went outside to look around. When Kristy was ready to stop she came out and we walked down to the dam at the end of the lake where Rob had been setting up the camera. We were going to go out on the lake with a dinghy that was on the shore but when we turned it over it was covered in ants. After putting it back, we went up to the cabin and got ready to go into town. We headed first to the new Baker Center on campus to try to get some of Matt’s pastries. We had been there for the grand opening of the center a few years earlier and had enjoyed some of his pastries then. Unfortunately, this time there weren’t any around so we left disappointed. After Baker, we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch. The buffet wasn’t very good and they were doing some minor construction to their counter while we were there so we didn’t really enjoy our lunch. Finally we headed back to the cabin and loaded up the car to go home. As we drove through town we stopped at Kroger to get some Millstone coffee because Matt had told us that this was the type he would always serve at the bakery and Kristy always loved drinking it.
When we arrived back home Granmom and Grandpops were still in one piece and the babies were very happy to see us. R.J. even gave Kristy 3 big hugs when he saw her! It was the first time he’d ever hugged her so she really enjoyed it. We spend the rest of the day hanging out with Granmom and Grandpops and the twins and hearing about how much fun and how many walks they went on with the babies.
We had a great time going to the cabin and hope that we’ll be able to return at some point. It was our first time away from the babies but it was nice to get away and relax for a couple days and celebrate our 5-year anniversary.
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