Meredith and I usually celebrate each others’ birthdays the weekend following them. I had not done anything too special for Mer (although we had a good time – see the previous blog entry). I had been so busy planning for London that her birthday got ignored. I tried to pull together a pretty spectacular weekend at the last minute, but the plans would not work out. So, I told her I’d surprise her some weekend and call it a combination birthday-Valentine’s Day weekend.
I was pleased that Mer had not planned anything for my actual birthday, which was Monday the 24th. I got sick Sunday, and I missed half days of work on Monday and Tuesday. I began to feel better on Wednesday, and happily, by the time Friday rolled around, I was feeling good again. This was my fortieth birthday celebration, and Mer had planned out a huge special weekend for me.
We left from school at around 4:00, and Mer stressed that there was some urgency. We drove south to Amish country, and then turned west. The area was all new to me, and was pretty desolate, and it was starting to snow. There was a stretch of road where it was about five minutes between houses and we did not see another car for about twenty minutes. It has been a long time since I have been somewhere that remote. I began to think that Mer had me just driving around to buy time for a party set-up, but we really were supposed to be out there – we finally came to a very cool and lovely bed and breakfast called The White Oak Inn. Mer had wanted to get me away from the house without an exhausting drive, and The White Oak Inn was a two-hour drive. It did not hurt that the Inn was having a chocolate weekend special. Mer’s urgency to get us there had been rooted in trying to find the place before it got dark, which was very wise.
It was a great little inn, and Meredith had booked us one of the two private cabins at the back of the property. We had a great room with a whirlpool bath, a real wood-burning stove, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The interior of the cabin had vaulted ceilings and lots of woodwork, and it was great. We put our stuff down, and then headed out to get supper. We had been worried that there was not going to be anywhere to eat this far out in the woods, but the innkeeper directed us to a gas station diner, which sounds lame, but it was great. The owners were very friendly, the menu was three full pages long, and the food was excellent (and they had about twenty desserts to choose from).
We headed back to the inn, and were greeted with our choice of hot chocolates. I went for the mint, and Mer went for the raspberry. We drank them in the inn common room, and chatted a bit with both owners. I finished my hot chocolate, and so we went back to the cabin (Mer brought the rest of her hot chocolate with her). While we had been gone, the inn staff had placed eight gourmet chocolates on our pillows. We brought those into the great room and settled in to watch While You Were Sleeping. It was a pretty great way to spend the evening,
Saturday, after a leisurely sleep until past 9:00, we got ready and headed over to the inn for breakfast. There was only one other couple at the 10:30 breakfast – a couple from Cleveland who were there to celebrate the wife getting pregnant with their fifth child. The rest of the kids were with the grandparents. I helped myself to a couple of cups of hot chocolate over breakfast. Mer and I picked out seats where we could look out over what we thought was a frozen lake, but we later discovered to be a low-lying field. The other couple sat across from us, and we were served a stunningly wonderful breakfast. We started with two hot banana-chocolate muffins, a fruit plate, and the main dish, which was Amish-style peppered bacon (which I had never had before but is amazing) with an egg dish that was essentially a personal cheese-egg casserole. What great food. We chatted pleasantly with the other couple over breakfast, and took our time – it was over an hour for the full (and I do mean full) meal.
After breakfast, we went over to the inn’s barn and fed crackers to their two sheep. We also got to see (but not get near) one of the inn’s barn cats. They have four indoor kitties and four barn cats. The cat we saw very nimbly climbed up into the barn rafters to keep an eye on us.
I then decided we should go up to Amish country, to explore the western part that we had never been to. To keep focused on our drive, we took along the inn’s suggested artisan tour, with the intent of stopping at three places to poke around. The first stop was to see a potter who had a huge wood-fired kiln. The wife of the potter was home, and showed us around the place, and she explained how wood firing (instead of gas) can make interesting patterns on the pottery because of the interaction of the ash. After a good time of conversation, we bought a vase, and moved on.
Our next stop was an artisan who liked to work in welded steel. He specialized in making bells out of old welding gas containers, but he did other welding work as well. His wife does some work in glass, but she was away at an art show in Columbus. The man was quite surprised to see us, as he rarely gets customers in late January. We poked around the shop, bought a bell that I hope will become our new door bell, and talked with the owner for a long while.
Out last stop on the trip was to see another potter. She also had a wood-fired kiln, smaller than the other we had seen. We pulled in to the house/garage/shop yard, but were not sure where the shop was. A man came out of the house with two excited dogs, and asked us if he could help us. We told him we were looking to see pots, and he was a bit surprised. He got his wife, the potter, and they let us into her small showroom. We found out the potter had been in the medical field, but then had gone back to the University of Akron when she turned fifty, to study art. Now, she made pots, and she has even won national awards for them. Mer and I found a very cool pot that we fell in love with, and we wanted to buy it, but the potter could not take credit cards, and we had no cash on us. But, the potter let us have the pot and wrote down our address. She trusts people to mail her checks, and she says she has never been burned by the policy. Mer mailed the check out last Wednesday. I am very fond of people who trust people.
We headed back to the inn, taking every little back road that we could find. We covered some pretty remote roads, but I stayed on track to get us back to the inn and resisted going down the road marked “Use at your own risk.” I must be getting old (actually, I did not want to spend my weekend trying to get my car out of a ditch). It was a very pretty drive – that part of Ohio reminds me very much of Maine, except it has few pine trees. Otherwise, there are lots of trees, lots of hills, lots of water, and small farms all over the place. It was great.
Back at the inn, we were again given the option to have hot chocolate. Mer passed, but I got another mint hot chocolate, which I took back to the cabin. I started a fire in the fireplace (it was all ready to go), and we relaxed in the jet pool (like a whirlpool) while we listened to music.
We wandered back to the inn for supper, and this time we were by ourselves. The other couple had taken supper in their cabin, so we had the entire dining room to ourselves. The innkeepers put on some romantic Italian music, and served us one of the best meals I have ever had. We had fresh hot bread, potato-herb soup, a citrus salad, carrots and sugar snap peas, rice-stuffed chicken, and rosemary roasted potatoes. It was amazing. To really push us over the edge, dessert was chocolate fondue with various things to dip, and a piece of chocolate cake. We had to take the cake back to the room with us because we were so full. What a great meal!
As if the cake were not enough, there were a new eight chocolates on the bed, which we ended up taking home with us on Sunday. We settled back on the couch and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and managed to find room for the cake after about an hour. Mer pointed out that our movie choices had both been romantic films set in Chicago.
Sunday we had to leave, but not until after breakfast at 10:30. The Cleveland couple joined us again, and I again had hot chocolate before and during breakfast. Breakfast was more muffins, this time oat muffins with cherry filling. I was still pretty full, so I gave those to Mer. We again had a fruit plate, and then a maple-flavored sausage patty. I got the French toast filled with Nutella and a piece of white chocolate in the middle. Mer got a half-portion size of that and a half portion of herb scrambled eggs. They certainly know how to cook at the White Oak Inn. After breakfast, we checked out and drove to church so I could practice for the church play. Mer snoozed a bit along the way. But, she deserved it – she had planned a spectacular weekend for me, and I loved it (and her!).