Chittenango Vacation

We just returned to Ohio (last night) from a relaxing, fun week in Chittenango, NY. We stayed at Shelby's aunt's house on the lake, Oneida Lake to be more specific, and it was gorgeous! Chittenango was home to L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of OZ, so the town is full of Oz references, including its own yellow brick road. We woke up each morning to coffee on the deck overlooking the lake and ended the evenings with a campfire and marshmallows, or a drink on the deck, again overlooking the lake. Since this is Shelby's hometown, we visited all the things that make hometown memories, including Eddie's (mmm!), Sylvan Beach and amusement park, New York Pizzeria, Chittenango Falls, Jreck Subs, Gulf Road (scary!) to the top of the world, old home and school drive-bys, and, of course, visiting with family. I dare say that it was one of our best visits to Chittenango, since the kids are not babies any more and were able to brave the attractions we brought to them. Our days were relaxing, yet we did the things that we wanted to do and saw the things that we wanted to see. It was a relaxing vacation, it was an eventful vacation, it was a long and overdue vacation!

Upstate New York is beautiful this time of year. So green and rural - farms and forests that calm the soul and feed the mind. We started playing the "what if" game about living in this area. Mind you, the winters are hellacious, from what I hear - the lake pictured in this post has a winter scene that resembles a blank sheet of paper. But the other parts of the year are very beautiful, and the land is perfect for starting our family farm. Of course, vacation is vacation - it would not be a life of long mornings on the deck or late evenings by a campfire...but that could be a very real part of it. Which leads me to think...if we are ok with moving to Florida, and if we are ok with living in New York, then isn't everything else in between these extremes?? I mean, we should be able to make any place a home, as long a we have a rural place to start our farm.

"Everything happens for a reason." This is our religion. I believe that this vacation served its purpose as a breather and a refresher to family in those parts, but I also think that this was part of our journey - a prerequisite to our next destination. We are back in our apartment now. One of the neighborhood kids smashed our potato plants and someone drew on our car with nail polish. But our berries are well, the rest of the garden is flourishing, and our dreams of a new life are stronger now because of our Chittenango visit. We have a better vision of our dream, a greater thirst for change, and a better understanding of what we are looking for. We enjoyed our vacation tremendously, but are not as upset to be back as I thought we would be. On the contrary - we are excited to work on what we can to move forward and prepare for the future. It's good to be back :)