Taking the turn to Ohio

When you are traveling solo you have no plans and the destination is where ever you want it to be.  Thanks to a tip from a friend's son, Harvest Hosts/Boondockers Welcome has made it it so easy for me to just stop anywhere overnight; with more to explore after I have finished a day of driving.  It's a neat little app that you can select from farms, museums, vineyards, breweries, etc.

At this point, I know I am good for about 350 miles a day.  I get up and hitch the airstream up, break down any of the solar cords or electri, plumbing I have attached, raise the jacks,  go through my own personal checklists, and off I go.  This all takes between 30-45 minutes.  I'm on the road after rush hour around 9am and go until about 4.  That gives me a stop or two for lunch and a gas fill.  

I took a long stroll through Chautauqua Institute, an artists colony in NY.  It was and still is a very cool artist community that boasts a summer residence for all types of artists that audition for the programs.  I spent a summer there in 1983.  I would take 3 classes a day plus rehearsals and performances.  I was exposed to so many other forms of of dance and types of work during those 8 weeks.  More importantly, I met some pretty impactful people in the dance world.  They shaped my artistry and development that I would take with me for the rest of my dance career.  Living there for the summer was so immersive and I learned so much there about life outside of a dance studio.  It feels like a mini Martha's Vineyard, but on a Lake with some pretty cool community members.  The McBride Studio was named after a principal dancer from New York City Ballet, Patricia McBride.  She and her husband, Jean Pierre Bonnefoux, (also a principal dancer and choreographer) were in residence there as well. When I was 8 years old, and dancing in my first Nutcracker (of all theaters, in Bridgeport, CT), Patricia was the Sugar Plum Fairy.  Somewhere in my parent's attic, are the shoes she signed and gave me.  

Jean Pierre, was a mentor for me at Chautauqua that summer.  He was the director of the program.  In that summer, I was selected with other dancers, to dance works of his own choreography.  For those of you who don't know the dance world, this means you are the player that practices with the starting team.  You are the stunt doubles.  You spend the same hours as the pros working with the coaches.  You can have the bragging rights that you spent the time and the hours just like the pros on the court, then pass along the feedback to the director or choreographer to create their material that becomes the works or art for them and the company they direct.  It was an honor to spend those hours in the studio.  I was lucky enough, to perform the works in Stamford, CT in my final years for him, when he was in residence for Stamford City Ballet.  That would be my professional time, getting paid $500 that season (and free pointe shoes) to dance the same works that I did at Chautauqua.  Senior year of high school, I made the decision to apply to college instead yet, I know the time spent here at Chautauqua, that helped with those acceptances to colleges.

Today, looking at these studios, I couldn't help but think, wow.  How beautiful they are; not like the same ones when I took classes.  The marley floor covering, No rosin boxes everywhere to tack your shoes to old wood floors.  No mirrors on wheels, yet permanently attached to walls.  Those old ballet bars that are made of old plumbing fixtures and not anchored to sketchy podiums.  They don't make them like they used too!  No ash trays with stinky cigarettes on the walls, cause you could smoke and dance at the same time in 1983.  Times have changed in a ballet studio.  Back then, each morning after breakfast, we all would have to dust broom the bat shit off the floors in the studio before the 9AM morning classes.  There were only rafters in the ceilings.  I still can recognize that scent every time I smell it.  Memories that I will cherish.

I forged ahead to spend a day Cuyahoga Valley National Park, in Cuyahoga, Ohio.  This national park was recommended by a lovely young lady who I met while scuba diving in Grand Cayman earlier this summer.  It's the only National Park that has a K-12 school.  This park pays homage to the original locks that were used to get cargo and people by boats from Lake Erie down into the state of Ohio in 1800's.  Later, a train route paralleled the river. Today, it boasts a rails to trails hike-able pathway for hundreds of miles though the state, while educating you with way-finding and memorabilia left from the Erie canal. I couldn't help but think though, that climate change is real.  I don't know how you could even fit a boat into the so-called "river", let alone these locks that raised and lowered the water levels.  What water levels?  As I travel east to west, I am realizing that 'rivers' listed on those brown roadside placards, are more like 'streams'.  It's very apparent that water in our country is going to become very expensive one day if we don't figure out this climate crisis.  On this morning, Rye and I kept walking from lock to lock and it was very peaceful.  We could have gone for miles, but it was time to get back on the road and get up to the UP in Michigan.