Happy Birthday Tom

Today was a special milestone for Tom, he turned 70.  I tried to tell him he was going to be 80 a couple of days ago, but he was slick enough to catch my error.  Thank goodness for that, it means I’m younger, too!

We went for a day trip today for a fun birthday kind of day and did some things we both enjoy doing together.  One of my favorite quilt shows is in Coshocton, Ohio each year.  It isn’t a big show by any means, but I try to go each year because there is usually something special going on that always makes it worth the 2 hour drive there and back again.  I have gone with several different people over the years, and the show has been held in a few different venues.

Last year and this year (and possibly a year or two I missed the date for one reason or another) the show has been held in a church in town, right across from the town square.  Something fair like is going on in the square at the same time and the street gets blocked off and it’s hard to find the entrance to the church parking lot, but there is always plenty of parking and the church is a nice venue. 

You get to wander through almost the entire church and you get to see lots of beautiful things.

The special display this year took my breath away.  Walking into the chapel, the pews were covered with an amazing collection of antique quilts.  I was so taken by the display I forgot to read the labels.  Tom was talking to one of the white glove ladies and she explained that many of the quilts were made by “unknown maker” because they had no identifying label.  I took lots of pictures and tried to get close ups of the ones that spoke the loudest to me.

After we exhausted ourselves looking at the quilts we decided to walk the square and see what was going on.  When we had pulled into town, we stopped to ask directions of a couple of ladies waiting to set up their booth.  The place we wanted to be was on the other side of the blockade and we had to figure out how to get around it.  The ladies had 3 goats in the truck.  One goat was in the front seat and 2 in the back of the truck bed. It was the goats we went looking for, but alas, we did not find them on the square.  (Of course I did not think to take a picture of the goats in the truck.) The heat was oppressive and the street fair was full of children getting faces painted and singers on the square; it was noisy and we figured the best thing was to work our way back to our parked truck.  We drove around town looking at all the business that Tom used to deliver product to in the good old days.  Most of the businesses are no longer in business!  The town is quaint.  The houses are magnificent Victorian mansions in various states of disrepair.  A whole lot of them need TLC.

We wandered the back roads to the freeway and came home.  It was much greener in that part of Ohio and we could see a marked difference in the lushness of the trees about the time we crossed into the county just to the south of us.