Home leave in America.

Our stay in Japan is scheduled for just under two years. During our stay were were allowed 1 trip home to the US. If we went home over Obon we would be going home before the halfway point, but I could easily get the time off work and the children were out of school. If we waited for Christmas the children would still be in school and it would be snowy in Ohio. If we waited for spring it would be fairly close to our return. So we decided to come home during the summer. Kate and the children left 2 weeks before I did. That is what allowed me to do the crazy Miyazaki drive. Kate was surprised at the airport when she was met by the Speck family and the Lacar's.

Kate stayed with the Speck's. The children fell right back into their old routine of playing with the neighbor children.

As usual it was difficult to separate Colleen from the Speck's dog Snickers. Probably after we left Snickers slept for a couple of days to recover.

After a few days in Columbus Kate and the children headed down to Cincinnati to spend time with her family. Erin and her boyfriend Nick went along for the ride. They all had a great time swimming with cousins in the Eschmeyer's community swimming pool.

While they were in Cincinnati, aunt Claire was kind enough to take the time to cut and style everyone's hair. Here she is adding a little color to Nick's.

Thanks for all the haircuts aunt Claire.........

Next was back to Columbus to prepare to pick me up at the airport. Before getting me Kate had the opportunity to visit with Janie and her family. Janie took Kate to one of her gardens. The children enjoyed picking a number of different vegetables.

They brought corn and zucchini with them to take to my family's home.

Below Colleen is posing with some of the harvest.

Kate and Janie with the photo op.

Here is the entire Gossman family looking all gangsta like....aahh yayahh..

My flight in was horrible. I had a window seat, a larger woman was in the middle, and a woman with a 1 year old that cried 2/3 of the flight was on the end. Just under half way with the woman on the end yelling at her child in another language and the one next to me spilling into my space I decided I should sleep to make the time pass.

It was great to see the family at the airport, and soon we were in the car heading toward Cleveland and my family's home. There was more swimming and playing with cousins to be had there as well. We decided to take a drive around Amish country with my parents.

One of the stops was for ice cream. We ordered small cones. When we got them everyone was surprised by how big they were. Liam said he didn't even thing they would have that size in Japan.

The drive around the country side was nice. It was good for the children to see the different lifestyles people live, even within Ohio.

Pictured is bailing hay by horse power..

Grand touring car.

Children bringing goods to the market.

We also visited the old canal boat locks in Canal Fulton. The ones we visited are now longer in working order, but they are still interesting to see.

This lock was not used for boats, but to regulate the water levels within the locks.

An interesting part of American history, the date stamped into this lock was 1907.

Kate got some good nature photos like:

Bee on a flower.

Turtle on a rock.

And this wild duck in a pond.

After a number of eventful days we went back down to Columbus for more days. Another visit to Taco Bell and a few more doctors appointments. We had a celebration party with our Columbus neighbors. It was to celebrate our visit and everyones birthday that we missed over the last year.

Here are all the ladies.

And the men. Why am I the only one looking at the camera? Something tells me there is another picture just like this where I am the only on not looking.. Brad was at work so we only had a picture of him in attendance.

Next was back to Cincinnati so that I could visit with Kate's family as well. The first night was a neighborhood party at the Eschmeyer's.

I get the feeling they are trying to make fun of us in this picture.

All of Kate's brother and sisters were able to come.

Of course more playing for the children.

Kids...Kids...stop putting fingerprints on the windows...............dang.

The next day was the family canoe adventure. We had a huge group for the trip. There were a number of options but we selected the 6 mile. Since none of us canoe frequently I think the shorter trip was the right choice. I am pretty sure by the end everyone was ready to stop.

Here is a look up the river. We covered a good chunk of the water with all the canoes.

Here are the two Eschmeyer canoes. Liam wanted to ride with Rachael. At this point I think Colleen was with us. They switched canoes so much I am not sure.

Along the river was a rope swing. I figured you only live once and I am not getting younger so I decided to give it a go. It was pretty fun, but one time was good enough for me.

Liam chipped in to help propel us down the river.

Colleen ended up with an aluminum foil anti alien hat for a while. I don't think she saw the movie "Signs" so not sure where the idea came from.

Finally before returning to Columbus for the return trip we went to Kings Island for the day.

I didn't want to carry the camera around all day so I didn't take it. I got this picture from the internet. In the morning it sprinkled a little and that helped keep the crowd down. I think the longest we waited for a ride was 30 min, but most were less than 15 min. Liam and Colleen rode every ride they were tall enough to ride including the drop tower. They were great sports and got right on. I think Kate and I were more nervous about them riding it than they were. Afterwords they even wanted to do it again.

On our last night at Claire and Greg's we went to SOHO (a Japanese steakhouse) for Greg's 4@ birthday party. The food was good and I think everyone had a good time. Erin especially enjoyed the ラムネ (Ramune) Japanese drink that we bought for her to take home. You can see in the picture she was really excited.

It was great to see all the families over the two weeks.

I was able to stop in to work for what felt like 15 mins (actually 2 hours) before rushing off.

My parents met us in the morning to take us to the airport and send us off. Before that we hit the Waffle House (on Kate's list of restaurants to eat at). A huge grease bomb to take with us on the plane home.

We made it back safely and with little trouble. I think we are all finally sleeping through the night again. From now I will try to get back on the weekly update schedule.

Have a good week.

Miyazaki san driving challenge...

Last week Warren and Jim headed home for America. Kate and the children are now away, so I have been left to fend for myself. Before coming to Japan Miyazaki san gave me a list of his recommended roads to drive. I tried to do a couple of the roads with the family, but I only ended up with a sick child and angry wife. Sunday after I put Warren and Jim on the train to the airport I set off to drive all the roads in one day. I didn't know how far it would be or how long it would take, but I was determined to drive all of them. In the end I ended up driving from 2:30 pm to 3:30 am (the next day). The distance covered was 303 miles with 24,279 ft of climbing.

The first decision I was faced with was which car to drive. The Odyssey is big, heavy, but has a lot of power and the Diva is small, light, sports suspension, but no power. Finally I decided that I would take the Diva because it is small and light and the roads are typically really narrow so I felt it would be more fun to drive. The map below shows the location for the attached pictures.

I realized while driving that the first road was one I had already ridden my bicycle on during one of our cycling trips. It is a different experience in a car and I was going the opposite direction so that mixed it up as well. Even though the car has no power I was able to hold enough speed in the corners to put pressure on two cars. Eventually they pulled over to let me by. The first picture is taken at the rest stop on the way up Irohazaki going toward Nikko lake. It shows my trusty steed in the mountain scenery.

After passing Nikko lake I turned right and headed out into the mountains. Miyazaki drove these roads a number of years ago and since then some of them are no longer open to car traffic. While on this road I discovered one of those roads. I was able to re-route myself to link up with one of the other recommendations, so it didn't set me back much. These roads were very narrow and like others I have talked about were almost one lane in many parts. While driving on this set of roads I didn't see any other cars. This made me a little nervous as there was debris on the roads in the form of rocks and sticks and I was a little concerned I may hit something and damage the car. If I became stranded I would have to resort to living with the monkeys and I am not much in to eating bugs off of hairy animals backs.

This picture shows one of many of the watch for falling rocks signs along the route.

Another common sight was damaged guard rails. Hopefully whoever did this one came out of it alive.

A picture of a small portion of the mountain road.

Another potential hazard are the ditches that are present on many of the roads in the mountains. In one of the Initial D episodes, Takumi passes his opponent by unweighting the inside tire and crossing this type of ditch making it possible for him to pass on the inside line. I didn't trust myself or the Diva to try anything like that (besides that is a cartoon and not real) so I felt it was best to just avoid them. If you do drop a tire in this type of ditch you are finished for the day..

While it was light out and not raining really hard I was able to enjoy the scenery from the mountains. Below is one of the lakes I passed as well as a cool 1 lane bridge.

Probably when I was half way I decided that this was not a great idea to do all in one night. It was a bit tedious with so many corners to cover over this distance. The other thing is I became really tired. Not only are you holding yourself in the seat through each corner but it becomes mentally tiring to concentrate this hard for so long. I had to constantly look for other cars, debris, ditches, and any other hazards. Really it would be best to enjoy these roads on separate days. Anyway I told myself I was going to do all of them in one night so I was determined to finish. At about 11:00 I started to run out of gas. Actually I had turned for home and given up on the last road because I couldn't find an open gas station. After going about 3 miles I found an open station and decided I was going to finish. I went all the way out to the last road and at about 1:15 was confronted with the following sign and realization that the road I was on would not connect to the same road on the other side of the mountain.

At this point I had invested so much time that I felt I couldn't give up. I took another road around to connect to the road I wanted. It turned out to be a crazy road in the middle of nowhere. Essentially one lane with weeds and trees sticking in to the road. I finished the entire portion I could with my fingers crossed. That road was the last on the list and so I headed home. I had to hid a vending machine for a coffee and later picked up a snack of two curry rolls from the 7/11. In the end it was an amazing drive, but man I was tired by the time I got home at 3:30. Maybe even a little car sick....

I will be busy the next couple of weeks so I am going to miss a few blog postings. After that I plan to get back on the once a week schedule. I have to get a picture of our rice field, it is really filled in now.