Deliverance

A friend used the word deliverance in her email to me today and it brought back a memory that makes me laugh today.

In Rockbridge, Ohio every year I take my beautiful gourd art to a Fine Art Show called Lilyfest.  This is my favorite show during the summer season of shows.  I often find myself comparing other shows to it and when people ask how this or that show went, I will often reply, "Well, it was/wasn't  a Lilyfest show." 

Lilyfest is held every July, just as all the lilies begin to bloom.  The show is held in the forest of Hocking Hills.  It is on top of a hill and trees shade the grounds beautifully.  There are wonderful gardens with lilies, water ponds, frogs, dragonflies and sculptured art made and displayed by the host Bobbie Bishop. Plus there are somewhere around 50 artists sprinkled throughout the gardens, displaying and selling their wonderful handmade art.   This three day show is filled with people who love gardens and art!

I decided one year to include my daughters and their children (my grandchildren) to a weekend getaway by renting a cabin for all of us to share.  This gives me a little Grandma time in the evening after the show, it gives the girls and the cousins time to play together for a few days.  While I'm at the show, they can explore Hocking Hills. 

The first year we did this I rented a cabin that have horses and trails to ride.  Some of the grandchildren were pretty small so riding was really not a priority.  Being horse people, the thought of horses around was appealing.  The girls came to visit me at Lilyfest after checking into the cabin.  Cait my oldest grand daughter came running to me shouting that something was dead under the porch of the cabin and it smelled really bad!  Oh dear, that isn't something I want to hear.  It was also one of the hottest Lilyfest weekends on record.  When I got to the cabin I was confronted with the smell Cait was talking about and I found out there was no air conditioning!  No closing the windows to get away from the smell.  It was unbearably hot and not a breeze moving the air.  Trisha's youngest, Kellen, slept in only a diaper, he was just a month old........ it just didn't seem right.

The next morning when I stepped outside the cabin door, I knew it wasn't something dead under the porch.
This "ranch" had spread sludge on a field behind the cabins!  I hope you all know what sludge is....  Needless to say we would never recommend this ranch outside of Laurelville, to anyone!

The next year I was on the search for another cabin.  Looking for a cabin with 5 adults and 6 kids is not easy.  Each family needed a room they could go and get away if need be.  Having more than one bathroom is a plus and a big kitchen is necessary.  I made reservations at Turtle Hill Cabins.   The girls always open the cabin and I come at the end of the first day of the show.  My friend Jayme who was helping me with my booth was also included in this adventure with my family.   When we located the drive to the cabin that night, I was pretty stunned.  It was up the steepest hill I have ever driven a vehicle, let alone my van!  I use to have dreams of driving up these kind of hills, they always ended with the car tumbling end over end back down the hill.  Nightmares really!  The drive was gravel and pine branches brushed off the van on both sides all the way up the hill.  I had to really gun the van, throwing rocks everywhere to keep the momentum to climb the hill.    I look over at Jayme and she was gripping the door with white knuckles!  I think she was prepared to leap if she needed to!

When we got to the top the girls were outside the cabin and were laughing their heads off!  We all couldn't stop talking about driving up that hill!  We are girls that have ridden horses on bigger hills than this, but really, this was scary to drive.  The cabin was wonderful, big enough for all, air conditioning and very clean.
I still couldn't book next years weekend there because of the drive up that graved hill!

The next year I found the PERFECT place.   Not far from the Lilyfest, big enough for all the growing kids, a nice yard and we all loved it!   Couldn't wait to book it for the next year and I did!  The first of January I got a call from the owner of this perfect cabin.  He broke the news to me that his mother-in-law was moving into our perfect cabin and it would not be available.  Oh, no! 

Back to the Hocking Hills guide for tourists...........  I found a cabin, it had enough room if we took our air mattresses for the kids to sleep on,  it sounded perfect and fit all the requirements.  This year Jayme and I decided to set up the gourd booth a day before the show and so we got to find the cabin and open it up before the girls arrived.  We had the address and were driving down this back country road looking for the mailbox with the house number.  The further we went the scarier it began to look.  I felt we were in the movie Deliverance, the houses were run down, unkept yards and cars on blocks.  Oh dear, what have I done?  We were close to the address but must have passed it, the road ended.  I hope it wasn't the house with the above ground pool with one side collapsed............  We turned around to take a second look and  found this cute little cabin on the other sided of the road from the collapsed above ground pool.  It was tucked back into a pretty little grove of trees and had a nice feel about it.  We had the best weekend there, strangely the move Deliverance was in the cabin, my girls had never seen it, and it was worst than I remembered! 

We all decided it would be a good place to stay again next year.  I booked it and in January I got the call from the owner.  She sold the cabin, it would not be for rent in July!   Back to square one........  Still looking for the perfect cabin for five adults and six grandchildren to rent in Hocking Hills.