THS Choir Concert - May 16, 2023

 

Piano Recital - "Music of the Night," May 7, 2023

 

Band Concerts Feb. 2023

 

Mambo Perro Loco by Julie Giroux

Eire By Melinda Donahue

Kentucky Sunrise by Karl L. King

Here We Come a Wassailing

Band Concerts, 2022

 Wind Ensemble

Jazz Band

Jazz Band

Jazz Band

Wind Ensemble

Choir Concert - Olivia Plays the Drums

 

Olivia sings, "Dead Mom"

Olivia sings an excerpt of  "Dead Mom," from the Broadway show Beetlejuice as an audition selection. (I do not own the rights to this music.)

Marion Local Marching Band Competition - Troy High School

Please enjoy this show, entitled "Clue" by the Troy High School Marching Band from Troy, Ohio.
 

The South-Central Ohio Wild, Weird, and Wonderful Social Distancing Driving Tour!

My family was sick and tired of our indoor quarantine life, so we took a simple road trip to some of the more interesting and off the beaten path sights in the Dayton – Xenia – Wilmington area. I like to call this the Wild, Weird, and Wonderful Social Distancing Driving Tour!  This was our route for sightseeing satisfaction at a socially acceptable distance. Every stop on this tour is free, open at all hours of the day, and provides enough space to keep socially distant from other folks. The route follows a U-shape formation, starting in Enon and ending in Dayton.

Adena Burial Mound

Stop 1: Enon Adena Burial Mound, 400 Mound Cir, Enon, OH 45323.

This conical burial mound is the second tallest in Ohio. The mound is 40 feet high and is thought to be the work of the Adena Native Americans, original settlers of the area. There is a small parking lot, and it’s an easy walk up to and around the mound.

Stop 2: Beavercreek 9/11 Memorial, 1152 N Fairfield Rd, Beavercreek, OH  45432

These 25-feet-tall steel beams came to Beavercreek from the World Trade Center site. This respectful memorial features placards naming all the 9/11 victims from all the crash sites. It’s easy to spend some time here reading and remembering. This stop is at Beavercreek Station, which also provides access for the Creekside recreational trail. When social distancing, this is the most challenging stop as it can be very busy with people accessing the trail. There is a great parking lot, picnic tables, and restrooms, although they were closed while we visited.

Stop 3: Engle Mill Rd. Covered Bridge, 3420 Engle Mill Rd, Xenia, OH 45385

It’s an easy country drive to the Engle Mill Rd. Covered Bridge. Visitors can’t drive across the bridge, but there are places to park on either end to get out and walk. When we visited, it was a lovely day, so we paused to enjoy nature for few moments. Descriptive signs provide the history of this bridge.

Engle Mill Rd. Covered Bridge

Stop 4: Downtown Wilmington wall mural (Corner of Rt. 68 and Main St.), 2 E Main St., Wilmington, OH 45177

It's easy to park across the street from the mural by the county courthouse and have the perfect spot for picture taking. This mural is the work of local artist Jason Morgan and it features images from the Century Farms life in the 1930s.

Stop 5: Frankenstein’s Monster, 1261 W Dalton Rd, Wilmington, OH

Standing guard at the gate of the Wilmington Haunted Hollow Ride, it doesn’t have to be Halloween to snap a picture with this guy! He’s officially the scariest stop on our tour, standing about 15 feet tall with a permanently creepy face. There’s no official parking during the off season, but it’s easy to pull in the driveway long enough to take a photo.

Stop 6: World’s Largest Horseshoe Crab, 7592 OH-124, Hillsboro, OH 45133

World's largest horseshoe crab

This crab is currently sitting in its fourth location having previously lived in Baltimore, the Creation Museum, and Blanchester, Ohio. At 28 feet wide and 68 feet long, it’s affectionately known as “Crabby,” and it’s worth the stop. The crab is large enough to house a picnic table and umbrella inside, although there's really no time for picnicking these days. The parking situation at this site is the most difficult. There is a driveway adjacent to the crab that will work for a quick stop. We missed the driveway, so we pulled across the street to an apartment complex. It's tough to pull off along the side of the road, and there’s no official parking lot.

Stop 7: Large Adirondack Chair, 6945 Hwy 73, Wilmington, Ohio 45177

This larger than life piece of furniture sits at The Wooden Branch business, so if visitors are in the market for a shed, they can kill two birds with one stone at this top. It’s easy to park in the parking lot and take a photo by the chair. Unfortunately, climbing up into the chair is frowned upon.

Stop 8: Tall Stack of Books, 111 West Spring Valley Pike, Centerville, OH

This sculpture can be found at the Washington-Centerville Public Library. Officially called “The Record,” it is 22 feet tall and is made of terracotta. The library parking lot makes for easy parking and access.

Stop 9: Big Apple Made of Flatware, 56 Armor Place, Dayton, OH 45417

This eight-foot-tall apple sculpture is the work of artist Chad Johnson and features thousands of knives, forks, and spoons. It can be found outside the Dayton Foodbank on the south side of their property. The adjacent parking lot makes it easy to visit.

 

Large apple made of Flatware

When touring during the pandemic, it's smart to pack sandwiches, snacks, and drinks, although we didn’t have trouble finding enough drive thru restaurants to feed us on our journey. Restrooms are harder to come by during the shut down. Gas stations proved to be the best bet. As always, pack hand sanitizer and masks to be prepared for any situation. The total travel time will be 4-6 hours depending on the starting point and how much time is spent at each spot. We had an easy five-hour journey on our travel day. 

Map of the driving route

Frankenstein's Monster

Large stack of books

Large Adirondack chair

Wall mural in downtown Wilmington

This beaver is an added bonus when you stop at the 9/11 site.

The 9/11 memorial

Yes, you can get close to the world's largest horseshoe crab!!

Beware the Pickpockets!

“Do you have your wallet?” To this day, I cannot explain why I asked my husband that question in the middle of a crowded Paris subway. It must have been God nudging me because only seconds later the question was answered in the worst possible way. No, my husband didn’t have his wallet and the likely suspects were the crew of men who were sliding away on a subway train heading into the darkness of the next tunnel. And there we were, standing alone in a foreign city, not even 24 hours into a European vacation, and my husband without his wallet.

How could this have happened to us, seasoned travelers? World travelers, even! Four continents, multiple trips to both coasts of the USA, and both of us traveling alone and together across various journeys. We’re no slouches when it comes to travel, and yet in the blink of an eye, thieves managed to lift my husband’s wallet straight out of his pocket without him even realizing it. For a few moments, we panicked, as any normal people would do. Then we pulled our wits together to form a game plan on how to move forward. 

Use caution in train stations as thieves tend to
work in teams.

Even though our initial reaction was panic, then anger, we soldiered through and really did have a great time over the next two weeks as we made our way across the European continent. Thankfully, I was also carrying a full array of credit cards, so we weren’t completely lost and helpless, waiting on replacement money and cards. It just meant that I had to carefully guard my purse even more diligently because if my wallet got stolen, then we’d absolutely be in trouble. And fortunately, our credit card companies and banks were excellent in working with us to deter any damage to our accounts. The thieves did try use one of our cards even before we managed to shut it down.

Did we learn anything from this experience? Oh yes! As all tough moments in life do, this one taught us a few things about travel that we thought we already knew, but that were lessons we had to relearn.

Being tired and jet lagged was part of our problem at the time of the wallet snatching. We had flown into Brussels, Belgium on an overnight flight. Instead of staying in Brussels the first day and night, we immediately hopped on a train to Paris. We’d already mapped out our entire journey from the airport in Brussels to our Air B&B condo in Paris, so we felt confident in the journey. Upon arriving in Paris, however, the train we’d planned to take to the condo was shut down for maintenance. We had to quickly pivot on our plan and design another route. The train station was crowded and crawling with thieves, apparently. We were too tired to keep our wits about us, and that made us easy targets. We also carried our luggage, so our status as travelers became obvious. In hindsight, we should’ve grabbed a taxi after realizing our original route wouldn’t work.

Out of habit, my husband put his wallet into his back pocket instead of the zippered pocket on the side of the pants he was wearing. He’d been so diligent about using the zippered pocket up to this point, but the tiredness and change of plans caused him to forget. He popped his wallet into his back pocket like he usually would. After our trip, he talked to a friend who’d also been pick-pocketed in Paris but from the front pocket of his pants. After hearing that story, my husband felt better about getting robbed.

Thieves work in teams. We realized this after the fact. On the train, we’d been surrounded by a group of men. When the train doors opened for us to exit, one of them stepped in front of my husband to distract him while another one picked his pocket. By the time we realized the theft, they were long gone on the train. We later watched these teams of thieves stake out people while they were waiting for trains. In fact, one team was staking us out again not long after the first incident. Luckily, we realized what they were doing. We decided not to board the train at the last minute, saving ourselves from further incident.

For the rest of the trip, we kept our antennas up looking for further scams. We watched lots of gaming and scamming take place all around Paris, especially at hot tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower. I kept a tight grip on my purse, especially since I was now the sole money carrier for the rest of the trip. It may seem rude, but we didn’t hesitate to push past street vendors, survey takers, and game players for the rest of our time in Europe. Most of them were thieves waiting for a chance to take our wallet and money at the first chance.

Many travel hot spots draw thieves hoping to
dupe unsuspecting tourists.

While this incident was frustrating, it won’t deter us from traveling in Europe again. We chalk it up as a learning experience and one more interesting adventure. C’est la vie, as the French say.