Last Thursday Moe, Zaf, Nali and I journeyed east of Columbus to look at plots of land Debbi wants to buy. First off, we have the piece on Arrowhead Road, about an hour and twenty minutes out of Columbus. Next we have the Dutch Valley piece, about two and a half hours out of C-bus. But I couldn't get the pictures to move around to their proper order, so first you have four pictures of the Dutch Valley place, and then the rest are from the Arrowhead Road place.

To the left, if you're standing in front of the property.
Toward the right side...And here are the Arrowhead Rd ones.Right side...

Neighbor's drive...

And rather than writing descriptions, I'll just copy and paste the letter I sent to Debbi.

Well, as soon as the girls woke up and had eaten their rice pudding, I packed our bags with raincoats and umbrellas, boots and pb&js, trailmix and juice boxes, borrowed Sim's gps and we set off in the rain. By the time we got to the place on Arowhead Rd. the girls were in ecstasies ab

out the lakes! the curvy roads! the big hills! the bike path! (me) and the kept crowing WE'RE IN THE COUN--TRY!! The area was truly beautiful: big, forested hills just starting to turn, tuscany-esque roads, and it was a pretty straight shot out from Columbus.

We arrived and piled out, the girls pranced around eating their pb&js, and I took pictures. The land itself...not that impressive. Large, flat, cleared plot with trees around the edges. But it was out of sight of any other houses except for a rv back in the trees that probably houses a crazy guy hiding from black helicopters. And then the interstate is right there. It's pretty loud but not too loud, and you kinda feel like you're hanging out on the shoulder of the highway, even though you aren't. It definitely has potential, and while woods are more exciting, the field is probably going to be better for building, and we can plant trees--an orchard, and willows, and white pines for a sound barrier! So I loaded the now muddy girls back into their seats and journeyed on.

On the way to the Dutch Valley place we drove through Gnadenhutten, (say THAT five times fast) which was first settled by Moravian missionaries, incidentally. This area is much more river valley farm land tucked in between big ol rolling hills. There was a cool river, not as glorious as the current, nor as big as the Osage, nor as lazy as the Pokamoke but looked like decent canoeing and possibly swimming. Lakes seemed to abound, as well. This place is really out in the boonies. You really get up into the hilly woodsy stuff after two miles of dirt road. (We ignored the gps returned another way, sans dirt, and it seemed just as fast.) There's a lot of mining going on around there, lots of big trucks, quarries, and gobbled up hillsides, one of which seemed to be on the property. I had a harder time figuring out exactly where the plot lies on this one, and google earth and Tuscarawas County Assessors Office haven't been particularly helpful. I should have called the realitor, but I couldn't be sure of when I would arrive since I was travelling with three young indians, so I didn't. While this is out there, it is surrounded by a little cluster of homes, maybe six houses within a half mile. From what I can guess, the chunk of land is mostly quite steep, under/beside a huge powerline, (you know, the ones that look like a lady pulling up her girdle) and is about half woods/steep and half cleared/flatter but still lumpy. I'll have a better idea about this one if I can figure out the property lines.

I'll get pictures to you somehow, but right now I need to go put on some clothes and go over to Sim and Janelle's for a farewell Isaac/happy birthday Jess party. The other day at Jess' I was informed that I was Debbi and they were "old friends come to take some tea." I was insrtucted to make tea and say, "Would you care for some tea, old friends?" Well, that was better than the previous game, which involved the girls doing ballet at Zaf's boyfriend's birthday party. I don't approve of boyfriends at that young age.