Springtime, sunshine, and small towns

Spring has sprung!

This week is OGT (Ohio Graduation Test) week. This means that while all freshmen and sophomores are busily trying to remember every obscure piece of generally unimportant information that they've learned since kindergarten, upperclassmen get to sleep in and get to school at 10:30am. I checked the weather on my phone before I went to sleep last night, and it was supposed to be in the high 60's and sunny!!! So when I woke up I looked outside and sure enough, that fancy thing they like to call the sun was hangin' in the sky for all to see! I proceeded to put one of my favorite springy-time dresses and a pair of sandals and went to school.

After school I wound up with a ton of time on my hands and strolled around downtown Delaware for a while. I stopped into Beehive Books and read for a while. It was sunny, and warm, and breezy out, and I found myself going out of my way to cross the street just so I could walk in the sunshine instead of walking in the shadow of the buildings on the other side of the street. Then I went into the Mean Bean got myself a blended iced mocha and sat down to get some work done.

Now, it may have been the beautiful weather but, partway through a paragraph about Poe's use of macabre, I had an epiphany. I looked up from my notebook to the wide window in front of me, gazed out onto the intersection of William Street and Sandusky Street, and  I realized that I really like living in Delaware. While my time living in Chicago has convinced me that ultimately I'm a big-city-girl and that I can't wait to get out of Ohio, I realized that I still really like small-town-Delaware. I hate Ohio in general but Delaware is actually quite nice. I like that we have an old-fashioned movie theater, I like that we just got a cupcakery, I like that there's about a thousand antique stores on the same street. I love Beehive Books, and the pottery painting place called the Bare Bowl, I love that the Buns restaurant is still open and still has the arch out front. I love the way that all the buildings are connected, and how when you look up you notice the crazy, fancy, old-fashioned detailing that shows the history of the town.  I love that most of the buildings are made out of brick, and I love that like 50% of the sidewalks are made out of brick. I love that we are home to the birthplace of Rutherford B Hayes, so naturally we demolish the house that once stood there and build a BP station in it's place with a fancy little plaque that reads: "President Hayes Memorial". I love the Delaware Arts Festival, and the Delaware County Fair, and the Delaware Horse Parade.

While I still can't wait to get the hell out of Ohio, I discovered today that I don't entirely hate where I live. My dad was literally just talking to me about our plans to drive up to Chicago for an open house at Columbia Chicago. He was outlining a plan to drive up on Friday April 1st, after school, stay the night, go to the open house the next day and drive back that evening. I suggested that we stay one more day and drive back Sunday evening instead, so we can enjoy more time in my favorite city. I'm definitely ready to move on and live in Chicago - essentially - full time for college. But I still appreciate it here, in small-town, hick Delaware.

Happy trails, campers!