August 2025: Tourons & Troglobites

Since this is my blog and I can do anything I want with it (to quote my late friend Renata, “MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”), I’m starting off the August post with a piece of July I’d wanted to feature but forgotten about.

And now, on to August!

Just Fun Summer Stuff

The month started out with ’80s Movie Weekend.

Someone brought a giant inflatable projector screen to the ballfield, and we got to watch Ferris Bueller outside with popcorn and candy.

(Well, okay, I personally watched the movie with my *eyes*…but anyway…sorry…not sorry…okay, yeah, sorry! 😜)

“It’s a little childish and stupid; but then, so is high school.”

I thought there would be a big turnout for this.

As it was, there were maybe ten groups of people, give or take.

And maybe that is a big turnout for here.

Some people sat in the grass*, some brought blankets and lawn chairs, others were in their golf carts or cars.

*Okay, I sat in the grass.

The next weekend, some of Molly’s friends came into town for Homecoming weekend.

We ordered out that Friday night, and I found out one of the local shops has a sandwich named after me.

(Shhhhh, it was totally named after me…)

It was a pretty good sandwich.

Molly’s friends also introduced me to some of the best wings I’ve ever had, but that’s for a later part of the story because they deserve their own feature, haha.

I didn’t get a lot of pictures this weekend; but, as usual, the most important things (the meats!) got photographed:

A Good Chuckle at the Glacial Grooves

One of the major tourist features on the island is the Glacial Grooves.

This is an area of limestone that’s said to be the largest exposed bit of rock that glaciers carved out…I think in the world.

Right here, on little Kelleys Island.

It’s a neat rock formation, and there are a ton of fossils visible all over that you can spot if you’re looking for them.

I was up here at the end of July with my dad and we got the biggest laugh out of it when a little blonde girl (maybe four years old) in a cute sundress pointed excitedly to the rocks and yelled out:

“Look, Daddy! TROGLOBITES! 😱”

It was far too big a word to come from such a tiny person, and was easily one of the cutest and funniest things I witnessed all summer.

Adventures in, “Hey, I Should be Getting Out More!“

The island continued to be gorgeous at the places I regularly walked past, like this beach…

…but August was the month I discovered way more of this sort of thing in places I hadn’t theretofore known to exist.

I’d heard about Horseshoe Lake, but I really didn’t expect much.

Kelleys isn’t very big, and I figured the lake was probably more of an unassuming pond.

Boy, was I wrong!

Horseshoe Lake is where the East Quarry used to be, and it’s way bigger than I thought it could be:

All the pine makes it look, to me, like a place you’d find further North, maybe in Washington or New England.

There are some great walking trails to get there, too.

And, all around, there are tons of rocks with cool fossils in them.

Probably a Troglobite

Impossible Shoes

This brings us to one of those moments that probably ought to be categorized in the so-lucky-it’s-practically-unbelievable section and made into its own post.

But, at the risk of being longer-winded than normal, I’m putting it here since I don’t know when I’m going to actually compile that post.

So, this story requires a bit of background information:

I have some friends who live in Brazil, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to visit them twice.

In 2015, they introduced me to Havaianas flip-flops.

(On that first trip, one of my Brazilian friends told me that “Havaianas” is a funny name because it’s Portuguese for “Hawaiian”, but they’re very much a Brazilian thing and not from Hawaii at all.)

I’ve always been partial to sandals, myself, but these shoes are very well-made, and the pair I bought in 2015 lasted until I returned to Brazil in 2019 and was able to purchase a replacement pair.

At malls in Brazil, they have entire shops of these with great selections in all kinds of designs and sizes.

Being the uber-classy individual you all know me to be, I chose a pair of glow-in-the-dark space monkey ones to replace my original pair.

So, 6 years later, on a walk to the beach this summer, my classy monkey flip-flops finally bit the dust.

I’m still not sure if I stepped funny and broke them or if they broke and caused me to step funny.

Whatever the case, the end result was that in one order or another my foot flipped and they flopped.

I was closer to the beach than to Molly’s house and didn’t really want to walk home barefooted at twilight, so I walked up to the beach hoping to run into some people I’d met the night before who said they’d planned to be back, and maybe bum a ride off them.

While wrapping up that leg of the walk, I was contemplating what I would do about replacing the flip-flops.

In Brazil, they cost about $10 USD with the exchange rate.

Here in the States, when you can find them they’re closer to the $40 range (there was a pair on clearance at a mall in Jacksonville for $25 that I saw in February this past year 🎶).

I didn’t want to have to find a different kind of shoe (which I’d probably have to go try on on the mainland), but I also didn’t really want to spend that much money on flip-flops.

I’d probably have to do some searching to find new Havaianas at a reasonable price, and it wasn’t in my plan to leave the island much, since it was $64 round trip to leave and return with my car.

I kept walking, figuring I’d figure it out later.

My friends from the beach were not there.

But, there was a lady I recognized who I’d met downtown at the shops a couple weeks before and had seen around a few times since.

She was in her golf cart, so I figured I’d ask if she’d mind giving me a ride back to Molly’s.

I explained my predicament, and she thankfully agreed to drive me back.

When telling her what was up, I had lifted up my broken shoe to show her.

She remarked that it was surprising it broke, since Havaianas are made of real rubber (instead of plastic) and usually last better than that.

I was surprised she knew of the brand, since I’m not sure how many Americans do.

And then, as we drove through an endless swarm of big lake midges that you’d swallow if you didn’t breathe through your nose, she said the craziest thing:

“If you need to replace those, I have an overstock of them in my inventory and they’re on sale at some of my shops downtown. Stop by if you’d like to pick up a pair for $10.99.”

Here.

On Kelleys Island.

There was a cache of Havaianas flip flops at an unheard-of discount.

And the woman I happened to bum a ride from this night (who was even at the beach in the first place) is the one who owns the stock of ‘em.

I’m telling you, guys, it’s uncanny.

Uncanny.

Defunct glow-in-the-dark-space-monkey flip-flops (left) and replacement Havaianas (right) purchased on sale downtown on Kelleys Island.

Better-than-Average Camp Fare

A week or so after Homecoming, there was an 80th-year-in-existence celebration at the 4-H camp, complete with a pancake breakfast.

I think the breakfast was available for a $5+ donation, and at that price (and because I have been to summer camp many many times and know what the typical fare is like) I didn’t really expect much.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

“I’m seeing a theme here, Barbosa.”

They had actual butter without funky additives, real maple syrup, and sausages that were clearly not the microwave kind.

The food was top-notch, and it was fun to get to see a bit of the camp.

An excellent pancake breakfast. Not the typical camp-food fare that I grew up with.

The Air Affair & Other Island Accesses

On top of beautiful geological features, large lakes, and impossible flip-flops, Kelleys Island is home to a tiny airport where little planes fly in and out on a regular basis.

If you drive or walk up Monaghan Road, you’ll see a sign warning you to stop and look both ways to ensure that you won’t be run down by a tiny little plane while crossing the road adjacent to the runway.

Here’s a picture of the stop sign, with the runway on the left and a field on the right:

The other way many people get to the island is by boat.

There are a few marinas around, which are pretty much full all Summer.

Of all the ones I walked past, this boat I saw in August had the best name:

A Brief Pan Over to Some Bread

Before I talk about more walking, we probably ought to take a detour for some good food.

Molly enjoyed French toast for breakfasts, so I decided at some point this summer that I was going to make our bread from scratch instead of buying the stuff at the grocery store that I’m pretty sure has rocket-fuel derivatives in their ingredients lists.

Sometimes the loaves turned out kinda pretty, so I took a picture of this one to share one with you guys:

Alright.

We ready for another walk?

Good. New walk.

Psych, It’s Actually a Couple New Walks

Even the flora looked like something out of an old flower fairies book.

So–although it totally was–* it should have been no surprise to me that this delightful path opened up onto a pirate cove.

*On a side note, this font style I’ve chosen has no em dashes and it drives me absolutely bonkers to have to choose between commas or hyphens to make things more readable for you guys when em dashes are clearly the appropriate punctuation.

Anyway, at this point it wouldn’t surprise me if there were treasure buried here somewhere:

The beach at the end of the Sheele Preserve trail is on the East side of the island, and made me smile a lot because it felt very much like a mini version of Reid State Park up in Maine (which will always have a special place in my heart because of many fond memories there with dear friends).

In keeping with the theme of shattering so many preconceived notions I seem to have, I hadn’t expected to find a place in Ohio that felt so much like Maine.

Perhaps someday I’ll get to introduce it to some of my Maine friends.

So by this point I was pretty hooked on exploring the island.

Another day or so later I got outside early and walked up to North Pond to see how that stacked up to Horseshoe Lake.

It wasn’t exactly the same kind of pretty, but I laughed a bit inside because, whereas Sheele Preserve reminded me of Maine, this one reminded me of Florida.

There’s a boardwalk that goes through a lot of swampland:

I think one of my favorite things about Kelleys is that there are so many places that remind me of other parts of the country, but without the crazy animals.

Like, we don’t have any moose or bears here like up in Maine.

And we don’t have to worry about alligators in our swamps.

Or venomous snakes on our beaches…but that’s just clickbait for the October blog…

Anyway, North Pond was its own kind of impressive.

For one, the fact that someone actually put that boardwalk through all that swampland is something that I both appreciate and revere.

I don’t think I would have wanted to be in that swamp putting up that boardwalk.

(After all, there are still watersnakes.)

For another, it’s got a neat variety of cool plants:

And, as usual, these are just the highlights.

There are so many different plants there.

I hope someday to be able to identify them all. 🤓

Another noteworthy feature up at North Pond is the observation tower.

I didn’t spend a lot of time on the tower, ‘though, because I started to hear thunder rumbling up in the distance and figured it was unwise to be that high up on the lake while a storm was blowing in.

You know what else was unwise?

Being out on a walk a couple miles from Molly’s while a storm was blowing in.

Storms blow up quickly on the lake.

I found this out the hard way, hahaha.

But it made for another good adventure.

I met this water-logged toad on my way back home:

Then I decided to take a shortcut back via the path near Horseshoe Lake.

This, too, was very wet:

But also very pretty:

The rain was coming down so hard that it really didn’t matter how quickly I got back.

But, no.

It was basically coming down in sheets and I’m pretty sure taking the tree route just ensured that the leaves caught and poured the water down in even bigger drops.

So, that was the cold and uncomfy adventure.

Winding Things Down with Wings Worth Waiting For

I will tell to you now a much nicer adventure.

This goes back to those wings that Molly’s friends introduced us to earlier this month.

These wings are a hidden gem on the island, just as much as any of the prettiest trails.

They are available in the summer at Caddy Shack at 6 PM on Fridays, sell on a first-come-first-served basis, and once they’re out they’re out.

A crowd of mostly Gen-Xers from across the way on the mainland sail in on their boats after their long work weeks to hang out here with friends.

So, maybe half an hour before 6, this guy comes out with big garbage bags full of wings in marinade and throws ’em on the grill.

A line forms.

Since it’s Friday night, there’s usually a live band playing while we all wait.

Probably the best one was the ’90s cover band that had a guy in an obvious mullet wig and played “Learn to Fly” by the Foo Fighters.

Anywho, it’s a pretty cool way to pass the time while trying to put off thinking about how good those wings are going to be in 15 minutes.

Close to 6 o’clock the guy starts taking the wings off the grill and transferring them in small batches to a little smoker.

And then, after doing the Ghostbusters thing of trying to think of nothing and, therefore, thinking of nothing but how awesome the wings will be for a tantalizingly torturous twenty minutes…

They’re done and you can enjoy some of the best cooking the island has to offer:

And, yeah, these ones are also fantastic with the blue cheese they serve ’em with on the side.

Molly and I started a bit of a tradition where I’d pick up some beer-cheese-bacon-and-onion-loaded tater tots and the wings every Friday night and then we’d play Magic: the Gathering all evening.

It was pretty much the best.

August was a very good month overall.

It was the kind of picturesque summer vacation one imagines.

Sometimes tourists would drive past on their golf carts singing songs at the top of their lungs as the sun was setting.

One night, either in August or July, I was amused to observe a golf cart full of kids probably in late middle school or early high school who were all singing “You’re the One that I Want” from Grease at the top of their lungs.

I didn’t realize any kids today even knew that song.

Like I’ve said before, it’s as if the past 30 years never happened, but in the best way possible.

The Random Stuff at the End Before the Stats Section

Near the end of August, these funky lilies popped up in patches around the island:

The Internet tells me that this is Amaryllis Belladona, which has a whole plethora of common names: Resurrection Lilies, Surprise Lilies, Pink Ladies, or Naked Ladies

Since we got the smoker/grill up and running this month, I made a point to learn how to use it.

I didn’t want to goof anything up by not paying enough attention to the charcoal temperature, so I’d set up a hammock on the back porch and read while keeping an eye on the thermometer.

Just Out Smoking on the Back Porch for Several Hours

The first thing I smoked was some salmon.

I overcooked it a bit because the egg-style smoker cooks a lot faster than my little electric one back home.

But after one or two slight overcookings I got the hang of cooking over charcoal well enough.

Here’s some smoked chicken I made one of the last nights of August:

I also apparently made honorable mention in this month’s copy of the local paper for entering the pie contest in July:

So, yeah.

That was August on Kelleys Island.

Kinda amazing.

Photo of the Month

One day when I was walking down the road, I saw this pirate ship off the coast:

I don’t have a great camera for these longer shots, so you’ll have to take my word for it that the sails were mucho impressive.

August Stats

Animals Pet

Yeah, I’m definitely retiring this stat going forward. 😅

Books Finished

The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way

The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 2: Dallas by Gerard Way

The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 3: Hotel Oblivion by Gerard Way

Library Cards Collected

0

But stay tuned! This one actually will continue.

Distance Traveled (Miles)

147 miles

Miles Walked

107.66

Song of the Month