Exploring Columbus

We've actually been home these last few weekends, and we haven't had a huge "To Do" list for the house, so we've been trying to take advantage of that and explore this city we live in a little bit more.

Despite living here for six years now there are still a ton of places that I have no properly explored. And since I know that I will probably be leaving in the next few years once I'm done with residency, time is running out!!!

Two weekends ago while I went to my sewing class (more on that in another post) Charlie went and bought a new bike. His other bike got stolen off our back porch (how rude!) so he had been without one for awhile. Since he got a new bike, we had to try it out! So off we went, Groupon in hand, to the Frankling Park Conservatory.

In the desert

Amongst the vegetables there were glass pumpkins, squash, tomatoes etc...

I love the butterflies!

Bonsai garden

Then we got on our bikes to ride home and it started POURING! It started as a few drops, but by the time we got home we were dripping wet. I couldn't help but laugh the entire way home because, well, what else are you going to do? You have no other choice but to keep on riding and enjoy the rain:)

This weekend we also spent a good amount of time on our bikes. On Saturday we went on a longer bike ride. I am ashamed to say that it was the first time I had gotten my nice bike out this whole entire summer. But we rode up to the topiary garden. It is where the original school for the deaf was located in Columbus. It's not very big, but it is very cute.

Huge fish in this very shallow pond at the Topiary Garden

From there we drove through Old Town East to Franklin Park. We had wanted to look at it last weekend but the rain had other plans.

Old Town East is so beautiful! It was originally where all the really wealthy people in Columbus lived, but then when they put in 71 it cut it off from the rest of the city and it fell into disrepair. It, like many older neighborhoods in Columbus, is starting to come back to life, but it is much farther behind places like Victorian Village and German Village.

These houses were amazing though! And HUGE! I'm talking 4000-5000 sq ft at least! And they were so ornate with beautiful fences, spires, towers, gabled windows etc. Really a step above most of the houses in German and Victorian Village, you could just tell that they were truly mansions at one point. Many of them have been rehabed, but it is still pretty patchy. I didn't get to take any pictures of the houses because we were riding out bikes, but hopefully next time I can.

So, two years left in Columbus and counting. I really do love this city and will be sad to leave. But for now I'm going to try to enjoy it as much as possible:)