Baking metaphors, continued

I arrived in Columbus last Thursday to celebrate the first anniversary with my sweetie, who was waiting for me in the passenger pick-up area on her happy yellow motorcycle. (Weather permitting, airport drops by bike have become something of a tradition slash sport with us. They encourgage sensible packing, too.)

As she alluded in her post about our anniversary, the house was warmed by the smell of recent baking, a dark golden loaf of banana bread with cinnamon chips waiting on the cutting board. It did not last long. (Julie has great skill with baked goods, metaphorically and otherwise.)

Like our last year together, the weekend felt full, abundant and managed to strike many different notes: an outing and watching BSG with friends on Friday night; a lazy Saturday of lounging, reading and talking; and a dinner party on Sunday preceded by an afternoon of ambition in the grocery store and in the kitchen, yielding much laughter and good conversation, as well as a delicious whole roasted whitefish stuffed with peppers, carrots, cabbage, fennel, onions with nuoc cham and a dessert I've never had but now can highly recommend, calfouti.

And on Monday, the warmest and sunniest of my visit and also our actual anniversary, the coup de grace. Julie had a workshop for the first part of the afternoon, which I spent on a picnic blanket in the sun at OSU's main quad. When finished, we hopped on her bike for a spin through rolling countryside, heading southeast toward Hocking Hills. The scenery was spectacular, as our two-lane road wound through small towns, wooded areas awash in slanting sunlight. We stopped for a bite to eat, our now-traditional anniversary meal of low-brow veggie pizza, where the veggies in question have clearly come right out of a can (this one did at least surpass the cold, wet mess we obtained last year from her neighborhood pizzeria, Gatto's).

We then found our way -- quite accidentally, if you can believe it -- to Ash Cave, pictured, the crown jewel of the Hocking Hills state park. The cave is a place where the limestone cliffs have eroded to create an enormous, high cornice and outcropping, beneath which lies a sandy floor and ample shelter from rain or storms. It suddenly felt as though we'd stepped out of Ohio and onto the soundstage of a film set in the Jurassic. Ash Cave gets its name from the substantial amount of ash found in its sandy bed, evidence that people have been using the cave in that capacity for a long time. Julie and I also took refuge there for a while, alone as we were, only the sound of the waterfall accompanying us in that spot.

Sun descending, the day ended with another gorgeous ride through those wooded hills, lit by the pink, then crimson sunset. At home, we debated heading toward the roller rink for a late night skate (revisiting another of our activities from last year), but instead decided for a snuggle and a movie.

And, this morning, Julie again dropped me off at the airport on her bike, ending another of the best weekends ever, with the promise of more to come. As we begin our second year together, I can only repeat how lucky I feel to have such an interesting, strong, complex and simply lovely woman in my life. She makes the daily process of building a life together nothing short of joyful. Lucky, lucky, lucky me. Thank you, my darling.