R and J in the USA

Next stop – Ohio! 

For those of you familiar with United States geography, you may notice that between Vermont, our state number ten, and Ohio, our state number eleven, there is a whole big state called New York. And you would be quite right. We decided to save New York for our last state, it being our humble home state.

Driving through New York on the way to Ohio worked out quite well, though, as Julie dropped Ryan off on her way through. Ryan had decided before we even left for the trip that he would come home to Rochester for a few days every couple of months while Julie carried on with the trip. Having been to Ohio many times before, he was okay to miss a handful of days while Julie continued on to the state of her birth. We swung into Rochester and somehow managed to fit in six separate visits (each attempting to max out at ten or fifteen minutes, but many going as long as thirty) on Julie’s way through town.

After leaving Ryan at his mother’s house, Julie landed at her first Harvest Host about forty-five minutes past the northeastern corner of Ohio. Having very recently hiked Mount Mansfield, followed by a brutal 5K (that, if you read about it, you learned turned out to be much more than a 5K for Julie), the insane rush of six Rochester visits crammed into three hours time, and a total of almost seven hours of driving for the day, by the time Julie got to where she was heading, all that rest and rejuvenation found in the early days of Maine was looong gone and Julie was, once again, exhausted.

While Ryan was happily rejuvenating, getting very used to indoor plumbing very quickly, and enjoying visits with family and friends, Julie was off to her first stop – the James A. Garfield Presidential Site in Mentor, Ohio. 

Similar to other visits to presidential sites, it was enriching and enlightening to learn so much about a President and his times, especially those recessed in the unmagnified crannies of US history.

Gift shops were visited, and Julie moved on to swing by Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Brandywine Falls, visit Amish country, and make a quick stop in Millersburg before heading to a campsite at Hocking Hills State Park, where she checked out the beautiful rock formations and waterfalls and caught up on some much-needed R&R.

Julie was looking forward to a full day in southwestern Ohio after her first night at Hocking Hills. She had planned to see Cincinnati for the first time, visit the childhood home of William Howard Taft (another state president about whom she knew very little), spend time at the Underground Railroad Museum, and then round out the day with a visit with the in-laws in Waynesville for what was sure to be great food and great company. As she laid down to bed that first night, however, it became clear that a full day of rest was called for, so she put Cincinnati on that growing list of places we didn’t make it to and took a rain check for the quick family visit.

Boy was that the right call. She booked a second night at Hocking Hills State Park and enjoyed a day of some hardcore R&R – lying in bed, not thinking about much of anything nor doing much of anything except showering, emptying the grey water tank, filling the fresh water tank, and cleaning the van. It was the kind of rest that went so deep that, for Julie, it felt like being at a human gas pump and having restoration pumped into her while she lay still taking it in.

Eventually, realizing she still had the opportunity to see some of Ohio’s natural wonders just 500 yards from her and that some activity and movement would probably be good for her too. She dragged herself up out of her comfortable horizontal position to go for a walk to Old Man’s Cave in the late afternoon. She had been flirting with the idea of a run, and ended up going for it, enjoying a lovely wooded trail run in the rain out to Cedar Falls and back. All of it together – the van dumping and refilling, the van clean up, the hours of intensive and focused doing of nothing, and a little fresh air and movement – was just what was needed to rejuvenate. She was ready to roll bright and early the next morning for a full day.

She woke up bright and early and was out of the campground by 6:00 AM, in time to arrive in the capital city of Columbus and make a beeline to the state capitol as soon as it opened at 8:00 AM. As we’ve found to be pretty consistently the case, she was warmly greeted by capitol policeman who was grateful for the visit and enthusiastic to offer recommendations. Though it turned out, maybe for the better, that the gift shop wouldn’t open until 10:00, nor would the tours, Julie made her way through the museum style exhibits in the Ohio statehouse on her own. A huge building, Julie never quite found her way to the senate and house chambers and left without getting pictures of them, content with the knowledge that she and Ryan would likely someday return for another visit. She left on a tight schedule with just enough time for a quick visit to the Ohio State Museum.

The first day of the Ohio State Fair turned out to be that day and was located right next to the Ohio State Museum. After a short thirty minutes wandering through a few exhibits, Julie headed over to the state fair, won a stuffed animal for her nephew at the “guess your age for $5” game, and grabbed some bubble tea. She then made a dead sprint back to the van to make it in time for her first scheduled massage of the trip, a little rejuvenation treat she was eagerly awaiting to keep piling on the much-needed R&R. She arrived with five minutes to spare.

At the same time, Ryan was packing up his things and picking up his one-way car rental to reunite with Julie outside the Cleveland airport. With a handful of errands to do on his way, he and Julie were both rushing from stop to stop to get to their rendezvous in time to be able to head the half hour west to where the Dirty Dog 5K race awaited them. 

On Julie’s way up toward Cleveland she made some of her favorite stops of the trip so far on the Shawshank Trail. Arguably (and let’s not have that argument right now) one of the best movies of all time, The Shawshank Redemption was filmed in various spots in Ohio. Some nice folks have labeled those spots and set up a little self-guided driving tour for Shawshank nerds like Julie to enjoy. Seeing the “Road to Buxton” in person did something to her – something good. It brought back memories of the first time she ever heard the phrase that got her through some tough spots in life, “Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things.” Words she lives by, Julie was pretty happy to have those little moments.

Most reunions of Ryan and Julie are met with a certain amount of fanfare – big smiles, prolonged hugs. While those emotions were there, we were all business when the moment arrived. There was much stuff transferring from car to van to be done and no minutes to spare for all that kissy kissy crap before our race. It all went smoothly and we got to the small-scale race in plenty of time to get our race bibs and t-shirts and have a great chat with a few police officers manning the race. Check out our People Along the Way section to read more about them. The race was FINALLY a nice flat race on a not too terribly hot evening. You can read more about it in our 5K section. 

We parked for the night at a spot on Lake Erie in the lovely little town of Huron. We found the spot on IOverlander, and it was a WINNER! We walked on the pier, reveled in the beautiful Great Lakes sunset, and gawked at the view of Cedar Point’s roller coasters in the distance that we would be on the next day.

We spent all of the next morning there and lapped up the views while the waters lapped the shore. Julie took a swim in what was very questionably swimmable water, Ryan hit a local coffee shop to do his morning writing, and, when two o’clock came, we were off to adventure in Cedar Point. Before heading out, Julie saw in the distance what looked like a small tornado near Cedar Point. She later read in the paper that it was officially a waterspout (minus the itsy bitsy spiders), not a tornado. It was pretty neat.

Way back, when we were in Busch Gardens in Virginia – our first major amusement park of the trip, we found out two things. 1) It turns out Julie LOVES roller coasters, and 2) It turns out Ryan doesn’t – at least not anymore. He is definitely the more naturally adventurous of us, having gone skydiving with no fear in his earlier years. But now, he appears to be fairly done with all that. Julie bargained for at least three roller coaster rides together before she went off on her own, but the length of the lines and the time limit on the day were Ryan’s saving grace. The coaster we went on (the Millenium Force) was AMAZING and well worth the hour and fifteen minute wait for it – which we didn’t think was possible. It was almost time to leave with only one roller coaster ridden. As we headed out, we passed a line with a five minute wait and did one more ride for good measure.

We left Cedar Point with a perfect amount of adrenaline rush and headed to yet another ferry ride, this time to Kelleys Island State Park for our last stay in Ohio. We happened to get a beautiful waterside spot that was just stunning.

You may notice no mention of Cleveland. We skipped Cleveland, and Dayton as well, both big stops for an Ohio visit. Both of us having been to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, and having been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Browns Game, the Art and Natural History Museums, and the hospital Julie was born in, all in Cleveland, we felt okay missing them this time around.

We left Ohio happy to be reunited and, as with each state, with an expanded perspective on what it is and has to offer – its people, its natural setting, its architecture, its culture – and with plenty of hunger to return sometime for all that we missed.