Sunday, August 30, 2009

Day 2: Columbus / Cincinnati

 
View of the Cincinnati skyline from Newport, KY

Second day of Pin and Amy's Great Adventure roadtrip, and we've already had our first run-in with a potentially life threatening situation (not really).

9am - Waking up bright and not so early. We realized last night that the hotel only has a breakfast buffet from Monday through Friday, so there was really no motivation to wake up early to eat. 9am counts as sleeping in, right? Check out wasn't until 11am, so we had plenty of time to shower, repack everything, and lounge around in our fabulous top floor executive (?) room for a little while.

11am - Left Pittsburgh, cheery and ready to see the rest of Pennsylvania and get into the middle of nowhere.

11:30am - Realized we only had enough gas to go another 30 miles. GPS says there's no gas station within 50 miles of us. Panic ensues. We pull into a town off the highway only to discover the town center contains a flea market, a cabin, and what looks like something that might have been a gas station 30 years ago.... before it burned down.

11:45am - Amy discovers a gas station (and not just a gas station, but a Sheetz, which if you've ever lived in the middle of nowhere, you would know is the best gas station for food ever) 6 miles down the road. Eureka! We're saved from the corn people, and the road trip is saved from disaster.

1:00pm - Arrived at Columbus to get lunch, because I was beginning to die from starvation. Little did we know, when you're in the middle of nowhere, even the cities shut down on Sundays. There was literally nothing open except for one street vendor selling hot dogs. Imagine a zombie movie where everyone's dead or eating people's brains. That was Columbus on a Sunday afternoon.



2:00pm - Pull over to a Wendy's because I'm about to die. At this point, we were planning on just plowing through to Cincinnati and eating there, but sometimes when my stomach is arguing with me, you just can't argue back. It yells. And growls. It's scary. I ordered for Amy and I, and told the cashier we would like "5 piece nuggets, medium fries, and a side salad." Somehow the cashier took it as "nuggets, fries, a salad, and a junior bacon cheeseburger." Not sure how, but I didn't realize until after I paid, so.... good one, Ohio. You got me.

4:30pm - Arrived at Kevin's apartment in Loveland (yes, that's right) Ohio, near Cincinnati. One word. Ballllller. Nicest one person condo ever, with a guest room, guest bathroom, balcony... the works. Sweet. Hotel Kevin rocks.




8:00pm - We finally make it out of the apartment, and make our way across the Ohio River to Newport, Kentucky. Dinner is at a German beer / bratwurst house, and it's delicious. I had a nice liter of Munich brew (with a banana undertone) to go with my veggie burger and munster, while Amy and Kevin had half liters of a light brew with their food (alfredo tilapia and wurst with apple kraut, respectively).



10:00pm - Walking along the banks of the Ohio River, we had a nice view of the Cincinnati skyline from Kentucky.

10:30pm - Drove back across the river and walked along Fountain Square in the Cincinnati downtown area. Once again, a super quiet zombie city, and from the looks of it, it's almost completely sponsored by Fifth Third and US Banks. We did, on the other hand, make some progress on the scavenger hunt here, finding our first '70s VW van. Whoop!!

11:45pm - Back at Hotel Kevin, time for an early night of sleep, resting up for what's to come!



Thanks to Sheetz for saving us from certain death in rural Pennsylvania, and Kevin for being our tour guide and host!!

Distance Traveled: 270mi
Total Distance Traveled:651mi
$ Spent: $51.75
Total $ Spent: $125.53