To Ohio and Back: Day One--The Road

The nice thing about travelling by car is that you're not enslaved to a plane's or train's schedule. So if you need to sleep in a little, you do. If you have to finish packing at the last minute, you can. What's bad about the same travelling by car is the previous reasons; it's easy to leave past noon to face a 6+ plus hour ride.

Add a little rain and our start on Friday was teetering on the slow side. It wasn't like we had to be in Columbus at a certain hour, but certainly 6 or 7pm sounded good and that was in a bit in jeopardy.

The arrival time was rattled by a bumper-to-bumper stretch on Interstate 80/94 heading east through northern Indiana just as we reached the I-65 exit. Construction leads to slowdowns, and in our case, as we headed south on I-65, complete gridlock which annihilated what remained of an arrival time resembling early evening. Perhaps some patience, too, was lost. It's difficult to understand traffic congestion when farmland flanks both sides of the road.

Though there was a find in the middle of all that Indiana prairie: Fair Oaks Farms. Oh, it's commercial. Very commercial with touristy flourishes. Yet, there is something refreshing in how a dairy farm can become a destination for anyone other than a cheesehead or ice cream fanatic.

The farm hosts tours of its facilities, home to 30,000 dairy cows. That means constant milking and enough of the white liquid to feed the city of Chicago. Though honestly, our reason to stop was simple hunger. It was time for lunch and their sandwiches nicely satisfied. Add some cheese tastings and a small ice cream cone which was actually two scoops and not one, and Fair Oaks Farms more than satiated our stomaches.

After buying some cheese as tasty momentos, we were back on the road. The rest of the trip into Columbus was fairly uneventful, though it was clearer as we approached that we would be coming into town late, nine o'clockish. The late arrival and confusion over directions (somehow the wrongs numbers were stuck in my head) led us to the right hotel just at the wrong location.

Columbus is a big league city. We first found the Hyatt at Capitol Square, but no reservation. Thirty minutes later, we discovered the Hyatt at the Convention Center and the reservation. Leading us into and up the service elevator, the bellhop was quick and efficient and knowledgable about the ins and outs of the hotel. With thanks, I'd like to recommend his service, because after long hours on the road, it was good to sit for a moment, enjoy a glass of wine and a view.