Day Four, Cincinnati OH: The Buckeye State

I’ve been in Cincinnati for the last several days, staying with some family. It’s been an enjoyable time and I’m starting to get used to the heat. What constitutes a heat wave back in Michigan is just the normal weather pattern in Cincinnati, (and I understand that there has been quite the heat wave back home). I’ve spent months in Cincinnati throughout my life, and the heat is only a problem when I’m coming from an especially mild Spring, like this one.

Ohio is a little bit different than Michigan in a few other respects. A lot of Michiganders seem to think that Ohio is a land full of country bumpkins. I’m not quite sure where this comes from, as Michigan isn’t exactly the most sophisticated state. But there are three things that strongly differentiate Ohio from Michigan. First, there always seems to be a stronger sense of personal responsibility in Ohio, slightly stronger than that found in Michigan. There are very few “no turn on red” signs and no motorcycle helmet law. Rather than charge the state with their safety and protection, the natural course here seems to be one of self-preservation without government intervention. Second, Ohio is very hilly country. The roads do a lot of winding (in fact, there is a Zig Zag Road), and there are plenty of sharp turns through forests, which, (back to the first point) are kept naturally scenic, instead of littering them with warning signs and obtrusive guardrails. If you’ve spent most of your time in Michigan, it’s difficult to realize that you’re really sitting on what is, essentially, a giant table.

Thirdly, and this is oft-noted amongst our family, Ohio drivers are not known for the exceptional ability to handle an automobile at fast speeds. Speed limits top out around 65. This is only five below Michigan, where the “actual” speed limit is around 80. The difference is that Ohio license plates seem to contain speed governors as well, limiting their speed of transit to a point between 60-65mph. Great for gas mileage, but not so great for getting places quickly. In addition, the highway lanes suffer from an odd mirror-imaging effect, in that slow drivers are on the right, and slower drivers are on the left. Surprisingly, this isn’t just propaganda behind another Michigan v. Ohio border skirmish; Ohio drivers seem to notice the same thing about their inability to keep to the right.

I’ve read a couple books, stuffed myself full of Skyline, picked up several last-minute equipment additions, and fit a few games of bowling in. Right now, I’m writing this post on my Aunt and Uncle’s deck, laying down on my RidgeRest. These sleeping pads are like a yoga mat that’s both lightweight and extremely comfortable, not to mention cheap and indestructible.

(The scenic view I’m enjoying while I write this brings up another thing that I’d meant to address. Some of you guys have sent me your addresses for postcards already. If you haven’t yet done so, feel free to email me or text me your address and I’ll send one along to you as well. If you don’t like mail, I won’t be offended.)

The book I just finished is called Six Minutes to Freedom; the story of American ex-pat Kurt Muse’s 1989 arrest and imprisonment by the Panamanian Defense Forces. Muse’s crime was the organization of a clandestine radio network that spoke against “Maximum Leader” Manuel Noriega, in an attempt undermine Noriega’s soul-crushing regime and free Muse’s adopted country from his grasp. The book focuses on the psychological impact that such a tragedy has on both the family and the victim himself. (If you’re looking for a straight-up tale of survival amidst the most dire circumstances and against unimaginable odds, I would check out Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor. This is one of my favorite books.)

What’s next? On Wednesday night, I head to Bloomington, Indiana, where I’ll be staying with a friend for the night. I’ll be spending another night camping outside of Bloomington before heading to St. Louis, where I’ll be staying for the weekend. The people I’m staying with here promise a fun-filled weekend of Cardinals baseball, frozen custard, and local breweries. Next, I’ll be heading to Kansas City, where I’ll fit in some Royal’s baseball inside a couple days. Then it’s on to Denver. So the real adventure starts soon.

Interestingly, with 5.9 million people and two baseball teams, Missouri is the least-populated state with more than one team. Others include California (36.7, 5 teams), Texas (24.3, 2), New York (19.4, 2), Florida (18.3, 2), Illinois (12.9, 2), Pennsylvania (12.2, 2), and Ohio, (11.5, 2) – which all comprise the seven most populated states in the country. Missouri’s population of 2.45 million per team is the lowest of any state, besides the Washington (DC) National’s .6 million. Thus, I support removing Missouri’s excess team and giving it to the 8th-most populated state in the country, because this would be the fair thing to do. That state happens to be Michigan. We’ll take the Cardinals, please, Mr. Selig. Thank you.

Now it’s off to the store to gather fixings for a giant, custom-built bag of trail mix.

Day One, Cincinnati OH: Setting Forth

The long-awaited trip has finally begun. I’ve known that I wanted to take this trip for the last year. It’s a little odd that things have finally progressed from the planning stage to the execution stage. The last six weeks have been an epic whirlwind of packing, gathering things, reading up on equipment and places to go, and making other arrangements. So I’m a little tired. But now this is starting to feel like a vacation again.

Today I drove down to Cincinnati. I plan on staying here for a few days with some family, while stuffing myself full of Skyline Chili. To some people such as myself, Skyline is the kind of thing you make a special trip to another state for. Others find it not as amazing, but I’m not going to single anybody out. That said, Google has located a Skyline in Monroe, MI, so it appears that there is, finally, a glacial-speed advance northward.

So, some web things to draw your attention to. If you scroll down, you’ll see a bunch of interesting gizmos on the sidebar, located on the right side of your page. The “Followers” allow me to see who is reading the site. Besides, you get to be a member of something, and that is almost always fun. As I’ve mentioned before, you can log in with either a Google, AIM, or Yahoo! account. If, after doing so, you still don’t see yourself in the sidebar, you need to go to settings and select ‘follow publicly.’ There really is no good reason to secretly follow along, but I believe ‘private’ is the default setting.

If you want to get email updates whenever I post something, (which I hope will be every day or two), you’ll have to sign up in the form directly below that. Do note that immediately after you sign up, you will receive an email which will contain a verification link. Sometimes this gets sent to your spam folder, so check that, or you will be left out. When I make a post, you’ll receive an email the next morning with a shortened version of the post. It will be like a newspaper, but in your inbox, and for free.

Next, you’ve got the Google Latitude gadget. This tells you where I am, as long as I’ve got it activated through my phone. So if I’m driving, you’ll be able to watch me meander through your screen. It might be a little strange at first, but I think we’ll all get used to it. Also, you can follow me on Twitter. I suppose this will be useful if you just can’t wait until I make a post to see what I’m up to. But I wouldn’t consider it must-see, exclusive content and since I’m not going to be Tweeting every eight seconds, I’m not sure how it won’t be redundant.

With that out of the way, let me just say thank you to all of you who have listened to me talk about this trip, helped me plan it, and are now following it. It’s  a pretty cool thing and I really appreciate it. Keep sending links to your friends and posting the site on Facebook, or anywhere else that you see fit. I expect that the more people are reading, commenting, and following, the more fun everyone will have.