The Long Awaited Road Trip Post

Okay, maybe I should have titled this "The Moderately Awaited Road Trip Post." I haven't really heard any complaints about not having written anything about the epic road trip to Indianapolis that I had been promising to write about for the last two weeks. But I am a man of my word. And here is my summary of an epic road trip and an epic weekend.

It was decided before the trip began that we would take my car. Half-Pint apparently gets the best gas mileage out of all our cars. I was really okay with this because I genuinely enjoy driving places. I can't call driving relaxing, what with the road rage I suffer from, but I do still enjoy it.

So when I got off work on Friday, I met Andy (who had already driven from Richmond) and Brandon at my apartment. From there we headed for Bluefield where we would pick up our final passenger, Mark. Then came the long, night time drive to Columbus, Ohio.

For the most part, the drive that night was uneventful. Please, don't make the mistake of thinking that when I say it was uneventful that I mean it wasn't fun. These guys are three of my best friends, so hanging out with them in any situation is always a good time. We talked and got caught up on each others' lives. We listened to music thanks to our friends at Spotify and Pandora. And then we hit our first pit stop.

Somewhere in Nowhere, West Virginia, the low fuel light started blinking. It was time for our first fill-up of the trip. By the way, this was one of only three fill-ups for Half Pint. Impressive, no? So we pulled off at the next available gas station. The signs on the highway indicated that we would come up on an Exxon, so we took the exit and then got scared. There were no street lights and no other commercial buildings at the exit. And there was no Exxon station to be seen. At first we all panicked a little and thought we were about to die. Let's just say that several references were made to that movie Wrong Turn. I followed the arrow to where the Exxon was supposed to be, and there it was just around the corner. We survived our first stop relatively unscathed.

And we drove on. And on. And on. Thanks to GPS, we crossed the Ohio border in relatively good time. It wasn't long after this that we made an unscheduled stop at Ohio University in Athens. At first I didn't stop. And I got yelled at. Look, I had one voice yelling at me with GPS directions and I had two other voices telling me to TAKE THIS EXIT. I got confused. But we got to the campus. We stopped at the Ohio football stadium and took a quick look around. Let me just say, midnight in Athens, OH during the first weekend in December is wicked cold. But I will say this, Ohio University has a beautiful campus. They've got a lit walkway that runs right next to the Hocking River. It was pretty nice.

Eventually we made it to Columbus. And we pretty much collapsed. We were all tired. It was about 2am. I'm told that I snored. Loudly. But it didn't bother me. I was unconscious for the whole thing. The morning came and we were ready to face the world. We were ready to hit Indianapolis hard.

But before we left Columbus, we made a stop at Ohio State University. We took a look around their ginormous football stadium and got a few pictures. That campus, by the way, is huge.

What's that spell? Yeah, it's O-H-I-O. Get it? I thought the silhouette thing turned out pretty good. While in Columbus, I did come to the decision that I could never live there. I'm glad you asked. It's because we came across a sign that told us that U-turns were prohibited everywhere in the city limits. Really? No U-turns anywhere? That seems a bit excessive.

Indianapolis, now that's a different story. Come back tomorrow for the rest of the weekend.