RealImaginarySmokies Day 1 – The Scioto Valley & Eastern Kentucky

We followed Riverside Drive along the Scioto River into Downtown Columbus, where we headed south on US-23. We then took US-23 through Chillicothe and followed scenic SR-104 out of Waverly and into Portsmouth. After dinner in Portsmouth, we took US-52 along the Ohio River, crossing into Eastern Kentucky at Ashland to follow US-23 south to the Eastern Heights Motel in Ivel.

Starting Off Around Columbus

So there’s a twist for our last road trip this year! Rather than starting out from home, we start out today from Delaware, Ohio, where our friends Justin and Jennifer live. Jennifer organized a Star Wars-themed costume party in nearby Columbus last night. Besides not wanting to miss hanging out with one of her best friends, Becky is an avid cosplayer and a rabid Star Wars fan. Some fans wear costumes to celebrate their favorite sports franchise, while Becky loves getting everyone in costume to celebrate her favorite movie franchise. I always liked Star Wars too…and will say that it is more fun this way!


Anyway, we spent the night at Justin and Jennifer’s house last night, putting us about an hour or so closer to our destination for the night, which will be some as yet undetermined motel. Rather than taking freeways, we’ll mostly take US-23 the entire way, which will take us through parts of Ohio and Kentucky that neither of us has ever seen. I’m not sure where exactly we’ll stop, because I honestly have no idea how long we’ll spend at stops along the way. And we’re getting a motel because tonight will be the first freeze of the season in much of the Midwest and Appalachia. The weather warms up over the course of the week, and should be just fine for camping.

Following the Scioto River

We started out by following US-42 to SR-257/Riverside Drive, which eventually becomes US-33 and Dublin Road. Along the way we passed two dams and the Columbus Zoo. The drive was very pleasant, with a park between the road and the river almost all the way down. It reminded me of the Valley Parkway in the Cleveland Metroparks or Riverview Road in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, except much busier and with a lot more development.

The plan was to take Dublin Road until it becomes Long Street downtown, where we’d turn south on High Street towards the south side of Columbus. Unbeknownst to us, the Columbus Marathon was being held today, so it was impossible to get to High Street north of I-70. We lost some time trying to figure this out, but we eventually got back on track.

Now US-23 follows High Street at this point, and runs all the way down along the Scioto River from Downtown Columbus to Downtown Portsmouth, which is where the highway crosses the Ohio River into Kentucky. Along the way you pass through or around the towns of Circleville, Chillicothe, and Waverly, which along with Cleveland and Akron were on the route of the old Ohio & Erie Canal. The Ohio & Erie Canal revolutionized travel and shipping across the state in 1832, reducing the trip from Cleveland to Cincinnati from a few weeks to just 80 hours. Railroads came along two decades later, causing most of the canal to become abandoned early in the 20th Century.

There are three things I’m especially interested in seeing along our route this afternoon: the Scioto River for one, the city of Portsmouth since it’s on the Ohio River, and the city of Chillicothe, as it was Ohio’s original state capital. Had it not been for so much politicking in the state’s early history, perhaps Ohio’s “Three C’s” would have been Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Chillicothe! I suppose we’ll never know, but maybe that’s how things unfolded in a parallel universe…so maybe one day we will find out…

Chillicothe

Since US-23 now bypasses Chillicothe, we exited to follow Business-23 (which quite honestly is the only Business Route I’ve ever seen in all of Ohio) to go through town. The actually center of Chillicothe is a few blocks off of the old US highway, so we took a detour to check it out. While there were lots of old buildings in good repair, Chillicothe didn’t seem to be all that big of a place and was certainly not bustling this Sunday afternoon.

So we continued south back to the bypass and continued to Waverly. On the south side of Waverly, we followed SR-104, which follows the Scioto’s west bank all the way to Portsmouth. This road was marked scenic on my Rand McNally atlas, and it did not disappoint. There were sweeping views of the river all along, passing through small farms and unincorporated hamlets. The land along this part of the river seems vastly untouched.

Portsmouth, Ohio

The Ulysses S. Grant Bridge connects Portsmouth, Ohio across the Ohio River to Kentucky.

The road joins up with SR-73 just before West Portsmouth, and at the interchange with US-52 we stayed on SR-73/104 to go through Portsmouth. At this point, you can see two prominent bridges…a steel cantilever bridge directly ahead, and a newer cable-stayed bridge towering to the east. After we crossed the Scioto River right next to its mouth, we noticed a huge floodwall a block away. Besides its height, the 21-foot floodwall attracted our attention because it was covered in murals across the entire western section of the city.

It was definitely time for us to refuel, and the cheapest gas I found was just over the river in Kentucky. So before we got dinner and explored some more, we drove across the cable-stayed bridge on US-23. After gassing up, we went back over to Portsmouth to a restaurant I’d found on Google Maps that had a menu that worked for both of us.

Continue reading RealImaginarySmokies Day 1 – The Scioto Valley & Eastern Kentucky

RealImaginaryWest Day 18 – Reflections, Reunions & Returns

We woke up to heavy rains that were predicted to last longer than we wanted to stay in St. Louis, so we just kept heading east toward home. The extra time allowed me to cook up a little surprise for Becky with our friends near Columbus, Ohio.

Itching to Get Going

It was a dark and stormy…morning. Rain fell torrentially as if it was trying to wash our motel off the map like a bad stain. I think I would have been OK with that, so long as it waited until after we checked out…

It’s no fiction…it was dark for being first thing in the morning, and I’m not kidding when I say that this was the only motel room on the whole trip that seemed like a joke for the price.

Becky and I got up before 6am Mountain Time the day before, and took turns driving across Colorado, Kansas, and most of Missouri yesterday. When my head hit the pillow at close to 11pm last night, I fell fast asleep. I wasn’t crazy about our motel, but I was too tired to worry about it.

Our Motel Room…

Let me say that I would not recommend the Colonial Inn off of I-70 in High Hill, Missouri. Before I went to bed last night, I saw a sign on the air conditioning controls strongly encouraging guests to turn off the A/C while they’re gone. I mentioned yesterday that there was a strange damp sort of smell that I hoped subsided with the A/C running for a while…well, it was still there. This room definitely had a mold problem, which was not readily visible by looking at it. I’m highly allergic to mold, as my itchy eyes reminded me this morning. It’s really no surprise, because the A/C was off…and probably remains off almost every entire hot, humid Missouri day in the summer…so the mold probably likes it here.

I also awoke once in the middle of the night and noticed the sheet was not really on my corner of the mattress…because apparently they don’t use anything but top sheets at this establishment. I thought I pushed it back, but when I awoke this morning, it was all out of place again…which is why one uses bottom sheets to cover the mattress!

As I got up to go to the bathroom, I noticed a sign on the door. It became clear to me why the hotelier took so much information…the sign clearly indicated that management would charge my credit card and call the police should any of my room’s appurtenances come up missing. For a $39 motel room, they certainly had decided to go out of their way to protect their small investment in inadequate bedsheets. This may be a little paranoid, but I thought this motel room could easily get a lot more expensive if the maid got sticky fingers and pointed one of them at us.

I was in no way interested in lounging around to be implicated or to fill my airways with more of the milldewyness, and neither was Becky. The downpour outside made rushing to the car quite easy. Our stuff barely got unpacked, so it was pretty easy to throw back into the trunk. The rain was still coming down hard enough to get us pretty wet though.

To St. Louis, Or Not to St. Louis?

With the heavy rain coming down, I checked the forecast and the radar. The plan for this morning was to make a quick stop to photograph the Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis. The radar…and my ears…told me that the rains were not going to cooperate…so when we got in the car, I decided to scrub St. Louis and get home a bit earlier. Although this did give us just enough time…

Our friends, Justin and Jennifer, at a steampunk-themed party we held at Pugh Cabin at Malabar Farm State Park

You see, we have two very good friends who live in Delaware, Ohio…about 20-30 minutes from the I-270 Jack Nicklaus Outerbelt around Columbus, which is on our way home. I wrote about Justin and Jennifer last year after Justin, a roofer at the time, fell and suffered a traumatic head injury that scared us all and landed him in the hospital for over a month. He’s mostly his old self again, but it still takes about five full years to fully recover from an injury as bad as his. Anyway, before we left the hotel, I snuck a text out to Justin and Jennifer to see if they could meet us this evening and surprise Becky—and they were game! I just needed a proper smokescreen for stopping somewhere innocuous in their area. I wasn’t totally sure of the timing, but I thought we might be able to make it to the REI store in Dublin before it closed at 6pm.

Continue reading RealImaginaryWest Day 18 – Reflections, Reunions & Returns