I am sitting in the Red Roof Inn PLUS + in Columbus, Ohio, five minutes from THE Ohio State University campus. It's my last day here and I am feeling so many mixed emotions. I have absolutely loved being with Micah and his girlfriend, Alyssa, and his friends, some of whom are roommates too, Will and Drew and others. It's so cold here in the winter. When I arrived on Saturday, the high was in the 20s. Today, Wednesday, it is cold again, in the 30s. But on Sunday, Monday, and yesterday while we had some rain throughout Tuesday, the temperatures were warm, all the way in the 50s. Students were wearing their shorts and t-shirts! I really enjoyed the sunny days on Sunday and Monday.
One of the ice piles in Columbus:
When I arrived on Saturday evening, Micah picked me up at the airport and we drove directly to Bibibop, the first of the "fast casual" type restaurants we visited, where you walk down the line at the counter telling the worker what you want in your bowl, wrap, or salad. This one was Korean based, though I skipped the kimchi, I loved the purple rice and the sweet potato noodles as my base with toppings that I enjoy and nothing that I don't like.
Sunday was the day Micah and I spent the whole day together. We went shopping at Nordstrom Rack, Ross, TJ Maxx, DSW, Lululemon, and more. I got a new winter coat. (I can no longer zip the one that is a size small so I bought one that is a size medium and replaced it. Bye, bye purple coat.) We ate lunch together at Brassica, our second fast casual restaurant. This one is Mediterranean/Middle Eastern, and I got the falafel with exactly the toppings that I love to eat and none that I don't. We also completed his grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. Then on Tuesday, we also made a Target run for more household necessities. In the afternoon on Sunday, I got to have a nice nap at my motel. Then Alyssa and Micah picked me up for dinner at Dewey's. The pizza which was so delicious, was build your own, so once again, I got the things I like on pizza (red sauce, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, artichokes, and ricotta cheese) and nothing that I don't. This was a sit down restaurant where a server took our order so it wasn't fast casual the way the others were. After dinner, we went to Graeter's for dessert. So many choices that I love, but I went with the Buckeye Blitz Chip since I'm here in Columbus with Brutus Buckeye statues all over the place and since when I was pregnant with Micah, I craved Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Did you know I didn't like peanut butter? As a kid I didn't like PB and J sandwiches, I just had jelly on bread and called it a sandwich. But if you put enough sugar and some milk chocolate with the peanut butter, than I'm all over it. I'm sorry we didn't get a picture together, Alyssa.
Monday was my stay at the hotel and do my own spa day. I took a bath using the bath bomb I bought on Sunday, and did a face mask from my friend Megan of Y&F Comm of SURJ Bay Area. The face mask was from Halloween and I was a bat.
I tried to go to Cane's next door for breakfast but it is a drive through only. So I went next door to that to McDonald's instead. I got an egg and cheese biscuit and a hashbrown with my caramel hot chocolate. It was a lovely day listening to podcasts, going through emails, and listening to two webinars. Micah picked me up for dinner and we chose Piada, the fast casual Italian place where he got his spaghetti and toppings in a wrap and I got mine in a bowl. We saw a lot of alumni and students and fans there because it is close to the basketball stadium and Ohio State was hosting a home game that night. One woman had big red O dangling earrings. :) Before dinner, we went next door to check out the Ohio State swag. I ended up getting a red Columbia zipper sweat jacket with the O on the breast pocket area to match my blue Columbia Goucher zipper sweat jacket. I also got an Ohio State MOM sticker for my computer.
Tuesday was my "run around with Micah" day. He picked me up before his first class. I dropped him off there and drove to the Columbus Metropolitan library. It was perfect for me. I read two books, then picked Micah up from class. We went immediately to his gym for a workout while I shopped nextdoor at the Volunteers for America thrift shop in Clintonville. Micah loves thrift shopping, but he was doing his workout. I had a mission prescribed by Micah: to look for and find special clothes for him to wear to Mardis Gras where he was headed after my visit. Amazingly, I found the perfect shirt in his size with the Sugar Daddy logo and candies all over it. He loved it! And it cost me only $3.75. We then went to lunch at the Asian/Japanese fast casual called Fusion. Micah and I loved our rice bowls. Plus, after each meal there were leftovers for me to have another time in my motel room - breakfast, lunch, or even midnight snack. We returned to Micah's house so he could shower, then I took him to class again and found a visitor's parking spot on campus in a garage. It was raining so instead of walking around campus, I read my book in the car. I was reading Hella Town by Mitchell Schwarzer about the history of the city of Oakland. Every chapter is about development which happened too quickly and without proper planning, and the racism involved every step along the way. After class, we returned to Micah's place to hang out before his next class. I drove him to his final class a bit early so I could get back to his place and connect with my Spanish class online. That went well and then we went out to dinner with his best friend, Drew (from Cherry Hill, NJ), and future roommate Will (from Cleveland, OH where they will live together next year).
The three men I took out to dinner...
We went to Northstar and while it was really tasty, I found the dressing on my Buddha bowl a little spicy and had to take the scallions off. So my meal at the sit down restaurant turned out to be not as perfect as all of the fast casual meals I had in Columbus! After dinner we walked to Jeni's for dessert. So many interesting flavors, it was hard to decide! I ended up with Skillet Cinnamon Roll and Gooey Butter Cake which were both fantastic! I'll always prefer Graeter's but this was pretty amazing too. After we dropped off Drew and Will, Micah drove me back to the motel for the last time. It was hard to say goodbye, but we will see each other again in May for graduation.
Sadly, I realized when I was packing that I left my computer charger at Micah's house. So he dropped it off to me at the motel in the morning before he went to work. I got one last hug and one last moment to say goodbye. I promise I did not leave it there on purpose, but I was really glad for that hug in the morning. My mid-day flight out of Columbus resulted in extra time in my motel room in the morning so I did my second face mask, this time I was a shark. :-)
I also needed to take an Uber or Lyft to the airport. When I got there, there were literally zero people in the security line. It was kind of eerie. I had plenty of time to relax at the gate before the flight.
I could have had Jeni's at the airport:
I had flown through Charlotte, NC on American to get there and had a long walk between terminal B and terminal E between flights during the 1 hour layover. Flying home, I was on Delta and flew through Atlanta. I also had to switch terminals there, but the train makes that quick and easy. The flight to San Francisco was on a very large plane with 2,3,2 seating. I haven't been on one of those in a while, probably not since I was travelling internationally in 2011. I got home, took an Uber to my house, and tried very hard to stay awake until I fell asleep around 8:30. Luckily I was able to sleep through the night until 6 am so I'm hopefully already adjusted to the Pacific time zone.
My time with Micah was wonderful, the trip went very smoothly, and I'm glad I was able to go. I'm told I have to try Whit's Frozen Custard next trip and that is one of the things I am looking forward to doing in May.
