Tuesday, March 29

Road trip...Yes, please!

There is nothing that I love more than a good adventure. 

Well, this past weekend Jake and I celebrated our one year anniversary. Yay! My gift was a random road trip. Two big thumbs up!


















Our destination was unknown, but I was given 5 envelopes each with a map in it. My random selection resulted in a trip to...WEST VIRGINIA. Yes, random location, but there is nothing better than an open road, no schedule or no actual destination. 

It began in Indiana. We started with the GPS but turned it off once we got on I-74 East. We used maps for the majority of the trip. Old school I know. It was awesome. It was so fun navigating our own way. Something about the simplicity of it all was refreshing. 

First stop... Warm Glow Candle Outlet. Any significance? No but every time I drive on this road I see this giant candle and since there was time to stop. We did. And its exactly what you'd think; a lot of candles, home decor, and knickknacks. It was cute.


Hit traffic about half way to Columbus. Semi slid off the road. This is what it looked like.



 The joys of a I-74 traffic jam. We ended up doing the same thing as the red truck. It was tough for the little Elantra, but she handled the off roading pretty well. And we were on our way again.


 Lunch time in Columbus, OH. Our original destination ended up being closed. So we resorted to our second choice. The Thurman Cafe. However, the lunch wait was an hour and a half. Apparently this is a bigger deal than we realized. And as much as we would have loved to wait over an hour for a burger, we opted out. Then came our third option. It only became an option after we UrbanSpoon'ed it. So, we ate at Lindey's. Not what we thought. Food was good. But, we definitely felt a bit out of place. Oh well, we ate.


 It was a German area. Cute and quaint. All brick streets. My favorite type.


This is where there is a break in pictures. I didn't take the camera out during the next leg of the trip. A few hours and hills later, we landed in Charleston, West Virginia. Charleston is the capital of West Virginia and also its largest city. It was green there, and there were hills. I call them mountains, but am corrected, as they are merely hills. Very different than Indiana. We shopped, drove around, ate some awesome fish tacos and listened to a DJ spin records at an authentic Charleston restaurant called Tricky Fish. Delicious and so fun.


 Jumped back in the car after a big breakfast and then headed west toward Kentucky, where we saw cows right next to the gas station. We then got to stop in Morehead to see one of my best friends (and soon to be sisiter-in-law) Kayli, which was a great surprise addition to the trip.

A few hundred mile later we found, ourselves in Cincinnati eating really delicious ribs at Montgomery Inn Restaurant. If you even remotely like bbq or ribs...do yourself a favor and drive to Cincy to eat some ribs. You won't be sorry. They're incredible. Finished off with some Graeters ice cream and jumped in the car for the final hours. Three tanks of gas later, we were back home in Indiana. After an incredible random celebration with my best buddy, it was great to enjoy the simplicity of home.

Because like Dorthy says 
"There is no place like home, there is no place like home."

2 comments:

Katherine Michael said...

I'm from Columbus, OH! I've heard amazing things about the Thurman Cafe! In fact, everyone in my family (including Josh) has been to this place except me. Also, Lindeys is super nice! I took my parents there for their 25 wedding anniversary. Fancy! :)

Sha said...

Katherine- Yes, it is very nice. I think since we went for lunch, it was a little less fancy, which was good for us being in our traveling attire :) But it was still delicious. If we ever head back that way we'll probably try to get to Thurman's and actually eat.