Let's Go Places: Columbus, Ohio

 

It's travel time again!  Instead of taking a long weekend trip in September, I made a quick overnight trip to Grand Rapids, hung out with family on Boy Scout camp weekend, and then something came up that had me leaving home again the week after that.  Our destination this time is Columbus, Ohio.

This trip was kind of for work, if you want to stretch the point.  One of the founders of my previous company recently passed away, and the other founder held a casual memorial gathering for him.  The guest list was all of us old timers, and although the event was being held in the middle of the week, it took me all of 0.01 seconds to decide to go.

As it happens, CBUS had been on my travel agenda for a while.  I went there with my parents for a day trip in high school, and I used to work for a company that was headquartered there.  I've made a billion work trips over the years, but sadly that just means that I've spent a lot of time in offices and in hotels with precious little experience of the city.  

My agenda was:

• Arrive in CBUS on Sunday and do the tourism thing.
• Do an experimental "work from anywhere" stint on Monday and Tuesday to see if it will work to do mini digital nomad trips while the rest of the family to does the Boy Scout thing.
• Attend the memorial event on Tuesday evening.
• Go home on Wednesday.
  

I looked at places to stay and was delighted to find that CBUS is easy on the wallet.  I remembered German Village fondly from the day trip in high school, and found a sweet little condo there with a dedicated work space.  Now to plan the rest of the trip: I knew that German Village has a ton of stuff to do and has an epic bookstore, there are museums galore, parks, nature, and the State Capitol building.  I didn't have enough time to do everything but I was determined to put a dent in the list.

Sunday - wheels up

I arrived in the fair city of CBUS in the morning and my first stop was the Ohio History Center museum. 

From there, my next visit was the State Capitol.  I had never been to one before, but I'd heard rave reviews about CBUS's tours.  Cost: $0.

The city seemed absolutely empty.  I walked into the capitol building and went through security.  The guard told me that the tour had started 10 minutes before, so I could either try and catch up, or just roam around until the next tour started on the hour.

I rushed down the hall.  There was one man at the desk, and I asked him how to catch up with the tour.

He chuckled and said "you just did".

When I started my local tourism hobby last year, it made me uncomfortable when I was the only person on a tour.  Now it's one of my favorite things.

If there was one thing that I was not expecting the state capitol to be, it was pink.  The guide told me that it was considered to be a power color back in the day.

I can't speak for other state capitols (yet), but Ohio has a "this is the people's building" attitude.  Yes they do government stuff here, but they also rent it out for events and they are very open to tourism.

My next stop was the Kelton House.  Today you would describe the location as being in the heart of Columbus, but when it was built the area was on the outskirts of the city, and it was the only house there.  The owners said they chose the location because they liked being out in the country away from the hustle and bustle...

...and the reason thay liked being away from it all was something that came to light after the fact.  The Keltons were staunch Abolitionists and they walked their talk.  From the ground up the Kelton House was a posh mansion but below the surface their basement was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

I failed to get a picture of the outside of the house, but in its place let me give you the best reminder I've ever seen to respect the furnishings in a museum.

Any rate, the tour was phenomenal, so if you ever find yourself in CBUS with $10 in your pocket, I highly recommend it.

My next stop was a walk down the street to Topiary Garden.

And now it was time to go to my home away from home.  I headed over to German Village.

This is an area of the city that was settled by German immigrants in the 1800s, hence the name.  The area fell into decline from WWI to WWII when Germany and all things German took a PR beating, and then in the 50's the tide turned and it was decided that this was a cool neighborhood worth saving and preserving.

I checked into the Airbnb and hit the streets.  The Must Go place is The Book Loft.

If you've ever been here, you know that I laid eyes on every single book that I've either read or intended to read in the past 10 years.  I know that independent bookstores have had it rough, but this is one place that will never go out of business.

In the end I didn't buy anything but I was tempted...

 

Life in CBUS

I spent the next phase of the trip being a cool urban sophisticate.  I worked during the day (yawn) and went on long walks around the hood on my off hours.  The nice thing about German Village is that it's walkable for both the neighborhood and also to downtown.  I didn't touch my car from the time that I got to the Airbnb to the time that I went to the event on Tuesday.

I've been running a bit off and on, and I'll leave it for you to guess why I didn't run during my stay in German Village....

In fairness all of the sidewalks aren't all this bad, but a lot of them are due to the realities of brick sidewalks on tree lined streets.  In a perfect world I could have run on the path at Schiller Park, but this time of year there isn't enough daylight before work to get there.  Also it was freakishly hot that week so running at lunch or at night was out of the question.

Finally Tuesday evening rolled around, so I was out on the town to meet up with my old work tribe.  At this point none of us work for the original company, so it was just a meeting of friends.  Quite a few people were there from my part of the world, and it was my first time seeing them in person since the 'rona.  I mostly had a Zoom relationship with the CUBS folks anyway, but it was nice to see them in person (one last time?  Who knows).

CBUS Eats

I have two shout outs: 

• Katzingers Deli is a landmark German Village eatery.  I overstayed at the Book Loft so it was one of the few places that was still open on Sunday night.  I got a small reuben, and the portion size was just right.  I love reubens, but normally I find they have too much corned beef so I usually end up pulling most of it off the sandwich.  Katzingers got the proportions right so that every bite had a little bit of everything and not too much of anything.  If I had it to do all over again, I would have gotten a side of coleslaw.
  

• Winner Winner Not a Chicken Dinner...4th and State is a vegan diner in downtown CBUS, which just so happened to be within walking distance.  I had the buffalo chick'n salad and it was to die for.  I deeply regret only having one meal here during my stay and hope to return.
  

 

Let's Wrap it Up

• CBUS as a tourist destination: 10/10.  I liked everything that I did and there are a gazillion things that I didn't get to.  I'd love to take my family here sometime, though the reality is that once they got into the Book Loft they'd never come out.
• CBUS as a walkable city: 10/10.  I was stunned at the number of places that I was able to get to on foot.
  
• CBUS as a driveable city: 2/10.  I really can't say that traffic was that bad, but I really don't like driving in CBUS.  I don't have a good grasp of the geography, GPS is weird, and overall it's just miserable.  I drove to the event on Tuesday only because I knew it would be dark by the time that I left, and the short drive was harder than the drive to and from CBUS.
  
• Meeting up with old coworkers that I have no current professional ties with to pay tribute to one of our own: 10/10 (I mean, 0/10 for the reason but 10/10 to see them).
  
• Being a digital nomad for a few days: mixed results.
• Positive: I was able to do my job and my current coworkers had no idea that I was traveling - I didn't intend to hide it but it just never came up in the conversation so I didn't tell them.  Because of the time zone difference I was able to work in the Airbnb until checkout time on Wednesday and they were none the wiser that I drove home in the middle of the day.
  
• Negative #1: my job requires a laptop PLUS TWO large monitors.  I considered trying to skate by with just one, and with the projects that came up out of nowhere I am glad that I did not.  The condo had one monitor so it wasn't that big a deal to bring the second one from home, but if I went anywhere else I'd need to bring two.  That pretty much means I can only work from places that I can get to by car, or I'd need to find a coworking place on the road.  
• Negative #2: the condo had a dedicated work space, but the desk chair wasn't great, so by the end of each day I felt the strain in my back and neck.  
• Negative #3: my job sucks in general and being alone doesn't improve the situation.  Having my family around really takes the edge off.  While I do want to do some amount of travel in this season of being able to do my job from anywhere while the fellas are tied down at home, I'm probably not going to go gallivanting off very far or for very long.
  

 That's all for CBUS!  Who's been there?