Day 60 - From C to shining C

To Columbus at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking near Cleveland, Ohio
 Distance - 150 miles
Time - 2 1/2 hours

Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio! After a lot of confusion as to which city is which, I feel like I can finally tell them apart and almost always say the one I'm looking for on the first try - this road trip is teaching me a lot about US geography at least. Next time I'll visit Cincinnati for the trifecta of "C" cities ;)

Wendy and I started our day with breakfast and a walk around the neighborhood, full of magnificent huge old houses. She was off to Chicago to visit friends so we said goodbye and I got on the highway to Columbus! Steve was still at work but he suggested the Cup O' Joe coffee shop in the German Village as a place to settle and blog for a few hours. The coffee was on the more expensive end of the spectrum but was good, served in nice big mugs. The pumpkin cheesecake was tasty, kind of a pumpkin pie layered with regular cheesecake baked on top, although I think if I made one I would probably swirl them together. Any willing guinea pigs?

Steve is another friend from Peace Corps - we started talking the first day when our training group met in Philadelphia and it was one of those moments when you just know immediately that you're going to be friends. After he got finished with work I met him over at his house (this is the first time we've seen each other in two years!) and we headed over to a surprise party for one of his friends. Incidentally, said friend arrived at the house and then decided to take a walk around the neighborhood, leaving all of us hiding in the basement laughing and wondering if anyone ever gets a surprise party to go exactly according to plan. I had a great time chatting with Steve, meeting new people, and eating delicious food - the highlights of the evening included playing charades and trying to take a timed photo using an iPhone propped up with several other phones (who knew we would miss the relative stability of a point and shoot camera?). I completely failed to take photos at the party, but here are some pretty ones of the walk I went on with Wendy:

I think this is actually called a "Buckeye" tree?

Random leaf that caught my eye while we were walking

Fun plant outside of Wendy's building that I really wish I knew the name of

On the road, again... ;)