Columbus Ohio

Very early Thursday morning I crept out of Audrey and Aaron's house in Amherst and drove west.  Google Maps put Columbus, Ohio about 12 hours away, whether I took I-70, I-80, or I-90.  I chose I-80 for its lack of tolls and major cities.  Pennsylvania greeted me with a rainbow, while Ohio had a very nice sign.   I'm hoping that this is my hardest driving day for a long time. Twelve hours of nothing but interstates gets old fast. 

In Columbus I stayed with Amanda and Jeff for a night.  We met Karl and Adam for ice cream at a place called "Jenni's", which was absolutely fantastic.  I had salty caramel ice cream, but only after sampling sweet corn, blueberry, blue cheese, and a couple other flavors.  It was a tough choice! 

The next morning Amanda gave me a quick tour of campus, then left me to my own devices for an hour or two while she got started at work.  My own devices led to me drooling over the fossils in the geology building and gave me a new goal for this trip: to see as many fossil sites as possible, and hope to find a trilobite fossil worth keeping in the process.  I don't know why I love trilobites, but I do.  Of course, I had already passed up the primary trilobite sites in Ohio, so I'll have to wait until I get out to Colorado and Utah before I can start hunting. 

In Columbus I added two more items to my bread crumb list of things left behind... I think my shampoo is at Amanda's house, and I know my straw hat is sitting on the passenger's seat of Karl's car.  Such is life...