Columbus to Xenia was mostly trail.
We left Columbus at a decent time and quickly got onto the trail to Xenia. The trail leaving the city was not quite as nice as the one entering, but at least we didn’t have to deal with a ton of traffic.
Most of the trails we’ve been on is part of the Ohio to Erie Trail, which honestly I didn’t know was a thing. When I made the routes it showed there were trails and I had to guess how to connect them, but in reality there are signs showing the bike route. It’s pretty nice. People also tend to be nicer to cyclists here, talking, stopping to let us cross the road, not trying to kill us when we ARE on the road. It’s a little different then at home when we usually just get yell at through car window to get off the road.
The weather was nice, no rain, sunny, not too hot. And overall we made good time getting into Xenia, which seems to be a cycling hub. Different trail spokes radiate out of the city.
Today we head to Mason, the last day traveling southwest. It’s supposed to be nice weather wise, and on top of that it’s only a 39 mile ride again instead of yesterday’s 57.
We stayed at the Ramada, and in keeping with our experiences with Wyndham properties, was not that great. It was a slight step up from the Super 8 in Mount Vernon in that it’s more updated and doesn’t smell like someone’s been chain smoking in the place, but it’s the little things. The desk where I’d be working on the time lapse and writing these posts had loose power outlets, the plugs wouldn’t stay in. That was the least of the issue since the outlets didn’t have power anyway. Investigating, the table outlets were unplugged from the wall, but when I tried to plug that back in the wall outlet would move back and I was unable to completely plug in the table plug. I ended up having to move the TV out of the way to use the outlet that was being used by a wall light, but first I had to move a large mirror out of the way that had fallen off the wall at some point and was just left behind the TV.
The bath area wasn’t much better as there was water damage under the floor tile and you could hear the mortar crunching as you walked on it. It did the same while being in the tub. The shower valve handle was just barely attached and jiggled all around and it felt like I was going to pull it off while turning on the water.
The highlight of the night was dinner, where we went to Roosters. Once we walked down there though, while they offered dine in service, you had to call in first, the sign stated walk ins not allowed. So we call while standing outside, having to wait through the phone tree, and the 3 other calls before us for them to say “oh yeah just come on in”.
The food was good and the girls were sweet, and I drank quite a few beers in a place that looked like a cross between a brightly lit family restaurant, a fast food place (based on the oddly small table we sat at), and a TGI Fridays. It’s not really a cut down, most places that I have alcohol at tend to have a dimmer atmosphere, but the large windows did let in a lot of light. By the time we left it was getting dark and the atmosphere was getting to my normal.
All in all, recommend the town and the food, not to much the hotel. Although there was a couple other hotels but they were much farther out on the route with not so much around food-wise.
