NY-OHIO-MICHIGAN

For some reason even though we have been in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Hershey, PA, Syracuse, and Niagra Falls in the last week, yesterday made us both feel like we had started on a road trip. We woke up in Buffalo to the sight of not so crowded rush hour traffic, munched on day old, cold “pizza” (not the delicious kind), packed up our stuff - including for the first time our Pur Water Filter and headed west.

One of the reasons we stayed at a hotel was to charge the plethora of electronics. Unfortunately we can’t seem to find the charger for the big camera (could it be in Maine or New York?). While this isn’t the end of the world, it means we only have the iPhone and flip cam the trip. It’s probably going to be worth buying a new charger or at least a digital camera with a zoom from Target.

Driving west from Buffalo was interesting for a few reasons. The first - both Matt and I felt like we were very far away from New York City, which we were. This feeling however, and our general new-york-city-centric-state-of-being caused us to be regularly surprised when we were surrounded by New York license plates or when we saw signs for the New York Turnpike. In addition to the New York license plates, I was caught a little off guard when the drive on 90W into northern Pennsylvania was lined with grapes. Vineyards along Rt. 90 - go figure.

The drive was relatively uneventful through NY and PA and we pulled into Youngstown right on schedule, that is to say, three hours after we decided to leave Buffalo. Though we only stayed about an hour and besides a stop of Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream drove around the city it was well worth the trip. We decided to drive to Youngstown because when I was a sophomore in college I took a class called Urban Politics. In it, we read an article called “Smart Decline.” It described how Youngstown, like many similar rust-belt cities, faced a declining population when the steel industry collapsed. 170,002 people lived in Youngstown in 1930. Today the city’s population is 80,000. Youngstown, unlike other similar cities, developed a unique strategy to cope with their declining population. As opposed to attracting new business and building spaces that would be attractive to potential industry Youngstown began knocking down abandoned buildings and tending to the empty spaces. In our short drive around the city we were delighted to see that the master plan was being enacted. In addition to small parks throughout the city and Mill Creek Park which stretches for miles on the west side and is filled with playgrounds, fields, and walking trails, the green spaces that made Youngstown unique were located on street corners, in between office buildings downtown, and on busy and stranded intersections alike. The nonprofit Youngstown Community Corrections Association, CCA, has taken on Youngstown’s South Side and created 24 manicured parks. We drove through a few different neighborhoods which all seemed to be racially and economically diverse and well i’d be okay if Youngstown had a neuroscience program. Caught up conversation (and trying to find the ice cream) we forgot to take pictures of these spaces... We’ve learned our lesson.

Also noteworthy - the Ohio Tree is the buckeye tree - buckeyes are similar to acorns without the cap. A hard brown shell on the outside with tan fibers on the inside, they have been honored with buckeye candies - chocolate outside with peanut butter insides. If you make it to Youngstown, which you should - have buckeye ice cream and Handel’s. It was delicious.

We left Youngstown for Akron to find Mustard Seed Market and Cafe in Akron, OH. Mustard Seed is the largest locally owned organic market it Northern Ohio and after the disappointing dinner at Anchor Bar I thought it would be worth the trip. Nothing really exciting happened except we got some yogurt for breakfast, chips for salsa, and lentil and sweet potato soup as a snack. It tasted good.

Leaving Akron we decided to take local roads to Toledo since we’d been on the interstate all day. Rt 18 to Rt 20 if you’re following at home. The road essentially paralleled I-90 so we figured if it got too slow we could always jut north though one of the towns. I have to admit some of the towns along the way seemed awesome - very similar to the coast of Maine with a small park in the town center and local shops on the perimeter. In between the towns though was corn and soy. We were expecting to drive between corn and soy but didn’t think it would be so close to NY. Funny enough there wild juxtapositions along the road - we saw a lot of John Deer tractors harvesting corn in the fields, run-down farm houses, and quite a few newly modeled faux-stone mini-mansions. Not sure if they’re the modern day plantation houses or what.

About 45 minutes after driving on Rt 20 while Matt was napping I decided to wanted to drive faster than 50 miles an hour and decided not follow directions but rather head north on a road that intersected with Rt 90. While it didn’t work out as planned - I did get to drive a lot faster. County Roads apparently have no speed limit. Even if they did there is absolutely no reason, short of the sherif living on one, for police to drive on them. Despite almost hitting a bird and a dog driving fast through corn fields on very narrow streets was awesome. We we’re making up some time too and were excited to see the interstate in front of us until we saw the white and orange sign reflective sign that said “Road Closed - Bridge Out.” It was about this time that we learned another lesson. Toll Roads in Ohio don’t have many on/off ramps and even though a county road intersections with the interstate it doesn’t mean you can get on. More corn and soy later we made it to the interstate and (I) counted down the miles until the Michigan border where the speed limit reflected the true mid-western spirit.

We pulled into Detroit (actually Birmingham, MI) around 8:15 where Kathy and Steve (friend’s on my side) had fresh fruit and vegetable pies and a comfy bed and washer and dryer and so many beautiful things to look at waiting for us. We chatted for a long while and then headed to bed to get ready for a big day of running. GRE-prep, Dearborn, and THE HENRY FORD!!!