Goodbye Maryland, Hello...Ohio?

The downside of moving to a great new place is that it means you actually have to move. You have to say goodbye to good friends and your family. You have to go through the hassle of gathering your belongings into some kind of portable container (in our case, "Relo Cubes"). You have to spend money. And if you're moving far, you have to do it in increments. Today, after a week of visiting family in Connecticut and Virginia, we completed the first increment of moving ourselves (and our dogs) to Colorado. That first increment has landed us in a Quality Inn right next to a large Budweiser brewery somewhere outside of Columbus, Ohio (and we're toasting our successful first day with a Sam Adams and Stella Artois).

Much of the route today was through familiar territory. I've driven out to Western Maryland probably about 10-15 times over the last 2 years, because of my work in the Potomac River Basin. It's a pretty drive, but, "been there, done that." We left Fairfax, VA around 9:30 a.m., so we were ready for lunch by the time we got to Frostburg, MD. We stopped at a familiar cafe there for lunch and took the dogs for a quick walk. Then it was back in the care to finish the trip to Columbus.

From Move2008

We decided to take a slightly scenic route (which became longer than we had planned--see completely exaggerated blog post by Cassie regarding my beloved GPS). The scenic route took us through the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. This is a beautiful area with many parks and typical eastern mountains. There was snow!

Funny story, when our Cassie's inability to grasp the wonder of GPS reached it's pinnacle, we decided to stop at a McDonalds to use the bathrooms. A bunch of old men were sitting a table in the restaraunt having a grand old time. As I walked by, one of them yelled to me, "hey buddy, you wanna eat?". "Huh," I said. He pointed to dozens of buy-one-get-one-free coupons they had. I laughed and said, "Uh, we already had lunch." He urged me to take some for breakfast tomorrow. As much as I like Egg McMuffins, I declined.

Anyway, we eventually made our way to Ohio.

From Move2008

From Move2008

This is what Ohio looks like (this may be a picture of Pennsylvania, or even Maryland, but I think it's Ohio).

As a water professional, the most interesting things were seeing the back end of Yougheniny Lake, the Ohio River (which I had never seen before) and the Muskingum River (also a first for me). Unfortunately, we didn't have time to explore these places at all. Maybe next time.

The dogs were mostly unfazed by the long drive and they've made themselves at home in the hotel room.

From Move2008

From Move2008

From Move2008