Ohio - Day 18 - Columbus

Scioto Trail State Park, near Chillicothe
Saturday, 18 May 2019

today's route

Columbus close-up

Yellow-throated Warbler

I was lucky and started the day with a visitor on my picnic table: a Yellow-throated Warbler.  Really pretty.  And nice of him to hang around long enough for me to get a good look at him.

I was heading south to another state park today, with several sightseeing stops in Columbus, the state capital.

On the road
I started picking up even more religious radio stations than usual in the central part of the state.  I've noticed in a number of states that many of them are on the part of the radio dial (back when there was a dial) where the NPR stations are usually found, which is why I keep finding them.  Today I listened for a while until the speaker explained that liberals don't believe in freedom of religion.  Her proof?  That liberals don't want private schools to fire homosexual teachers.

As I was leaving a highway rest area, I saw a sign saying, "Buckle Up.  This may be your last chance."  I got in the habit of using my seatbelt back when I was teaching my teenage stepchildren to drive and decided it was a habit worth keeping.

Ohio has areas along the highways designated as Truck Parking.  The one I passed this morning had 20 semis and a tanker truck parked there.  My guess is that these separate areas unclog the parking lots at rest areas.

The Ohio Highway Patrol uses silver cars, and I've noticed that these are very unobvious - not easily identifiable in your review mirror.

There were long stretches of road where I couldn't find an NPR station, and I got tired of the religious and country music stations, so I had plenty of silence to think in.  The deep philosophical result of that was to notice that Ohio's major cities are: Columbus, Cleveland, Chillicothe, Cincinnati - and Dayton & Toledo?  What?  Did they run out of C names?

Topiary Park
In Columbus I once more planned my own route, with interesting results.  First I took a detour past something I'd seen on the map labeled Topiary Park.  I found the park easily but could only see one piece of topiary work from the street.  Even if the dogs and I had gotten out to walk around, I don't think I'd have appreciated it as much in real life as I can from other people's photos.  The park is said to be a recreation of Georges Sarat's famous painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte," which of course I'd never heard of.  But when I looked up the painting, I recognized it right away.  The re-creation is impressive, isn't it?

Sarat's painting

Topiary Park

The park is on grounds that used to belong to the Ohio Deaf School.  When it was established in 1829, it was one of only 5 in the US.  There's a historical marker on the grounds now.

Ohio Statehouse
It would be hard to say whether I had the most trouble driving in Columbus because of the construction blockages and detours or the road closures due to the 2019 Komen Columbus Race for the Cure (for which hundreds of people turned out).

Ohio's Statehouse

A good chunk of downtown was closed because of one or the other, especially the chunk around the Statehouse.  I'd really wanted to see this building because it's different from any capitol I've seen so far and was sorry to miss it.  I've included an online photo so you can see what I mean.  Different, isn't it?

Recycling
I was really proud of myself for being able to find an alternate route to get to the Aquatic Center north of downtown.  Of course, I wasn't interested in swimming but in the recycle bins I'd read were in their parking lot.

Ohio doesn't seem much more interested in recycling than West Virginia was, and that was starting to be a real problem for me.  I still had recycling that had accumulated since the middle of last month, and now I'm halfway through this month with no places to dump it.  And I just haven't been able to bring myself to throw it all into the trash bins.  But the only extra storage space I have in the RV is behind the toilet in my bathroom, so you can see the accumulation might be a problem.

It took me quite a while online to figure out where I could take it - I don't think in computer terms so don't search for the right things - but I finally learned that many Ohioans are able to recycle through their local trash collection programs and, for the rest of us, there are publicly available bins in a few locations around the state.  And one of those locations was supposed to be at this Aquatic Center, so by gum I wasn't going to let a little thing like construction blockages and detours discourage me.  And I found it.

Turns out the Aquatic Center is a very popular place on Saturday mornings and I couldn't find a parking place.  But seeing my goal (aka the bins) right in front of me, I had no hesitation in parking where I wasn't supposed to.  And got rid of 3 bags worth of paper and bottles and plastic and metal.  What a relief.

What's more, I managed to get past a few more detours to get back onto the highway to get out of town.

Back on the road
At a rest area near Chillicothe (the final e isn't silent) I saw a sign saying Route 23 (which I was on) has been designated United Spanish War Veterans Memorial Highway.  This struck me as odd.  The Spanish-American War?  The Spanish Civil War? Weren't they both a really long time ago so unlikely too many veterans alive to be memorialized?  (1898 and 1936-39, respectively)  But when I looked up the highway, I found almost nothing about it online.  I did find an article that said the reasons behind the special designations given Ohio highways have mostly been lost in time.  There's not even a legislative paper trail to follow.  Apparently including this one.

I've been seeing increasing numbers of hills on the horizon as I've gone south.  There are still plenty of farms, but there's a lot less flat land in the south of Ohio than in the north.

I passed an area with a sign saying it was an ODOT Pollinator Habitat Area.  So of course I had to look that up and am glad I did.

I didn't know what milkweed looks like, so I found this

The state DOT has begun a limited project of planting native prairie plant species along rights-of-way intending to restore habitat and food sources for pollinators.  They say there's still a strong agrarian contribution to Ohio's economy, and crops need pollinators.  They're especially trying to encourage monarch butterflies, which are endangered.  The DOT plans its mowing schedule around monarch migration patterns.  Incidentally, they've found they're saving about $1.8 million by not mowing as often as they usually do. 

ODOT did have a wildflower program but found the wildlife population actually decreased.  That's when they switched to this predator habitat project.  I found an interesting article online from a woman in Wisconsin who has many different kinds of milkweed in her garden and some very picky monarchs.   https://monarchsandmilkweed.com It sounds like gardeners would want to experiment with a variety when trying to promote monarch habitat.

You never know what you'll learn when you drive down our country's highways.