Today’s weather made me glad that we had chosen the truck over the motorcycles. It rained most of the day. I would have been miserable riding through all the heavy urban and interstate traffic on two wheels wearing a rubber suit.

Once again I’m sharing the planned route and the actual path we traveled. Since we’re in the truck, going straight through Columbus, Ohio on I-70 was not a giant challenge. Overall, we saw 3 museums, a broken clock, a bar (for lunch), and another hotel lobby.

Even though there was a Bob Evans Restaurant next door to the hotel, we elected to try our luck at the breakfast offerings from the Fairfield Inn, where we were staying. The food was typical hotel breakfast bar food – not fancy but edible. I found it funny that there was a fruit bowl offering and a woman grabbed the tongs and proceeded to remove all the grapes from the bowl and put them on her plate. After all she was the only person in the hotel who mattered. I swear that social distancing thing made people more inconsiderate of others.

The first item on the list was getting to the east side of Columbus, Ohio. As you can see from the planned route above, we were going to go “up and over” the north side of Columbus. We switched things up and drove right through the middle of the city on I-70. It’s reassuring to know that Indiana is not the only state with stretches of tremendously terrible roads. We did come through Columbus unscathed.

Out first target was the American Motorcyclist Museum and Hall of Fame. I paid dues to that organization for 25 years which earned me a “Charter Life Member” patch and free admission to the museum. For all the others, $10 per person seemed a little pricey. I’m sharing some pictures that I took that brought back memories from my early years on two wheels.

There was no penny smashing machine and I already had the hat pin from here so no souvenirs were purchased. On to the next stop.

Next on the agenda was something called the Woodhull Clock. I asked my co-planner what that was. He told me that I had added it to the route. Hmmmmm. I had no idea. I put a waypoint (a pin) in the map to keep us on US-40 while traveling on two wheels. It turned out that the pin fell on the small town of Granville, Ohio – home of Denison University. The only tourist attraction listed for that town is the Woodhull Clock. It’s a clock that was built in tribute to Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for U.S. President (1872). The clock has a large bell hanging on it. On each hour, a small figure should come out and ring the bell the appropriate number of times. Spencer described it best – Victoria did not do well in the election and “ironically, her memorial clock doesn’t run either.” It hasn’t worked for years.

While in Granville, we decided that lunch was in order. Just as the rain started, we ducked into the Broadway Pub. The food was good, the service was not. When we finished, we made a mad scamper back to the cars. Remember, at my age scamper may not mean what it used to.

The next “pin” was the Zane Gray and National Road Museum in Norwich, Ohio. We arrived about an hour before closing and mentioned to the docent that we were in a hurry and just wanted to walk through on our own. That woman is dedicated and was not about to let a bunch of Hoosiers invade her museum without bestowing on them her memorized presentation. We survived her explanation of the 135 foot diorama of the building of the National Road (now US-40). There is a lot more space devoted to the National Road than there is to poor old Zane Gray. I remember the Zane Gray Theater TV show from my younger day – you would think he deserved more space in a museum dedicated to him.

There was one last stop for today. It was only a few miles down the road but it was really close to closing time. Off we sped to the John and Annie Glenn Museum in New Concord, Ohio. Once again we ruined their plan because we skipped the introductory video and went straight to the walk-through. I found the museum a little disappointing. I am a big fan of the space program so I was hoping for more stories about space adventures. This was a museum / boyhood home dedicated to the story of a home town hero.

We did manage to score a hat pin. That makes it a worthwhile stop.

We drove the last few miles and are safely in for the night. Thanks for rambling along with us.