Day 1 - Columbus and the Ohio State Fair

20 Foot Tall Cardinal (State Bird of Ohio)

Doesn't this look good?

Today was a very good start to our trip. We left our house by 9 am and we were in Columbus by 4 pm, which was good considering the traffic. It was also one of our longest driving days (450 miles) so it was good to get that out of the way early. After a bit of rest at the motel, we headed straight to the Ohio State Fair.  Lots of thing see – we walked the gigantic midway, watched a ventriloquist act and then some horseback trick riding. We even saw the famous "Butter Cow" which was made from over 2300 pounds of butter. Since we also went to the fair for dinner, the hard part was deciding what to eat. You can't believe all the crazy, mostly fried stuff they have at these fairs. We passed on the Roast Beef Sundae [see below], Deep-Fried Buckeyes and the Donut Burger made with Krispy Kreme doughnuts and opted for some more standard fare – Funnel Cake, a Corn Dog, a huge Gyro and washed it down with homemade Cream Soda. The best thing we had, however, was an ear of roasted corn that was dipped in a bucket of melted butter. Man, that was good!

After the fair, we drove back to the motel via The Ohio State University to see my old haunts and even swung by the state capitol in downtown Columbus. We are seeing quite a few other state capitols on this trip, so I figured why not add one more? Tomorrow we drive to Springfield, IL, which is - you guessed it - another state capitol.