Columbus, Ohio, again

 Greetings after a long weekend to Columbus, Ohio, and back. Corridors of autumn colors all the way. The grape vineyards in Chautauqua County had gone yellow and brown.

        Usually by this time of the month, frost and winds have taken their toll, but not this year. The atmospheric phenomenon that's blessed us with this long stretch of beautiful days held steady all weekend. Except Monday after we crossed back into New York. Must have been Lake Erie generating those gloomy skies. And now, on Tuesday, it's back to sunshine.

        The X-1, with its defective shifter freshly replaced under an extended warranty at 109,000 miles and its tires newly inflated, ate up the highway without a burp, sometimes at 90 mph or better. Driving time: About 5 hours each way. Monica nixed a proposal to follow U.S. Route 62 through Amish country to Canton, Ohio, on the first part of the return trip. She just wanted to get home.

        Our only breaks, aside from a couple bathroom stops each way, were at Portage Pies in Westfield on the way out, picking up a peach and an apple -- my God, they're good! -- and for gas at a Shell station just north of Columbus on the way back.

        Gas mileage was par for expressways, about 34 mpg. Stations in Ohio flashed prices higher than Buffalo -- mostly $4.49 vs. mostly $4.29 here for regular. But the X-1 doesn't drink regular. It was $5.80 for 93 octane, 90 cents more than my pre-trip fill-up at Delta Sonic. First time a gas pump has nailed me for more than $80. 

        I always feel at home with Monica's nephew Justin and his wife Brittny. We all seem to be pretty much on the same wavelength. This was our first look at four-month-old Benjamin, who's a big smiler. His brother Henry once again was a delight. Now talking -- although only his parents can decipher what he's saying -- he's got a voracious appetite and he's a grabber. Two years old next month, he'll go after anything within reach.

        Watching Henry flashed me back to my youngest days. He was recovering from an ear infection -- I remember lots of those. And I remember what it was like wearing diapers and how much I wanted to be rid of them. I'm sure he does too. Monica, Justin and Brittny said their memories don't go that far back.

        Henry and Benjamin (Henny and Benny?) being 17 months apart, I envision them being big-time playmates as they grow up, like me and brother Tom, with our 22 months between us.

        With the kids, I expected we'd spend these days close to home in suburban New Albany and we did. We met for lunch (after Henry went to kid birthday parties in parks both days) at restaurants downtown, minutes away from their house -- the brew and sports pub Rusty Bucket once more, which is part of Brittny's family's restaurant holdings, and Hudson 29, which seems to be all booths.

        Both are in this little shopping complex in the heart of the town, off Market Street. So were the places where our takeout dinners came from -- Mellow Mushroom Pizza and Thai food from Bendi Wok N Bar.

        New Albany continues to seem like a little world of its own, like where the Jim Carrey character lives in "The Truman Show." Justin and Brittny are in a newish neighborhood of almost identical homes with brick front walkways and little mailboxes at the curb. It surrounds a two-block-square park with a playground and gazebo, where we took afternoon walks with Henry. Otherwise, we watched football -- interrupted by endless political attack ads, including that godawful one featuring gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton's pathetic mom -- and scrolled our laptops.

        This was our fourth visit to Columbus. First time in November 2021 was for Justin and Brittny's wedding, which was in Dublin, northwest of the city. Second time, May 2023, was on the way back from the Bourbon Trail in Louisville, when they lived on the edge of downtown and we stayed a night with them. Third time, en route to Chicago in August 2025, they'd moved to New Albany and had Henry. Our hotel, a Hampton, was a short hop away, on a commercial strip on nearby U.S. Route 62.

        This time Monica booked us into an upgrade from the Hampton, the Hilton Columbus at Easton, where Justin's parents, Mark and Jackie, had stayed. Still in the northeast suburbs, 20 minutes away via expressways, it's vast (345 guest rooms, 16 meeting rooms) and kind of overwhelming. Open parking space late at night was a long way from the lobby. A shortcut to our second-floor room Saturday evening took us past a large Muslim wedding reception. Sunday night there was table setup for a statewide conference of Ohio educators the next day.

        To complicate our travels to and fro, Monica's GPS  didn't clue us in about highway construction that blocked the expressway exit we needed to get there at night. It also messed us up on our way out on Monday. It automatically changed our destination from Whole Foods in the huge shopping complex next to our hotel, where we planned to stock up for the highway, to a different store in another section with a similar name. At least it was helpful on the way home. It alerted us to every upcoming police speed trap.

Cheers,

Dale

Afterglow of a weekend in Columbus, Ohio

Fifteen takeaways from a wonderful wedding weekend last weekend in Columbus, Ohio.

1.   Centralizing everything around a single hotel and cluster of nearby restaurants is the way to go. No shuttling thither and yon. Best of all, the unfamiliar people in the wedding party stop being strangers in short order. You run into them everywhere.

2.   They should make those traditional glasses for Jewish weddings easier to break. The only glitch in the ceremony for Monica’s nephew Justin and his bride Brittany was when time came to crush it. It took the groom a second stomp. Not the first time I’ve seen that happen.

3.   Brittany did her bridesmaids a big favor. They can use their dresses again. On this black-and-white themed occasion, they had to wear black, but they got to choose their own gowns.

4.   The youngest guest charmed everyone. Not quite six months old, the groom’s nephew Noah was sweet and smiley. No crying at all.  

5.   Everyone should schedule weddings on the night when Daylight Savings Time ends. Having that extra hour is a blessing on the morning after.

6.   I want to go to another Cameron Mitchell restaurant. CM did the Friday night rehearsal dinner and the Saturday night wedding party in The Exchange, an event center attached to our accommodations in the AC Hotel by Marriott in Dublin, a burgeoning upscale suburb northwest of Columbus. CM also did the women’s and men’s bachelor night parties on Thursday in the Pearl and the Avenue Steak Tavern, across the Scioto River from the hotel via scenic footbridge, and the Sunday brunch at the Avenue. Inventive food, top-notch service. CM has restaurants across the nation. Nearest to us are the ones in Columbus. (Photo: Hotel from the footbridge.)

7.   Did Cameron Mitchell also arrange the weather? It was perfect. Sunny, dry and unseasonably warm all weekend.

8.   Downtown Columbus is 20 minutes away from almost everywhere. That’s about how long it took to drive to the Columbus Museum of Art in the heart of the city.

9.   The CMoA ain’t as grand as its counterpart in Buffalo, but it has its charms – at least four Picassos and an excellent cafeteria. Plus they’re part of that reciprocal deal with other museums. We got in free.

10.                 Same at the Franklin Park Conservancy and Botanical Gardens. They’re reciprocal too. Compact compared with Buffalo’s botanical gardens, but it’s well-kept and has lots of Dale Chihuly glasswork. Bonus: The route there via Broad Street is lined with 19th century mansions. (Photo: Chihuly at the botanical gardens)

11.                 Field of Corn. A quirky piece of public art on a broad expanse of corporate lawn in Dublin – 109 six-foot-tall concrete ears of corn on what was a farm not so long ago. We saw a photo of it in the CMoA, then I accidentally came upon it when I was out shopping. (Photo: Monica with the concrete corn.)

12.                 Kroger’s. This Cincinnati-based supermarket chain’s big new Dublin store didn’t have Quinn’s peanut butter-filled pretzels, like the Internet promised, but it had a Starbucks and Southern Tier Brewing Co. beers.

13.                 Public radio. Unlike Buffalo, Columbus still has two NPR stations – WCBE (which stands for Columbus Board of Education) and university-based WOSU. I tuned in WCBE, but felt starved for local spot news.

14.                 Like the bride’s gown, all the flowers were white. I wanted to take some with us, but walking out with a window-box-sized table centerpiece seemed like a no-no. I plucked a single white rose instead. It’s still white and bright in a vase on our kitchen counter four days later.

15.                 Also enduring is the ceremonial loaf of challah that was blessed at the Friday night reception prior to the rehearsal dinner. I asked an attendant who was clearing things away if we could take a piece with us. Minutes later he reappeared with the whole thing – a golden monster the length of a French baguette – double-wrapped in plastic. It also lives on, sliced up in our freezer, taking up major space.

On the road again

 Friday 5 November 2021

The plaque at the rest stop Thursday displays the name of the governor and it’s a strange sight. Mike DeWine. Flash to the 2016 Republican presidential primaries and flash right back again. My God, this is the first time I’ve been outside of New York State since the pandemic began.

The occasion? Monica’s nephew Justin’s wedding. It’s in Columbus, Ohio, a place where one might catch sight of Mike DeWine in line at a coffeeshop. To be more specific, though, the nuptials Saturday will be in Dublin, a burgeoning suburb on the northwest edge of Columbus. Although it’s going to be a big wedding, we probably won’t see the governor there.

Getting to this place is simple. Zip west on I-90, turn left just before Cleveland, go south-southwest another couple hours at 70 or 80 mph on I-71 and here we are. A couple times before we turn, the car dings to tell us to watch for ice because the temperature has dropped to 37 degrees. No ice or snow, but we keep running in and out of rain.

Monica proclaims it a boring drive, so she enlivens it with the new David Sedaris book, “A Carnival of Snackery,” on audio, her favorite way to read these days. I take in the scenery, pointing out the bright autumn colors on our corridor through Western New York, then watching them turn back to green the deeper we descended into central Ohio. The rain stops. It gets sunny. Farmers till fields, raising big clouds of dust. October was a wet one in Buffalo. Here, apparently, not so.

We tuck into the sixth floor of the brand new AC Hotel by Marriott on the east bank of the Scioto River and befriend the crew at the desk – a Black porter named Joseph and two guys with accents. Monica asks the fellow checking us in where he’s from. Guess, he says. “Turkey,” I say. Right. He’s pleased. Guess where his sidekick, the other guy behind the counter, is from, he says. “Antarctica,” I declare. No, no, he’s from Turkey too.

For Thursday night dinner, the men and women of the wedding party separate into side-by-side restaurants on the opposite bank of the Scioto – the ladies to The Pearl, the gentlemen to the Avenue Steak Tavern. Although it’s a day short of the weekend, both places are packed. Nobody’s masked.

I sit with the old guys at the end of one of two long tables set up for us at the far wall of the Avenue and get to dine with the man who built both of these restaurants and had a hand in developing our hotel and all the new stuff around it, including the footbridge over the Scioto that connects them all. He’s David Miller, uncle of the bride. We get the best of attention from the servers, the managers and the chef. Appetizers appear immediately and they’re upscale and endless. Steaks are recommended for dinner, but the menu also includes a touch of home. Not wings, the other one. Beef on weck. I can’t resist. Turns out David has Buffalo connections.

There’s an after-party back on the east bank of the Scioto, right across the street from the hotel in a place called Pins – a sprawling bar and pinball game room, the centerpiece being a long wall of automated duckpin bowling games. Here I get a chance to pick up the one article of clothing I forgot to pack – a T-shirt to sleep in. The shirt is black, emblazoned with the head of a tiger with a duckpin in its mouth and a motto: “Always Fast-N-Hard.”

Cheers,

Dale

 

 

 

Preliminaries to a wedding

Wilcox Mansion minus something

Friday 30 August 2019 
I just searched my phone for photos from the drive to New York City on Thursday and found only one – a picture I took before we even left Buffalo. For a restoration project, they’re removing the columns from the front of the Wilcox Mansion, known to the U.S. Parks Service as the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, and shrugging off the complaints of my passenger, I detoured down Delaware Avenue to see it on our way out of town. 
So on that evidence, it seems like the seven-hour trip was pretty uneventful when we weren’t fearing sudden death, most dramatically from a demon motorcyclist on the expressway leading to the George Washington Bridge, who roared loudly past us on the right and wove through the rest of the 80 mph traffic at what must have been 110+. We expected to see him splattered on the highway ahead, but apparently this was his lucky day.
We stopped for fresh corn outside Mount Morris (that unattended wooden cart should have been a picture), and made a couple other pit stops, but not for fuel. There was just one change of drivers, for a couple hours, and then I was behind the wheel the rest of the way to Whitestone, Queens. We arrived when the GPS said we should – a little after 9 p.m. Yes, it took a while to escape the clutches of home.
Today is all anticipation for the wedding on Saturday – Monica’s brother’s daughter Stephanie and her longtime boyfriend, Josh Gluck. The hair stylist made a home visit this morning for Monica and her mother. Monica currently is at a nail salon, her first visit to such a place in years and years.
Me, I’ve gotten the bugs washed off the car, gassed it up and made a visit to the local Target for a few essentials, such as seltzer and the new Taylor Swift CD.
Tonight there’s pre-wedding dinner with the happy couple avec famille at an Italian place in Long Island City, close enough to the East River that it might give us the view of Manhattan at dusk that I didn't dare to take while crossing the Whitestone Bridge last night.

The happy couple

Well played

Monday 15 July 2019

“What a primo day,” my astrological twin Jack Dumpert proclaims as we reach our room on the eighth floor of the Hilton Back Bay Boston a little before midnight. “We filled it up nicely.”

Given plenty of open hours before the Boston Red Sox-Toronto Blue Jays night game in Fenway Park and no particular places to go, we find a few.

First, some place for a morning meal, which this pricey hotel does not provide. No problem. We can practically fall out the front door into Flour Bakery & Café, a tiny corner shop with a high rating on yelp.com. I opt for lunch – the house smoked salmon and summer bean salad with black quinoa – and feel like a health nut.

On Sunday, I spotted a big Barnes & Noble store on the second floor of the Prudential Center a couple blocks away and I reckon it has the new Santana CD. And so it does. Jack checks to see if a certain book, “Liminal Dreaming” by Jennifer Dumpert, is in stock. It’s not in the store, the clerk says, but we can order it.

We walk the length of a glitzy shopping mall in the Prudential Center that has stores that never dream of coming to Buffalo. Like Eataly, which makes Whole Foods look like a dollar store. The produce section is so perfectly arranged it seems curated. Not surprisingly, cherries that cost $5 a pound in the Lexington Co-op are $8.95 at Eataly.

Exiting onto Boylston Street, we have needs. I need to track down a pharmacy – I ran out of the toiletry that nobody thinks they’ll ever run out of until they suddenly do – dental floss. And Jack needs to tap a Bank of America ATM for cash, a need complicated by the fact that access to the BofA branch opposite the Prudential Center is blocked by an active backhoe.

But BofA branches are as abundant as Dunkin Donut shops in this town. Another one is just three blocks away. Walking there in the noontime sun (86 degrees and humid) convinces us to retreat back to the conditioned air of the Prudential Center, where one of the street-level storefronts houses a Tesla salesroom.

We do a sit-down in the Model X, Tesla’s new SUV. Awesome control screen. A swept-back windshield apparently inspired by Elon Musk’s receding hairline. A price tag of $99K. We tell the sales guy we’ll invest in Elon’s solar roof shingles first.

When we emerge again at mid-afternoon, it’s to position ourselves near our evening destination. A likely staging area is Sweet Cheeks, a smoke-scented barbecue joint just past the ballpark on Boylston which I spotted on a foodie website that raved about its biscuits.

The biscuit (we share just one) exceeds its reviews – huge, fluffy and served with ever-so-lightly honeyed butter. That, and an irresistibly sweet barmaid named Alyssa who says she has come from New Jersey to Boston to study so she can do good things for the world, inspire us to hang at the bar for a second round of local craft beers and more to eat.

We split a lunch platter of pulled pork, pulled chicken, one barbecue rib and collard greens, splashed with sauces that put Dinosaur BBQ’s to shame. One shared serving turns out to be plenty. Once we hit the ballpark, I have no appetite left for a Fenway Frank.

Our seats in America’s Most Beloved Ballpark, which seems cavernous after McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, are in the lower loges on the first-base side. From maybe 20 rows behind the Red Sox dugout, we feel intimate with the guys on the field.

As the first pitch is thrown, however, our marvelous view is blocked by a swarm of vendors carrying their wares on their heads in trays and boxes. Peanuts, half a dozen kinds of beer, soda, water, pizza, burgers, ice cream, Fenway Franks, there’s no end to them. They return again and again all through the game.

And what a wild game it is, at least to start. It takes more than an hour and a half to play the first three innings, after which the score is Red Sox 10, Blue Jays 4. At that rate, they’ll still be batting at midnight, like the Sox did when they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 12 innings on Sunday.

But a lot of pitching changes have a way of settling things down and speeding up the pace of play, at least until the Jays erupt for four runs in the top of the eighth inning.

The Sox don’t want to let this one slip away, so they bring in their terminator, their ace reliever, Brandon Workman, for the ninth. The Jays are snuffed, 10-8, and 35,616 fans are outta there.

It’s a joyous throng that boils out onto Boylston. We flow with it all the way past the Fens and the Berklee College of Music, where students are still walking the streets with instruments slung over their shoulders, and a couple blocks further to our hotel, where our fine day gets a final toast in the bar. Well played all around.

The real McCoy

Sunday 14 July 2019

How could anyone not fall in love with McCoy Stadium? Tucked into a neighborhood in Pawtucket just north of the Providence city line, it’s cozy (just 7,500 seats), convenient and iconic, dripping with history.

Do you know McCoy Stadium was the scene of the longest professional baseball game ever played (33 innings)? We know now. It’s also festooned with photos of players in Pawtucket baseball caps who went on to become stars with the parent Boston Red Sox.

Jack and Big Papi

We’re among the first 4,000 through the gates, so we get bright red Pawtucket caps, too. They’re keepsakes. After this season, no more Paw Sox. No more Red Sox logo with bear paws sticking through the toes. Next year they’re in Worcester, Mass., and a new 10,000-seat stadium. The Woo Sox.

But will Woo Sox stadium have a grassy area above the outfield wall – the Berm – where fans can sit and picnic? Will its concession area seem like a farmer’s market, open air on one side? Will its fans cheer as loudly for a hit to save the day in the bottom of the ninth inning?  

Like everything else around here, however, we yield to the gravitational pull of Boston. The main inbound expressway from the south is stop-and-go, even on a Sunday. Then there’s Massachusetts Avenue, a war zone after a bombing, trash everywhere, crowds milling around abandoned buildings.

And then we’re surrounded by the glitz of downtown, our home for the next two nights. In the Hilton Back Bay Boston, we’re greeted by another ever-so-helpful clerk – a pleasingly plus-sized, mocha-skinned woman named Samantha whose birthday is July 19, right between mine and Jack’s. We commune as Cancerians and she gives us presents – cold bottles of water and tickets for a free drink at the hotel bar.

Once again we’re on the eighth floor, but this time the room (twice the price of our Providence accommodations) gives us what we want – two queen-sized beds. Office towers dominate our view.

Our view in Boston 

One block up Dalton Street outside our hotel is the Summer Shack. For its restroom door images, the men are crabs and the ladies are lobsters. We pull up to the bar and watch the Red Sox struggle on ESPN against the high-flying Los Angeles Dodgers over town in Fenway Park. That’s where we’ll be when the Toronto Blue Jays arrive Monday night.

Is the Summer Shack crab cake better than the one Jack got in Providence? I order one, Jack samples it and declares, yes, it is. But it’s still not up to Baltimore standards.

Meanwhile, his lobster roll has the perfect halo of mayo. Miraculous! His steamed clams are the stuff of heaven, too, thanks to a little crock of buttery sauce. That sauce also transubstantiates my other appetizer – lobster pot stickers – and I tell the bartender it should be their universal condiment.

As for beverages, I’m true to local brew, in this case Lord Hobo Brewery from Woburn, Mass. An OK IPA called Angelica, followed by a delicious double IPA called Boomsauce.

Now if the Red Sox can make good on their come-from-behind effort in tonight’s game – it’s going way into extra innings – there could be joy in Boston after all.    

Providential!

Saturday 13 July 2019

       All gassed up, packed and ready to roll to Rhode Island Saturday morning, if only I could finish all the stuff – primarily watering in advance of a long dry weekend – that needs to be done at home.

       What’s supposed to be an 11 a.m. exit is a whole lot closer to noon. Nevertheless, my astrological twin and co-pilot Jack Dumpert is forgiving. Once we hit the I-290, it starts to feel like an adventure.

       As adventures go, it’s sunny, way faster than the speed limit and remarkably without incident. The itinerary is hard to mess up – a straight shot down I-90 to Worcester, Mass., then a right turn and an hour later the towers of downtown Providence, such as they are, rise before us. Three stops, one change of drivers back and forth, 7½ hours, 450 miles or so, not even a whole tank of gas.

       I remember my phone charger and my meds and other supplies, but I always forget something. Around Batavia, I suddenly realize what it is – the tickets! I left behind the print-outs of the receipts for this baseball excursion – the Buffalo Bisons vs. the Pawtucket Red Sox on Sunday afternoon in beloved McCoy Stadium, to be abandoned next year when the team moves to Worcester, followed Monday night by the parent teams, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park in Boston. But not to worry. The tickets came via e-mail. At the hotel, I can print them again.

       Ah, the hotel! A lacrosse tournament has fully engaged the Hampton Inn and Suites and every other lodging in downtown Providence. The room we expected to get with two beds has been “upgraded.” Spiffier, yes, with a great view from the eighth floor, but only one bed. We may be astrological twins, but we’re not Siamese twins. Our super-helpful desk clerk, Aaron, can’t help us here. He suggests, apologetically, using the pull-out couch. He also gives us $25 off.

       When it comes to restaurants, however, Aaron is flawless. We want a seafood place and he directs us to a dandy one – Hemenway’s, a short stroll via pedestrian bridge across the Providence River (gondolas!).

This being sort of the coast of New England, the seafood is fresh at Hemenway’s. So is the local craft beer. So is our barmaid, Holly. 

We tuck in at the bar for ceviche in a spicy sauce of the Puerto Rican chef’s creation, local oysters and a chilled seafood medley salad, which I order when I see the magic word “lobster.” All excellent. Only disappointment – the crab cakes, a far cry from what you get in Baltimore, says Jack.

We hear live music on our walk back to the hotel and detour slightly to discover a quartet of gray-haired guys playing old standards on the sidewalk. They’re outside a restaurant which has filled the street curb to curb with white-tablecloth-covered tables, most of which are occupied. We arrive just in time for the last number. Providential!