Anniversary Trip = Eating Trip (With Pictures!)
We've spent the last several days in our old stomping grounds down here in Columbus. We came down for a wedding but we extended our stay a few days to make this our anniversary trip, so we arrived on Thursday and will be heading home tomorrow. It's been a good trip -- we got to see lots of church people at the wedding and this morning, and we've done pretty much everything we had on our list to do.
Which, if I'm being honest, was mostly places to go eat.
When we were planning this trip, we were busy coming up with everything we wanted to do. We lived here for five years, so we're really familiar with the area and of course had some favorites we wanted to visit. We wanted to go the zoo. There was the wedding, and we wanted to go to services at our old church. I wanted to go to COSI, since I had never been. And there were half a dozen places we wanted to eat that we don't have around us anymore. Almost everything went according to schedule, which makes it a successful trip.
On Thursday morning we drove down and ate lunch at The Pub, which was probably our favorite restaurant when we lived down here. It's an English-style pub and they have the only fish and chips that are even remotely close to what we ate when we were honeymooning in England. Still not perfect, but very close. From there we went to the zoo, which was probably not a good idea as it was very hot and we had just eaten a huge meal. We wandered around and saw the polar bears and some of the boring North American animals, and then we went to the Asia section to see the elephants and rhinos.
We were super hot by then so we bought some...I don't even know what they were. They were like icees, but made out of frozen yogurt instead of chipped ice. They were delicious, and not a good choice, and made us even sicker than we were. We stumbled from bench to bench until we finally reached the ocean section, where we sat in the shade for a few minutes until we felt well enough to continue. (We also made a few remarks about how this anniversary trip was remarkably like our wedding day, where we both got sick on the way from the reception to the hotel.) Once we were able to booked it through the fish display and went to see the manatees, which are my very favorite zoo animals. As much as I love the Akron Zoo (we're members!) they don't have manatees, so I was pretty psyched to be able to see them again.
After admiring them for awhile we moved on and started heading back to the entrance, taking a brief stop so Lucas could be menaced by mechanical dinosaurs outside the reptile house.
The Columbus Zoo is so big that we missed probably two-thirds of it, but we've been there several times and at that point getting into air conditioning somewhere we could sit down was more important than seeing flamingos again. We headed for the hotel and after resting a bit headed across the road to get Skyline chili, which again was probably not a good choice but man, it tasted soooo good. (The heartburn at 3am was not sooooo good, but what are you going to do?)
Friday morning we went to COSI (Center of Science and Industry) that is more or less like every other science center ever. I'd wanted to go the whole time we lived here but Lucas just kept saying "It's not as good as the old one" and we never ended up going. (Apparently it was renovated some years ago and the old one was just phenomenal because no matter who I talk to, they always say "It's not as good as it used to be.") I enjoyed myself, but without kids it doesn't take long to whip through a science center like that. We saw the big (BIG) screen feature about Sue the T-Rex, which was neat even though it was in 3-D. We are, by and large, unimpressed with 3-D and just waiting for the craze to die down. Again. It took us maybe another hour to finish everything we wanted to see in the rest of the center, including the dinosaur exhibit where Lucas was threatened AGAIN, and this kind of creepy wire human skeleton that was hanging from the ceiling.
We ate lunch at the center which was not planned but was just convenient, and they served sweet potato fries so I was happy about that. We left in the early afternoon and came back to the hotel with plenty of time to get ready for the wedding.
The bride was in our youth group when we lived down here (talk about making me feel old!!) and we really love her and her family. She and her groom came over to our apartment and played board games with us a few times: they're a good couple, well matched, pretty solid in faith and sensibility. I don't worry about them, which is good because he's stationed in Hawaii and next week they fly away to live on the islands for a few years. Their wedding was beautiful: it was outside on the church lawn, beneath this huge old tree. The weather cooperated perfectly, it was a short ceremony which is totally the way to go, and it was such a great time to see everyone from our old church. We joked that we were greeted by so many people that we should have joined the receiving line. Between the ceremony and the reception we managed to talk to just about everyone, and we even got hugs from our favorite older people, who are basically everyone's grandma and grandpa. They're just the best and they just give the very best hugs ever. *sigh* We also spent considerable time talking to Dana and Eric, who were youth pastors when we started at the church and started helping out with the youth program. We always got along very well so it was nice to reconnect, to see their beautiful little girl, and to hopefully plan a fun weekend sometime in the fall.
The only downfall of the day was that we forgot it was a dessert only reception and had to hastily eat some cheese and beef jerky in the room before heading to the ceremony.
Saturday morning we slept in and then headed to The Movie Tavern for lunch. We love that place and are sad there isn't anything like it around us now. You can see a movie AND eat a meal *at the same time*, which may not seem like a big deal but is really useful when you don't want to spend extra time doing them separately. We always said it was our place to go when we wanted to see mediocre films with mediocre food, but my Cuban sandwich was really good this time and they always have fabulous fried pickles. We saw HP 7.2 (or 7B, as Lucas is calling it) and were pretty impressed. Some tears were shed by both of us at different points. Neville is my new hero (although I always thought the prophecy should have referred to him and he should have been the *real* hero anyway). The most surprising thing to me was that the epilogue was not in sepia tone. I never really realized it before but apparently when I read the epilogue it was automatically in sepia tone, so it really took me aback to see it in regular shades.
We did nothing else that day except play Runescape in the hotel room, which was frankly just about the best thing we could have done at that point. We did manage to get it together enough to go eat dinner at bd's Mongolian BBQ which is really, really excellent. If you ever get a chance to go, do it. We finished off the day with ice cream from Jeni's, which is sometimes hit or miss on flavors (wildberry lavender is a no-no, it tasted like a candle) but we really hit the jackpot this time. Lucas got Buckeye State which was peanut butter ice cream with chocolate pieces, and I got Gravel Road which is a salty caramel with nuts in. Delish. The night ended with more Runescape and a terrible disaster movie on the Syfy channel (which we insist on pronouncing "Siffie") as all nights should.
This morning we had great plans to go to church. We were in the car before 9:30 (service was at 10) all dressed and with our Bibles and ready to go. The car stuttered as we pulled out of the spot, stuttered some more, and died. We were barely able to get it back into a parking space, at which point we popped the hood and started poking around because that's the kind of people we are. Lucas pushed in a spark plug wire that looked a little loose, and once we ran back up to the hotel room to see where the closest open mechanic was we started up the car to find -- that it ran fine. In fact, it seemed to run a little better than usual. We still ran it over to Firestone and explained to the mechanic what happened, and he told us we had probably fixed the problem and were fine, so we headed up to church and arrived just as people were pulling out of the parking lot. Luckily a lot of people were still hanging around and we managed to chat to a few people and say hi before they left, which was really our main purpose for wanting to go this morning anyway. Lunch was at Noodles & Company, then more relaxing in the room and actually getting some work done before Asian Garden Buffet for dinner.
I'm pretty sure we've hit almost every attraction we wanted to hit and eaten at almost every place we were hungry for, so when we leave tomorrow we'll be able to leave satisfied. Depending on what time we wake up I may still want to go eat breakfast at First Watch (best. omelets. EVER.) but I won't be crushed if we don't make it.
As I mentioned on my Facebook page, we're not very exciting when we go on vacation, but man, we know how to *eat*.
Which, if I'm being honest, was mostly places to go eat.
When we were planning this trip, we were busy coming up with everything we wanted to do. We lived here for five years, so we're really familiar with the area and of course had some favorites we wanted to visit. We wanted to go the zoo. There was the wedding, and we wanted to go to services at our old church. I wanted to go to COSI, since I had never been. And there were half a dozen places we wanted to eat that we don't have around us anymore. Almost everything went according to schedule, which makes it a successful trip.
On Thursday morning we drove down and ate lunch at The Pub, which was probably our favorite restaurant when we lived down here. It's an English-style pub and they have the only fish and chips that are even remotely close to what we ate when we were honeymooning in England. Still not perfect, but very close. From there we went to the zoo, which was probably not a good idea as it was very hot and we had just eaten a huge meal. We wandered around and saw the polar bears and some of the boring North American animals, and then we went to the Asia section to see the elephants and rhinos.
We were super hot by then so we bought some...I don't even know what they were. They were like icees, but made out of frozen yogurt instead of chipped ice. They were delicious, and not a good choice, and made us even sicker than we were. We stumbled from bench to bench until we finally reached the ocean section, where we sat in the shade for a few minutes until we felt well enough to continue. (We also made a few remarks about how this anniversary trip was remarkably like our wedding day, where we both got sick on the way from the reception to the hotel.) Once we were able to booked it through the fish display and went to see the manatees, which are my very favorite zoo animals. As much as I love the Akron Zoo (we're members!) they don't have manatees, so I was pretty psyched to be able to see them again.
After admiring them for awhile we moved on and started heading back to the entrance, taking a brief stop so Lucas could be menaced by mechanical dinosaurs outside the reptile house.
The Columbus Zoo is so big that we missed probably two-thirds of it, but we've been there several times and at that point getting into air conditioning somewhere we could sit down was more important than seeing flamingos again. We headed for the hotel and after resting a bit headed across the road to get Skyline chili, which again was probably not a good choice but man, it tasted soooo good. (The heartburn at 3am was not sooooo good, but what are you going to do?)
Friday morning we went to COSI (Center of Science and Industry) that is more or less like every other science center ever. I'd wanted to go the whole time we lived here but Lucas just kept saying "It's not as good as the old one" and we never ended up going. (Apparently it was renovated some years ago and the old one was just phenomenal because no matter who I talk to, they always say "It's not as good as it used to be.") I enjoyed myself, but without kids it doesn't take long to whip through a science center like that. We saw the big (BIG) screen feature about Sue the T-Rex, which was neat even though it was in 3-D. We are, by and large, unimpressed with 3-D and just waiting for the craze to die down. Again. It took us maybe another hour to finish everything we wanted to see in the rest of the center, including the dinosaur exhibit where Lucas was threatened AGAIN, and this kind of creepy wire human skeleton that was hanging from the ceiling.
We ate lunch at the center which was not planned but was just convenient, and they served sweet potato fries so I was happy about that. We left in the early afternoon and came back to the hotel with plenty of time to get ready for the wedding.
The bride was in our youth group when we lived down here (talk about making me feel old!!) and we really love her and her family. She and her groom came over to our apartment and played board games with us a few times: they're a good couple, well matched, pretty solid in faith and sensibility. I don't worry about them, which is good because he's stationed in Hawaii and next week they fly away to live on the islands for a few years. Their wedding was beautiful: it was outside on the church lawn, beneath this huge old tree. The weather cooperated perfectly, it was a short ceremony which is totally the way to go, and it was such a great time to see everyone from our old church. We joked that we were greeted by so many people that we should have joined the receiving line. Between the ceremony and the reception we managed to talk to just about everyone, and we even got hugs from our favorite older people, who are basically everyone's grandma and grandpa. They're just the best and they just give the very best hugs ever. *sigh* We also spent considerable time talking to Dana and Eric, who were youth pastors when we started at the church and started helping out with the youth program. We always got along very well so it was nice to reconnect, to see their beautiful little girl, and to hopefully plan a fun weekend sometime in the fall.
The only downfall of the day was that we forgot it was a dessert only reception and had to hastily eat some cheese and beef jerky in the room before heading to the ceremony.
Saturday morning we slept in and then headed to The Movie Tavern for lunch. We love that place and are sad there isn't anything like it around us now. You can see a movie AND eat a meal *at the same time*, which may not seem like a big deal but is really useful when you don't want to spend extra time doing them separately. We always said it was our place to go when we wanted to see mediocre films with mediocre food, but my Cuban sandwich was really good this time and they always have fabulous fried pickles. We saw HP 7.2 (or 7B, as Lucas is calling it) and were pretty impressed. Some tears were shed by both of us at different points. Neville is my new hero (although I always thought the prophecy should have referred to him and he should have been the *real* hero anyway). The most surprising thing to me was that the epilogue was not in sepia tone. I never really realized it before but apparently when I read the epilogue it was automatically in sepia tone, so it really took me aback to see it in regular shades.
We did nothing else that day except play Runescape in the hotel room, which was frankly just about the best thing we could have done at that point. We did manage to get it together enough to go eat dinner at bd's Mongolian BBQ which is really, really excellent. If you ever get a chance to go, do it. We finished off the day with ice cream from Jeni's, which is sometimes hit or miss on flavors (wildberry lavender is a no-no, it tasted like a candle) but we really hit the jackpot this time. Lucas got Buckeye State which was peanut butter ice cream with chocolate pieces, and I got Gravel Road which is a salty caramel with nuts in. Delish. The night ended with more Runescape and a terrible disaster movie on the Syfy channel (which we insist on pronouncing "Siffie") as all nights should.
This morning we had great plans to go to church. We were in the car before 9:30 (service was at 10) all dressed and with our Bibles and ready to go. The car stuttered as we pulled out of the spot, stuttered some more, and died. We were barely able to get it back into a parking space, at which point we popped the hood and started poking around because that's the kind of people we are. Lucas pushed in a spark plug wire that looked a little loose, and once we ran back up to the hotel room to see where the closest open mechanic was we started up the car to find -- that it ran fine. In fact, it seemed to run a little better than usual. We still ran it over to Firestone and explained to the mechanic what happened, and he told us we had probably fixed the problem and were fine, so we headed up to church and arrived just as people were pulling out of the parking lot. Luckily a lot of people were still hanging around and we managed to chat to a few people and say hi before they left, which was really our main purpose for wanting to go this morning anyway. Lunch was at Noodles & Company, then more relaxing in the room and actually getting some work done before Asian Garden Buffet for dinner.
I'm pretty sure we've hit almost every attraction we wanted to hit and eaten at almost every place we were hungry for, so when we leave tomorrow we'll be able to leave satisfied. Depending on what time we wake up I may still want to go eat breakfast at First Watch (best. omelets. EVER.) but I won't be crushed if we don't make it.
As I mentioned on my Facebook page, we're not very exciting when we go on vacation, but man, we know how to *eat*.