To Kalamazoo and back

$16.50 is what it cost in tolls to drive clear across Ohio. If you’re from Ohio, that may be a reasonable price to pay to see it in the rear view mirror, although, having now criss-crossed it from east to west, and south to north, I can see it has more good points than bad. The Cincinnati skyline is impressive in such a way that so many cities are not – approaching from the south certainly has the “wow” factor.

16 states so far ...

But, if you want to get to Michigan from Pittsburgh, there’s only one way there – through Ohio. I was going to Michigan with one objective – to add another geocache “souvenir” to my collection. And if you’re going to Michigan, why not go to Kalamazoo, because a place with a name like that just has to be interesting. Doesn’t it? Apparently not. After checking into my hotel, I headed downtown, and parked in the “Mall District”. This is an attractive pedestrianized area, with shops, restaurants, bars, and just one fatal flaw – I arrived there at around 4:30pm on a Saturday, and everything appeared to have closed down at 4pm. I know that times are hard, but it’s a vicious cycle: people don’t come, so you close down early, so even more people don’t come. We have to come up with a way to revitalize our downtown areas, to bring people back to have fun and spend money, otherwise we’re all doomed to online shopping for everything.

Bronson Park

Bronson Park was pretty, but largely colonized by homeless people. Don’t get me wrong – the homeless people have as much right to be there as anyone. The fact that they’re there reflects more on the city’s inability to provide for them than it does on the homeless, who are there out of necessity rather than choice.

But I did find a beautiful mural, so all is not lost.

Kalamazoo mural

Opposite my hotel there was a Cracker Barrel. If you travel about the US at all, you’ll know about Cracker Barrel – basic, country-style food at a reasonable price. Family style dining, down home cooking – it goes by a variety of names, but if what you want is meatloaf, or fried chicken, or chicken fried steak, with a side of mashed potatoes, or green beans, or corn, washed down with sweet tea, then this is exactly the place you’re looking for. Gourmet dining it is not; functional, it most definitely is. Anyway, Cracker Barrel is an old-fashioned country store as well as an old-fashioned country restaurant, and it happens to be one of the few stores that stock Goo-Goo Clusters – an old-fashioned Southern candy which I was eager to try, having heard of a resurgence of interest on the radio recently. You don't need to taste these - if you know that they're made of chocolate, soft toffee and nuts, then, given the name, you already know how decadent they are.

From Kalamazoo, I went south to Indiana, for my second cache. I stopped for gas on the way. To prevent “gas and run”, although you can pay by credit card at the pump, you are required to enter a zip code to verify identity. Since all my credit cards are UK cards, I don’t have a zip code, so I’m accustomed to having to pay before pumping: “$40 on number 10, please”. So I was somewhat taken aback when I looked round for somewhere to pay in advance, and the attendant just said, “Fill up, and then we’ll sort out payment”. I suppose rural communities the world over are more trusting.

Guardian stone

The next cache was at one of the distilleries on the “Kentucky Bourbon Trail” – the Woodford Reserve. It was a “virtual” cache – which means that there is no real cache to find, but rather information about the location that you have to email to the cacher to prove that you have actually been there. In this case, all the information related to a small graveyard attached to the distillery. It had a feature I have never seen before – a “guardian” statue to keep watch over the inhabitants. This is such a lovely idea that I’d like to see more of them.

From Kentucky, I drove back to my hotel – a total journey, for the day, of around 750 miles through 6 states: Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.