The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

20 July 2003

1st prize: a night in Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio - 2386.1 miles

Not a whole lot of driving today, but a lot of sightseeing, some of it deliberate, some of it due to my inability to follow directions.

First stop was Flat Rock, Michigan, where my Innocuous Zoom-Zoom Conveyance Sedan was built during the dog days of 1999. Mostly, I wanted to see if any of its sisters or cousins were being driven by townsfolk, but in a trip through four miles of side streets, I managed to find only one lowly (but immaculate) Ford Probe.

Things I didn't expect to find between there and Cleveland:

· A really big mosque;

· A nuclear power plant;

· A segment of US 6 that is co-signed with Ohio 2 for a whole 900 yards. (This latter is near Huron.)

Tonight, I'm on the edge of the Quadrangle district of Cleveland, overlooking (just barely) the Theatre district. It's 78 degrees, there's a hot tub, and pizza will be delivered presently.

Life is (sorta) good.

Posted at 4:34 PM to World Tour '03


Could you stop by my brother's house and pick up the forty bucks he owes me. Thank you.

Posted by: vickie at 6:06 PM on 20 July 2003

You can eat delivery pizza but you can't eat mayonaisse? And so how was the hot tub? Remind me to tell you our hot tub horror story.

Posted by: fredf at 4:41 AM on 21 July 2003

Hot-tubbing in Cleveland?

You are the anti-Drew Carey.

Posted by: McGehee at 7:14 AM on 21 July 2003

Hey, I need to unwind. And this one is better than the one I had in Indianapolis, if only because it's smaller and therefore better suited to double duty as a shower the next morning. Of course, this one won't hold two people, but I have no idea what that's like anyway. :)

V: Your brother owes you a lot more than $40, I suspect.

Posted by: CGHill at 2:36 PM on 21 July 2003

The great thing is, if you continue driving on I-90 another 40 miles east of Cleveland, you'll find another nuclear power plant. I grew up in that one's shadow.

Posted by: Phil at 8:52 AM on 22 July 2003

I'm not one of those people who gets antsy about nukes, but out where I live they're unheard of, perhaps because Oklahoma is awash in natural gas, which is used at most generating stations in the state. (Just doing our part for greenhouse gases, folks. And remember: if it weren't for greenhouses, you'd probably be paying nine bucks for a tomato.)

Posted by: CGHill at 3:24 PM on 22 July 2003

that nuke plant seems to have a number of design defects...

a few years ago it was hit by a tornado, which tore off all the wires. get this, its a power plant right, but without outside supplies of electricity the thing would have had an accident if they didn't get the backup diesel generators fired up in time. more recently an acid leak had almost cut through the reactor head, but someone noticed the problem during a fuel change. (no one has ever explained to me why a nuke plant has to have acid in large enough quantities to leak.)

thanx for reminding me about this thing in my back yard. Oklahoma, here i come.

Posted by: rammer at 12:57 AM on 23 July 2003