Memorial Day 2014: All Roads Lead North

I’ve had a rough time since my birthday, having been an inpatient at Ruby Memorial Hospital for a total of 12 days across two separate stays. While my 7 East family were excellent caregivers, we all agreed that we’d rather run into each other at the mall or in the park. Despite the fact the month has been pretty tough on me medically, Memorial Day weekend was one to remember. We looked at our list of Most Wanted geocaches and a map of the places we don’t get to as much and developed a plan that would take us to Pennsylvania’s only Great Lake port, the Capital of Ohio, and North Bend State Park in West Virginia—a perfect example of how West Virginia lives up to the slogan: Wild and Wonderful.

We kicked off the weekend by renting a Kia Sportage from the Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Morgantown. We decided that for a road trip, which would include some gravel roads, a small SUV would be more comfortable and utilitarian than a Chevy Cavalier or a Honda Civic. Plus, I’m in the very early stages of new car shopping and, frankly, I’m not sure what I want so it’s fun to try all manners of vehicles.

Last summer we also discovered the pleasures of “cooler living.” So I was sure to load up a cooler and book bag with snacks and drinks to keep us sated on the road. We’ve found that it saves money and gives us more freedom while on the road. No need to make stops for food unless they’re wanted. Plus, when we do eat out, we don’t have to toss our leftovers in the trash by default. By packing a few extra takeaway containers from the house, we can put them in the cooler and reheat them in the hotel room or even back at home.

We left Morgantown a little later than anticipated and north of Pittsburgh got stuck in a miles long traffic jam that foiled our effort to seek out one of Pennsylvania’s oldest geocaches, Stone Wall Stash. We typically avoid geocaching after dark unless it is specifically a night cache or an area we are very familiar with. We typically find that the added risks of injury, getting lost, or having any type of run in with police (friendly or unfriendly) take the fun away.

Because of the rapidly approaching night and cancelling the plans to find the first cache, we stopped in Grove City for dinner. There weren’t very many options that didn’t involve entering the Thunderdom—I mean parking lot for the Grove City Premium Outlets. So we figured we’d give Hoss’s a shot. They seem to be everywhere in Pennsylvania and we’d never tried one before. The service was enthusiastic and the salad bar was pretty good, though they could’ve backed off on the pepper a little bit on my steak.

On the road, I struggled to arrange lodging for the night in Erie, Pennsylvania. The holiday weekend seemed to attract a lot of folks to Erie so there were few rooms available. Normally we like to stay at mid-range hotels (some of our favorite chains include Best Western and Holiday Inn Express) but what rooms were available at this tier of hotels were all smoking rooms. This is an issue I can’t remember having since trying to find a hotel in Nashville in 1996. But Erie is a blast from the past in so many ways; I call it a 1960’s vision of a modern, mobile, middle-class America. We ended up at the Red Roof Inn.

The Red Roof Inn here has several unique characteristics that stick out to me. First, it is all non-smoking! Second, it has free nationwide long distance included in the room rate. Third, they did not lie about being right off of I-80. The noise from the interstate was hard to miss in the hotel room. Thankfully, Erie is very flat so there were no trucks engine-braking past. Once we were asleep, neither of us noticed any of this noise. It certainly didn’t wake us up.  And, finally, their grab-and-go breakfast concept is an awesome evolution of the continental breakfast. In their lobby they had a table of lunch bags and each had an apple, a blueberry muffin, and a bottle of water. So perfect!

Our first goal of the day was to find the oldest geocache in Pennsylvania: State Game Lands #109. Geocaching is a young hobby, only about 14 years old, and caches placed in 2000 and 2001 are getting harder and harder to find, especially those with a physical container. Finding the parking area was a little challenging, as was resisting the temptation to get my feet wet by seeking the cache in the shortest, most direct route. We were treated with a pleasant walk in the woods on a beautiful morning, and we did find the cache!

A tranquil place in State Game Lands 109 near Erie, PA