1.2 Entertainment - A Weekend in Columbus, Ohio

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Every day we will write a post on a pre-determined theme we chose from a random noun generator. The theme for the second day of the month is "Entertainment."

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I have not seen my Bestest Friend since COVID. Her parents both died, her son grew up into a giant, and I have missed so much. So I took the last weekend in October and spent two full days with her.  I drove in on a Friday and drove home on a Monday.  

The first stop I made was to get my beloved Doc Popcorn for the road. It's officially a road trip when I can drop popcorn kernels all over the car.

Friday night, I arrived late after a long drive, checked into my rather depressing Air BnB, and went over to see my friend briefly, but we're both old and I was exhausted, so we really started the next morning.

Day 1

First up, I woke up and did some yoga because I had been driving so long the day before. It felt pretty good to stretch it out. Then I picked up my friend and her son and we went to Wendy's for breakfast before we really started our big day.

Stop 1:

Bestest Friend uses the public library as much as I do and she decided we should go to a library to get a pass for the Columbus Museum of Art. You guys!  The first thing we did was go to two libraries, talk to librarians, and goof off in libraries. If you wonder why she's my Bestest Friend, now you know. (The fifteen-year-old boy humored us by taking photos for us. Bless him.)

Stop 2:

We got to the museum about ten minutes before opening, so we wandered around taking photos with the art. Once we got inside (we paid nothing! even parking was free! because of the library!), there was art. 

"Art" = "bike racks," in this case. 

The Mountain by Aristide Maillol (special guest: me).

One of our favorite exhibits was about LEGO. 

But there was other stuff.

I can't find the name of this piece, but I'm 90% the artist is Nick Cave. I 100% apologize if this is incorrect.

The museum was not a huge hit with the teenager, but the two of us olds loved it, as I'm sure you can imagine. 

Stop 3:

After a quick trip to Sonic (the second time for me in as many weeks - I'm getting spoiled), We went to the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, which was full of pumpkins and children dressed in costumes. As you can imagine, I also loved it. The teenager had been dropped off at a friend's house, so we wandered about and had a grand old time. We had gotten free tickets through the library, as well and I highly recommend you try to do this if you're going to go there. General admission is $22/person and I think that's a bit steep, to be completely honest.

Just a note that I'm wearing the red paisley scarf here. Because of course I am.

Stop 4:

After this, everyone was pretty tired, so we went back to Bestest Friend's house to let the dog out and just get off our feet for a tiny bit because then we went to Fear Columbus, a haunted house. My friend's 15-year-old son had been waiting for it all day and it did not disappoint. It was amazing. (It was also approximately a million decibels and I should have brought along earplugs, so if you are ever going to the event in the future, do yourself a favor and bring some ear protection.) My friend and her son had never been to a haunted house and it was so fun to watch their reactions!

You guys. He's fifteen and already a head taller than us.

We couldn't really take photos, but I snuck this one. Spooky street signs!

At this point, we were all exhausted, so I dropped them off at home and headed back to the Air BnB, where I wrote up this post and then collapsed into a puddle of exhaustion. 

Day Two

Our itinerary for the second day was much less ambitious because we were all a bit worn out from so much excitement the previous day and my friend and her son had work and school the next day, so we definitely couldn't fit in another evening activity. 

Stop One:

We went to Amy's Donuts to get the necessary sugar to get us through the day. I got a buckeye flavor (chocolate and peanut butter), maple walnut, pumpkin spice, and a cherry fritter.  Not a bad one in the bunch.

Stop Two: 

We went to Batelle Darby Creek, which is pretty close to the donut place. The Nature Center there is really cool and the teenage boy was surprisingly into it. They have a living river exhibit that allowed him to touch the water and the animals, a room full of pelts of various animals you could touch (snowshoe hare and beaver were soooo soft), and aquariums full of animals we could look at.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how entertained all three of us were here. I was also incredibly amused because the teenager carried the donut boxes around and when we went outside the three of inhaled donuts like we'd never eaten before.

Petting a turtle!

I swear to you that my friend did take a better photo of me where I'm smiling, but I like this one. I look like a serial killer. I find it surprisingly flattering, but I reserve the right to change my mind.

But, the real reason we went to this park is because there were bison to see!!  We walked maybe half to three-quarters of a mile to see these guys and they were snoozing. I have to admit that my friend said they were a tad underwhelming, but I thought they were cool. The teen boy had a much better time at this park than I would have anticipated. He enjoyed the telescope things to look at birds, finding woolly bear caterpillars, and petting the dogs along the trail. 

When you gotta nap, you gotta nap.

At this point, we headed back to my friend's house. Some people took naps, some people wrote postcards (ahem), some people played with the dog, and some people graded.

But then I took the fifteen-year-old and let him practice driving my car around and around in circle in a parking lot. We practiced parking, braking, and turning. We never got above 30 miles per hour. He described it as "a lot of fun," and since I drove with my other friend's daughter a couple of months ago as the designated "responsible adult" on her temp license, I think I'm settling into the role as "cool adult who will let you drive her car because she's too stupid to say no."  

We had dinner and then I headed back to the Air BnB, where I wrote this post and will probably fall asleep in a matter of ten minutes.

The weather was gorgeous this weekend. I could not have asked for anything better from Ohio at the end of October. There's still lots of Columbus we didn't do - the zoo, North Market, and Otherworld, to name a few - but I think we got a lot of the highlights. I'm definitely looking forward to doing it again soon. 

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To see what Bestest Friend has to say about Entertainment, check out her blog Too Legit To Quit.