Subject: Ohio Road Report
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 92 22:21:27 EST
From: Jim.Rees@umich.edu

Since I only had two days, I left Ann Arbor early Saturday morning,
headed for Pittsburgh.  I went straight down to Toledo, not even
stopping at Roy's BBQ in Milan.  I came in to Toledo on Central
Avenue, turned down Cherry Street, and stopped in at Ted's Hamburgers
for a quick lunch before heading back out of town Ohio route 2,
which I planned to take all the way to Cleveland.

I didn't stop again until I got to Port Clinton, a very nice little
town with a hotel.  I stopped there for coffee and asked about the
bridge across Sandusky Bay.  The old-timers there were discussing
guns.  They had some discouraging news; the bridge had been closed
a number of years previously, and the only way across was by freeway.

I went out to the old bridge anyway.  On the way I stopped in at
the airport to ask about flights to Put-In Bay.  The Ford Trimotor
I used to fly in as a kid is no longer running, but they still fly
out to the island, and it's still the shortest scheduled air service
in the country (under four minutes).

The old bridge was indeed out.  There were people fishing off the
end of it.  I detoured onto the freeway for three miles.

I got off the freeway and onto U.S. 6 for the trip into Sandusky.
Nothing going on there outside of Cedar Point season, so I moved
on.  Huron was pretty dead too, but they have a nice bike/walking
path along the canal.  There was a bridge out on the other side of
town, so I detoured again, but managed to stay off the freeway this
time.

Starting on the far side of Huron was a long strip of rich people's
houses built right on the lake.  I passed up the Great Lakes Museum
in Vermillion.  I wonder how many Great Lakes Museums there are in
the midwest?

Lorain was a ghost town.  Over half the downtown store fronts were
abandoned.  But they did have a downtown hotel, which is rare in
Ohio.

Coming into Cleveland was like driving into Detroit on Jefferson
through the Grosse Pointes.  Lots of huge expensive houses.  I
stopped for the night within walking distance of Cleveland, in
Lakewood, at a roadhouse/hotel in a walkable neighborhood.  I had
dinner in a 24 hour corner lunch counter place, then drove into
downtown Cleveland.  Nothing much happening there except for a big
downtown shopping mall.  I went back to Lakewood and found a street
with six bars, all with live bands.  One boasted a former member
of the James Gang.  It was easy to see why he was a former member,
playing divey bars in Cleveland.  A complete burnout.

In the morning I hit the first diner of the trip, John's Diner on
Detroit Street in Lakewood.  This is a great place, crowded and
noisy, with excellent food.  It's an old wood and tile railroad
style diner, and has been surrounded on three sides by a cinder
block addition, but the inside is in good shape.

Heading out of town on Woodland Road I went through some pretty
desperate looking slums, then in one three block stretch went from
public housing to million-dollar Shaker Heights homes.  I followed
Woodland all the way in to Middlefield.  This is an Amish town,
and church must have been getting out, because there was a traffic
jam of black horse carriages there.

Next I went through Parkman to Garretsville.  The town is built on
a river, and the backs of the buildings on Main Street are right
on the water, Venice style.  The upper floors have apartments in
them and people have built all sorts of interesting decks to take
advantage of the river view.  I had lunch there and encountered a
rarity -- cream for my coffee!  Ohio is not a big dairy state, and
normally they put a soybean and corn syrup concoction in their
coffee.  I pocketed a half dozen creams for future use and headed
out of town on Ohio 82.

Just out of town I crossed an abandoned railroad right-of-way that
looked passable on foot, so I stopped to explore.  I parked the
Buick and walked back towards the highway overpass, where I sat on
the edge and watched the traffic go by.  When I got back to my car,
I found two of Garretsville's finest checking it over.  Had the
waitress in town seen me pocket the cream and turned me in?  No,
they just get suspicious when they see someone parked by the old
railroad bridge.  No wants, no warrants, so they let me go.

Newton Falls had a very attractive Main Street, and a covered bridge
in town, next to a trailer park.  I went down to Milton Lake next
and watched people fishing at the bottom of the dam.  Then I crossed
the lake and headed south on Ohio 534.  I took 14 into Salem, which
had nice old factories, then explored Leetonia, which is built on
a steep hill.  Franklin Square was next, a tiny town with very
eccentric residents.  Then I followed little roads along the middle
fork of the Little Beaver Creek, across two covered bridges, and
into Lisbon.

Lisbon is unique in Ohio for having two functioning diners within
sight of each other.  The Coller Diner is of the old wood and tile
variety.  I chose the Steel Trolley, one of the finest examples
of chrome and steel diner style in all of Ohio.  It's open 24 hours
and has great pies.  I broke out the contraband Garretsville cream
to celebrate.

By this time it was getting dark, so I headed straight in to
Pittsburgh on U.S. route 30.  This is an exciting, hilly road in
the daytime.  At night, it's terrifying.

After two hard days on the road, I pulled in to the Ramada Inn.
I got there at the same instant that my fellow travellers did.
They had left Ann Arbor in a UM van at two o'clock that afternoon.