ALL CAPS EPIC ROAD TRIP OF DELIGHTS

I can't believe it's been two months since I flew back to Ohio to go on an ALL CAPS EPIC ROAD TRIP OF DELIGHTS. It felt as if JMP and I were planning the trip for ages and when the weekend finally came, it was over much too quickly. I even joked—before we left—that I almost didn't want to go on the trip, because then it would be over. I'm forever planning road trips, some of which I've taken, some of which will happen eventually, and some of which will probably never actually materialize, and that's ok. Planning a trip is one third of the fun for me, actually going on the trip is another third, and looking back on what I've done is the final third in the total enjoyment pie.

Even though I planned it and experienced it, it's still hard for me to believe that we crammed SO MANY DELIGHTS into 2.5 days. While I've devoted entire posts to a lot of the larger delights, it's really the sum of all of the parts—big and small—that made it so epically delightful.

As any proper road trip should, we started off Saturday morning by filling up on an insanely large—and cheap!—breakfast at a Waffle House. I love nothing more than a local, independent diner BUT a Waffle House just screams road trip to me (maybe it's the fact that they're at every single rest stop in the Midwest). After finishing our scattered and smothered breakfasts, we visited Willy the Whale and drove an hour to the Ohio State Reformatory. 

Along the way we spotted the Dalton Dari-ette, with a sign that I've always admired—and decided since it was ourroad trip and we made the rules that we'd stop and take photos. After the Reformatory we stopped for lunch at the Buckeye Diner, which is located in an old train car on the top of a hill, and despite being Ohio Buckeye-themed, was still charming.

After the field of giant corn cobs, and before we discovered Traders World, we pulled off the highway exclusively to visit what Roadside America described as a "Giant, Strange Ronald McDonald," which was definitely worth a visit. The address provided led us to the wrong place, until we realized that it was probably close to an actual McDonald's, which was correct.

After ice cream at The Cone we stayed overnight in Louisville. The next morning we fortified ourselves once again at a diner—the cute Twig and Leaf—that we chose based on signage alone. After taking an accidental but very awesome detour into Eastern Cemetery, we visited its neighbor Cave Hill Cemetery and paid our respects to Colonel Harland Sanders and the recently-interred Muhammed Ali.

Before leaving Louisville, we hunted down a Triceratops that had once been in the Sinclair Dinoland exhibit at the 1964/1965 World's Fair. I'd seen the T-Rex and the Apatosaurus in Texas and now I'm obsessed with hunting down all of the dinosaurs that remain. My heart sank when we realized that the Triceratops was in a parking lot that was closed on Sunday, but we made an impulse decision to (very quickly) sneak through the fence to get a closer look. I don't advocate breaking into private property, but it also seems shameful to keep such a wonderful piece of history hidden from view.

As we were eating chili dogs and ice cream served to us from a Barrel, we realized we had some time before we needed to check in at the Wigwam. I did a little poking around and discovered Kart Kountry, home of the World's Largest Go-Kart track and we knew it was a perfect addition to our itinerary. It was my first time riding go-karts and we had so much fun—we also played mini-golf and skee-ball and won enough tickets to get a crazy ball (which I promptly bounced into a fountain) and a trick foam ice cream cone.

After sleeping in a Wigwam—and before exploring abandoned Funtown Mountain—we drove through Cave City on our way to Dinosaur World and admired all of the beautiful motel signage. We ate breakfast at a restaurant that still had a smoking section—one that was full—and our waitress was not happy when we sat as far away from the cloud as we could.

We shopped for gifts at Tom's Tee-Pee, not quite as good as the TePee, but a worthy stop nonetheless. I think I was craving another road trip before this one even ended, and luckily my sister, brother-in-law, niece and I are all headed from Dallas to Roswell this weekend and I'm excited to get to explore an entirely new set of delights—even if I'm still basking in the glow of delights from the last trip.