Every Library test trip

So back a few years ago, I pondered visiting every library in Hamilton County. I have revisited that off and on a few times, and while I was off on vacation this past week decided to give it a test ride.

The reasoning was to see how well the directions held up, how fast I could ride (approximately) with traffic and such, as well as test how long it took me to get in the library, check out a book, and get back on the road.

I left my house around 2:00 or so. Plan was to go to 7 libraries and then meet up with the fam at the end. A little something like this.


I set off and got to the Madisonville library right away. Coming down the hill was interesting. I mean going fast is nice, but you never want to get TOO fast. I've never been one of those guys that can just get super fast without worrying about falling. There were a few patches of gravel on the road which got me a bit nervous. I was up to about 35 mph coming down the hill.

So, as I got going, I realized I had forgotten a few things. This tends to happen to me when I just go without really focusing and planning on everything. Forgot my sunglasses, forgot sunscreen (it was hot and sunny), any water, my bike lock and perhaps most importantly, I forgot any type of carrying case for the books that I was going to check out. My plan had been to just check one book out at each library, and then returning it at the subsequent library. But that still meant I had to carry a book on the bike with me.

So I got to the Madisonville library and hurried to check out a book. There were a few hooligans hanging out by the front door, but I hoped that I wouldn't be in there long enough for anything to happen, and I was right. I grabbed a small paperback, checked out, and headed on the road. Left on Madison and headed towards Oakley. Got in there, parked my bike by the front door and went in.

It was annoying there because there was this kid at the checkout desk asking abou drawing books and the librarian was helping him (fine) and then she offered to show him where some of the books were. And I waited... and waited... it was probably 3-4 minutes of me standing in line waiting to check out a book. (No self checkouts there). Eventually I made my way back down Madison towards Hyde Park. There was a lot of road construction there, but I managed to find my way to the Hyde Park library without a problem.

Again no self checkouts at Hyde Park and I had to wait for a bit. When I went to checkout, the librarian said that she had seen me on her way to work while on my bike on Whetsel. Good times! I was right in Hyde Park Square and did not realize that I was supposed to turn right onto Edwards. So I missed the turn and had to circle back (onto Mooney if you're falling along). I went past Rookwood and past I-71 and into Norwood. I turned left onto Williams and then right onto a different Madison.

But then, tragedy struck. I got a flat tire :-(. I tried to pump it back up but it definitely had a hole in it. I got out my patch kit. I had a really hard time trying to get the tire off the rim but eventually got it but either my kit was too old and not working, or I was not doing it right, but I could not get it going.

So I called Carolyn and had her come pick me up. The baby was still sleeping but we agreed to meet up in Norwood somewhere. I started walking that way. I found a penny on the sidewalk as I was walking, so you know it's good times. And then I got thrown out of Kroger.

But things went well - I had about a 14-16 mph average and it was taking about 1-3 minutes per library.

One annoying thing was that the receipts on a normal checkout don't have a timestamp on them. It does appear that the self checkouts have a timestamp, but I really wanted to get timestamps for each one just as kind of a record of the trip.

But I think that it makes things possible. I believe the shortest distance was 121 miles. If I could keep up a 14mph pace (which I think would be tough over that long) that would be 8 hours and 38 minutes. Then if I could average 2 minutes per stop, that's 42 * 2 or 84 minutes (1 hour 24 minutes). That's about 10 hours. I have 11 hours to do it from 10 to 9 (possibly 12 hours if I start at the Main library which opens at 9).

Or I could always hope the library levy fails and they close a few branches :-)

Every State Highpoint

It has come to my attention that there is a group of folks attempting to visit every highpoint in the lower 48 states in 3 weeks.

Apparently the record (PDF) is held by a Brit - Jake Meyer at 23 days, 19 hours, 31 minutes.

Though in looking at these guys' website, the challenge has been called off for reasons that are currently unclear. Hopefully they will post something soon and hopefully everyone is okay.

Here are a few pics from our recent trips to Campbell Hill (Ohio) and Hoosier Hill (Indiana).



This was the log book - we got there about 1:00 p.m. but there had already been 2 people visiting before us that day!


Picture of the fam.


After doing the grueling climb up Campbell Hill (in our van :-) ), we headed west to Hoosier Hill. The Indiana state highpoint is a bit less well marked.


Here is the turnoff off of Elliot Road. We passed it because there was no sign or anything. We went down to the (north) end of the road and saw the signs for the highpoint pointing back this way so we made it. Apparently it used to be even more nondescript before 2005 when an Eagle Scout fixed it up as his Eagle project.

Carolyn showing her true joy upon reaching the summit.

And here she is, "pretending" to be angry about being forced to detour out of her way to visit this great site.

So 2 down, 48 to go!!!!

Old comment

Just thought I would point out a comment that was received on a very old post about our Ohio county trip.

---

I randomly came across your blog while googling something completely unrelated about PC. I'm from West Alexandria and I find it totally hilarious that you ended your trip through every county of Ohio in the extremely small town I grew up in! Great blog and great idea for a mini-road trip! My friends and I might just have to attempt to do it ourselves. Oh and for the record, there are "Welcome to Preble County signs" elsewhere, just not on 35 for some strange reason! ODOT works in mysterious ways!

---

Good times!!

Soccer Golf

Not quite an Every Whatever, but a game / competition in the same silly vein. Myself and 2 co-workers set out yesterday on a round of soccer golf. I didn't think that we invented the sport, and I see now that there are several instances - (reference Dan's first law of the Internet).

But the game we played is slightly different. First, here are the codified rules:

1. Game starts when each player kicks a soccer ball from the same "tee"
2. Game ends when each player kicks the ball into a pre-determined "goal", which can be set up in any manner that is agreed to by all participants.
3. Players are allowed to take any route they choose.
4. Each time a player touches the soccer ball with their foot, it is counted as 1 stroke. Players are not allowed to throw, head, or otherwise propel the ball besides kicking it. No outside transportation (kicking it into your truck, etc) or help from other people is allowed, except as detailed below.
5. No mulligans are allowed.
6. Players are allowed to, at their discretion, either allow the ball to come to a complete stop, stop the ball manually with their foot (counts as a stroke), or kick the ball again while it is rolling (also counts as a stroke). Players are advised to be aware of potential obstacles in the path of a kicked ball (cars, houses, trees, other people, etc) - all objects are in play.
7. If a ball should have to be extricated from an unplayable position (lake, in a tree, under a car, etc), there is a 5 stroke penalty, and the ball is placed where it entered the unplayable position. If that is on a hill or otherwise causes the ball to move once it is placed, the ball may be allowed to come to rest or kicked while in motion (counts as a stroke).
8. Touching the ball with your hands or any other part of your body (besides the foot) is a 1 stroke penalty. Should the non-foot touch be ruled by the other players to have been intentional, a 5 stroke penalty will be assessed.
9. If an outside participant touches or affects the ball, it is in play (see Rule 6). However, if in the opinions of the other players, an outside person is a "plant" or unfairly aids the player, the ball will be considered dead at the point of the outside person touching it.
10. If a player touches something that inadvertently affects the ball (e.g. the ball is laying in some tall grass on a hill and as the player walks near the ball, it causes the grass to shift and the ball to roll), no stroke will be assessed unless in the opinions of the other players it was egregious and intentional, in which case it will count as 1 stroke.

In our case, we set the course as from Randy's house to our work (about 0.95 miles as the crow flies, or about 1.5 miles with the route we played). Here is an approximation of the route. The colored circles denote interesting events which I will explain below:



We started down at the A marker. First few kicks were pretty easy as the road slopes in the direction we wanted to travel. Randy was able to kick it all the way down his street and around the corner on his "tee shot". Clearly that's because he was cheatingly practicing beforehand. At the orange circle a few things happened. First of all Doug kicked his ball into a parked Mustang whose owner was out mowing his grass. Then a lady walking her baby in a stroller stopped to talk to us and look how weird we were looking. Then Doug kicked his ball right into a tree, causing it to bounce backwards. This caused our spectactors / folks who drove us to the starting line (Molly and Elizabeth) much amusement and caused me to fall to the ground laughing. Then as Randy's ball was rolling down the street, a "helpful" man in a truck got out and stopped the ball as Randy yelled "No no no leave it"

I was in the lead as we made our way out of Randy's development towards the pinkish circle, 1 stroke ahead of Randy and 3 ahead of Doug. This was aided by a beautiful kick over a ditch that Doug and Randy got caught in. We made our way across an open field and towards a small (10-15 foot wide) covering of trees that separated us from the access road that would take us to Innovation Way. We all tried to kick over the trees but none of us were successful. Randy in particular got stuck in a really bad place in the middle of the trees. He pondered taking the 5 stroke penalty but in the end decided to just kick forward. He managed to get through the trees in only 1 or 2 additional kicks, whereas Doug and I used multiple kicks to try and finesse our soccer balls through the small path through the trees. This gave Randy a lead he would not relinquish.

The access road was gravel and the ball did not roll as well as we initially thought that it might. We all took many kicks to try and get the ball down to Innovation Way. Then, the "dodging moving cars" part of the fun began. We got a little separated as we all tried to make sure none of our balls got run over by cars. In particular I had quite a bit of problem getting my ball successfully rolling down the street (slight down grade for the first part of Innovation). At the yellow circle, again a "helpful" runner stopped Randy's ball from rolling down the street.

Being several strokes behind at this point, you can see the darker blue line where I deviated course from the other 2. I kicked my ball over a barbed-wire fence and through some grass. I think that this saved me a few strokes. At this point I was on about 55, with Doug at about 51 and Randy around 40. At the green dot, as I kicked my ball across Western Row, a "helpful" construction worker thought it would be funny to give it a good boot back over Western Row, costing me 1-2 strokes as I had to re-kick it across the street.

As we got through the back lawn of where we work, we faced another dilemma. Separating the "goal" of the back patio from where we were is a decent-sized ravine. Over, or around? Doug and Randy went around where again, needing to do something different to get myself out of last place, went over. Well, I tried to go over. Mostly I went through. Again though, after I found my ball through the heavy underbrush (pricker bushes!) it only took me 1 additional stroke to "chip" it out of the weeds and up over a bench and on to the patio. Doug went off the side of the path into the other side of the ravine, whereas Randy got his ball stuck in not one but TWO trees, costing him 10 strokes.

I avoided the dirty looks of the people eating lunch on the patio as I kicked my ball into the goal, finishing last time-wise but in 2nd place with 71 strokes. Doug was last with 75 and Randy was first with a world record of 67 strokes.

All in all a very fun happening and hopefully not the last!

Tour de Madeira 2007 report

So, as I mentioned earlier this week, weather conditions were looking good for an attempt at Tour de Madeira 2007 this weekend. It did rain a bit Friday but not too badly, and so I decided to take a shot on Saturday. I was somewhat worried about the roads still being wet but I went for it anyways.

I'm not sure what was going on but it seemed like there was nothing but problems in the morning as I was trying to get things ready. First, I forgot to bring my route map home from work. That wasn't too much of a problem since I had it on my laptop and I had it pretty much memorized anyways. Then as I was looking for my sweatpants, I couldn't find them. So that necessitated a trip to Meijer beforehand.

So we dropped off my bike at our new house (which is very close to the starting line), and then drove down to the end-line, where I dropped off my car (so I'd have it at the end so I could drive back home rather than riding). The plan was then to head to Meijer and then drop me back off at the starting line so I could start the Tour. But then I realized I had forgotten something at the house, so we had to drive back home to get that. But now, as I write this recap, I forgot what I forgot!??

So then we headed to Meijer. Did some grocery buying, and I bought some sweatpants to wear. I changed in and was getting ready to start the tour when.... I realized I had forgotten my bike helmet. So we had to go BACK home, get that, then go BACK to drop me off. All in all, it was a frustrating morning for all involved. Luckily there were no other riders I had to coordinate with :-).

But the frustrations were not over yet! I got out of the car, started getting my bike and such ready, and realized that my high-class Walkman (© 1979) was not working. I don't need no steenkin iPods! I had planned on listening to the UC bowl game while I rode (the illustrious "Papajohns.com Bowl", but alas it was not meant to be. So I gave that to my support crew to fix, and I'd pick it up at my pit stop at the 1/2 way mark.

So they headed back home and after setting things in order, I headed over to the starting line. By now, my pre-race frustrations have to be done, right? Nope. The optimal starting line for the TdeM is on Kenwood Road at the south city line. Which happens to be on a pretty nice uphill incline. So it's kind of hard to get started. Especially given that the shoulders were kind of wet and muddy, due to the aforementioned previous day's rain. So you might ask "Well, why don't you just start further down the road to get your momentum, and then just start the clock when you cross the city line marker?" A good thought, but further south the road just gets even MORE hilly. Here's the topo map of the starting line, if you'd like to check it out.

Anyways, I kept trying to get started, and I kept not being able to get enough momentum, so I kept walking it a little further till I could turn off on to Kenwood Hills Drive where it is a bit more level. Oh, did I mention that Kenwood Road is a pretty busy road and so I had to deal with traffic as I was flailing about? Ah okay then. I was also in too high of a gear which I'm sure contributed to the problem, but I couldn't change gears because I couldn't get enough momentum to move the sprockets... Then when I finally did make it over to Kenwood Hills (pretty much walking my bike there, which is allowed per the ground rules), as I got going on the bike, I almost fell off. At that point I decided "Screw this - I'm starting over". Another nice fringe benefit of "racing" with yourself - you get to decide when you start :-)

So I got into my lowest gear, went back to the starting line, and what do you know? It was a lot easier to pedal! Imagine that! :-) And actually that was by far the hardest section of the Tour. The actual riding was fine and I didn't have any messups on the route itself. So if everything going wrong in the pregame setup was the price I had to pay for nothing going wrong on the Tour itself, I guess that's worth it. I'll give you a brief recap, though it was pretty uneventful.

The first section on this route is the Kenwood Road section, from the city line up to Euclid, with all the subdivisions and cul-de-sacs off of Kenwood (there are 13, of various lengths). I think this section has some of the trickiest topography, because most of these subdivisions are right on the edge of the hill that separates Madeira from the "valley" where Cincinnati itself sits. So you go down this cul-de-sac street, which drops off down the side of the hill at the end. You get a nice ride down, but you can't enjoy it too much because you have to ride the brakes to be able to stop and turn around. And then you're stuck at the bottom of a hill having to power yourself up the hill from a dead stop. At least I remembered to get into low gear as I rode down! On this stretch of the TdeM alone, this scenario happens on Mapleridge, Oakvista, Vistaridge, Windsong, Lakota, Foxdale, and Cherokee). As I got to the corner of Euclid and Kenwood roads (conveniently catching the green light!), I snapped a time - 11.9 miles at 57:33.53 (12.4 mph).

Then it was on to the far west side of Madeira. Nothing eventful there, though I was able to ride up Ken Arbre back to the intersection of Euclid, something that I had to walk last time. I caught the light at Kenwood *again* which surprised me since a) it turned green long before I got there and b) it's a pretty short green light. As I went through, I wondered if somehow I was setting off some sort of sensor but it was messing up because it was expecting something travelling at car speed. Probably not but it was weird because I specifically remember the same thing (the light lasting MUCH more than I was expecting it to) happening last year. Took care of the Pineneedle subdivision, then a few of the streets of the older subdivision (Summit / Fowler / Maple), then it was out on Dawson, back on Shawnee Run, then up Camargo into the downtown area. I was feeling pretty good still as I knocked out the Sellman park streets and then back up Camargo to Longfield and then around Maxfield to the pit stop at home (25.5 mile mark). Got there at 2:07:16 (12.1 mph). Took a quick break there where I refueled with some bread and water and such. Unfortunately I did not remember to press the lap button on my stopwatch until I was already on the road (at Sycamorehill Lane and yes Sycamorehill is one word). I will estimate a break of 9:20.

Since I was at about the halfway point, I knew that if I wanted to stick to my goal of only taking 2 breaks on the tour, I'd want to take my last one at about the 38 mile mark, and also knew that I'd want to put it off as long as I felt I could. The 3rd quartile of my route began as I wound through the NE section of Madeira then over through the Mingos and the Timberlanes, and up Hosbrook and over to the Lancewood subdivision. I was still feeling pretty good.

As I got back over to Buckeye Crescent I spied another point of interest - a Ron Paul sign! I had already passed the one at my house, and I would later spy a Ron Paul bumper sticker on a car parked on Miami. I saw no other political candidate sign (not counting a few leftover bumper stickers for Bush or Kerry). And since I visited EVERY house in Madeira, I can state with certainty that Ron Paul has a 100% lead in political signs in Madeira :-)

I ended up taking my 2nd and final break over on Berwood, which was at the 39.2 mile and 3:27:14 marks (11.3 mph including break time). Break lasted only 3:36, but was very refreshing. The last section of the route was pretty uneventful though I was definitely tired. I did have to walk up Indian Trail again (2nd and final walk section - I also walked up part of S Mingo). I really wanted to walk up Miami in the section between Camargo going up to Shawnee Run, but since Miami is such a major road, I didn't really feel like I could, and I knew that if I did it on the sidewalk it wouldn't count, so I manned it up. I thought I'd have to walk up Burman Meadow (nothing like a steep climb at the 49 mile mark) but I made it up.

Final total was 51.0 miles and a total time (including breaks) of 4:35:53 (11.1 mph). I continued down Camargo for the final 8/10 of a mile or so to my car and then sat down. Why didn't I get into my car? Oh well of course I had realized at my final break, as I was trying to run through things to make sure that I had everything covered, that I didn't have my car key. So I had to call Carolyn to come pick me up. Which she did because she's awesome, even though I had deserted her all day :-)

Fun time and it always feels good to set a NEW. WORLD. RECORD! :-)

EFC Ohio Table of Contents

It has come to my attention recently that this blog has lacked is an introductory / Table of Contents type post for the 88 Ohio county trip. Well, to be more precise, that has long since been on my attention, but only recently have I decided to do something about it. This way when I talk to someone about the EFCOH trip, I can point them to one specific URL that has links to the various updates and exploits

PREGAME

DATE			TITLE
10/26/2006			Preliminary Update
11/3/2006			Preparation
11/7/2006			Roster
11/8/2006			Route Map
11/8/2006			Weather Forecast

THURSDAY NOV 9, 2006

DATE	COUNTIES	COUNTY	TITLE
7:41 AM	0		Morning Update
10:45 AM	1	Monroe	And so it begins
1:00 PM	8	Holmes	And so it continues
2:00 PM	12	Jefferson	2:00 Status
2:45 PM	14	Trumbull	Update time from wife
6:00 PM	25	Richland	6:00 and all is well
7:00 PM	29	Crawford	7:00 count
8:28 PM	35	Ottawa	It is now 8:28 pm
9:45 PM	40	Williams	Quarter to 10 and still going strong
11:00 PM	47	Hardin	The 1/2 way point

FRIDAY NOV 10, 2006

DATE	COUNTIES	COUNTY	TITLE
12:05 AM	50	Shelby	Desert Correspondent signing off
1:15 AM			They said it couldn't be done
2:07 AM	56	Franklin	Grave News
2:23 AM			Serenade
3:21 AM	60	Muskingum	Controversy
7:01 AM	72	Pike	Morning Hours
7:32 AM			Taking long drive
8:46 AM			Award for best husband
10:42 AM	88	Preble	It is finished

POSTGAME

DATE			TITLE
11/10/2006			ODOT: Friend or foe?
11/10/2006			County Proof
11/14/2006			Official EFC songs
11/21/2006			Jim's recap

Tour de Madeira 07?

A flurry of posts today, after nothing since this past August.

The weather looks to be nice this Saturday (high of 55 with no rain) so the Tdem 2007 is tentatively on the schedule. I will keep you posted as it gets closer

ECF planning

So the planning is on for ECF. What is ECF, you might ask? After much careful thought and deliberation, I have decided my latest craze shall be named Every Cincinnati Favorite, or ECF for short.

Busken, Graeters, Larosas and Montgomery Inn all had nice pages with hours of operation for all their stores. Skyline? Not so much. I sent them an email asking if they had that anywhere corporately, but the response I got was pretty much "Nope". So, while it wasn't quite the "Screw you" that Carey got from Houston Metro, it was also not the "Oh, here they are all and here's some free gift cards too". So I just got off the phone with 35 Skylines asking them for their hours on Fridays. And only one of them gave me the hours that the particular person was working, though a few tried to give me hours for Saturday.

I have decided that Friday must be the day to do this. Most stores have extended hours on the weekend (Fri/Sat), and the reason it has to be Friday instead of Saturday is that the Busken at 8th and Walnut is closed on Saturdays.

I think my plan is to do all the early stores starting at 6 am till 10 am. There are 14 Buskens and 11 Graeters (2 Graeters don't open till 11). Here's a map with those 25 locations. I looked up the actual driving directions for a route starting in Hebron (SW near the airport in KY) and ending on the west side of town, and it was 3 hours 49 minutes
. Taking out the 4 stores on the south east side drops it to 2:52 which is what I would probably do. 3:49 is just driving time and doesn't include stopping in each of the stores nor traffic which could be troublesome. Depending on how my trial runs go, I might take out the 2 Springdale stores (far north).

What? Trial runs? Mwahahaha. Yes, I may go on a trial run of this part this upcoming Saturday.

Anyways, now that I have all (but 2) hours of operation, here is a breakdown. As mentioned there are 25 stores that open before 10 am. The others open at 10, 10:30 and 11.

Closing times:
Of the early stores, 9 close before 6 p.m. This shouldn't be a problem since I should be hitting those first thing. Though actually 1 or 2 of the ones I wanted to skip in the morning are among these 9 - I'll have to remember those. Also I bet that the 2 Skylines that I didn't get an answer for close early (i.e. they were closed when I called just now) - they're downtown so it wouldn't surprise me.

8:00 - 1 Skyline (7th and Vine downtown)
9:00 - 3 Skylines
10:00 - 1 Graeters, 5 Skylines
10:30-10:45 - 8 Graeters, 1 Montgomery Inn
11:00 - 5 Buskens, 4 Graeters, 2 Montgomery Inns, 2 Skylines
11:30 - 1 Larosas, 1 Skyline
Midnight - 25 Larosas, 7 Skylines
12:30-12:45 - 5 Larosas
1:00 - 3 Larosas, 4 Skylines
2:00 - 1 Skyline (Oakley)
3:00 - 8 Skylines
3:30 - 2 Skylines (Kenwood and Plainfield Rd)
4:00 - 1 Skyline (Clifton)
24 hours - 1 Busken

If the numbers don't add up, and they probably don't, sue me. It's interesting trying to find a rhyme or reason to some of the closing times. Like it doesn't surprise me that the Clifton Skyline is the latest closing - all those UC students. But why does Norwood close at 10? Don't Xavier students need their 3-ways and Coneys?

Also, the times for Skyline were their dining hours - some of them had drivethrus that stayed open later. I'm not sure how I feel about drivethrus - kind of defeats the whole purpose of visiting every restaurant. Though I used the delivery / carryout hours for Larosas, as opposed to dining areas, because at least there you're actually going IN to get your pizza (or your garlic sticks or 20 oz beverage, as the case may be)

I think this is definitely doable, and one of the cool factors is that it's going to be close. It will take some excellent logistical planning and execution to make it happen in one day. There's something cool about having a 24 hr deadline rather than just going as fast as you can without a deadline. Good thing I'm the (self-proclaimed) world's #1 expert on such matters...

And, one final point, Carolyn has decreed (and if there's anybody who knows her way around the middle of the night, it's her) that 3 a.m. is still night time, but 4 a.m. is morning.

EDIT TO ADD: There was a missing Skyline!!! After talking to Amy at work, she was remembering one downtown on 4th street. I double checked the website, and it was there, but only listed as a Downtown store. The other 2 downtown stores are also listed in the general Cincinnati category. That would have been a disastrous faux pas to not include that one. Naturally, this just cements Skyline's place as "worst website evah"

Cincinnati Favorites

So after watching Mark Malkoff's record-setting performance of 171 Starbucks in Manhattan, I dusted off a few of my plans. The first one I thought of was the plan to visit every Kroger in the area. There were 108 Krogers in what Kroger considers the Cincinnati "area" (which goes from Batesville to Maysville to Hillsboro to Sidney), and IIRC, the estimate was 22 hours or so to visit all of them (and that's just driving time - not including time to actually go in and buy something).

After ruling that one out, I remembered the 58 Krogers in what I considered Cincinnati. That came in as somewhere around 8 hours of driving time (much more realistic), but I had dismissed it as lacking "cool factor". Upon review of the Starbucks video, I may need to reconsider that. I think that there is definitely some cool factor involved.

But what has currently grabbed my fancy is visiting every "Cincinnati Favorite". Though there are more brands listed on the aforementioned website, I narrowed it down to Busken, Graeters, Skyline, Larosas and Montgomery Inn. With apologies to Sturkey's and Glier's, whatever they are, if after 10 years of living here I have never heard of you, you don't qualify!

So I then set my sights on acquiring the store list. As I already knew, this can be one of the most challenging parts of the whole endeavor. Larosas has an EXCELLENT page - a full store list with Google Maps mashup! I was even able to get latitude and longitude coordinates off of it, so that was nice.

The other sites weren't that bad - I eventually was able to get a full list, but then I ran into another problem. Skyline's store list contains stores inside Kings Island, the Zoo, Coney Island and Great American Ball Park. After thinking about it for a bit, and an (unrelated) trip to Kings Island (where I of course did some reconnaisance work), I decided that those stores don't count. After all, there are also Larosa's and Graeter's in Kings Island, and neither company lists those locations on their official store listings. If Skyline wants to artificially inflate their store count, that's their own business. So I decided (and I do declare myself to be in the best position to arbiter) that only stores that are open to the public are counted. Skyline also lists a store inside the IRS building in Covington, but a quick phone call confirmed that they are open to the public, so they're in.

Then I turned my sights to boundary locations. What, exactly, is considered "Cincinnati". It was easy to rule out locations in places like Oxford, or Hamilton, or Batesville, or Lebanon, or Walton. But as you start getting closer, the line becomes much hazier. If you count Mason, then what about Landen. And then if you count Landen, well what about Maineville? How about Amelia or Goshen? Independence or Alexandria, KY? Lawrenceburg or Bright, IN? There were somewhere around 150 locations to visit, depending on where you drew the line.

But then I decided to just make the boundary the 275 loop. It's a nice definitive boundary without any room for wiggling - either it is inside or it isn't. And that still gives 104 stores. I didn't think that 150 was doable in 24 hours, given the fact that many of them don't even open until 10 a.m. (the exception being Busken). So you don't really have a full 24 hours - it's more like 15 or 18, though I did see a few Skylines that were open till 3 a.m. on weekends and the Hyde Park Busken is open 24 hours a day.

The rules, just as in the Starbucks movie, are that you have to visit every store, and you have to buy something at every store and consume at least part of it. If you happen to come across a store after closing time, then if you can get an employee to sell / give you something, that can count. More codified rules will be written as necessary.

Stay tuned!

Every Whatever

(Editor's note: This recap was written by Jim. I put in a few links and my a few comments - but everything funny was Jim's - hopefully he won't mind my editing)

The following report is done without extensive referencing of notes and, sadly for the readers, without much style or hyperbole. It's merely drawn from my meandering memories of the trip, which are spotted with delirium, checkered with short naps and stained with Black Bean Pueblo Pie.

I'll topline this by saying something I didn't think I would: this is an accomplishment of which I am proud.

Of course, ultimately the real achievement lies with Dan, for having meticulously planned the trip and having served as its impetus. I suppose the most credit I could take in good conscience is this: without my carving an extra couple of days out of my offseason work schedule, this trip might have become yet another one of Dan's elaborate plans that are ingenious and just might work but are destined to never happen. Like buying billboards and retiring soon after due to the prodigious income (Ed: Billboards are big moneymakers, for your information!). Or riding every subway line in New York City. And, yes, that old sentimental favorite, the EFS tour -- a plan to visit every major league stadium hatched by 16-year-olds without girlfriends and partially funded by the sale of Skittles. The list goes on and on.

In any case, I'm proud of it because it feels like we accomplished something. Here's why:

- To our knowledge, we finished something that has never been done before by anyone. Search the Internet for a comparable feat, and you'll just find a handful of people who are planning to visit all 88 of Ohio's counties in a year, or a decade or a lifetime. Most of the time, their goal dies halfway through. As near as we can tell we three are the only people alive or dead to visit all 88 of Ohio's counties in a 24-hour period (Ed: I'd be VERY surprised if anybody else has done it in 24 or less. Kind of a random feat to accomplish, you say? Maybe. But no one else can claim the same.

- It required meticulous planning. Again, this credit belongs almost solely to Dan except for when I acted as a second set of eyes to tighten up his route. I know that the route went through many iterations and permutations throughout the course of a year or more, and that stage, of course, was the most important. We had two 2" binders detailing each section of the route. Even when we encountered a closed road, we had enough maps so that we could determine an alternate route on the fly. I can't imagine how difficult this trip might have been without resources such as MapQuest, Google Maps, Google Earth and Routebuilder.org. It would have required local areas maps of all of the counties and a whole lot of photocopying. Even then, you would only have the ability to estimate distances. The tools available to us allowed Dan to accurately estimate our distances and our times. You'll find that those times and those distances were almost dead-on.

- We still could have failed. Despite all of the planning and all of the thought that went into the trip, it honestly wouldn't have taken much to rip the glory from our hands. Just one traffic jam or lane closure or car accident in front of us might have been enough to keep us from attaining our goal. That's not to mention speeding tickets or bad weather or a blown tire or colliding with one of the 876 sets of deer eyes we saw along the way. Dan does not agree, but I truly believe this: even knowing what we know now, I think if we tried this 10 more times, we would only succeed 5 times. A lot of things went our way on the trip, excepting a little fog, a broken credit card processor, one closed road and a couple of other poorly marked ones. A lot more things could have gone wrong, and that's one big reason why if someone else were to try this, success would be far from a guarantee. (Ed: The only thing I think that could sink us would be bad weather - rain/snow. I think with clear weather, we succeed 9 times out of 10.)

- The phantasm of failure makes success all the sweeter. Let's be honest; Dan's time estimates were blind guesses. Even throughout the trip, we found that we generally gained time over the estimate on the Interstates while we ceded ground on the country roads, especially after nightfall. But on the whole, the estimate was very good. It should be known that the estimate for this trip was 23 hours, 58 minutes. In other words, if all went according to plan, we'd cross the finish line with two minutes to spare. This also didn't factor in any breaks, even to fuel the vehicle. So to accomplish the task, we'd need to beat the estimates. Rolling into Preble County with less than 26 minutes to spare legitimized the difficulty of the task. If we had found that our estimates were flawed and we finished in 21 hours, the end result would not have included such a sense of triumph. If you finish this trip in 23 hours, 34 minutes and 34 seconds, you have to have problem-solving, guile, dedication and a collection of very heavy right feet.

Those are the reasons that this trip became a lot more than a cool way to spend a couple of days with two guys you've been friends with for 25 years. I know it sounds silly, but this is something difficult that we did. It might not rank on the top things to get checked off of my life's "to-do list," but nonetheless it was beyond a crazy thing to try and a story to tell.

Of course, there were plenty of good times to qualify this trip in that category as well. Referencing Dan's previous post, reciting the words "No can do" after you've been awake for the better part of 30 hours causes steering wheel-pounding hilarity.

We found out early on that small things might have the capacity to derail the successful completion of the trip. Jay's flight was delayed, meaning that we had to sacrifice some sleep on the front end. When we returned, Jeff turned on the X-Box, costing us more sleep. And then there was the rental vehicle.

We made a reservation for a compact car (a Dodge Caliber or similar), but true to most every rental car experience I have ever had, Thrifty Rent-a-Car didn't have the car we rented. They offered two options: a minivan with satellite radio or a minivan with satellite radio. It was a free "upgrade." And it was all they had. There was more room in the minivan than there would have been in the Dodge Caliber or similar, but there was distinct drawbacks too. It didn't get good gas mileage. The center of gravity was too high, causing us to slow down on treacherous country roads. And the big one: the last time I drove a minivan on an interstate highway, I rolled it over three times and landed it on the median while all of my possessions spread themselves out along the highway. (Ed: Under definitely suspicious circumstances)

I retold this story at the Thrifty rental counter to Dan, Jay and Jeff. We also joked that the minivan would hold some advantages, like having enough room for the midgets. This made one of the Thrifty workers erupt in laughter, and although we clearly had bad intentions for the minivan, they nonetheless inexplicably rented us the vehicle. Fools. We drove away in our minivan (which did NOT have satellite radio nor did it even pretend to have satellite radio).

The last laugh was on Thrifty Rent-a-Car, though. Two days later, we'd return the local-radio-only Town and Country with a broken arm rest, 1600 miles of wear, and an engine light glowing amber. All for $135 and change, including the insurance and tax. They should have given us the Dodge Caliber.

Or similar. Similar would have been just fine.

The Thursday morning drive to our starting location in Monroe County was lively. None of us were operating on a full measure of sleep to begin with, but it didn’t seem to matter. Debates crackled about Firehouse’s greatest hits and the namesake of Zanesville (Ed: Not Zane Grey). At a gas station in Noble County, three colons were emptied. A wife and two girlfriends were called. I bought some Sour Patch Kids for a quick boost and Jay bought his first bag of jerky. He would tear open three more bags of jerky before he met his mattress next.

At the Monroe county line, we all piled out. Rotating pictures of us in pairs were taken at the start line. No picture of all three of us exists from the trip, in part because the only on-lookers at the beginning of our trip were some very confused and discourteous looking cows. Little did they know that they sat in mud adjacent to three worthy claimants to the legacy left by de Gama, Cook, Balboa, Magellan, Coronado and others. I stared down one cow and wondered if she would hold such contempt for us if she only knew.

With the simultaneous blip from two digital watches at a bit before 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the trip began. A third watch was brought along to measure “pansy time,” which could simplistically be described at time used that was not figured into the pace. Missed turns and even fuel stops were counted as “pansy time,” simply because they weren’t on the timetable. We’ll discuss more about pansy time later.

One lesson learned very early in the trip is that minivans aren’t built for the twisting roads of Southeast Ohio. Now, perhaps if one of us had been a mom living in a suburban neighborhood, one of us an infant and another a child headed to soccer practice, the minivan would have been a perfect choice. In the rural, twisting outlays of Southeastern Ohio, though, the minivan did not perform like it was on rails. Many were the hills which we crested blindly, without specific knowledge of which way the road would turn on the other side. Many were the turns into which we careered at speeds where centripetal force wanted to carry us into a guardrail, along with our local-radio-only Town and Country and our maps and our Mini-Oreos. Many were the soft curves which forced the driver to become familiar with both lanes, lest he hit the brakes too often and cede valuable time.

On roads that bent to the left, one could take the turn a bit faster by first crossing into the left lane. On roads that bent to the right, the turn might well finish in the opposite lane. Either way, this strategy widens the arc of the turn. And both ways lead to high comedy.

Whenever the yellow line was crossed, it became apropos to yell out British-sounding phrases in a thick English accent. For instance, at the end of a turn when the Town and Country crossed into the oncoming lane, someone might yell out, “FISH AND CHIPS!” or “’ELLO, GOV-NUH!” or “PUT ON YOUR KNICKERS, WE’RE GOING TO A PUB!” because, as we all know, the English drive on the left side of the road, and they love pubs and fish and chips.

The trip was only three counties old when we encountered our first difficulty. On Ohio Highway 800, the twisting road ran smack into the back of an orange ODOT truck, placing orange cones on a freshly-painted white line. The truck was moving in concert with a truck ahead of it, which, with protruding nozzles on both sides, applied fresh paint to the road. A 2-foot sign on the back barked “DO NOT PASS,” and the meandering road with blind turns seconded the notion. About three minutes was all I could take of looking at the back of that orange ODOT truck. We sped past both trucks on a harrowing turn. The trip was back on track, and I idly wondered whether it would be okay to return the Town and Country to Thrifty with road paint misted on the side.

We discovered very early that a minute was going to be a big difference. If we were going to do this thing in time, it was going to be close.

Harrison. Tuscarawas. Coshocton. We bowled through the first hours of the trip, gaining a few minutes of advantage on the pace. As I noted above, the pace would have had us finish the trip in 23 hours and 58 minutes, not accounting for fuel stops (or ANY kind of stops). At 2 p.m., I crossed the van into Jefferson County and picked up the 12th domain of 88. It remained in Jefferson for 22 seconds and we were off again. Ironic to have a Town and Country inside of a county. Wrap your head around that one.

In any case, we were 23 minutes ahead of schedule and building a lead. We knew that we’d have to get ahead of schedule early because of a couple of factors:

- Nightfall would hit and last for 14 hours. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to make “British” turns under the veil of darkness.
- At some point, we’d have to let Dan drive. (Ed: Bite me)

When we hit the booming dual metropoli of Shanesville and Sugarcreek (combined population: 9,702), we discovered another reason that we’d need this cushion. School was letting out and we’d trail a schoolbus or two. We were also clogged behind (of all things) an ODOT truck, which slowly tooled by the antique malls of Tuscarawas County. If this was the traffic we’d hit in the sparsely populated Southeast, what did we expect to encounter in the truly metropolitan areas of the state?

It was also in Tuscarawas County that we encountered out first jaunt off of the pavement. Coated in dirt and gravel, Haas Road led us exactly where we wanted to go. I smiled. Now, this seemed like an adventure.

We learned interesting facts along the way about, for instance, the percentage of water coverage of each county. At my urging, Dan had printed the Wikipedia page for each county and brought a separate binder full of that information so that we could learn, for instance, what percentage of Carroll County’s residents were aged 65 or above (Ed: 14.20%). The astute macroeconomic minds that we are, we were appalled by the low median household incomes of Southeastern Ohio (Ed: Morgan County? $28K). No doubt Jay wondered how we might help. No doubt Dan wondered how he might buy up the entire area and use it as a springboard to world domination.

Before it got too late, Dan took the wheel. I believe it was on Ohio Highway 86 West at a red light (Ed: Actually it was on US 6, west of Chardon). We changed positions in the style of a “Chinese fire drill” at the traffic light, and when it changed to green before all the doors were closed, two seconds of pansy time were tacked on. The docile drivers of Geuaga County didn’t seem to mind. The Town and Country, however, was angry. It insisted, with a repeating and ear-splitting beep, that everyone in the front of the vehicle have their seatbelts fastened at all times. We wondered for the rest of the trip who was the fussy one: Town or Country. (Man, these jokes just don’t seem as funny now.) (Ed: But they were dang funny on the trip!)

On Interstate 71, the trip encountered another problem. We hadn’t planned very well for fuel stops. Although the Town and Country had a digital readout of “Miles ‘Til Empty,” we didn’t know exactly where we’d be when it neared zero or what gas stations would be around. So when the MTE display got to about 20, we determined that we’d pull off the interstate for gas. This takes a much longer time than pulling into a gas station, for instance, on a state highway. I figured the stop might take as long as five minutes.

We quickly located a shining beacon in the nighttime desert: the Goasis gas station. It was near the off-ramp and looked to have dozens of pumps. After some initial indecision, Dan pulled next to a pump and handed me the gas card. He and Jay bolted inside to use the Goasis restrooms. Meanwhile, I swiped Dan’s card and stared at the screen, which displayed “Authorizing Credit Card” for a solid three minutes. My mind called Dan’s credit into question. Four kids is a lot to buy toys for! And diapers! What must have happened to his credit score? After a prolonged and impatient wait, I pressed the button to talk to the attendant. She explained that their phone service was down and the outside credit card readers were not working. She said, “you can come inside and we can try this one.” Try? TRY?!?!?! Such incompetence! I didn’t have time to TRY anything! As I hung up the pump, Dan and Jay were trotting out to the van. “Perfect!” they yelled. But it was not perfect. Not a drop had been pumped. I dashed inside while rifling through my pocket for cash. I paid for $35 on the pump and dispensed the gas, while the pansy watch hummed a tune. With no time for proper etiquette, I transformed into Bo Duke. I jumped inside the van cannonball-style and into the back-row seat. SNAP! I’d jumped into the arm rest and cracked it. The floppy bar will no longer offer support to anyone sitting behind the passenger seat.

But at least I’d shut up that pansy watch, as it sneered at me from my right wrist.

By the time our tires met I-71 again, the pansy watch proudly displayed 10 minutes and 30 seconds. Admonishing the watch that this was just an isolated, fluke incident, I mashed its RESET button. This type of trifling was, hopefully, behind us.

With 29 counties in the taillights, the Town and Country’s headlights flashed on Knox County. With the left blinker on, we were about to turn onto Darlington Road, which would take us to Morrow County and on our way. But ODOT struck us a blow. Darlington Road was closed to through traffic, and we had to figure a way around it.

I have to say that this was probably my favorite part of the trip. Immediately, two binders were raised and the driver was on high alert. We problem-solved our way around Darlington Road (thanks, in no small part, to Dan’s maps), and we even caught a potentially catastrophic wrong turn before it took us too far off course. Pulling it past two dogs who chased us out of Knox, we got back on track. Little did the dogs know that we were only too happy to be in Morrow County. They could go back to defending their street all they wanted.

At some point, someone intoned “has that engine light always been on?” It was not good. The Town and Country had less than 8,000 miles on it! Why would the engine light be on unless it was dangerously close to systems failure? We decided to take our chances anyway.

Across the state we went, remaining just South of Lake Erie and Michigan as we forced Northwest Ohio into submission.

And there, in Fulton County, we were humbled to meet the King.

Ohio Highway 66, AKA “The King,” dances along the county boundaries of Northwest Ohio. We would visit seven counties with The King that would have otherwise taken great difficulty to reach. The King doesn’t stay exactly straight as he runs south. As we noted, The King likes to jog. That’s how he visits so many counties.

From Fulton, we followed The King to Henry, Williams, Defiance, Paulding, Putnam and Van Wert. As we drove east on US-30 toward Allen County, we gave three cheers for The King. Long may he live. (Ed: Hip, Hip, Hooray!)

Just after Wapakoneta, at around 11:30 p.m., I decided it might be a good time to catch a quick nap. Even though the late night fog was thickening, there were interstates and limited access highways ahead; not much to slow down the trip’s progress.

Just west of Franklin County (#54!), my head arose from the roll of paper towels it had been using as a pillow. We were slowing down. I couldn’t explain it until Jay said, matter-of-factly, “yep, we’re getting pulled over.”

The patrolman was prompt in getting out of his vehicle and was brief in his inspection through the side window. It was normal, apparently, to encounter a minivan with three 30-year-old men in it around midnight. That one passed out on the back seat? Ordinary. The ground is strewn with maps and papers? Typical. A large cooler is sitting in the middle of the van? Par for the course. Besides, what could that cooler possibly contain, other than Powerade Option and a 4-pack of Mountain Dew Amp?

Also, what if the patrolman had questioned Dan and me? Would it have been commonplace to find one person from Ohio, one from Alabama and one from Massachusetts driving at night in a minivan that didn’t contain at least one child going to soccer practice? This was no workaday situation. But it arouses this thought: what would it have taken to pique the suspicion of the patrolman? If I had been flanked by two Mexicans in the back seat, would he still have considered this a garden variety traffic stop? What if we weren’t really joking about those midgets? What then? (Ed: It really was surprising the lack of hassle we got there)

The patrolman smelled nothing suspicious and let us go with a warning. It’s a good thing we hadn’t dipped to heavily into the Black Bean Pueblo Pie, or we might have been looking at a full vehicle search.

I was done with trying to sleep. How could I, when we might face more unexpected challenges? Sure enough, less than an hour later, we did.

We were in Perry County as we neared the Muskingum County line. Dan barked out “take a left here!” And Jay’s response came back, “you mean through this garbage dump?” I was quickly reminded of a conversation Dan and I had a week prior – about roads being listed on the map that either didn’t exist or weren’t open to the public. Some roads led right up to nuclear power plants and armed guards.

Shortly thereafter, I harkened back to an earlier “Every Whatever” tour, and I remembered the disastrous failure it had become. In the late summer of 1993, we had planned to drive on every road in North Olmsted. The map showed a little-known road named Elston, which, we came to discover, was in the middle of a patch of forest. It doesn’t matter, we reasoned. After all, what part of WE HAVE TO DRIVE ON EVERY ROAD was less than crystal clear? It had to be official! We drove into the woods, only to stop at a log that cut through the path. When we tried to double back, the tires whirred in the mud. Well, four hours, two broken taillights, one severed brake line and two tons of mud later, we made it home, never having quite reached the elusive Elston Road.

It’s good to know that we’ve learned something in those 13 years since. With the same sense of bravado, we hit the dirt road which went around the trash dump and plunged into a patch of forest. We hit the road which, at least on the map, led us where we wanted to go. After all, what part of WE HAVE TO BE IN EVERY COUNTY was less than crystal clear? It had to be official!

In that patch of forest, at about 3 a.m., I clearly saw a flashlight beam searching around and I saw it wash over our vehicle. Clearly someone was trying to kill us. What’s more, the “roads,” if they could be called that, no longer had street sings. Clearly, we’d been lured into some sort of trap by ODOT or a similar foe. It was reminiscent of a colonial ambush scene. We were on a path in a valley in the forest, with slopes on either side. There was nowhere to run and hide if berserk ODOT workers rushed at us from both sides. Our flanks were exposed!

Luckily, after a few miles, we saw a road sign: Palmer Road. It wasn’t on the map.

We headed back through the gauntlet and I saw the flashlight again. Jay and Dan decided to try another way into Muskingum County, and I decided to call my brother. For somehow, even though my cell phone had been getting no reception in more developed areas, it got three bars’ worth at a trash dump near the Perry/Muskingum County line. With the help of MapQuest, Joe confirmed that Palmer Road lay in Muskingum County. “Turn it around!” I shouted. “We’ve been in Muskingum!”

Thus was county #61 brought under our control.

I stayed alert through Hocking and Athens and Morgan and Washington and Meigs in case I was needed. I also remained at the ready for Vinton and Jackson counties. But in Lawrence, I allowed myself to drift off again. Sure enough, 20 minutes later, we would encounter trouble.

The entrée to Gallia County from Lawrence County is at best sketchy and at worst downright shady. I awakened to find our Town and Country in a similar situation to the Muskingum County debacle, in the middle of a patch of forest. Dan and Jay were disagreeing on where we were. This was dire. I shuffled off my sleep and manned a binder.

We made not one, but two jaunts onto unmarked roads, hoping that we had made it into Gallia County (Ed: We had). It was one of the few counties that was not marked with a sign. By the time we got back on track and on the way to Scioto County, we’d fallen a few minutes behind schedule. The country roads leading us back through Lawrence County made us fall further. At our nadir, we were wanting for 9 minutes.

Whatever their sinister intentions to foil our trip, ODOT must be commended for its excellent demarcation of county boundaries. Except for when we entered on Elston-like roads, there was always a nice green sign to greet us. We were able to photograph most of them, and I figure those snapshots will find their way onto this blog soon. (Ed: Maybe if someone will get the pictures off his camera and email them to me?)

Whatever troubles Gallia presented, they were behind us. Jay had driven for 9 hours through the worst part of the night, and clearly Gallia had frayed his nerves. We were behind the pace and the fog was almost intolerable. Imagine driving for 9 hours in the darkness, with fog in front of you and two lights on in the van. Jay’s last act as driver was to slip into Ross County and pull a quick U-turn back into Pike. But he missed the turn and potentially set us back another minute (Ed: Pansy time!). What’s more, he’d had to poop for roughly four hours. When he pulled into a gas station off US-23, we discovered that he’d gained back the time he’d lost. And as I pumped gas, Jay and Dan went inside to poo down. But there was no time! Jay sacrificed his #2 for the good of our pace and hopped back in the car. It could wait another four hours. Jay is to be commended for his determination and his mental, optical and intestinal fortitude.

Negativity had dominated the previous hour, but optimism was burgeoning. Dawn was breaking. A limited access highway was ahead. And I was taking over at the wheel for the anchor leg of the trip.

Ohio 32 West provides a straight shot through five counties for 75 miles at a 65-MPH speed limit (Ed: Highland county? 13 seconds). Since I needed no navigation, it was suggested that both Dan and Jay sleep.

Jay was out and snoring within a minute. Dan slept only partially in Ross and Brown counties and all the way through Adams (Ed: The only county I entirely missed). It was a grand total of maybe 20 minutes. While both of them were incapacitated, I drove and snapped pictures of the county signs. Adams. Brown. Highland. Clermont. (Ed: You were definitely the king of picture taking)

Worry set in that I-275 around Cincinnati or I-71 just north of Cincinnati might be congested. It was 9 a.m. on a weekday, and folks might still be getting to work, tied up in a traffic jam. We found the roads clear, however, and we realized that we had leapt our last great hurdle. We were clear of Cincinnati and 23 minutes ahead of schedule. We tried to admonish ourselves to not get too excited. There were still countless things that could prevent successful completion of the trip. Only when we got 3 miles away (close enough to know that we could run there in time, if necessary) did the celebration begin.

We crossed into Preble County British-style, for effect, and soon after, piled out of the car to drench the ground with stored up urine.

23 hours, 34 minutes, 34 seconds. A new record. Something to be proud of.

Unfortunately, no “Entering Preble County” sign exists. One last middle finger from ODOT. (Ed: Word)

The two gas station stops we made immediately after completion was by far the trip’s longest. Jay bought bag #3 of beef jerky. We waited, with full colons, for someone to come out of a locked bathroom. They never did, and the clerk didn’t have a key. We moved on to the next one and befouled the bathroom at the Shell station.

On the way back to Columbus, we encountered something we really hadn’t the entire trip. Traffic. It was just a reminder of how the trip, had things been slightly different, could have easily failed.

Official EFC songs

I have a few recap posts in me that I'd like to get up here at some point. Also, I know Jay composed 4-5 blog posts that we can get up here. In the meantime though, let's talk some music. While we were out and about visiting all 88 Ohio counties, a poll was taken to determine the official trip song(s). Here are the Top 3:

#3 - Coward of the County, by Kenny Rogers. This was mostly sung to / about our friend Trampus, who wimped out on this journey. He was subsequently declared to be the "Coward of the counties". One other friend, Jeff, would have also been declared C of the C, due to his "have to work" mentality, but he got himself off the hook by providing a place to stay on Wednesday night as well as the purchase of acceptable amounts of snack rams, including cheese.

#2 - Washington, Washington by some unknown Internet guy. At the aforementioned Jeff's house on the aforementioned Wednesday night, Jim showed us this video. Note that this video has much more swearing than I would prefer. Nevertheless, QUITE funny. Anything that includes the line "He'll save the children, but not the British children", accompanied by a sketch of George Washington throwing a flaming British schoolhouse off of a cliff you know just HAS to be good! It was a tragedy that we were only in Washington County for 45 seconds or so. Of course, on the flip side, you never want to trespass in the home of someone who is 12 stories high and made of radiation...

Somewhere around 6 a.m., as we were approaching Hamilton County, and after reciting the Washington song for about the 300th time, we came up with a Hamilton, Hamilton parody. Here are the lyrics:

Hamilton, Hamilton...Killed by a bullet from Aaron Burr's gun.
Hamilton, Hamilton...He ain't on the twenty but he is on the ten.

Of course, after coming up with those 2 examples of lyrical genius, we were just about out of things that we knew about Alexander Hamilton. We tried to come up with something about his being a Whig, but could not come up with any rhyme better than "HIS POLITICS WERE BIG!", which is of course just stupid. As it turns out, it was just as well, since he wasn't a Whig anyways, but rather the founder of the Federalist Party.

#1 - I can't go for that (No can do) - Hall and Oates. With the amount of times on this trip where it was mentioned how George Washington once held his opponent's wife's hand in a jar of acid, it seems odd that it could be beaten out for the #1 song, but I can't go for that was voted #1 by a unanimous vote.

Some time early in the trip (or maybe even on the drive out to the starting spot), I mentioned that I had seen on VH1 where they counted down the Top 100 songs of the 80s, and I can't go for that made it in at #6. We all agreed that this was much too high, and it kind of just snowballed from there.

Example usage:
Jim: "Man there's an ODOT truck painting lines on the road up ahead"
Dan: "I can't go for that"
Jay: "No can do"

Just imagine similar scenes, repeated 5-600 times over a 24 hour period. Of course, there was also the flip side

Jay: "We just missed a train crossing!"
Jim: "I can go for that"
Dan: "Yes can do"

All in all, good times! I hope you have enjoyed this musical recap.

County proof

Dan, checking in with another brief note here. I will endeavor to post a few more detailed posts over the next few days, after I sleep for about 200 hours. Also, Jay wrote a few blog posts that I'm sure he will post here sometime.

But I wanted to clear the air about a few counties. We did get a bunch of pictures of county signs, though not all of them. It was quickly determined that Jim was the world's foremost authority on county line sign photography, and he did a stellar job capturing many of the signs. Jay and I, however, are complete incompetents in that regard.

Plus there were a few county borders where there no signs. Overall, I was very impressed with the sign marking, especially on any state/US routes. And for most of the time even if there was no sign, it was obvious where we were from our maps and the road signs we could see. But there were a couple of times where our exact position was not clear.

• Gallia County. The plan for Gallia county was to come south on OH 93 from Jackson, OH. (If you want to follow along, get out the map website of your choice and start at Jackson, OH. OH 93 for about 15 miles or so, through Oak Hill and into Lawrence county. Once in Lawrence county, turn on CR 38 (Blackfork-Peniel Road). Unfortunately, we missed that road due to the darkness (it was about 4 a.m. at this point) and turned on to CR 39 (the next road south). We followed that road, if it can be called a road, for probably close to 2 miles or so to a T-intersection, but still we weren't sure if we had made it into Gallia. The problem was that it was hard to tell whether we had gone east on "Dry Ridge Rd" or south on "Township Road 152". If the former, we definitely made it into Gallia, if the latter, than we didn't. We ended up getting back to OH 93 and taking CR 38 for a mile or two just to be sure. But in looking at Topozone, it shows Union Baptist church on CR 39. We definitely went around the left (north) of that church and then went on for about 2 miles, so I'm making the call as definitely Gallia.
• The other close call was a few hours earlier, in Muskingum county. After getting off I-70 at Exit 141 near Brownsville, OH we went south on OH 668. The route said to turn left (east) on Bowser Road and take that into Muskingum. Again, this road was questionable in quality. Eventually we got to an intersection listed as "Palmer Road" and "Mt Perry Rd". Neither of those were on the maps that we had, so we backed out and were going to try something else (N on 668 to US 40 East to Muskingum). We called Jim's brother, working the night shift, and he was able to verify that Bowser Road turned into Palmer road once in Muskingum, so we were able to get back on our way with only a minimum of "pansy time".
• There were 2 other areas (in Richland and in Tuscarawas counties) where there were questionable road qualities, but neither of those had any possible county counting affect

Oh, and my mob-rule map is awful blue. Or at least it will be once his server updates it. It was a pickup of 30 new counties, which will leap me over 31 people on the official list. I now stand at 498 counties visited.

ODOT: Friend or foe?

Well, as mentioned earlier, it is finished, and with a world record time. First of all, I would just like to say thank you to all of our guest correspondents - it was very fun to be able to call in progress reports and such, and I'm glad that we were able to keep our legions of adoring fans updated.

A recurring theme of our journey was the many attempts of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) to thwart this trip. Some of these, such as the paint crew and the lollygagging in the Shanesville-Sugar Creek twin cities metroplex, have already been mentioned.

When we mentioned the near-miss train to Jim's brother, he surmised that somewhere there was a high-ranking ODOT employee cursing and saying "The train was late!" As we came westbound on I-70 for the final stretch, there was an ODOT work crew with the Interstate shut down....eastbound! Obviously someone had given them incorrect information on our route.

Perhaps my favorite example of ODOT tampering was in I believe Medina county. Right after we got off the highway, we were stopped at a stoplight for what seemed like FOREVER. As we were all commenting on how long this light was, we looked over, and there was an ODOT employee messing with the signal junction box!

At one point, it was postulated that perhaps ODOT was trying to HELP us, and there were other forces trying to stop us, but ODOT was doing its best to aid us. That was quickly shot down. We thought maybe that there was a secret band of ex-ODOT employees trying to stop the Department from executing its nefarious plan.

In other news, it was confirmed via Topozone that we were definitely in Gallia county. So that's good. (Not that I would ever admit to only reaching 87 counties :-) ).

IT IS FINISHED!!

I am on the phone right now with Dan, he said they have just finished the amazing race. Oh wait, that's something else. They have just finished the amazing EFC race. It took 23 hours 34 minutes and 34 seconds. The world record has been set. No one has ever done this before and who knows if it will ever be done again!

And the Award for Best Husband goes to Dan Miller

I just want to say how proud I am of Dan for making this EFC trip a reality. I must admit when he first presented the idea of visiting all 88 counties in Ohio, in one trip, in less than 24 hours I thought it was pretty silly. Ok, more like down right weird. I know Dan loves maps and planning the shortest routes to various places. Even when he made plans and set dates, I kind of thought he wouldn't actually do it. But I am very impressed at how he made this happen...with the help of his friends, of course. I love to see him set goals and make them come true. Being married to Dan I get to witness first hand his grab bag of off the wall ideas. But what an awesome adventure! I'll be cheering for you when you get home. You're the man now dog!

Taking a Long Drive

I was just checking out the forecast for Cincinnati, mostly because I live here, but also because the EFC guys will be heading through here very soon. We have a beautiful day ahead, partly cloudy with a high of 72. Lovely!! In fact, just below the 36 hour forecast, where it says Today, it suggests: Plan a Scenic Drive. Gee, what a lovely idea. But what I want to know is did anyone drive through any covered bridges in the last 24 hours. Hmm?

Morning hours

The folk are on schedule. The county count at this point is 72. Currently in Pike county. The night was tiring and there was lots of fog. They lost time because the road to Gallia county was not very well marked, so they had to go back to make sure they had actually gone into Gallia. No Cheating!! I think the boys are losing their focus due to lack of sleep. No one sounded very chipper.

Controversy!

According to a key operative from my Muskingum-based army of superintelligent deer, the red van narrowly missed missing Muskingum county at about 2:45 tonight. Not perfect grammar, I know, but pretty good for a deer. Clarification was required on the county status of a Palmer Road, and assistance was called upon in the form of a littermate of one of the travellers. Deer do not differentiate between brothers and sisters, they just call them all littermates.

Due to his hyperdeveloped sense of smell, the deer operative was able to confirm that food supplies are more than adequate to last the scant few hours remaining in the journey. Of course, deer routinely eat, like, all of their food so that a bunch of them die. Not my superintelligent army of deer, of course. They are fed a diet of the finest genetically engineered hay from the slopes of one of three hills in southern Peru, grown by a family of haygrowers that has done nothing but grow hay since Francisco Pizarro was in diapers. They're the best. As a training tool and a reward for supplying valuable information, the deer are sometimes allowed a taste of the fabled "salt lick of 7 kings." I know one deer who's slated for some lick time once he's off duty tonight! Anyway, my point is that I'm not sure I trust a deer's opinion on the adequacy of food supplies.

Serenade

Yeah
Can you feel it baby
I can too

Ooh
Come on swing it

C-C-Come on swing it
Ooh
Come on swing it
C-C-Come on swing it

1-2-3 - Now we come to the pay off

It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation
It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation


Yo! It's about that time
To bring forth the rhythm and the rhyme
I'm a get mine so get yours
I wanna see sweat comin' out your pores
On the house tip is how I'm swingin' this
Strictly Hip-Hop boy, I ain't singin' this
Bringing this to the entire nation
Black, white, red, brown
Feel the vibration

Come on come on
Feel it feel it
Feel the vibration

It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation
It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation

Vibrations good like Sunkist
Many wanna know who done this
Marky Mark and I'm here to move you
Rhymes will groove you
And I'm here to prove to you
That we can party on the positive side
And pump positive vibes
So come along for the ride
Making you feel the rhythm is my occupation
So feel the vibration

Come on come on
Feel it feel it
Feel the vibration

It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation
It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation

Donnie D break it down
Donnie D's on the back up
Drug free, so put the crack up
No need for speed
I'm the anti D-R-U-G-G-I-E my
Body is healthy
My rhymes make me wealthy
And the Funky Bunch helps me
To bring you a show with no intoxication
Come on feel the vibration

Yeah
Can you feel it baby
I can too

It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation
It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation

Now the time has come for you to get up
The rest had you fed up but Yo, I won't let up
On the rhythm and rhyme that's designed to
Make your behind move to what I'm inclined to
Pure Hip Hop, no sell out
If you ain't in it to win it
Then get the hell out
I command you to dance
I wanna see motivation
Come on now feel the vibration

It's such a good vibration
Come on come on come on
It's such a sweet sensation
Feel it feel it

It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation
It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation

It's such a good vibration
Come on come on come on
It's such a sweet sensation
Feel it feel it

It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation
It's such a good vibration
It's such a sweet sensation

Grave news

According to the microscopic GPS unit planted within a carefully machined US nickel received by Dan in change from a 7-11 when he purchased a 20 oz. Dr. Pepper, our intrepid travellers are currently in Franklin county and have notched 56 out of 88 counties. They are 42 minutes ahead of schedule and have travelled 799.4 miles.

That's the good news. The bad news is, my OHP mole has reported through his Morse Code-transmitting wristwatch that a vehicle matching the description of that being used by our heroes (his exact words: a red van) has been detained on a trumped-up charge of exceeding the speed limit somewhere near Columbus. Of course, no ticket was issued because that would create a paper trail. Their motives are far more sinister than to cost Jay $75 and 2 points on his license.