Schmidt’s Sausage Haus in Columbus, Ohio

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Our first stop on our westbound journey was supposed to be Cambridge, OH. But due to the length of the trip and our habit of sleeping in we made a pit stop near Pittsburgh before continuing. This pushed our destination in Ohio a bit further to Columbus. And what a surprise Columbus was. In fact the entire length of Ohio along the I-70 was very eye-opening. The roads and scenery changed dramatically from Pennsylvania to Ohio. No longer were the roads uncomfortably narrow with little to no shoulder. No longer was the scenery just overgrown forest and brush. Ohio was a much more pleasant drive with open, wider roads and a manicured but still wild feel to the view.

Storefront for Schmidt's Sausage Haus

Our visit took us to a little RV park among the suburbs of Columbus. Our first stop was, of course, food. Schmidt’s Sausage Haus and Restaurant is located in the middle of German town near downtown Columbus. The streets are brick-paved (and very bumpy) with quaint little houses alongside – we’re assuming reminiscent of a small German town. Since our search for a good Norwegian or Swedish smorgasbord was a bust in Pennsylvania we decided Schmidt’s was worth a try. The traditional German side dishes were more authentic than some of the other food we’ve had in the east. The green beans were especially tasty considering most vegetables in restaurants like this are overcooked and flavorless. The sausages where very tasty, particularly the garlic knockwurst and the bratwurst. However, for a restaurant that likes to portray an authentic German feel we expected the sausages to have more a homemade texture – and that they would be made on site. But these sausages were all heavily processed with the consistency of kielbasa you buy at the supermarket. Tasty but definitely lacking in authenticity. So, while we would recommend Schimdt’s to those visiting the area, just know what to expect.

Though our time in Columbus, OH was short, we’re very interested in returning and exploring the city more.

There and Back Again

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After several months of stick house living, we’re on the move again. Our time on the east coast has taught us that the weather is not our friend over here. So we’re packing up and heading for a milder and dryer climate – the West Coast. We didn’t want to rush our trip though as we will be passing through areas we’ve never been to before. So stay tuned for posts for the Midwest – the flyover states that are so much more. We were very pleasantly surprised by our trip and we hope to share some of our experiences.

We will finish the posts from our trip to the east, but in the meantime please enjoy these fresh off the keyboard stories.

Catching Up

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If you’ve been following us, you’re probably wondering, where are we? Well, we’re taking a short break and staying at a house for a few months on the eastern side of the US.

At this point, about 30 titled travel posts (and counting) are in backlog waiting for us to finish; meaning we’ve traveled to these places and took pictures, but we haven’t finished writing about them. Simply, we need to focus on other priorities for now. We’ll be writing posts when we can, but the timing may be a bit more sporadic than before.

View from Logan's bedroom window.

The above picture is the view from our bedroom window. Even though we miss the dry heat of the west coast and the quiet west coast beaches, being on the east does have its’ perks. One of which is the ability to look out and see the lushness of green trees. Aahhh….

In the meantime, the boys are doing well and enjoying themselves. They mostly spend time indoors since the weather here in the east is humid, sometimes very rainy, and breeds more bugs than they’re used to. Plenty of chipmunks, squirrels, birds, deer, marmot, rabbits, and badgers keep the boys on the constant hunt whenever they do step outside. Duke especially enjoys watching the lightning bugs at night illuminate the trees and shrubs like Christmas lights.

Mammoth Cave – Pt3 – Wild Caving!

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Another Wild Cave tour! Like the other Wild Caving adventures we’ve been on, this tour promised 6 hours (yeah, 6) of crawling through less-traveled passages. For this tour we were equipped with overalls, gloves, helmets, and knee pads. The only thing we brought ourselves were the shoes. With all the crawling and tight spaces we were promised, bringing a camera would not have been wise – so no pictures.

We entered at the same place the Grand Avenue tour enters but quickly rabbited down a tiny passage at the side. During the Grand Avenue tour, the guide showed us a hole on the side of the subway tunnel passage where the Wild Cave tour participants routinely pop out. Sometimes, they said, the wild cavers will come out during the Grand Avenue tour. And as luck would have it, on our Wild Cave tour we squeezed out of the narrowest hole we’ve ever had to squeeze out of to a crowd of 70 people. That particular hole, called the Bear Hole (think “bare”), is so tight, your helmet barely fits through. Getting through it requires using your toes to push and your torso to continually wiggle to nudge yourself out.

Another section of the tour was called the Cheese Grater. It refers to the texture of the rock on which you are crawling. Without enough room to crawl on your knees, you have to do an army crawl across this abrasive surface. The crawling on this tour was the toughest we’ve ever done on a tour. Besides the crawling, of which there was plenty, we also got a chance to see parts of the cave not seen by your average tourist. Walking in the middle of a narrow slot canyon, with the bottom 20 feet down, was actually a relief from the crawling. We did have a short lunch break about an hour into the tour at the Snowball lunchroom. From there we continued crawling, climbing, and squeezing our way through the cave.

This tour, unlike the other wild caving tours, left us exhausted and bruised, but in a satisfying way. Forearm and elbow protection would be a huge plus – and better fitting kneepads wouldn’t hurt either. Tours like this make you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something. We would recommend this tour to most people interested in an atypical caving experience. Just be sure you’re up for the challenge.

Mammoth Cave – Pt2 – Star Chamber Tour

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The Star Chamber Tour at Mammoth Cave is another all-in-one tour that offers sections of several different tours in one (portions of the Historic, Discovery, Violet City Lantern, and Mammoth Passage Tours) . This is a lantern tour that departs from the natural entrance of Mammoth Cave. Normally we don’t choose lantern tours because they’re dark and carrying a lantern really hinders proper picture taking. But since this one tour covers a good portion of the tours available we couldn’t pass it up. Turns out a select few get the privilege of carrying lanterns so we happily deferred. Our biggest complaint about this tour was the time (early evening) and the bitter cold – dress warmly if you plan to take this tour in the spring. The low light conditions didn’t help with the picture taking either.

The Star Chamber tour is more of a history lesson than cave tour. The cave is generally wide and spacious and their are practically none of the usual cave formations seen on other tours. The tour passes by the remnants of an old Civil War saltpeter mining operation. Saltpeter was critical during the Civil War because it’s the main ingredient in gunpowder. A rather sophisticated piping system was used to pump the saltpeter slurry out of the cave, using hollowed out trees as pipes.

Another historic site is the tuberculosis hospital. In the mid 1800s a doctor theorized that the isolation and cold air would help cure patients of tuberculosis. He set up a couple of cottages, that are still standing today, for had a dozen or so patients. Unfortunately, none of them improved and his experiment ended in less than a year.

Just beyond the tuberculosis hospital is the feature attraction of the tour – the Star Chamber. The ceiling of this large room (about 30 ft high or more) is covered with blackened gypsum from years of torch soot. In this dark field new, white gypsum is peaking through some of the blackened crust. With the low light of the lanterns the large area looks like the night sky with twinkling stars.

Monument hall at Mammoth Cave

The last section of the cave is monument hall. The wide but low tunnel is filled with signatures and monuments from early tourists to Mammoth Cave. In the early 1800s the tour guides would let the visitors write their names using their torches and build monuments of rocks. We were told that at one time nearly all 50 states had monuments. Until the CCC came. Usually the CCC’s work is looked at fondly with respect to the National Park system. Here they came in and rightly or wrongly “cleaned” up this section of the trail – taking down many of the monuments. Maybe at that time, with much of the “vandalism” being just several decades old they did not view them as historical artifacts.

Monument to Minnesota on the Star Chamber tour

So while not your typical cave tour, the history of the Star Chamber tour is worth a visit if you are interested. Just be sure to bring a heavy jacket. Our next post will be about the Wild Cave Tour – easily the most strenuous wild cave experience we’ve had.