Vacation days 4-6

 Today I pick up where I left off  with the vacation stuff. 

Monday morning, we were up bright and early to eat breakfast with Karen's Uncle Toren (Tiffany's dad), his wife, and Tiffany and Matt at Cracker Barrel. They have never been my favorite, but I figured we could get going to one out of the way without having to waste a dinner at one (Karen loves them for some reason). I had biscuits and gravy with bacon, and it wasn't too bad. After breakfast, we took off for Ohio, driving through Virginia and West Virginia. One thing I never realized is that both states have tons of mountains. While driving, we experienced the strangest thing (at least to someone used to flat ground in Florida). There were these dark patches in the mountains that looked like black trees, but the only weird thing was that they moved. Eventually, I think we came to figure out that it was just shadows from the clouds, but it was the strangest thing. I got a picture of one while driving by. 

Kyler was more interested in playing with his eyes (or maybe flipping us off). 

He was, however, impressed with a few of the tunnels we had to drive through.

Another thing we saw that made me want to take a picture were some of the overpasses. I lived in Michigan until I was like 8, and I always remembered the overpasses (especially train ones) being made of steel-like pieces like the one in the photo below. Every time I see one, it reminds me of Michigan. 

We had McDonalds for lunch on the road. I got my usual 10 piece nugget meal with a diet coke. I prefer Pepsi to coke, but it seems like down south, most places only offer coke. Lucky for me, the vast majority of places we went to in Michigan and northern states had Pepsi.

We got to the hotel in Columbus around dinner time, and we ordered LaRosa's pizza for dinner. We made a mistake and ate on the bed, and it took like 2 days to get the crumbs off. The pizza was ok, but nothing special. I am a big pizza guy, and I usually get a thin crust pizza with all the meats and no veggies, and prefer a small helping of sauce. I think if Papa Johns would do their sauce a little less like Dominos that they would have the prefect pizza. I think the LaRosa's one had a little too much sauce, and that's what I didn't care for.

We got up on Tuesday about an hour before our time slot for the Columbus zoo and it was only like 30 minutes from the hotel, so we made it in plenty of time. There is the main sign for the zoo.

I only got one picture of the water tower that they sometimes picture on the Secrets of the Zoo show. I figured I would have more chances to take pictures, but I just never saw it from where we were. It is right above that red car.

I promise we saw more animals, but I really only took pictures of the Sand Cats, and Karen got most of the other animals on her phone. I believe we saw polar bears, elephants, zebras, gorillas, penguins, and other less common animals. I really wanted to see the Pallas Cats, but they weren't out. The Sand Cats kind of were. There was a Jack Hanna building where they kind of told how the zoo recycled things, and there were a bunch of habitats build with toy food in them. 

They look just like house cats, but they have fangs and are mean. 

We had lunch at the zoo. I got pizza. Wasn't too bad or expensive. For dinner, we went to a place called Capital City Fine Diner in Dublin, Ohio where our hotel was. It was a cool little place, and had a great downtown area around it. I got some fried chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans. It was pretty good. 

Wednesday, we spent most of the day driving. For lunch, we got Chic-Fil-A. I usually get a 12 count fried nugget meal with a diet coke. We arrived to Michigan around dinner time, and spent all of our time in Michigan at my Uncle Jeff's house. He is married to my Aunt Val, whom we ate dinner with while in Charletson, SC on the first day of our vacation. Jeff made us some tacos for dinner. There are some months where we have tacos almost every week. Actually, they are burritos, but we call them tacos. I always do a burrito shell with refried beans on the bottom and hamburger meat on the top, nothing else, unless occasionally when I get cheese on top. Jeff's tacos were pretty good. He had smaller burrito shells, so where I usually have 2 of the larger ones, I had 3 of Jeff's. Jeff is a cool guy who works at Amway. We would usually spend the evenings talking in his living room after Kyler went to bed. We would usually crack open an adult beverage, as well. I usually have an Angry Orchard Apple Ale, but midway through the trip, we found a Meijers, and they had Angry Orchard Strawberry Ale, so I got a 6 pack of it, and I think I liked it better than the apple one. The sweeter anything is with me, the better. 

Jeff had some chickens and 2 ducks at his house, so Kyler got to help feed them a few times and gather some eggs. 

He also had cats, which Kyler loved chasing. 

Also, not a pet, but they have black squirrels in Michigan. All of the ones in Florida are either brown or gray. 

On to the card goodness. In the last post, I mentioned that I got a fat pack and hanging box of Donruss. On top of that, I had previously gotten a hobby pack, and another hanging box that ended up getting delivered while we were on vacation. I took a picture of all of the shiny cards I got. I think the first 3 are Red White & Blue, next is a Blue and a Statue of Liberty parallel, some Orange, and starting with the Altuve, some Red ones, and a Blue Star? Andre Dawson. The Albies looks like a Vector parallel, and not sure what the technology on the next 4 are. I pulled 3 SP's from the Heritage blaster, a Matt Joyce (#421), Wilson Ramos (#417), and a Matt Alexander, who I am keeping, since he is a Tiger. I think I'm willing to part with any of these if anyone wants them. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy