Tag Archives: College Road Trip

Days 8 & 9 — Stinky Sandusky and two non-tours

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We spent Monday driving. The rain continued until we were nearly into Ohio. I’d checked prices for hotels near Cleveland, and as they were over $100 I decided to stop about an hour before Cleveland to find a hotel. Big mistake. Sandusky is an hour before Cleveland. Have you been in Sandusky? Take my word for it — don’t jump into your car and drive there. If you do, bring a gas mask. The air there smells toxic (Clare’s words). We checked into a Day’s Inn (after trying the Hampton Inn and being told that the only room left was a King Jacuzzi Suite for $175.)

We could have driven further into the town, but I suspect the hotels got more expensive since Sandusky seems to be the Wisconsin Dells of Ohio.

Our room was gross — swaybacked beds and mildewy shower. There was some commotion in the room next to us, but it stopped as soon as it started. We ate dinner at an Olive Garden about 5 miles from the hotel. Our friendly waitress explained Sandusky to us. It grew up around Cedar Point — an amusement park that is on Lake Erie. Then other attractions arrived, such as a couple of water parks. Clare and I didn’t bother to drive to see the lake — we just went back to the room and watched a little tv before we went to sleep.

We drove to Berea, Ohio after an inadequate breakfast. We were visiting Baldwin-Wallace College the same day as Barack Obama was, so there were a few people there, including a few news vans.

Clare liked the look of Baldwin-Wallace. I thought it was too spread out — and Clare commented that it seemed too integrated with the surrounding community. We went to admissions, but were not offered a tour. There were nothing but students in the admissions office. Someone began to ask if we wanted one, and — although I didn’t see it — another student may have hushed him. I suspect (huge stretch here) that she wanted to be free to go see the town hall meeting with Obama. While I don’t blame her, I would have liked a tour.

After getting coffee at Caribou Coffee in Berea and looking around at the buildings on campus, we moved onto the College of Wooster. Clare loved the campus, which we self-toured, after a lunch at Muddy Waters cafe in town. (we tried to eat at The Bead Cafe — since our GPS directed us to it, and thinking it was a restaurant — but all they serve is beads.)

The admissions office was staffed, again, by a student who didn’t offer us a tour, but gave us a map and sent us on our way. She was friendly enough, but I suspect that if there was a real admissions receptionist there, they might have been a little more accommodating.

I was impressed by a couple of buildings. The humanities building was a beautiful Gothic structure — like a Norman castle. The classrooms were paneled in dark wood — at least the “tower” classroom was — it had an observation window for some reason.

Clare spent a lot of time touring the campus. It is a beautiful campus, so I don’t blame her. I think it’s going on her yes list.

After that, Clare wanted to do at least one “Weird USA” / Roadside attraction thing. On the way to Meadville, PA (our final college stop) is the site of a local legend about Melon Heads — creatures that once were orphans, but experimented on by an evil doctor. We didn’t see any secluded wooded areas, much less small creatures with large heads. Clare was disappointed. I was not.

I wasn’t sure how big a town Meadville was, so we decided to find a hotel in Erie, PA — about an hour away from Meadville. Clare fell asleep before we reached Pennsylvania, so was not a lot of help once I reached Erie. I glimpsed Lake Erie, then drove towards the beaches, hoping to find a motel that we’d like.

The town was crowded and none of the close-by hotels looked like something we’d want to sleep in, so I headed towards Meadville. Just outside Erie were a couple of large motels, and I decided that if Meadville didn’t work out, sleepwise, I’d go back there.

The road to Meadville promised more motels, so I knew we’d be ok. Then I saw signs that the exit to Meadville was closed, and had to exit early. I ended up on a long gravel road. Thank goodness for the GPS — it lead me to Meadville — albeit the long, slow way.

The couple of sleep options in the town of Meadville were no good, so we eventually decided to go towards Pittsburgh or Erie to find something. We ended up near the main highway outside town, at a Holiday Inn Express. The staff was very friendly and the room is clean with comfortable beds. What else did we need? We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant called Chovy’s (10% discount from Holiday Inn Express).

We watched a little television, then I crashed. Not sure what time Clare went to sleep.

This morning we had a great breakfast (fresh fruit, eggs, corned beef hash, fresh orange juice) and are getting ready to visit Allegheny College. At this point, I’m not expecting a tour, but it would be nice if we could have one.

Days 6 & 7 — Family time

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We left Rock Island and headed to Batavia around 10:00 after a hearty breakfast at the American Bar and Grill. The countryside became less pretty as we headed east — still countryside, but flat. But it is always fun to be able to see for miles because of the flatness of the land.

As we neared Dekalb, Illinois, Clare said she’d like to see Northern Illinois University, where her dad and I went to college. The campus is prettier than I recall. We walked around the area of Altgeld Hall and the closer part of the Lagoon (which is much closer to the building) than I recall it being. The fallen grotesque has lost its head — I wonder where that went. Clare snapped some photos of a grazing baby bunny and some of Altgeld Hall.

We drove on to Batavia after our stop at NIU and were greeted warmly by Kevin and his menagerie (he has two dogs now — one belongs to his roomate though– and two cats). Ashley was there, and apparently so was Brandon, but he didn’t wake up until around 4 pm, having been awake until morning playing his video games.

We went out to a very nice restaurant on the river in Batavia with Kevin, Brandon, Ashley and her friend, Heather. We ordered too much food, as usual, but since most of it was pizza we brought it back to Kevin’s for breakfast food.

I took the girls to see a late showing of The Dark Knight. It was far too dark for me (perhaps because of the late hour, I couldn’t deal with so much violence) but the girls loved it.

We didn’t get to sleep until around 1:30 am, so we all slept in and had a lazy Sunday. Kevin bought food for grilling and Clare planned the next couple of days’ driving routes.

We have three more colleges to visit. Today we will simply drive — the first college is over 6 hours away — then visit the two near Cleveland tomorrow and on Wednesday morning visit the college north of Pittsburgh.

It is both interesting and a tad worrying that college admissions folks are visiting this blog. It is also understandable. We’d been told that admission counselors sometimes checked facebook and myspace pages when reviewing prospective student’s files, so why not blogs that mention or link to their colleges. I’m pleased that two of the admission counselors have left comments on the blog.

It is pouring down rain now, and thundering. Not the best weather in which to pack the car and drive. Maybe it will stop soon.

Day 5 — West of the Mississippi

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Even though we spent the night in Galesburg, Illinois — Near Knox College, Clare decided that Knox didn’t have the aesthetics she needed. In addition, a train practically runs through the campus several times a day. We drove to the school, but Clare decided not to visit, and head out to Cornell College earlier than we’d planned.

The drive to Mount Vernon, Iowa got much prettier once we got out of Illinois. I was pleasantly surprised that Southeastern Iowa is beautiful. The green countryside is hilly, similar to Ireland, without the sheep and hedgerows.

We got to Mount Vernon the back way. It is a lovely little town — which I sort of expected. See, besides visiting Mount Vernon for the college it holds, this leg of the trip was a sort of pilgrimage for me. My favorite musician, Dan Bern, grew up there. His father, the late Julian Bern, taught at Cornell College and his mother still lives near Cedar Rapids (of which Mount Vernon is sort of a suburb).

The folks at Cornell are very friendly and we had a lovely, but uncomfortably hot, tour given by a enthusiastic rising junior named Kelly who kept on referring to “This side of the Mississippi” meaning the west side of the Mississippi which made me start each time she said it. Clare really liked the college. One difference Cornell College has is that students take only 1 course at a time for 3.5 weeks. I think that Clare would really shine in an environment that way as she tends to focus well.

We spoke to the same very nice admissions counselor as we did in the fall, when she visited Bethesda. She remembered Clare and encouraged Clare to come back in the fall when classes were in session.

After the tour and brief interview, we headed towards Coe in Cedar Rapids. The admissions office was closed and although Clare, at first, thought the anesthetics were ok at Coe, she soon thought, “eh” when we drove past it on the highway.

We left Cedar Rapids and headed back across the Mississippi River. Clare said she was hungry about the time we hit Davenport, so we decided to stop in Rock Island, Illinois after 2 hours. That way our trip to Elgin would be only 2 hours. We found a hotel and had a nice dinner at the Candellite Inn, which is across the street from the hotel, where the specialty was “Chicken George” — pretty good chicken tenders. We got some take out boxes, thinking that we could take the rest of the food home to my dad, who likes to eat — anything.

We got back to the hotel and began to settle in. I thought I’d call my mom to let her know we were on our way (I’d told her, last weekend, we might be visiting during the college tour and she said that would be fine) and couldn’t reach her on her mobile nor home phone. After a few minutes she called back on her mobile and let me know she and dad were in Wisconsin. With Wendy and Don. She said that since she didn’t know when we were coming she decided to go to Wisconsin. I wish she had let me know that was her plan, because we may have done this trip differently.

I called Kevin, but got an answering service instead, and thought we were kind of screwed in the visiting relatives department — the Follmans are on their way to Wisconsin today, mom and dad are in Wisconsin, and I couldn’t reach Kevin.

Eventually Kevin called back and said he’d be around and invited us to stay with him. Which is good as we are closer to Batavia than Elgin anyway.

Clare and I slept in (Clare doesn’t think we slept in, as it is only 8 am here in Central Time Zone) and will have breakfast at the American Bar and Grill, then head east to Batavia.