I owe Ohio an apology.

For so many years, I have never paid the state of Ohio much attention.  It is merely one of those flattish states that you need to persevere through until you get to the states with actual topography.  Really, what would that state offer an outdoor enthusiast?  Most of the people from Ohio that I have met don't make a great case for the state either.  (Note:  I am mostly kidding.  Also, I absolutely exclude my brother's fiancee and her family from that statement.  So don't kick my ass, Jodi.)  After spending several days in Columbus, OH at my brother's house, I feel that I may owe the state an apology for my long held criticisms.

 Bike specific street map of Columbus, OH

Perhaps I am getting a little bit ahead of myself here.  While I certainly exempt the city of Columbus from my earlier criticisms, I might hold off pardoning the rest of the state.  So why was I swayed by Columbus, you ask?  Well the biggest part of it is that the city is so darned fun to ride around.  Leaving my brother's house on the northwestern side of town, you can ride a combination of bike trails and streets to get through, across, and around town.  This is made especially easy by the bike specific street/trail map that the city distributes.  Not only does it show their amazing system of bike trails, but it also rates the "bikeability" of every street by a green-yellow-red rating.  To top it off, so far as I have ridden around town in various states of traffic, I have yet to be honked at or threatened, even when I do something stupid.  I can't say that I've gotten the same reception around PA...

A free, outdoor climbing wall?  WTF?!

Also, if you were to hop on a bike path near my brother's house, you would find yourself in the Scioto Audubon Nature Center within about 15 minutes.  And as you rode around the park you would eventually fine A FREE OUTDOOR CLIMBING WALL?  What?  Columbus has a 35 foot tall outdoor climbing wall and it is supposed to be the largest of it's kind in the US.  It's free.  It's unsupervised.  You set up your own topropes there.  You can lead on bolts there.  It has both face and crack climbs on "natural" type rock.  I have never seen or heard of such a thing before.  My brother and I have gone climbing there and it kicks ass. How this one got past the lawyers is beyond me...

So, Columbus, OH, my hat's off to you.  You are definitely a nice city to live in from what I have gathered.