Roadtrippin', Rollercoasterin' and Roots (Mansfield/Ontario/Sandusky Ohio)

There are some trips that take you away from where you were, others that bring you back to where you want to be, and occasionally if you're lucky, you'll go on a journey that doesn't end after the trip is over. I had one such experience these past 3 days.

Mansfield Ohio is probably not on the obvious bucket list of grand destinations for most people. It's a tiny rural town about an hour from Columbus, but it's where Darcy was born and raised, so I wanted to spend some time making memories there.

We rented a car at the airport—a little Toyota Yaris. Darcy was chagrined to drive a much less peppy vehicle than his Camaro, but who could argue with the 40 mpg it got us? We got from Columbus to Mansfield, to Sandusky, back to Mansfield, then back to Columbus and back to Mansfield on a full tank. I think we were looking at an odometer of over 500 added miles when we finally refueled.

[caption id="attachment_157" align="alignnone" width="640"] Our rental vehical for the trip. 2013 Toyota Yaris. We were the first one's to drive this baby off the lot.[/caption]

The first day we just drove around the city. Darcy's face lit up seeing his childhood houses, schools and haunts.  It wasn't long before the little town and all its abundant charm had stolen my heart as well. There's a lot to be said about being able to drive around and point out a million memories from your childhood and the people in them.  Unfortunately, as it usually goes before I take a vacation, I'm so excited the previous night I find it hard to sleep. Which, while fine at the time, really limits my ability to function the next day. I was to tired, but it was too early to check in to our hotel, so we napped in the park in our car.
Apparently we stayed there for "suspiciously long" because a (bored) local cop drove up and interrogated us about our intentions for being there. hilarious.

[caption id="attachment_158" align="alignnone" width="640"] Warrior Pizza. It has an actual Corvette on the top of the building! Oh, and awesome food.[/caption]

That evening, we met up with some of Darcy's friends from his teenage days of working at McDonalds. I loved hearing all the crazy stories about adventures they had, as well as all the embarrassing stories about Darcy. They are a fun bunch and it was quite delightful to see how they had all kept in touch after so many years.

The next day, Darcy, his buddy Bradley and I went to Cedar Point, a badass roller coaster park where they had whiled away many hours in summers of yore. I was able to procure discounted tickets through my airline, and so we sojourned north to spend a day there.

Neither of them could believe I had never been on a real rollercoaster before. To be fair, I've been to the local amusement park in the Chattanooga area many times, and I even went on some rides at Orlando's Universal Studios for a Bachelorette trip with some of my friends. This wasn't good enough for them. Apparently, I didn't know what a real thrill was until I had ridden on some of the beasts of coasters which lurked at Cedar Point. If you don't taste your own bile, you're not having enough fun!

We spend 6 hours or so going on as many coasters as we possibly could, and by the time the sun had started to set, we were windblown (seriously, my hair was a mess) and deliriously happy. Many thanks to Darcy's friend Bradley for coming along and taking pictures!

[caption id="attachment_153" align="alignnone" width="640"] The biggest and best coaster park by FAR[/caption]

You might think that being on planes all day as a job might make me immune to the thrill of roller coasters. Wrong.

[caption id="attachment_154" align="alignnone" width="640"] There seems to be a bit of disparity between our expressions, isn't there?[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignnone" width="640"] Darcy insisted that being in the stocks was no reason to be chipper, but I convinced him to feign a grin for the camera.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_155" align="alignnone" width="640"] The beautiful grounds at Kingwood. Kept in pristine condition by the love and dedication of the Mansfield citizens[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_156" align="alignnone" width="640"] Kingwood Mansion. Breathtaking. It's amazing how much there is to find when you go wandering through the woods![/caption]

Being the nature aficionados we are, we had to check out the beautiful grounds of this old mansion called Kingwood. Back in the day, it was owned by a brass magnate named Charles Kelley King. After his death, his home and gardens were made into a public park, and boy was it worth the trip! So much beauty abounded, it was impossible not to feel the love this man had had for his home and keeping the local flora beautiful. While we were at Kingwood, we picked up a little cactus from the extensive greenhouse shop there. We named him Manny, after Mansfield Ohio. He came back with us to Chattanooga, and will live at Darcy's house as a reminder of our first roadtrip/mini vacation together.

I was particularly excited at the end of the trip to spend some time with Darcy's family in Ohio. We reserved the entire day to just visit and relax with his two grandmothers. I loved that I was able to be a catalyst for him to get to go on a trip, spend quality time with people he cares about—all for free! One grandma asked when Darcy and I were getting married, and we both blushed and grinned sheepishly. While its certainly something we've started to talk about, it's nothing we're in a hurry to get done!

On our way back, we were starting to feel the Post Vacation Depression Syndrome set it. I call this the phase of inertia which happens after you spend several days having fun and experiencing exciting new things on vacation. When this ends and you go back to the daily grind, you feel kind of sad. Like, what's next? Oh....it's over. Bummer.
We weren't gloomy though. We'd just had the time of our lives together seeing family, friends, riding coasters, eating great food and making memories together. It's amazing how sharing your past with each other makes you want to plan your future. While we were having a very serious talk about what our lives will look like in the future, and how we want them to intertwine—we smelled something funny. Kind of like someone cooked dog crap and nerve gas nearby. When we realized the person sitting in front of us had had a bad reaction to whatever they had eaten earlier, we couldn't stop laughing. We forgot all about the seriousness of what we were talking about, and just busted a gut like two little kids.

As I'm writing this (extremely delayed) post, I am hanging out in my hotel in Las Vegas. More about that in my next post!

Until next time, catch me if you can!

-Carmen

PS—for pictures, comments and peeks into my adventures before I even blog about them, follow me on my instagram account at www.instagram.com/wingedwayfarer. You know you want to!