Our next major destination was Chicago, a long way west of Pennsylvania. So we chose to break up the trip by stopping over in Ohio’s capital city of Columbus. Here’s a few points on Ohio:
- It’s named after the Ohio River which runs along its southern border.
- Ohio means “great river” in a Native American language called Seneca. So Ohio River actually means “Great River River”. Nice.
- It’s the 7th most populous state with about 12mn people. It’s a big industrial state, particularly in its northern region, and one of the key states in the “rust belt”.
- Like Pennsylvania, it’s a major swing state and has even more success choosing the US president than its larger neighbor. No Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio.
- It has produced six US presidents and has been referred to as the Mother of Presidents.
- It’s nicknamed the Buckeye State because of the large presence of buckeye trees in the state.
Done. On to Columbus. Despite being a pretty big city, it definitely has a student town feel to it. Columbus is home to the sprawling Ohio State University complex. We stayed close to the university and wandered around the huge buildings and pretty amazing facilities. The university is home to about 60,000 students, the third largest in the country, and sits on a healthy $4.3bn endowment.
College sports is a big deal in the US, and Ohio State ranks up there with the best. The university’s Ohio Stadium or “the Horseshoe” is huge and its primary purpose is being the home venue of the university’s American football team. A uni team! There seem to be plenty of big name Ohio State alums, but two that caught my attention were Jack Nicklaus and Jesse Owens.
The suburbs in and around the university had a really cool vibe, and I got the impression many students shared large beautiful old houses as their digs. We stayed in one such home that had been semi-converted into an Airbnb home. About fifty movies about American university life came to mind as we explored the area.
(the flag above is the flag of Ohio)
But not this next house, it was definitely haunted:
Another interesting aspect of Columbus is its status as Ohio’s state capital. The individual states in the US have a fair amount of autonomy. And in fact, US politics can partially be boiled down to that single dimension – how much power is kept at the state or local level and how much is ceded to Washington. Ohio is a good introduction to this. The political and legislative structure of the state mirror that of a country. The governor is the head of the executive branch of the state’s government and commander-in-chief of the state’s military (the Ohio National Guard), the legislative branch includes a state Senate and House of Representatives, and the judicial branch even has a state Supreme Court. Visiting the Ohio State House was like a trip to the White House and Capital Hill. I wonder how difficult it would be for a state like this to break away as its own country? Not sure they’d want to, but its interesting that it may be doable.
Ohio also has its own constitution which was drafted in 1802, a few years before it was admitted into the US as the 17th state. The original documents were on display in the State House.
Ella left her sunglasses on a table at a Kroger (big grocery chain) the day before, and we actually found them again! That is joy!
