Puke, Gas, More Gas and There Ought to be a Law

Our second day at Embassy Suites in Columbus.

Our lil' sweetie, Violet, loves to stay in Grammy & Grampy's hotel when we're here, and stayed with us last night. Breakfast is included here, so the three of us went down from our top-floor digs to dine on a variety of wonders. Violet enjoyed scrambled eggs, French toast, honeydew and cantaloupe, and bacon all washed down with Tru-Moo. Shortly after, her grammy took her to the pool for a refreshing swim, then back to the seventh floor for a refreshing nap.

Somewhat later, our darlin' began making some slightly uncomfortable noises, and soon our hotel room was the victim of some serious uppy-chucky.

Back home on Dresden Street Violet spent some quality time resting on the sofa, while brother Victor spent hours jumping, stomping and flopping in his plastic swimming pool decorated with pictures of octopi.  Vic has some communication issues, but the big smile on his face made it pretty clear he was enjoying himself.

Meanwhile, poor big sis still isn't feeling well. She was supposed to have a sleep-over with girlfriends tonight but had to postpone. I hope she doesn't remember this day as her grandparents coming to town and making her sick.

One of the nice things about coming to Ohio to visit our elder son's family was the price of gas here. Traditionally, it was thirty cents a gallon less than home in Massachusetts, and had a bigger spread still with the (price-controlled, hehehe) gas on the New York Thruway. And of course no experienced traveler would buy gas in the 48-mile stretch of Pennsylvania around Erie, where sneaky pumpers would jump out and pump a little gas for show, then immediately turn the pump back to zero and overcharge you for what they did. Pretty much the same as they do in Mexico. But then we'd get to Ohio and at every rotary intersection there would be a Pilot station with what seemed to us was really cheap gas.

Not any more! Just guessing, but it appears that the Land of Presidents has, since we were here last year, passed a new gas tax that brings them into parity with New York and Connecticut (the absolute worst.) Instead of thirty cents cheaper, the price was thirty cents more than at home! What you see in the picture was last year. Now the price here is about four bucks a gallon, with diesel about the same.

On the other hand...there's a ton of infrastructure work going on in Ohio, and there are new bridges everywhere. While gasoline taxation is a reverse tax and I'm agin' it, the biggest moneymakers—corporations, churches and rich folk—aren't paying their share, so this new price structure in Ohio is at least putting the dough back into the roads.

Speaking of gas: our new Mazda 5 has a little red dashboard display that's much like a lot of other cars. But I had never seen a display before that tells you how many miles you have remaining on what's left in the tank.

I've got out of the habit of looking at the gas gauge—which in this car is pretty well hidden behind the steering column—any more. I just take a quick glance at the Range number and say, “Hell, nothing to worry about; we've got 200 miles left.” But then we climb a long series of hills, and every thousand feet or so the remaining mileage number drops by one. I begin to lose faith. Suddenly we've passed the crest of the hills, and we're losing altitude on the other side, and the Range number begins to increase! The twenty-five miles worth of gas it took to climb four miles of hills is returned to us as we descend the other side. It turns out that whatever the range number registered when you left the gas station after fill-up, is about what you'll get, because a complete circumference of the world averages just about level.

Now here's question every weary road traveler must have asked himself at least once: shouldn't there be a law that the restaurants listed on highway exits should at least be in the same county?

From experience McDonald's is the worst offender. Of course McD's is the worst offender in many ways, and while politically they represent most of the things I find repugnant, they do make the best caramel iced coffee and following many dry hours on the highway no other refreshment comes close. But when you're trying to make 587 miles by sundown, it's aggravating that the little arrow at the end of the exit ramp means you have to drive halfway to goddam Canada!

At the very least, the mileage to each restaurant (and gas station and hotel on the other signs) should be on the sign! Then you can make an informed decision whether or not to add an extra day to your trip just to get an iced coffee.