Breakfast at Frisch’s. If there is an active Big Boy franchise in a city I’m visiting, it is mandatory that I eat there at least once.
After breakfast, I made my side trip to Zanesville and McConnellsville. The visit to McConnellsville had been one of my prime motivators as there’s a tiny, ancient, but still open Kroger there that I had to see. And I saw it, along with the IGA.
Zanesville was just an interesting town along the way. I had lunch there, at a place called Nicol’s, where the special was beef with noodles. I didn’t realize that the beef and noodles would be served on top of mashed potatoes. This whole midwestern starch thing was starting to get to me by this time. It’s like I spent the whole trip in the midst of a giant carb crash.
Back in Columbus, I found a couple of decent used bookstores, and stumbled upon the 1940s-1950s neighborhood where the betrothed and I would probably crave to live if we ever moved to Columbus — in the vicinity of Indianola Avenue and Cooke Road, if I recall correctly. I spent a little more time around OSU and Upper Arlington and then went back to the motel for a while.
I didn’t really have a dinner agenda and nothing really “spoke” to my need to avoid anything involving noodles or potatoes, so after a long drive, I ended up at a nondescript Chinese place in a nondescript shopping center in a nondescript suburb. It was pretty good, I must admit.
