Washington, DC 2010

It was a day that would have made Bill Bryson proud. One day before arriving in Baltimore, my friend and I spent Thursday driving through small towns in Indiana and Ohio, right off US Rte. 30.
My favorite part of the day - Van Wert, Lima, Elida were among the Ohio towns. Fort Wayne and Valparaiso were places I visited in Indiana. 
I was happy about finally making my way to Fort Wayne, Indiana's second largest city.
Right after crossing Ohio, the GPS started to backfire and seemingly wanted us to return home. Instead, we decided to keep going and navigated through the backroads of Ohio to find the state capital.
We finally arrived in Columbus at 2:30 p.m. and found that it was not just a hot college town, it was a major American city. They had brick roads, always a great blast from the past. The area around Nationwide Arena was clean and busy. It may be the best city in Ohio, better than Cleveland and Cincinnati.
One of the hottest parts of the trip came when we were at the Ohio State University. Sweltering heat and sun made it tough to walk around the Big Horseshoe, but we did.
Before leaving the city, we saw the Ohio Statehouse and the Ohio Theatre and narrowly avoided a car towing by the Columbus Police.
We then drove through the mountains of Eastern Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. There was a minor league baseball game we could see from the highway just before arriving in our final destination of Day 1, the Motel 6 in Washington, Pa.
While at the pool outside the hotel, I had a great feeling coming over me knowing that Day 1 was a complete success and that in less than 48 hours I would be in the nation's capital.