I Left My Heart in Ohio (and Soothed it with Some Sightseeing)

 

This was perhaps the greatest AND worst moment of my life to date.

A few weeks ago, we took a family trip to Ohio to see my elder child off to college.

Obviously, there was an Office marathon running. If you don't encounter an Office marathon on your hotel television, are you even traveling?

The thing is, on the day you drop your kid off, the school keeps you so busy you don't have time to get upset. You're way too focused on trying to find parking, then trying to find the Housing office so your kid can get her student ID, then trying to find her dorm, then trying to move the car and find parking near the dorm, then loading her five Frakta bags and two plastic storage bins back and forth into the dorm, then sending her back to the Housing department because her room card doesn't work while you stay in the dorm and poke around--

--then back to the Housing office because why does she have a single when she signed up for a double, then to the campus bookstore which you, personally, treat like a gift shop (I LOVE my new university-branded sweatsuit!), then to the mailroom to find her mailbox, then to the Scholarship office AND the bursar because the National Merit scholarship money came in late so you had to pay her tuition out of pocket but the check finally arrived so now we want some money please, then to a catered lunch for the new students and their families, then to a series of family workshops about mental wellness, extracurriculars, and the dining plan, then on foot into town so she could sign up for a public library card because you do not trust the university library to provide for her fantasy novel needs, then to a catered dinner, then back to the dorm to finish getting her settled but not too settled because the Housing office promised to get her assigned to a double in the next couple of days and she'll have to move those five Frakta bags and those two plastic storage bins herself so you might as well not even open the 3-inch mattress topper because how on earth will she carry it when it's expanded, and then before you have even caught your breath, your beloved child is hugging you goodbye at the car and running back inside and just like that, your whole life is changed.

Is it possible to sob your heart out while binge-watching an Office marathon? Friends, it ABSOLUTELY is.

Back when we were first planning this trip and I hadn't quite realized that my heart would be completely broken, I'd followed my old habit of not being able to so much as sneeze at a location without also seeing all the tourist sites. So of course I planned out a whole day afterwards of sightseeing before we went home, and then I realized that we'd be driving right through Columbus, Ohio, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who, coincidentally, were playing at home against the North Carolina Hurricanes the very night after leaving my college student at college. 

I like the Blue Jackets well enough to watch them play anyone, but OMG I LOVE the Hurricanes! 

So somehow dropping my kid off at college turned into dropping her off at college, spending another night in town, sightseeing the whole next day, going to a hockey game that night, spending ANOTHER night in Columbus, and then finding a place to eat crepes the next morning before finally driving home.

I went to college about the same distance from home as this kid is from me, and when my grandfather and uncle drove me to college the first time, they helped me move in, gave me a hug goodbye, and left my ass there at the door of my dorm room. They were home by lunch!

To be honest, I maybe should have chosen enough of that route to at least have driven home that night, because all through our sightseeing the next day, I was MISERABLE. Not even hiking around a real-live ancient mound system created by the indigenous peoples of North America could cheer me up!

This is the Great Circle Earthworks, one part of the much larger Newark Earthworks, the rest of which I hope to see on subsequent visits.

This is the Great Circle Gateway. Eagle Mound is off-camera to the right.

Eagle Mound. It is raining, and I am crying.

This ring encircles the site and opens to the east.

Up and over the ring!

Here's a good view of the ditch from the top of the ring.

You can see the three lobes of Eagle Mound with this view.

Back through the gate.

This was the fifth Hopewell-era mound that I've visited in Ohio! Here are the other four:

• Serpent Mound
• Hopewell Culture National Historical Park
• unnamed mound at Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park
• Alligator Mound

After walking around in the rain long enough for me to both have a good cry and see all the parts of the mound system that I wanted to see, we left my kid's little college town. Normally, I'd probably cry even harder at that, but I was stalking her on Life360 so I could see that she, herself, had already left town with her freshman Orientation group. We were actually headed in the same direction!

I mean, sort of. Her group of freshmen headed into Columbus proper, while we stopped at my personal favorite immersive art installation, Otherworld:

My favorite part is still the archaeology finds!

These two beat the snot out of me and Will, because THEY SOLVED THE PUZZLE!

When we left Otherworld, it was only to go to yet another immersive art installation, because I found out that Columbus, Ohio, has a Joann concept store!

It was glorious, even though I only found one of the three things that I was specifically looking for. Syd found that beautiful flowered mesh fabric that I made into a ballet skirt for her, though, and therefore got to experience the digital cutting counter! They also had this fancy--and FREE!!!--coffee maker, and I drank approximately fourteen mochachinos. Syd drank at least double that.

We ate dinner at North Market, of COURSE, and then walked over to my most anticipated event of the year (so far):

I LOVE hockey, but I only ever get to watch it on TV, and I was beside myself with excitement whenever I wasn't beside myself with sadness. 

Watching it live and in person is SO. MUCH. BETTER!!!

I really wanted to see the Carolina Hurricanes play an awesome game--which they did!!!--

--but I also really wanted to see the Blue Jackets score at least a couple of goals so that I could hear the cannon fire--which they did!!!

And I promise that I did not plan this, because even I am not a big enough Smother to do that, but... guess whose freshman Orientation group also had tickets to the hockey game?

Will was kind enough to pop over during the first intermission, but later I found her group in the crowd... ish:

On the other hand, the seats I purchased were good enough to get us on the ESPN broadcast!

My favorite parts of a hockey game are the post-score cuddle pile and the post-game loving on the goalie, and I got to see both:

AND I left with a souvenir commemorative puck!

A few weeks in, my distress over having my kid gone isn't acute like it was the first week or so. It takes a while for a kid to settle into a new experience, and when I could tell that she wasn't having a good time, was a little lost or a little overwhelmed or a little lonely, that ramped my own distress WAY up. But now that she's got herself a routine and knows some friendly faces, has a roommate and a lab partner and a convivial relationship with the town librarians, found the best study spots and which cafeteria has the deli station on which nights, I can just miss her instead of fretting over her.

I wish she'd text me back more often, though...