Frankie C's Excellent Super Bowl Adventure Day 3

Frankie C’s Excellent Super Bowl Adventure Day 3

For Day 2 and previosu adventures, click here.

6:15 a.m. I’m awake in downtown Granville at the Granville Inn.  I pop outside for a quick smoke and take a look around.  Okay, by daylight Granville is a stunning little town.  I can see the outside of the Inn now and it’s beautiful.  We’ve been so lucky with the weather we actually slept last night with the windows in the room open.  I slept like a baby, a little whiskey- and beer-powered baby.

6:30 a.m.  In the room, Kerry’s already commandeered the desk so I set up shop in the pub downstairs to bang out my blog.  It actually works out great, because I have unlimited coffee right there at my fingertips. 

11:30 a.m.  Just finished blogging out the previous day.  Kerry’s nowhere near finished.  I decide to nap it out while I wait. 

1 p.m.  Kerry’s ready to roll.  We check out of the hotel, pick up some coffees and hit the road.  We leave town on Ohio-161 and roll toward Columbus to pick up I-70 to Indy.  I told you that Granville reminded me of New England, that feeling ends on the edge of town.  

Ten minutes on the road and it’s like you’re on a different planet.  You can see 10 miles in any direction.  The only things breaking up the view are the randomly placed farmhouses and barns.  Some of which, are just feet from the road.  We passed one that had a handmade “The O.D.O.T. Sucks” sign.  Kerry and I assume that means the Ohio Dept. of Transportation, and further assume that the reason the homeowner is angry because someone decided the best route for all that traffic to travel was right through that poor bastard’s front yard.

2 p.m.  We arrive in Columbus, Ohio, home of The Ohio State University.  Coming into town was bizarre. Thirty minutes out, the farms start to dwindle and you begin to see these random isolated neighborhoods.  Just little gated communities sometimes located a mile or two away from the road.  As you get a little closer, you run into a few shops here and there, most of them pretty shady looking. And then as you get closer still, it starts to resemble what I know to be a city.  By the time you get into Columbus proper, it’s as densely populated as any other American city.  We make for the University area to find a bookstore and get some OSU gear.

2:15 p.m.  Inside the OSU bookstore I’m looking at hats and Kerry’s looking at sweatshirts.  I need to give you some back story.  Whenever Kerry and I travel, whether it be to the Super Bowl or to a Quincy liquor store, we like to take pictures with pretty girls.  We fully realize this is the desperate attempt of two middle-aged men to maintain a reason to talk to pretty girls.  We’ve got a fingernails hold on relevancy with this demographic and we don’t intend to give it up.

So, I’m checking out the hats and from across the displays of gear I hear Kerry mutter “Hey, can you do me a favor and take a picture with my friend over there?"  I immediately cringe.  This picture taking thing isn’t supposed to just get tossed out there to strangers.  You have to build at least a little rapport between you and your intended subject.  A bartender is always the best mark.  You’ve at least had words with them before.  Even if those words were just “I’ll have a bottle of your finest Budweiser."

Well, I swallowed down that cringe and I turned around.  Kerry was addressing a tall, beautiful, brunette store employee and she was having none of it.  She heard the question and went into silent mode.  She looked really embarrassed, so I decided to save the day and clear up the confusion by explaining, “No, it’s okay, we work for a website.” and “We take these pics all over the place.”

This did nothing to help.  As the girl turned to explain what was happening to her coworker or boss or whoever, I tucked my tail between my legs and crawled out of the store on my belly.  Kerry wasn’t the least bit phased, he later described the incident as “one failure among many victories. I wish I had been born without the ability to be embarrassed. On the contrary, in direct contrast to my ability to be smooth, my ability to be embarrassed can be seen from space.

2:30 p.m.  We leave the store without any gear and I need a drink to wash down my pain, so we find Mad Mex Mexican cantina.  We sit down at the bar and the lovely Lindsay helps me cope with a shot of Jack and a Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale. I get the double meat Mad Mex chicken burrito and Kerry and I split some really tasty Buffalo wings. 

I’m stuffed.  I literally can’t eat another bite.  I switch over to Bud Light on draft for the easier drinkability.  I like pale ales, but that heavier hoppy taste is not something I’d want to catch a buzz on.  Once I’m buzzing, the bookstore debacle is a distant memory.  Kerry and I take turns taking pictures with Lindsay and her cute co-server Alison.  Guess who’s back, indeed.

4 p.m.  We say our goodbyes to the girls of Mad Mex’s and get back out there on the road.  We cruise out of Columbus full bellied but ready to eat up some miles and get to Indianapolis.

5 p.m.  I’ve got a little known fact for you.  Ohio, like a few other states in the country, has drive through liquor stores.  Since we crossed into Ohio, Kerry’s been going on and on about driving through one for the experience of it.  Granville didn’t have one, as far as we could tell. 

The thing is, we’re not from here and have spent the majority of our time on the interstate just driving through so we just didn’t know where to go.  Well, at or around 5 p.m., Kerry pulls off the interstate without a word.  Then he creeps to the red light at the off ramp.  He briefly looks in both directions and takes a right turn.  It’s like he’s in a trance.  He’s not saying anything and I’m not asking questions because I could go for a smoke anyway. 

Lo and behold 100 yards from the interstate he finds the “Beverage Dock”, and we get to feel what real convenience shopping feels like.  I’m beside myself with disbelief.  This is like one of those deals where one twin burns a hand in California and the other one feels it in New York.  It’s impossible to explain how he found this place.  I shoot a video detailing just how incredible this is.  Even the guys working the store realize how special this is for us, noting “Y’all never seen a drive-through liquor store before?”  Well now we have.  One less thing to do before we die.  Awesome.

7:30 p.m.  We have hit the outskirts of Indianapolis.  We finally made it.  We drove roughly a thousand miles from home and we’re here.  To celebrate, we decide to hit a seedy looking bar on the edge of town.  You know, our kind of place.

7:45 p.m.  We pull up to the front door of the 501 Eagle Bar.  Everything’s going well, we found rock star parking.  It’s always exciting when you roll into a new town.  Outside the bar, on the corner above the door is this old sign.  It really gives the place a lot of character.  We open the door and see ourselves in.

7:46 p.m.  We are back in the truck.  Apparently the 501 Eagle isn’t our kind of bar.  It’s good for some men, but not for us.  It took me 15 seconds or so to walk in and let my eyes adjust to the light before I could figure out what we’d done.  Kerry was far quicker.  I had walked about 10 feet inside the door and was trying to figure out why some dude at the bar was staring at me, when I heard Kerry quietly say my name.  By the time I turned around, the door was almost closed behind Kerry leaving.  I put a little more speed in my step and within 60 seconds of the time we left the truck we were back to speeding to the hotel.

8 p.m.  We get checked in at the press hotel.  The J.W. Marriot is a big beautiful new hotel adorned with the Lombardi Trophy and Super Bowl XLVI.  From the room on the 17^th floor you can see Lucas Oil Stadium (the site of the big game) and most of the city.  After our 501 Eagle minute, I’ve decided not to seek out the party tonight.  I’m resting up for tomorrow and we’ll take it from there.  I need to decompress from the long ride and the near gang rape.  Catch you tomorrow.

For Day 4 of Frankie C's Excellent Super Bowl Adventure click here.

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