Greetings from London

That would be London, Ohio, where we are at the Wal-Mart (map). We had first attempted to stop at the Wal-Mart in Xenia, about 30 miles southwest of here, but the lot is prominently posted with "no overnight parking" signs, even though our directory of such stores made no mention of it.

We had a visit from Belterra security yesterday morning; apparently, they had a sold out crowd for the Sara Evans concert last night, and thought they would need the whole parking lot, so they stopped by to ask us to move across the street to the truck lot. We told them we would be leaving shortly anyway.

We crossed back into Kentucky over the Marland Dam Bridge, and resumed our eastward trek on US-42. Jill-the-GPS kept trying to put us on the Interstate, and we finally allowed her to when we hit the outskirts of Cincinnati, where our objective was just to get through the city congestion as best we could. We do have a club in that town, and it might have been nice to visit, but there are no really good parking options nearby.

Our plan had been to clear out of the city on I-75, and move back onto US-42 in West Chester. The freeway came to a grinding halt, though, just north of the city, I think due to construction, and so we bailed off early and slogged our way through all the suburban glotch on US-42 anyway. Even if there was a traffic light every half mile, at least we were not sitting at a standstill on a stark freeway.

US-42 splits the difference between I-75 to the west, and I-71 to the east. The former heads north through Dayton, and the latter more northeast through Columbus, and we are right now in between those two cities. Since one Interstate or the other is a faster choice for almost everyone, 42 is fairly lightly traveled, and we had a very pleasant and relaxed drive, notwithstanding the narrow and winding nature of the road. The speed limit is mostly 55, but we seldom could get up over 45 for most of the route.

Last night we had an excellent dinner at Los Mariachis Mexican restaurant a long block west of here. (There is also a Bob Evans, no relation to Sara, right here in the parking lot, and we're thinking of brunch there before we leave.) The place looked like a hole in the wall when we rolled past yesterday afternoon, and we could find no reviews on line, so we took a chance. Wow -- the place was packed. It seemed like all of London was waiting to get in there -- always a good sign. I think we were the only out-of-towners in the joint. Anyway, the food was superb; highly recommended, and they have a full bar as well.

Today we will continue northeast on US-42, which will swing back over towards I-71 in Mansfield.

Photo by OZinOH, used under a Creative Commons license.