Greetings From Chillicothe

We spent most of Wednesday driving after we packed up and left home in the morning en route to colleges, zoos, and a bit of sightseeing in Indiana and Ohio. Though it was 70 degrees when we departed in Maryland, we had lunch on a windy, chilly mountaintop in West Virginia, then drove through occasional rain into the flooded states west of us. Nearly every creek we passed in West Virginia seemed to be near to jumping its banks, and in Ohio, there were high water warning signs and entire fields submerged under several inches of water. Great blue herons were sitting beside drainage ditches filled with running water. The news is reporting that the Hocking River at Athens, Ohio is at flood stage, and more rain is supposed to fall over the next few days both here and in Indiana which has already had lots of flooding this year.

We are staying in Chillicothe so that tomorrow morning we can visit Hopewell Culture National Park, where Native American earthworks and culture from prior to 500 A.D. are preserved. Then we are driving to West Lafayette to visit Purdue. Tonight we reheated spaghetti and meatballs brought from home in the microwave in our hotel room and watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince since HBO happened to have it on just when we arrived, after an emergency stop at Kmart since we had forgotten our surge suppressors. All my photos today were taken out of dirty car windows, so instead here are some photos of the National Zoo's O-Line, which the orangutans use to travel from the Great Ape House to the Think Tank many feet over the heads of zoo visitors: