Columbus at new angles

Pretty ladies attract butterflies

Driving in an old town is muscle memory. Shortcuts reappear, new traffic patterns emerge and trendy upscale apartment features just frustrate (are eternal flames framing an entrance important to anyone?).

Daily Growler patio

Columbus has not changed as rapidly as Nashville, but tilled ground and half-built complex dot the margins and have exploded in the urban core. With an early afternoon arrival, we checked out the new abode of our old friend Ben. He moved down the street from the Griggs Reservoir near Dublin. After a short respite, we headed for the Smokehouse Brewery, formerly Barley’s Smokehouse (they ended their affiliation). A few good beers and good barbecue followed. I couldn’t skip the brisket.

Ben stopped at The Daily Growler, a growler pour operation with digital displays on available beers and a few rooms for tasting. It definitely felt like a taproom, not a bar, where a single beer fit better than a night of carousing. A growler of Columbus Brewing’s incredible Bodhi Double IPA, which the brewery doesn't bottle.

With close to 10 Columbus visits since we became a couple, Nancy still had not experienced the Columbus North Market. Sunday morning we remedied that omission. The Short North was not in full swing yet. We circled the market, grabbing a delicious bite from Doughnut Destination while surveying the cheeses, meats and artisan foods. After two laps and a dozen lunch options, we picked Hubert’s Polish Kitchen. I would kill for another chicken cutlet like the one eaten that morning.

Japanese garden at The Dawes Arboretum

From the market, we headed east to Newark, home of The Dawes Arboretum. Founded in the early 20th century by the Dawes family, the estate and botanical gardens stretch over rolling hills. The free arboretum has amazing grounds, including the Dawes family home, multiple gardens and mature groves. Butterflies swarmed through the Japanese garden, which centers on a pond loaded with vegetation and fish, with little bridges spanning a few sculpted islands.

Bagworms at The Dawes

 At the property's edge huge clusters of blooming shrubs clustered in huge clumps. .Their reason for growing in such an odd manner was not immediately clear.

 Only when we ascended a lookout tower at the park corner did reveal their purpose - the huge tufts of green spelled out “Dawes Arboretum,’ intended for viewing by airplane passengers headed into Port Columbus.

Bad view of shrub letters

After a few unintended detours through streets I remembered less than expected, we checked on my parents’ old house in Gahanna. I lived there for two years after college, yet somehow survived. For the next six years, I went over every weekend and holiday, usually for breakfast or lunch. On rare occasion, I rode my bicycle out, but only when time allowed a pre-8 a.m. departure.

As we rolled onto Harkers Court, I thought I again picked the wrong street. But the dead-end had changed. The trees had grown immensely. Many of the twiggy species next to the street's sidewalks now topped 30 feet. The branches from trees on opposite sides of the road threatened to touch, nearly creating a tunnel that ran from the top of Harkers Court down to its culdesac.

Greener, but still suburban

The house looked the same, hiding its vast square footage behind a modest facade with a central courtyard. We burned daylight on a house to which I had little attachment, but I felt redeemed at seeing the street's maturation from a treeless expanse to increasingly wooded in just eight years.

 
After meeting their new cat, Dexter, our friends Nick and Katy took us to dinner at Lindy’s, a German Village institution. German Village remains unchanged, its strict zoning keeping the historic district immune from the bland towers rising elsewhere. Everyone had fish or seafood, which paired well with the bottle of albarino we got for the table. Yours truly went with walleye, which I had not tasted since a Lake Erie fishing trip 19 years ago.

I had not visited Hound Dogs in a decade, when it was the Ravari Room. We had a handful of drinks at the bar and a single pull of cigarette smoke had me hacking furiously. The bartenders were effortlessly friendly in a way few can claim in the It City down south. 

On Labor Day morning, we opted for El Vacquero, a Mexican staple of Central Ohio. Most restaurants closed for the holiday, but in a town with as many options as Columbus, that still left dozens of quality eateries in easy reach.

German Village at twilight

Somehow we managed a Columbus trip without any repeats - other than people, we had not duplicated any part of a previous Labor Day excursion. That broke an eight-year streak of Mozart’s meals.

At least there's usually another trip around the corner, although the temptation to only visit new places could loom large.