Not really. I'm just hoping that if states are indeed sentient, it read that sentence and, in the sweeping whirlwind of emotion and joy of being complimented for the first time ever, it stopped reading. Ohio is a terrible state. Even statistics, the holy grail of human persuasion, attest to it: Ohio has the 7th largest state population in the United States, and yet has achieved the admirable feat of the worst 10 states to live in. Is anyone surprised? With a lack of landscape, 6 months of hellish (well, not in the thermic sense of the word, this place is like a wind tunnel mixed with a bloody walk-in meat freezer) winter that drags on, and just general lack of appeal, noone is surprised that Ohio ranks worse in statehood than places like Wyoming, Oklahoma, or even Utah, none of which anyone really knew existed in the first place. (Seriously, has anyone ever met someone from Wyoming?)
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| How does this not look suspicious? |
Well, hopefully, they reconsider going on a jog.
A Look at the Past
You're on a side of a hill that is swathed in tall grass and bathed in sunlight. Looking around you, there are trails branching out like the arms of a baby born in Chernobyl.
But beware: just like not all of those arms are functioning, not all of those trails are actual trails.
This was the case when I was in Poland, not far from a sawmill in mountain country, mountain biking around. I climbed up cliffs with one arm, holding on to the bike with the other, jumped across chasms unimaginable to the ordinary mind, and cried pathetically when faced with biking down huge hilltops. I did not think such a capricious landscaping job of nature would ever befall me again, and yet, here I am, living in Ohio...
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| "Welcome to Ohio. Would you like a side order of regret with that suck?" |
The Trails are Fake
Arriving at Bryant State Park with a smile on my face and a spring in my running step, I did what any rational human being would do: take the path of least resistance after seeing a sign, "Williamson Mounds," which sounded promising compared to the other destinations (Bradley Mudpits, 'Rocks', and 'Real live Trees') if I recall correctly. Not only are mounds only something that people consider something to behold in Ohio, but within 50 feet of heading in the direction of the mounds, the trail had deteriorated into a maze of amorphous, dusty paths going in all directions. What to make of this, you may ask? And to that I replied, alas with the rapid step of my feet, by shooting down whichever path looked most trustworthy, that is, barely any of them. This twisted joke of a trail continued through bushes and trees until I made it to a real, actual trail with wooden structures and a wide path of seemingly good repute
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Life lesson: Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Do not go where the path may lead, instead go where there is no path and leave a trail."
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| Go for it, Emerson, make my day. |
The Vegetation is Murderous
If you've ever been to the Midwest, you know there's a lack of trees and greenery as serious as the lack of manliness in Prius drivers. Yet, when there's small forests, more like patches of forsaken, lost, and generally disheveled trees, it's almost as if the malice of the state itself seeps into the soil and sprouts the most terrible creations ever seen this side of the Mississippi.
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| Welcome to every state park in Ohio, pictured here. |
Let's step back, (much like I did on my run backing away from a thorn tree, only to step into a bed of thorns) and imagine what a trail might look like:
After beginning out promising with a solid dirt path and tame plants, after 50 feet, the path quickly deteriorates into a thin, snaking line of dirt bordered by the most murderous thorns you've ever seen. All over the trail are fallen trees and thorn trees, literal trees made of thorns which have smaller thorns branching off the bigger thorns. After you're finished sobbing pathetically on the ground after seeing one or two of these suckers, you'll try to walk around 'em, only to run into tiny thorns which attack your legs and arms with the gusto of a group of acrobat street performers on bath salts. Really, it only gets worse after that, and I'll spare you the displeasure of knowing the vegetative horrors of going on a run in the Midwest, or really anywhere, because although running and jogging are some of the most inferior forms of exercise, just a step above things like luge and competitive eating, or whatever, they're probably healthy or something..
The Traps are Real
As I slowed to jogs through forests of thorns and death, I'd catch glimpses "trails" in the distance between murder-death thorns and dash towards them with all the grace of a crippled ostrich. Getting on them is a relief, only until you realize it may not actually be a trail, but possibly only a narrow path where the factions of thorns established a narrow DMZ. What choice does one have? It's times like those that spur a man to believe in fatalism, or just the malice of nature (and Ohio); "Your destiny... is thorns." Well, this particular DMZ began to run adjacent to a waterway, and me being the adventurous fellow I am, I began looking for a way to cross it.
That's when I saw it. A pipe crossing the river. An old, rusty-brown and dead-moss white pipe just barely wide enough to shimmy across sideways, suspended 20 feet above a river that was questionably green. And, lo, on each side of the river where the pipe disappears into the hillside, a visible trail worn into the underbrush. An apparition? A mean trick of Ohio? An actual path where suicidal individuals regularly cross, daring fate to topple them over and end their misery of living in a bottom-10 state (Why don't they just move)?
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| "Hmm, raise it 40 feet over a river and it's perfect for kids!" - Ohio park planner |
I dared not find out, til a few hundred feet later I ran into another treacherous trap.
A much nicer concrete bridge obliged me to cross into some kind of industrial complex. A sign on the tired chain-link fence read, "NO TRESPASSING," as if someone wanted to enter a smorgasbord of deadly chemicals and industrial death-ness. And yet, the gate was cracked open just enough to evidence a trail WORN INTO THE GRASS, as if everyone in Ohio disregards authority like a dung beetle disregards hygiene. I almost entered, but decided not to on the grounds that I was in Ohio, and either a gigantic sinkhole would eat me moments after crossing the fence and deposit me in the laboratory of a mad scientist(s?), or an overly eagerly security guard would shoot me on sight.
I continued, alive and happy for not having fallen for the wily tricks of Ohio.
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| "CLEARLY off limits." |
No Self-Affirmation
Anyone who prides themselves in being good-looking and working will tell you about the 20-80 rule, where a fifth of your time is spent working out and improving yourself, and the rest of the time is spent checking yourself out in mirrors and flexing gratuitously. Running is unpalatable because you can only do this in car windows and inadvertently look like a car thief/serial pedophile, or not do it at all because you're in the middle of a bloody state park and trees do not grow mirrors.
Even the occasional sucker who happens to be in a state park at the same time as you are, because seriously, it's a state park, will not be able to compliment you on your good looks and handsome pectorals as you speed past them, because a) you are so very fast! and b) you'll only ever get a cordial grunt and obligatory Midwestern handwave. The horror.
And so, a word of advice- just run while you can, not to sentient state parks hellbent on murdering all who enter; run to tropical paradises with palm trees and mangoes and comforting sand and blue waters, because the rest of us are stuck in old and cold Ohio, running and committing self-mutilation for entertainment.
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| "Enjoy your beaches and mountains while I roll in corn, chumps!" - Everyone in Ohio |
