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2022, September 2: a wedding in Ohio

14 min readMay 2, 2025

My first Kevin and Lynn encounter of this trip is something of a Shanghai attack, unexpectedly encountering them down in the continental breakfast area of our West Virginia hotel. I’ve met them before, of course, and they are roughly the same age as Erin’s parents. She’s a sweet older lady, who in typical fashion can’t stop plying you with endless offerings of food should you find yourself at her house. While he is more the somewhat boastful, somewhat crotchety, though always highly entertaining type endemic to that generation.

They’re telling me that Tom already drifted through and left mere moments ago, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’ve talked to my mom and informed her with a laugh that I seriously think my father-in-law got at most an hour of sleep last night — and was out of the room before me anyway. Kevin here, meanwhile, is quite proud of this route he’s concocted to Bucyrus, using exclusively paper maps (Route 35 up to 7 followed by an end run around there to 33, up to 13, et cetera, then whipping back around west somehow, all done in an effort to circumvent Columbus). Then scoffs and gives me a dismissive, get-out-of-here wave, when I explain my planned path. This despite the fact that a) I lived in Columbus for ten years, and b) he’s never been to Ohio.

What is it with guys this age and their steadfast adherence to planned driving…

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