Road Trip Day 4: Never go to Maumee, Ohio

We stayed at a Motel 6 in Maumee, Ohio. The only reason we stopped at the motel, hidden behind a strip mall of mini golf courses and low-rent beauty salons, was because we were both starving. On our way in, a fat man in sweatpants threw a styrofoam cup into the bushes (everybody litters in Ohio, it's weird). The hostess ignored us while we checked in. There was bulletproof glass in the hallway. In our room—accessed via a narrow, stained hallway—peeling stickers reminding us to use the deadbolt and warning us that Motel 6 was not accountable for stolen property coated the door.

Ashley had a monster of a headache, and we were dying of hunger, but Maumee had little to offer. There was a Chicago-style pizza place next to us, but we'd ordered pizza into the hotel room the night before, so we skipped it and drove across the freeway looking for something, anything. Hunger eventually forced us into a Frisch's Big Boy.

The food was sad and greasy, the waitstaff was composed of Maumeeians in their 40s and 50s, and Ashley's headache was so bad she was nauseous. I stared at my cheese steak sandwich. The people in the booth behind us were massively fat and having a loud conversation full of Star Wars puns and references. (The woman related a story about how she accidentally cut somebody off in traffic and responded to the shouted “Nice driving, Princess!” by yelling “We all drive like that... on Alderaan!”)

Needless to say we crashed early and left Maumee ASAP.

Apparently there is one cool thing in Maumee. We didn't see it.