Day 11, Youngstown, Ohio

August 17, 2013 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

Day Eleven - We planned to get out of Washington early to beat the traffic but when we slept in it became a non option.

It seemed a much smarter idea to leave it a little later to get out after the peak hour rush. Only one problem, the peak hour never ends in Washington.

This was going to be Bec's last day with us once we got back to Youngstown. Once there she would be on campus and moving into her new apartment with her room mate Shannon. Took a rest stop and looked for an RV park in or near Youngstown to settle ourselves down for a few days, absolutely nothing closer than 24miles (40k) which was a bummer.

Oh well it was that or sleep in a Walmart carpark but they normally only allow single night stopovers. So we headed out to Country Acres campground and we were very pleasantly surprised. It had tons of things to do on the lake and even activities for kids and adults, a great place.

Youngstown is an old wealth town from the last century and the mid 1900's that went into decline with the closing down of the steel industry back in the 80's with much of the population moving out into the outer lying hamlets (suburbs) where all the growth had been with shopping centre's and other industries. To this day the centre of Youngstown looks like a ghost town, but the University is slowly buying up a lot of the city area due to its expansion into greater technology industries. As the new gas industries explode in the area Youngstown will be reborn so a lot of opportunity exists here for those entrepreneurial spirits willing to take a chance.

After dropping Bec off at campus we headed to our park and settled in with the van. Bec's coach Nick and his wife came out to collect us and we went to a lovely Italian restaurant in the local township of Ravenna. Was a lovely night and great to catch up again. Dropped us back and we got an early night as tomorrow we needed to head to the airport and pickup a cheap hire car for the 4 days we were going to be in the area.

So good night and see you all tomorrow.Read more