323 miles via US 40 (through St Clairsville), I-70, I-270 (south of Columbus OH), I-71 and I-264 into Louisville KY. Cumulative route miles: 1,369. Auto miles on this hop: 340. Cumulative auto miles: 1,434. The extra miles on this hop were due to a trip to the Wheeling Island Casino in Wheeling WV.
We started the trip by going through downtown St Clairsville and stopping to take a photo of the stunning county courthouse there. Then we hopped on I-70, switched to I-71 at Columbus and took that pretty much the rest of the way to Louisville. We did make one brief snack/bio stop south of Cincinatti.
The weather was nice and the roads were not very crowded. A long but pleasant hop.
The trip to the casino was an adventure. We apparently entered the wrong address because it took us down some roads in bad neighborhoods, including one that was so narrow and dark that I thought it was someone’s driveway. We corrected the address but when we found the hotel it was dark. Never seen a dark casino. But there were many cars in the lot so we figured it must be open. We asked a guy in the parking lot where was the entrance. He pointed us back to the dark entry that we had already seen, saying “they are working on the lights.” Yeah.
We eventually found an entrance with lights, then had to go through the most severe security screening we have ever seen at a casino. Empty my pockets, walk through the metal detector. We got in finally.
The lobby (the one with lights) was attractive, but the casino was pretty drab. No table games. And the slot machines weren’t kind. Both Marlene and I lost money. We won’t go out of our way to return to Wheeling Island.
Our hotel for the one night in St Clairsville was the Super 8. The accommodations were satisfactory – comfortable bed, warm shower, mini fridge, microwave. Decent breakfast, too, and 24-hour coffee. But the TV was crap and the sink leaked. Not great, but really cheap – $52.