What we’re about
Welcome to GOhio! Adventures Around Columbus. We do fun, interesting, or off-the-beaten-path activities throughout greater Columbus and central Ohio.
GOhio! is free and will remain so as long as I'm the organizer. You will never have to pay any sort of fee to be a member of this group.
All of our events will always be open to everyone. We never segregate events by age, sex, race, sexual orientation, religious belief, or class.
The ages of GOhio! members range from college age to late 70s. Anyone can join GOhio! and everyone is welcome to.
Thanks for stopping by, and send me a DM if you have any questions.
--Eric
Featured event
Happy 8th Birthday, GOhio! @ Pins Mechanical!!! 🎂 🎈 🍨 🎁 💐 🧁 🎉 🥳 🍰 🪅 📅
GOhio! turns 8!! 🥳 Come celebrate with us at Pins Mechanical! 😄
Summary
Pins Mechanical Co. is a social entertainment venue that combines old-school games like duckpin bowling, pinball, and other classic arcade and table games with craft cocktails, local beers, and punch. The vintage-industrial atmosphere is designed for playful, face-to-face gatherings with friends, family, and colleagues, offering a casual and lively alternative to a typical bar.
Pins' Easton location spans over 38,000 square feet, making it the largest in the United States. This massive entertainment venue features two floors, a mezzanine level with stadium seating, and three full-service bars. It offers 16 duckpin bowling lanes, two indoor bocce courts, and more than 60 classic and modern pinball and arcade games. For additional fun, the location is known for its two outdoor patios, an indoor slide, and an expanded patio pong setup.
Activities
As noted below, some machines take actual quarters. Pins has two change machines (one downstairs and one upstairs) that accept ones, fives, or tens (only), and return quarters (only).
- Duckpin Bowling
Like Bowling but with smaller balls, stubby pins, and no oil on the lanes. The cost is $9 per game per person.
- Pinball
Who's a wizard on these retro machines? At $1 per play, everyone! Takes quarters.
- Arcade
Play classics like Gorf, Pac-Man, Gorf, Donkey Kong, Gorf, Galaga, and Gorf! The best part is, there's Gorf! And all the arcade games are free!
- Patio Pong
The classic college party staple but bigger. Instead of tossing a ping pong ball into cups, you use a regular ball and oversized buckets. There are two of these upstairs, and they're both free!
- Ping Pong
The most popular sport in China! They have two ping pong tables downstairs and two more ping pong tables upstairs. For those of you who have studied topological spaces and set theory, you will know this means they have four total ping pong tables.
They have bubble gum dispensers with ping pong balls in them for 25¢ each. The dispensers take quarters. However, they also have racks where they store the ping pong paddles, and in these racks are slots for ping pong balls. It's not uncommon to see balls already here, so there's a chance you may be able to play ping pong for free if you want to.
- Hookie
You can't put your eye out! The safe alternative to darts: Hook thrown rings on a board. Outdoors on the upstairs patio, and free!
- Bocce
Like bowling, except there’s turf and a lot more balls. You can also knock your opponent’s balls out of the way. There are two of these upstairs, and they're both free!
- Foosball
Everyone loves foosball! 50¢ a game. Takes quarters.
- Giant Jenga
Stack massive wooden blocks into a tower, then take turns pulling out one block at a time without collapsing the tower. There are four of these sprinkled throughout the venue (two downstairs and two upstairs, with one on each patio), and they're all free!
- Skeeball
There are three skeeball machines on the first floor (near the Gorf machine!), and they're all free!
- Giant Connect Four
On the outdoor patio upstairs, and free!
- Bubble Hockey
This is upstairs. Up to four people can play at once, and it costs $1. Takes quarters.
- Cornhole
There are two cornhole lanes upstairs, and they're both free!
- Basketball
There are two basketball machines downstairs. They're tucked behind the downstairs bar, so they're not always obvious unless you go look for them. They're $2 per play, and they take quarters.
- NES and Sega Genesis video games
These are collections, downstairs (near the Gorf machine!), of video games that you can play for free!
- The Big Metal Indoor Slide
This large two-story slide is for kids, and certainly no adults would ride this. After all, it's not like it's free or anything.
Outdoor Patio
Pins at Easton actually has two outdoor patios. But for our purposes, only the upstairs one matters. See, it will be winter and likely cold. But their upstairs patio has multiple ceiling heaters and two massive gas fire pits that put out a ton of heat. Sitting out here may be a real option.
As mentioned above, the upstairs outdoor patio has one of the venue's two Patio Pong setups, one of their multiple Giant Jengas, the Giant Connect Four, and Hookie.
Food
Pins doesn't serve food, but there's a Mikey's Late Night Slice next door. This Mikey's is basically an extension of the Easton Pins; there's a large open doorway between both establishments. Mikey's has a fountain dispenser with Coke products.
You can also get Coke and Diet Coke (but not Coke Zero, like you can at Mikey's) at the bars in Pins, but I think the quality of the soda pop from Mikey's fountain is better than that from the bar hoses Pins uses to dispense soft drinks.
You are also quite allowed at Pins to either bring food in or order it in via your favorite delivery app.
Parking
I recommend parking in the Worth Garage. It's literally right next door to Pins, and it's free as long as you park on Level 2 or above.
They recently started charging people to park on Level 1, and you pay for parking on this level the same way you pay for street parking in Columbus, with the ParkColumbus app.
I've seen them enforce this by ticketing people's cars, but I don't know how they actually compel payment. The garage is not a public street that actual cops can write you tickets for parking illegally on. If you have an actual ticket from a cop that you don't pay, they can go so far as to issue a warrant for your arrest. But all Easton has, seemingly, is, "Please pay our ticket." Still, in my ongoing efforts to eliminate needless stress and aggravation from my life, I just park above the first Level.
The actual address of the garage is 4049 Worth Ave, Columbus, OH 43219. However, your GPS is stupid. The actual entrances to the garage are on the cross steets Brighton Rose Way and Fenlon St, not Worth Ave. Just keep this in mind once you get to the garage.
Where we'll meet
I'll post in the comments where I am. People will obviously want to explore different areas of the venue over the course of the event (and there's a lot to explore), but please just let me know (as in, come find me) once you've arrived.
Peroration
Come on out and say hi! 😄
Upcoming events
14
Trails & Ales! Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park / Galloway Tavern
Cedar Ridge Picnic Area, 1775 Darby Creek Dr, Galloway, OH, USHistory
Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park spans over 7,000 acres, making it the largest park in the Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks system. It encompasses forests, prairies, and wetlands, stretching along 13 miles of Big and Little Darby Creeks, both designated as State and National Scenic Rivers. The park includes over 1,600 acres of restored wetlands and prairies, showcasing efforts to preserve the area’s natural biodiversity.
The park is home to a herd of American bison, reintroduced in 2011 from The Wilds in partnership with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. The herd, which roams freely in two enclosed pastures, has grown with the addition of four calves born in spring 2024. Bison, once nearly extinct in Ohio, play a key role as a keystone species, helping maintain the restored tallgrass prairie by grazing and aerating the soil.
The land now part of the park was historically inhabited by indigenous peoples, including those associated with the Fort Ancient culture (circa 1000–1750 AD). A reconstructed Fort Ancient mound is a notable feature in the park, reflecting the cultural and historical significance of the area’s pre-colonial inhabitants. These indigenous groups lived in the region long before European settlers arrived, utilizing the rich resources of the Darby Creek watershed.
The park’s landscape is shaped by the Darby Creeks, which have carved through the region over millennia, creating a diverse ecosystem. Big Darby Creek is one of the most biologically diverse aquatic systems in the Midwest, supporting a variety of fish, aquatic insects, and other wildlife. The park’s restored prairies and wetlands reflect Ohio’s pre-settlement ecology, offering a glimpse into the area’s geologic and ecological history before intensive human development.
The park was established in 1948, with much of its land donated by the Battelle Memorial Institute. In the 1980s, the park expanded significantly after the cancellation of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam project on Big Darby Creek, which had been halted due to construction issues and public opposition. In 1984, Battelle provided a $1 million grant, supplemented by federal funding, to acquire 2,440 acres for conservation, helping protect the ecologically sensitive watershed.
Summary
For this event, we'll hike around 5 miles on the Cobshell, Indian Ridge, Terrace, and Ancient Trails. The hike will be moderately strenuous in places, a bit more so than Highbanks, in my opinion.
The trails are wide and well-graveled, though, like Highbanks (except for the Ancient Trail, which is largely grass). There can also be a few spots of mud, so I recommend hiking shoes and a change of socks for after the hike. Some of the hike, particularly on the Ancient Trail, is largely unshaded, so be ready for the possibility of some sun.
Where We'll Meet
This is one of my favorite events, because I love Battelle Darby and I love the hole-in-the-wall we're going to afterwards. However, I don't think Battelle Darby Metro Park plays very well with Google Maps.
We're meeting at the Cedar Ridge Picnic Area. However, there's no super-easy or straightforward way of putting this into your Google Maps and having the correct location properly display.
Your best bet (besides using the map pin I've provided here), is to directly type the Picnic Area's address into Maps: 1775 Darby Creek Dr, Galloway, OH 43119.
Cedar Ridge is a large, popular picnic area. It has two restroom buildings (each of which also has water fountains) that are on your right as you enter the Area. Drive down to the second set of restrooms for this event; that's where we're meeting.
After the Hike
Galloway Tavern is a hole-in-the-wall that doesn't even have its own website. When last I was there, I got a very good half-pound burger, fries, and a beer for under fifteen dollars, with tax. The pizza is also very good, and they sell a lot of it. I would mildly recommend extra sauce if you get a pizza (though I generally do this everywhere).
The actual address of the Tavern is 1954 Galloway Rd, Galloway, OH 43119. It's 7 or 8 minutes from Cedar Ridge, and it will be on the way back to I-270 for most of us. We should be there by 5 if you can't make the hike and just want to meet us for drinks.
41 attendees
Sunday at Highbanks Metro Park
Highbanks Metro Parks, 9466 Columbus Pike (North High Street), Lewis Center, OH, USWe will meet next to the restrooms at the Big Meadows Picnic Area. They're all the way at the back of the park, and they can be found at coordinates 40°09'06.6"N 83°02'30.2"W (near the playground and the zip line).
We'll hike about 5 miles at Highbanks Metro Park on the Dripping Rock and Overlook Trails. Afterward, we'll head over to Olentangy River Brewing for drinks, coffee, or food (their Sunday food truck is Venezuelan and always gets good reviews).
The actual address of the brewery is 303 Green Meadows Dr S, 43035. If you can't make the hike, we should be there by noon.
How to find our starting point in Big Meadows:
If you are new to Highbanks, the Big Meadows picnic area is 1.5 miles into the park just after you turn into the park off of U.S. Route 23. That is, after you enter the park, drive a mile and a half into the park. You will come to a crosswalk with a yield sign in the middle of it (this is not to be confused with the first such crosswalk you come to just in front of the Nature Center, which you arrive at maybe a quarter of a mile into the park).
Just after this second crosswalk, make a left. Then make another almost immediate left into the parking lot on your left. There you will see the jungle gym and the kiddie zip line to your left. I will be just in front of the restrooms just a bit further down from the jungle gym and picnic shelter; the restroom building will also be on your left.
12 attendees
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