Survey tells folks what’s right here
It never hurts to be reminded that we should be extra careful when we travel during busy vacation periods like the just-concluded Memorial Day long weekend.
It also doesn’t hurt to be reminded that we don’t necessarily have to travel anywhere to find plenty of enjoyable and worthwhile things to do.
The latter reminder is provided in a new WalletHub survey that ranked Columbus in some pretty elite company when it comes to the best places in the United States to spend a “staycation.”
Of course, we see these kinds of rankings, many of them quite subjective, all the time, from the superlatively good to the apocalyptically bad. Some of them seem strange, and some are downright bizarre, like “Columbus ranks No. 8 out of 100 American cities whose names begin with C in a visitor’s odds of being eaten by an alligator.” (Just kidding. We think.) The point is, we’re quick to discount the negative ones, so we should reserve at least a few grains of salt for the good ones as well.
But the WalletHub report seems to have been compiled by people who at least did a little homework, and much of the reasoning sounds credible. The city graded well in recreation, food, entertainment, rest and relaxation. (Would the first three have even been on the proverbial radar here 20 years ago?) It added variables such as shopping, parks, museums and cuisine diversity.
Atlanta, at No. 6, and Augusta, at No. 86, were the only other Georgia cities ranked in WalletHub’s list of 150. And as Lauren Gorla’s story noted, six Florida beach towns were all that kept Columbus out of the South’s Top 10.
“Rankings” like these always have considerable fluidity about them. Still, this one’s a good reminder that come vacation time, there are a lot worse places to be than here. But we still need to be careful.
Just give it up, NFL
In its latest attempt to hype major league sports’ most laughable travesty of an all-star game, the National Football League is moving the Pro Bowl from Honolulu to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.
Whoopee. Now it can be ignored from closer range.
ESPN and the NFL reportedly have scheduled a press conference to announce the change — a sports development of so little news value that it’s reasonable to wonder if ESPN itself will even cover it.
The Pro Bowl, which used to be staged (sorry — “played”) in Hawaii after the season was officially over, is now the week before the Super Bowl! Imagine the renewed intensity with which these multimillionaire athletes, who have been partying together all week, will now be crashing into each other and risking career-ending injury in a newly repackaged and still meaningless exhibition game.
If there’s anything in all of American sports that less resembles the game it’s supposed to represent than the Pro Bowl, it’s college football’s ludicrous overtime format. Unfortunately, that actually counts.
This story was originally published May 31, 2016 at 3:47 PM with the headline "Survey tells folks what’s right here."