I agree with everyone who advises walking around campus, particularly if the weather holds. Walking College Green and a quick trip down Court Street before heading to Peden via Emeriti Park would be the way I'd spend an hour or two to see the sights.

The Ridges are interesting, but you can see them from Peden. Unless you have spare time and the history in the link I posted tickles your fancy, it's probably not worth actually heading up there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Lunatic_Asylum

Ohio alums love Burrito Buggy for the nostalgia, but there's tons of better food in town if you don't want to eat undergrad slop. Sounds like your time is compressed, so that might limit you there. If you're planning a full meal there, I could make some suggestions.

Enjoy your trip!

(10-13-2015 06:57 PM)Ubish Wrote:  

(10-13-2015 02:29 PM)Terrell Owens Wrote:  

(10-13-2015 02:25 PM)perimeterpost Wrote:  

(10-13-2015 12:50 PM)bobcat_backer Wrote:  

(10-13-2015 12:02 PM)Terrell Owens Wrote:  Driving, I'd take a route like this. That loops through the best parts of campus.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/39.33019...92!1m0!3e0

Honestly, with gameday traffic, my advice would be get out and walk campus a little. Start out at Peden and then walk up by Emerati Park to Baker Center (where you can utilize escalators to avoid Richland Hill) and the top of Baker puts you on the corner of Court Street and College Green. Walk across college green a little then head to back to the town part of Court Street.

I would agree with this, Terrell. Game day traffic in Athens can be a nightmare, especially near the stadium. all of those cars crammed into a relatively small space to go with a lot of people milling around...not a good driving situation.

But if hoofin it up and down the hills of campus isn't a viable option either a good place to go would be at the intersection of Court and Union. That's the epicenter of campus and is the location of the University Gateway on the corner of College Green, a great place to people watch or get a burrito from the legendary Burrito Buggy across the street and sit on the base of the Civil War Memorial and eat it like a hungover under grad.

Agreed, that is the "gateway" to the college and really a great picture of campus.
If you walk straight from Peden (up Baker w/escalators) and then head up Court to this intersection, you avoid the major hills. Walking up Court from Baker to this intersection is a hill. It is about as small of a hill as you will get in Athens. That is kinda the route I suggested. There is a little bit of a hill there. But Baker really does help.

forget all that other stuff, I gotta check out those escalators!

Only escalators in Athens County. Maybe all of Southeast Ohio???

Seriously though, avoiding those hills is always worth it. And I would say I'm in moderately good shape.

It sounds like the folks at Baker Center put a lot more thought into the escalators than I would have.

From their website, "While the escalators, the first in Athens County, receive a lot of attention, they are actually the slowest way to get from the 4th floor to the 1st floor.

It takes 1:09 minutes for an average walk down the steps on the side of the building.

It takes 46 seconds (on average) from the time you push the elevator button on the bottom floor until you arrive on the 4th floor, if there are not stops on floors two or three. This time may be longer or shorter, depending on how long you have to wait for the elevator to arrive on the first floor. The elevator definitely has the potential to be the quickest way to travel in the building, but it can also have the most delays.

It takes 1:12 minutes to take the escalators from the 4th floor down to the 1st floor if you just ride the escalator and don't walk as it's going. If you are able to walk unobstructed down the escalator, it takes 39 seconds to get from the 4th floor to the 1st floor. However, if people are standing in your way, this time will go up. You only save at most 33 seconds by walking instead of riding the escalators!"

I really hope they made a Master's student research this.

Thanks again, Bobcat fans, for all the helpful tips! My wife and I had a great time in Athens (and that's without even referring to how the game played out).

We arrived in Athens about an hour before kickoff. CopyCat, thanks very much for the heads-up regarding the construction on 33 on the WMU board. That slowed us up quite a bit - fortunately, we gave ourselves plenty of time on our drive. We ended up unintentionally parking quite a bit away from the stadium, so we walked through quite a bit of campus on our way to Peden. We were able to see some of the newer dorms and parts of South Green, East Green, College Green, and Emeriti Park. After walking back to our car after the game, we drove through campus and Uptown. We didn't stop, but we did see the Burrito Buggy and the Civil War memorial. The campus was everything we expected it would be: very, very nice.

The band was excellent throughout the game (I was impressed with the wide number of modern hits they played), and the halftime show exceeded my expectations. Because it was high school band day, I thought pretty much the entire halftime show would consist of the high school bands with the Ohio band. This wasn't the case, and the Ohio band did their thing for most of the performance until all the bands came onto the field near the end. Fantastic! (We didn't stick around for the postgame performance considering all the high school bands were still there and we got to see the band play quite a bit during halftime).

Great weekend trip to Athens!

(10-18-2015 07:23 PM)The Colonel Wrote:  Thanks again, Bobcat fans, for all the helpful tips! My wife and I had a great time in Athens (and that's without even referring to how the game played out).

We arrived in Athens about an hour before kickoff. CopyCat, thanks very much for the heads-up regarding the construction on 33 on the WMU board. That slowed us up quite a bit - fortunately, we gave ourselves plenty of time on our drive. We ended up unintentionally parking quite a bit away from the stadium, so we walked through quite a bit of campus on our way to Peden. We were able to see some of the newer dorms and parts of South Green, East Green, College Green, and Emeriti Park. After walking back to our car after the game, we drove through campus and Uptown. We didn't stop, but we did see the Burrito Buggy and the Civil War memorial. The campus was everything we expected it would be: very, very nice.

The band was excellent throughout the game (I was impressed with the wide number of modern hits they played), and the halftime show exceeded my expectations. Because it was high school band day, I thought pretty much the entire halftime show would consist of the high school bands with the Ohio band. This wasn't the case, and the Ohio band did their thing for most of the performance until all the bands came onto the field near the end. Fantastic! (We didn't stick around for the postgame performance considering all the high school bands were still there and we got to see the band play quite a bit during halftime).

Great weekend trip to Athens!

So glad you enjoyed your trip to Athens! unfortunately, for us Ohio fans, you enjoyed it a bit too much! LOL but those things happen. you have a really good team and you showed that on Saturday.

(10-18-2015 07:23 PM)The Colonel Wrote:  Thanks again, Bobcat fans, for all the helpful tips! My wife and I had a great time in Athens (and that's without even referring to how the game played out).

We arrived in Athens about an hour before kickoff. CopyCat, thanks very much for the heads-up regarding the construction on 33 on the WMU board. That slowed us up quite a bit - fortunately, we gave ourselves plenty of time on our drive. We ended up unintentionally parking quite a bit away from the stadium, so we walked through quite a bit of campus on our way to Peden. We were able to see some of the newer dorms and parts of South Green, East Green, College Green, and Emeriti Park. After walking back to our car after the game, we drove through campus and Uptown. We didn't stop, but we did see the Burrito Buggy and the Civil War memorial. The campus was everything we expected it would be: very, very nice.

The band was excellent throughout the game (I was impressed with the wide number of modern hits they played), and the halftime show exceeded my expectations. Because it was high school band day, I thought pretty much the entire halftime show would consist of the high school bands with the Ohio band. This wasn't the case, and the Ohio band did their thing for most of the performance until all the bands came onto the field near the end. Fantastic! (We didn't stick around for the postgame performance considering all the high school bands were still there and we got to see the band play quite a bit during halftime).

Great weekend trip to Athens!

Glad you got the message about 33 and that you enjoyed Athens. Any Ohio alumnus would tell you that you need to spend a night or two to really enjoy the town, but you did as well as possible for a very quick trip. Watching the Broncos turn our run defense into a smoldering hunk of carbon was likely a major bonus.