Much less congestion as well. I drive between them weekly and rarely see traffic anywhere close to California. It's a pretty comfortable 2 hour drive.

It's hard to understate just how driveable this side of the country is from Ohio. In about 7 hours one direction you are in Chicago. 7 hours another direction you are in Toronto. 7 hours another direction you are in NYC, or DC, or Boston. Stretch it to 15 hours or so and you can drive all the way to New Orleans, or most of Florida in that time, and anywhere in between. Anywhere east of the Mississippi really is seemingly doable for a road trip in about a days drive, especially if you are driving in shifts. You can get flights pretty fast as well, but the issue is the ohio airports have limited direct connections; its frequent to fly to ohare or charlotte first. It's not like LAX where you can score a direct flight to half the western US from southwest for $59.