1 for the road, 1 fun thing, 1 for the trail

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📚 1 fun thing: Romi, the library robot

Photo: Gitanjali Poonia/Axios The country's first library robot helper lives at Arizona's Mesa Gateway Library, Axios Mesa's Gitanjali Poonia reports. Romi is part tour guide, part selfie station — and easily the library's most futuristic helper. 👋🏻 Romi can greet visitors in eight languages and lead them to different sections of the building. Visitors can touch the screen on its belly to look up books. Go deeper.

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🍽️ 1 for the road: Meet your neighbors

Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios

More than 1,200 Axios readers coast to coast have signed up for dinner with people they've never met on Oct. 6. It's part of Axios Social Club, an experiment Axios Local has been running in partnership with the DNNR dinner-club platform. Readers take a personality quiz and get matched with five other locals for dinner. We pick the restaurants: You don't find out where you're going until event day. 💡 It's a signal of a broader yearning for human connection, Axios Local's Emma Way tells us: Making friends as an adult is hard, loneliness is real, and people are hungry for reasons to get off their phones and connect IRL.

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🎨 1 for the road: Homes go green

Paint colors Grounded (left) and Celery. Photos: Behr and Sherwin-Williams

Next year's home paint palette is getting greener and more adventurous, Axios' Sami Sparber writes. Paint companies Behr, Valspar and Sherwin-Williams recently named their picks for the next big hues in home design: Behr chose Grounded, a "mossy olive," as its 2027 color of the year. Valspar went with Cottage Door, a comforting gray-blue. Sherwin-Williams picked Celery, a pale green that looks just like, well, the vegetable. Read on.

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⚾️ 1 for the road: October starts early

Photo: MLB X account The MLB postseason begins today with the best-of-3 wild card round — four series, 12 teams still alive and little margin for a slow start. Today's schedule: 2 p.m. ET: Philadelphia Phillies at Atlanta Braves (NBC) 5 p.m.: Chicago White Sox at Houston Astros (Peacock/NBCSN) 8 p.m.: Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees (NBC) 10 p.m.: Chicago Cubs at San Diego Padres (Peacock/NBCSN) Full postseason schedule.

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⚓️ 1 for the road: Storm turns up shipwreck

Exposed shipwreck remains along the southern shore of Nantucket, Mass. Photo: Jason Graziadei/Nantucket Current via AP Maritime experts in Nantucket are inspecting weathered wooden beams exposed by last weekend's powerful nor'easter — possibly the remnants of a 19th-century shipwreck. The Egan Maritime Institute is surveying the site and working with state archaeologists to determine the wreckage's origins. 🌊 The splintered timbers, fastened together by rusted iron, emerged near an area where remains believed to be from the Warren Sawyer have been found before. That ship ran aground in 1884 while carrying cotton and scrap iron from New Orleans to Boston. Go deeper.

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1 for the road: Wildlife bridge a "huge success"

Greenland Overpass in Colorado. Photo: Robert Sanchez/Axios Pronghorn and elk are taking the high road in Colorado, Axios Douglas County's Robert Sanchez reports. The animals are crossing I-25 on the Greenland Wildlife Overpass — a promising sign that the project is helping animals find one another for breeding opportunities, as intended. 📸 The overpass opened in December, and the first elk appeared on camera in June, officials say. Pronghorn are making the trip, too — along with mule deer, black bears, mountain lions and more. Colorado DOT environmental manager Chuck Attardo says: "Based on the video feed that we're collecting, huge success." Go deeper ...

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🎸 1 for the road: Old-school protest festival

Photo: Alyssa Piazza/AP Above: Folk icon Joan Baez, 85, and Bruce Springsteen, 77, performed yesterday during a star-studded Power to the People protest festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. Organized by Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, the festival aimed to celebrate "peace, justice, solidarity, music and community action." The Boss opened with "Streets of Minneapolis" in response to the killings by federal immigration agents. Baez and Springsteen then duetted Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom," AP Music Writer Maria Sherman reports. Photo: Will Reintzell for MS NOW Above: Host Ari Melber greets fans at the MS NOW Members Lounge at the Power to the People festival, after the network launched a direct-to-consumer subscription service last month. MS NOW, which hosted its first lounge at a "Together in Texas" fan event in the Dallas area last weekend, enrolled hundreds of new members yesterday.

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🍧 1 food thing: Reuben... ice cream?

The Katz's Reuben at Kith. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios New York's legendary Katz's Delicatessen has landed in Chicago — but don't expect pastrami sandwiches, Axios Chicago's Carrie Shepherd reports. 🍦 Clothing store and ice cream cafe Kith teamed up with Katz's for three limited-time treats. The Latke, The Egg Cream Deluxe and The Reuben are on the menu until Oct. 10. The Reuben features vanilla ice cream mixed with Cheez-Its, rye croutons, and beetroot powder. It's topped with black sanding sugar, a dehydrated Swiss cheese chip, Maldon salt and a Katz's pickle. Dig in ...

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✈️ 1 for the road: Aspen flight fight

Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios Planned upgrades to Aspen's airport sit at the core of a broader fight over the future of the iconic Colorado ski town, Andrew Zucker reports in The Wall Street Journal. The plan calls for shifting the roughly 8,000-foot runway 80 feet to the west and widening it to 150 feet, to accommodate bigger jets used by some of the ultra-wealthy visitors who've become a staple of the Aspen crowd. 🛬 Proponents say that mountainous, hard-to-reach Aspen will benefit from easier access by air. Detractors worry about being overrun with visitors — and the economic shock from closing the airfield for several months to do the work. Gift link.

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🇦🇷 1 for the road: Messi's farewell

Lionel Messi waves during his final game for the Argentina national team. Photo: Matias Baglietto/Reuters Lionel Messi played his final game for the Argentina national team last night — bidding farewell to international soccer after 21 years, 125 goals and a World Cup championship. The Argentine soccer federation turned the exhibition game into a national farewell billed as "the last tango." Photo: Alessia Maccioni/Reuters A drone display honored Messi at the end of the match. Go deeper.

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🏆 1 for the road: American Ironman

Matthew Marquardt crosses the finish line in the Men's Pro Series Ironman race in Kalmar, Sweden, on Aug. 15. He placed second. Photo: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images An Ohio native hopes to win one of the world's most grueling sporting events this weekend — before returning to Columbus to finish becoming a doctor. Matthew Marquardt wants to be the first American man since 2002 to win the Ironman World Championship, being held tomorrow in Kona, Hawai'i. 🩺 Zoom in: The 28-year-old isn't just a professional Ironman athlete, Axios Columbus' Andrew King writes. He's also a Princeton graduate, third-year medical student and cancer researcher at Ohio State who's planning his postdoctoral residency. He rides with the initials of cancer patients he knows written on his bike.