Flight to Richmond

I flew from CMH to CLE to RIC today. I flew an RJ on both legs of the trip. The turbulence was terrible. I haven't been in turbulence that bad, ever. I don't know why it was so bad. We spent the entire flight either right under the clouds or right over them. If we had gone up just another few thousand feet, I would think we could have had some smoother air. But, there are tons of reasons we couldn't do that. That is why the pilot is the pilot and I'm not.