Cincinnati Review

Today, Angie, Nila and I went to Cincinnati for the day. We just wanted a change of pace, and Cinci's close.

We visited five Cincinnati landmarks.*

McAlister's

Angie drools over McAlister's. It's a chain of restaurants apparently popular in the south. The only Ohio joints are in the Queen City. I had the club sandwich. It was good. Angie had a barrel of sweet tea.

Findlay Market

This is an indoor/outdoor market in the heart of Cincinnati. I thought it was small and crowded inside, and I enjoyed the outdoor areas much more. It was packed with people and they day was beautiful, so it was a good stop.

The problem with the Findlay Market was that Google gave us some terrible directions. You know how sometimes Google will use every name a street has? Well, our directions told us to exit on US 29/34/782/09898/149/Hopple St., or something like that - and I'm only sort of exaggerating it.

We did this, but then we had to turn right immediately onto US 34/09898/Hopple St and then left onto US 29/782/149/Hopple St and then a left and a short turn towards the sun. But first we had to sing a sea chantey and answer three riddles.

We failed at this and drove in a circle, but then we found our starting point and tried again. This time, we made a left turn into oncoming traffic and almost met our ends. We did not; we made it safely through the intersection only a little thankful for our lives.

We sang about the Edmund Fitzgerald and answered our three riddles, but we must have answered wrong because we ended up on the UC campus and I gave up on the Google.

I drove what I assumed was south and figured I'd hit the river eventually. I remembered that the market was downtown from the map I had seen yesterday - I should note we only brought the written directions, nothing pictorial.

It paid off. My spidey-sense found the market and Angie bought some homemade soap. Who doesn't need soap some lady made in her bathtub?

Ault Park

When we decided to go to Cincinnati, I did a quick online search for things to do. I didn't want to have to tell people I just went to Ikea and a grocery store...

I found information about the Hyde Park area of the city and it looked pretty nice, and I figured we could spend some time kicking around in the park.

Hyde Park was fantastic. The homes in and around the area were stunning. We drove through without checking out any of the small shops and boutiques in the town center, opting instead to find the park.

I had not mapped directions for the park; it was more of an afterthought, but I found it because I am awesome.

The park was really nice. Nila walked around the garden and refused to smell the flowers.

She was tired and cranky after about 30 minutes, so we fought her into her car seat and she took a little cat nap on the way to Ikea.

Ikea

I hate shopping at Ikea. I love Ikea, but the shoppers there are insane. It's like they've never shopped before. There's so much wide-eyed meandering that a person can't browse in peace without knocking into a small Indian family or falling over the feet of some guy from Kentucky who isn't quite sure what he's doing there.

I would prefer that all of these people either stay home or learn how to follow the arrows helpfully painted on the floor and KEEP MOVING OR PULL OFF TO THE SIDE!

Aisles are for walking, carpeted areas are for standing and figuring out whether or no the Oogglesfjord bookshelves go with your Ulxwesty carpet and Huvershorb dog bed.

FYI, it doesn't.

We picked up a few small things. It was more of a reconnaissance mission this time. Angie goes into more detail about our purchases here. (We did buy a tray for our soap, don't worry.)

Jungle Jim's

I am a big fan of Mr. Jim. But, alas, it was the one-too-many on our list of things to do. I was cranky, Angie was cranky and Nila was hungry. We were all hungry.

I got the bare essentials; all-natural hummus, curry powder, garam masala, blood orange juice, Double Decker bars.

The trip to JJ's was short, but we only had the one argument about subs and we left the store on good terms.

We ate dinner at that other famous Cincinnati landmark; Wendy's.


*admittedly, some are not landmarks.

**While we did take some pictures, we didn't take any of these. Click on the picture to see where they came from.