Newport, Kentucky- Sunday, July 3, 2011

After a leisurely few days staying in more or less the same place in Columbus, the cities are going to start coming fast and furious, at the rate of one a day until we get to New Orleans. Lots to see!

Our first stop was two hours from Columbus, in Newport, Kentucky. Julie woke everyone up this morning with great enthusiasm, and we headed south. Just after we passed through Cincinnati and crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky, we found ourselves in Newport. We knew what to expect here, because it’s our third time stopping here. We stopped once when we were driving to Florida before, and once when we went to Nashville. It was very hot today, but there were lots of people around, since it’s a holiday weekend.

Julie’s favorite aquarium is here, and was our first stop in town. What may stand out most about this about this aquarium are the many tunnels it has that cut through the enormous tanks. When you are passing through the tunnel, you are surrounded by the fish, and they are swimming by and over you. While there are several of these tunnels, the largest and most impressive puts you in a tank filled with sharks, rays, and other large fish. There were also two divers in there this time. We’ve seen these kinds of tunnels in other places now, but we saw them here first. Even though the original newness of the tunnels has worn off, they are still quite wonderful to experience.

You can see that the aquarium’s philosophy is one that tries to create an immersive (that’s their own word) and multi-sensory experience. The girls enjoyed the usual touch tank for horseshoe crabs and starfish, but Julie and Anna were even more fascinated by the shark touch tank. We all went in the “Shark Cage” where a hydraulic floor shakes you as a movie shows a Great White attacking you. (We had to wait in line for this experience because the hydraulics had to be reset, but there was a lot of weird and curious fish and animals to look at while we waited.) We fed lorikeets that would land on your hand and grab away the plastic cup of nectar when they got mad. Anna was taking lots of pictures again. Emma’s favorite in the aquarium was the jellyfish that floated quietly in blacklight. She also liked the sharks and the octopus and others. Anna liked the otters, lorikeets and penguins.

From the aquarium, we walked a block to the Hofbrauhaus, the German restaurant that Scott was looking forward to. True, we had German last night, but this place is different. For one thing, last night’s was something of a neighborhood tavern (even though it was very, very crowded). Today’s has the atmosphere of a large German beer garden. Instead of the sausages that we enjoyed last night, Julie and Scott got schnitzel (pork, not veal). Scott’s was just a cutlet, but Julie got it as a sandwich with a pretzeled bread and a beer-cheese sauce. It was great, and Scott gladly finished half of it for her. Julie also loved the German potato salad, and Scott, of course, enjoyed a liter of the famous Hofbrau beer. There was an accordion player who was keeping the crowd going. The musicians here certainly must get tired of some songs, but they must REALLY get tired of the Chicken Dance. They played it twice just while we were there. Even though lots of people were standing on their benches to dance along, Anna and Emma wouldn’t do it. The Reds game was on the TV, and the stadium they were playing was almost visible from the front door, across the river in Cincinnati. The Reds beat Cleveland, 7 to 5, in interleague trans-Ohio game. (By the way, the original Hofbrauhaus is in Munich. We’ve been there. There are three establishments in the United States licensed to use the Hofbrau name. We’ve been to two: once in Las Vegas, three times here in Newport. The one we haven’t been to is the one that’s closest to us- in Pittsburgh. Sounds like a reason for a road trip this winter.)

After eating, it was around 3:00 in the afternoon. We listened to Dwight Yoakam sing “If You Ever Get South of Cincinnati,” a tradition whenever we’re here. We made our way to Florence, KY, where our hotel is. We called it a day, as far as touring goes, and the girls were happy to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in the hotel pool. We ordered Papa John’s pizza in. It’s a treat we can’t get at home.

At 10:00, just after we were tucked in for bed, we heard fireworks. We got to see a pretty large display from the hotel parking lot. They were about two miles away. The girls opened the back of the truck and sat in it.

Columbus, OH, cont.- Saturday, July 2, 2011

We had a lot planned for today, and got a good start. We had tickets for a second day at the zoo and the waterpark. We went to a McDonald’s that was completely decorated in Ohio State football memorabilia, and got to near the zoo with more than a half an hour to spare. We picked up a few things that we needed at the nearby Kroger’s. (Julie said Kroh-gers. Scott said “Roger’s with a K,” like always.) Scott was disappointed when Anna couldn’t win him a Sinestro from the crane game, but no amount of willpower was going to move him.

The girls were immediately disappointed by the fact that it was thundering and lightening. The waterpark was sure to be closed. If they had just wanted to be wet, that wasn’t going to be a problem, because the rain was coming down quite steadily. We started our way through the zoo by picking up the one major area that we hadn’t done yesterday—North America. The newest attraction in the zoo seems to be the polar bear exhibit. It certainly is deserving of all of the attention it’s getting. We saw two bears swimming rather close to us in their pool, but what really made the viewing unique was the fact that there is an underwater viewing area. In our minds we had pictured looking into the bears’ pool, but the viewing area actually extends into the pool, so the bears can swim above you and around you. A crowd had gathered there. One of the first things we noticed were all of the fish that were swimming in the pool that had not even caught our attention when we saw them from above. The bears weren’t nearby to start with, but the pair eventually wrestled a bit above us on the other side of the foot-thick plexi-glass. When their little tussle was over, they floated around, barely moving. The view from below was surreal, as if each bear was floating in slow motion through the air. It was certainly the highlight of the zoo for us today.

We tried running through the raindrops to get to see some of the other animals, but it wasn’t really working for us. We tried huddling under a couple of shelters. We watched the otters for a while, and Anna tried to get a picture of Dad with one. But the rain was coming down harder, and we were all feeling a bit drenched. We made our way to the gift shop at the front of the zoo. Mom got a “Jungle Jack Hanna” hat that would have helped her stay dry if she had it a few hours earlier. We got our hands stamped to return, but ultimately decided that we had seen nearly everything that we wanted to see at the zoo, and didn’t go back. That’s just as well because the ink didn’t last very long on most of our hands.

We tried to get “Lizzie” to take us to a mall where we could get lunch and dry out, but the GPS does not seem very good at that sort of thing. She did get us to a Barnes and Nobles where we browsed for a while and the girls bought some new books for the car. We went to a Panera where we got some warm food in us, and then to the new hotel for tonight. We all got a chance to change to warmer and/or drier clothes and we continued on with our day.

This hotel was different than the one we stayed in for the last two nights, even though we’re still in Columbus. Julie had started planning for this trip by paying for one hotel room from each paycheck we got. That means that all of our hotels are already paid for from here to Florida and back again. However since we were anxious to get the trip started and came to Columbus early, we ended up staying in a different place for our first two nights. Julie’s friend Laura got us a deal on the first two nights at a hotel right near Ohio State. Now we’re at the other hotel, right next to the Columbus airport.

Lizzie took us to downtown Columbus, and we found our own way to Battelle Riverfront Park, where there is a replica of the Santa Maria. It’s Columbus’s ship, you see, because it’s Columbus, Ohio. Oddly, the Scioto River seems to be low right now. The trailer-sized visitor’s center for the Santa Maria is apparently meant to float on the river, but it was resting on the mud and leaning quite a bit. The ship itself is 20 years old, having been built in 1991, in time for the quincentennial of Columbus’s voyage. We knew the ship was going to be small, but it was also quite simple in its design. The tour guide who took us through had an enthusiastic but unique personality. She was probably pretty good at holding the attention of the many small children that were on the tour, though more than one was crying at some point during it. The tour was heavy on what shipboard life was like for the sailors, and barely mentioned the story of Columbus until we sat in the captain’s quarters at the end of the tour. Perhaps is not PC to talk about Columbus as a hero. That seems odd, since the city is named after him and someone paid money to have this ship built. The ship itself seems to be showing a lot of age and dirt. It’s not glamorous, but perhaps it is accurate.

We drove past the state capital building, and found our way to the German Village. It’s a great little part of town that was built by German immigrants in the 1800s. It’s not far from downtown, but this nice little area is filled with tidy brick houses and stores. It’s actually a lot like what “Over-the-Rhine” must have been like in Cincinnati, as well as many parts of Buffalo. We parked and strolled around quite a bit, admiring the houses and going into shops. The Book Loft was a bit of an experience. It’s a sprawling complex maze-like building. The books it sells can be bargains, but they are organized into 32 small rooms connected by a tight, narrow, winding path. It’s hard to get to the room that you want with all of the traffic jams involved. Then when you do find an interesting section, you can’t stop because you’re blocking traffic. There’s a lot of “excuse mes” and claustrophobia.

We made our way to Schmidt’s famous sausage house. Matt (the guitar player from Rush the Growler) had recommended the place to us. Schmidt’s is famous for their house sausages served in a buffet and their half-pound cream puffs. The place is in its fifth generation of ownership by the same family. They were recently featured on the “Man vs. Food” program on the Travel Channel. The place is very popular. They won’t take reservations and we had to wait an hour for a table. When we asked if this was the usual Saturday crowd or a holiday crowd, the waiter told us it was actually a little slow that night. Scott loved the sausage buffet and the German atmosphere.

Julie’s friend Laura and her husband Steve met us for dinner at Schmidts. Julie knew her because Laura taught with her at JFK, up until about two years ago. We chatted for a time while we waited outside Schmidt’s, and the conversation continued over dinner. It's not hard to see why the two of them were friends.

As expected, the girls finished the day by swimming in the hotel pool. They were surprised by a visit from a firefly who flew in and sat on a chair. He crawled to Emma’s hands, and then to Anna’s . It was probably the first time either of them had seen one up-close like that. It was a magical little moment.