Vacation highlights

This year's few days of freedom from our children was celebrated in Cincinnati, by way of Kentucky with a detour through North Carolina on the way home. Five states in nine days. Not bad.

First, some photos:


Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky have done a good job developing their respective riverfronts into attractive places that are more than just malls. This photo was taken on the old L&N railroad bridge, which is now for pedestrians.

We saw two Reds games (one win, one loss), but the highlight for me was this.


I heard the frosty malt described as a glorified Frosty from Wendy's. Which is true, if you are also of the opinion that fine champagne is glorified ginger ale.

Second, some places we went that you should go, if you are geographically amenable to a visit unto the Queen City.

Biagio's Bistro on Ludlow Avenue in Clifton. Possibly the best lunch I have ever had. Sweet tomato basil soup, a huge salad with mounds of good black and green olives instead of cheese and an Italian-meat sub that made me angry that I'd ever eaten in a Subway.

Busken Bakery in Hyde Park. An after-dinner trip to Busken for two iced cookies netted us two iced cookies, two cherry danish and a four-inch layer cake. Wonderful.

Hofbräuhaus Newport. Their claim to fame is that they are the only official Hofbräuhaus outside of Munich. In reality, their claim to fame should be their fried pickles and sauerkraut balls. We should have stopped with the sampler, which also included potato pancakes with applesauce and pretzels with bier cheese. That we did not and still managed to walk across the bridge into Cincinnati is a testament to our will. I sampled only one of their beverage offerings, the Dunkel, which is, and this is indeed a compliment, what iced tea wants to be when it grows up.

We also spent one day in Louisville, doing things we had never done while we were there. So we went to the Louisville Slugger Museum, home of the best 25-minute factory tour you'll ever take, as well as two batting cages. Alas, we were not attired as well as we might have been for the batting cages.


And we went to the Bluegrass Brewing Company for lunch. The highlight was the beer mustard, which we had on the best pretzel I've ever eaten. It was better than the bison burger I had for lunch. (Hmmmm. Beer mustard and bier cheese. I detect a pattern.)

We enjoyed both The Dark Knight (more on that later) and Get Smart and played a bit off golf, which was on our part mostly mediocre punctuated with occasional bouts of adequacy. Now back to the real world. The tree fellows were here for about eight hours yesterday removing dead wood and dying trees, and the new playground equipment comes today. The children come home later today from a week with their grandparents, and we will being the unspoiling.