Our plan for the start of our summer travel season began with a visit to family friends in Cincinnati. This will be followed by more than four months of extended travel until we return home in October. But this particular trip began with more than a few rookie mistakes. Mike made a quick visit to Cincinnati more than six years ago, but I haven’t been there in at least 20 years.
Flight Snafus
Our first travel day didn’t start very well. We had told our driver to pick us up at 1 pm, but at 10:30, I received a reminder of our flight at 11 am. Talk about a rookie mistake, unfortunately, it was followed by more mishaps. To complicate matters further, our flights were booked on miles from Alaska, but we were flying on American.
Mike got Alaska on the phone and was able to change our flight to later in the afternoon through Charlotte. He even called them back to verify because he got cut off before he was done. Meanwhile, I called our driver and he said he could be at our place in about 45 minutes. Naturally, we jumped in the shower and ran around like crazy people.
Separate Records, What?
On the ride to the airport, I checked the flight on the Alaska application on my phone and realized that I was still on the original flight. Because they were booked on points, we were on separate records. But we just now realized it. So, we got back on the phone with Alaska to find out if there was room on the flight for me, too. We were still on the phone after we arrived at the airport. Mike didn’t want to check in until the flight was verified for both of us. Luckily, there was room on the flight to Charlotte and Cincinnati.
To make things worse, somehow my TSA-Pre indication wasn’t on my record. While not an issue in Cancun, I found out the hard way I had to go to a different entrance for TSA since going throug immigration had left outside of security.
Then, at the gate to go to Cincinnati, I had an assigned seat, but Mike didn’t. So I boarded the plane to claim overhead space while Mike waited for nearly everyone to board before they would assign him a seat. We eventually made it to Cincinnati, but what a day. Total rookie moves.
Car Rental Issues
Because of our flight errors, we weren’t arriving until 10 pm. When Mike tried to change the pickup time for the rental car, he found out the Hertz desk closed at 9 pm! WOW, color us surprised. So when we arrived, we had to take an expensive Uber to the hotel. But we paid one less day of the rental, so it evened out.
We were actually surprised at how dead and closed up the Cincinnati airport was at 10 pm. I thought it was a pretty large city, but I guess that doesn’t matter.
The Kentucky Horse Park
My choice for an activity in the area was to visit the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. It is the place where old race horses are put out to pasture. Literally and figuratively. Our friends rightly called it a horse graveyard, which it is. There were lots of tombstones and markers for famous and not-so-famous horses. Since the horse park and the airport are both south of the city, our friends picked us up at our hotel and dropped us off at the airport to get a rental car after the visit .
I love looking at the beautiful horses, especially the huge dray horses. The paddocks were large, so we had a nice walk. We saw a dressage competition and horses with riders doing figures. I had a wonderful time and I think everyone else did, too.
Mother’s Day Dinner
That Sunday was also Mother’s Day, and I wanted Chinese food. Since all of our kids were elsewhere, we decided to go to PF Chang’s.
Shout out to our friends. They took us wherever we asked to go and generally made sure we had a great time. We even spent time with their son. You know who you are. Thanks again!
Air Force Museum
The day after the Horse Park, we drove an hour north of Cincinnati to Dayton, Ohio, to visit the National Museum of the United States Air Force. I’m going to let Mike tell you about the exhibits and what interested him. But, I can tell you that I have never seen so many different types of airplanes before. They are arranged chronologically by period and include many planes that I have never seen before. Including small production and some very odd-looking experimental models.
Mike – Frankly, I could write an entire post on our visit to the Museum, it’s that big. For a summary, it’s worth noting this is a museum of military aviation. The only civilian craft are a few early items as context and planes like the prior Air Force One, a Boeing 707 on which LJB was sworn in after JFK’s assinination by one or more people. As you can see in the map below, there are many tons of aircraft under cover. I didn’t get to see everything in the 4+ hours of our visit and I barely read any of the placques. I could easily spend 2 days there digging into it all. I rate it 12/10 for any aviation enthusiast.
First of Three Baseball Games
On Tuesday, our friends got tickets to a Cincinnati Reds game. I have a vague memory of going to a Reds game 20-plus years ago, but they got a new stadium in the intervening years. Before the game, we met all our friend’s son at his flat downtown, walking distance to the stadium. Their son has a beautiful, multilevel, loft apartment with a patio at the top. His views are wonderful.
Once we got to the stadium, the skies opened up, and it started pouring. We waited it out for a while under an awning before going into the stadium. It was the first time that I had ever seen a rain delay, and the field was covered with plastic. They were also showing the Doppler radar on the big screen, so we could all watch the rain, funny.
The broadcasters were pretty bored too. The rain delay gave us a chance to wander around the stadium and check it out. The game wound up starting at 8:25 pm instead of 6:40 pm, and we were happy to find that our seats were just under a small awning, so after drying them off, we stayed dry.
The new stadium was very nice, but sadly, the Reds lost to the White Sox in 10 innings.
Food in Cincinnati
My recollection from past visits was the food wasn’t too great. This time we were pleasantly surprised. Of course, PF Chang’s is usually good, but our friends also took us to a local restaurant called Seasons 52. The food was very good and reasonably priced for the US. We also had a bite before the baseball game at Krueger’s Tavern.
Has this article made you want to visit Northern Kentucky and Southern Ohio?
