Rivertown

I’ve traveled a good bit, but I have to say that even now, one of my favorite cities on the planet is the one I grew up in... Cincinnati, OH.  I love the way that everything is oriented according to the river.  I love the view of the Cincy skyline when you approach the “cut in the hill.”  I love eating my fill of Skyline Chili, Larosa’s pizza, and Frisch’s hot fudge cake.  I love the sea of Bengals and Reds t-shirts on a Sunday afternoon.  

I actually grew up on the Kentucky side of the Ohio river, about 2 miles from the Cincy airport.  Did you know that the airport is actually in KY?  Most people don’t.  Even though my house was in the Bluegrass State, many of my childhood memories are very “Cincinnati-ish”

I always love to return to that place I call home, though I don’t make it there very often since my parents moved to the Carolinas almost 7 years ago.  My parents had decided years ago that they would be buried in the cemetery where my mom’s parents and her siblings are buried.  So, after we had a funeral service in NC, we headed up to Cincy for a second service and her burial.

Our family on the day of my mom's burial.  We had a family dinner afterwards at the same legion hall where we celebrated my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary over 30 years ago.

The day of the service, I had the opportunity to see folks I had not seen in 20 years.  I was really neat to visit with so many faces from my past and to spend time with my extended family.  It was a bittersweet day.

I had decided that if we were going to make the trip up, we might as well stay a couple of days and experience the city that I love so much.  It was a good idea.  We got a couple of hotel rooms with Ryan’s parents and the kids got a chance to swim a bit and catch up on some much needed sleep.  

The grandpas treated us to a Red’s game on Sunday night.  We had a fabulous time.  The Reds won with a 9th inning hit and they even had 11+ strikeouts, which means that ALL of us got a free Larosa’s pizza the next day.  We had more pizza than we could possibly eat!  It was a great way for them to experience their first Red’s game.

We also took the kids to the Creation Museum.  Someone had given us BOGO coupons for entrance tickets, so we were able to do it affordably.  They thoroughly enjoyed it and we cannot experience anything like that in Africa, so it was a good way to spend a day.