Category Archives: Event

Solstice Glow at Krohn

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I admitted attending Krohn Conservatory‘s holiday display last year partly because of the word “yule” in the name “Golden Days of Yule”. I’m back again this year largely because of the name. It was almost unavoidable since “Solstice Glow” was near the top of the list of hits in my annual search for solstice-related events. I went on Wednesday when temperatures were in the 20s and an overnight dusting of snow left no doubt that winter was here and made the warmth inside the giant greenhouse much appreciated.

The giant poinsettia tree that has become a regular winter feature at Krohn is once again front and center near the entrance. The tree appeared, as planned, on December 6 more than a month after the November 2 opening of “Solstice Glow” and is scheduled to remain two days beyond the January 5 closing. I intentionally delayed my visit to not miss the tree.

At the heart of Kron’s holiday show are the models of area landmarks made from natural materials. A new model is constructed each year to be added to the display. This year that new model is of the CVG Airport complete with airplanes and a pair of abbreviated runways.

Last year’s addition was the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. The year before that, the eight-foot-long Music Hall was added and Findlay Market was new in 2021.

Bridges and railroads have played an important role in Cincinnati’s history and the Krohn holiday display recognizes both with model trains traveling over replicas of automobile bridges. Of course, the 1866 Roebling Bridge predates automobiles but that is its role today. The Daniel Carter Beard Bridge opened in 1976 but is partially closed today due to a November 1 fire over which arson charges have been filed.

All of those model buildings, bridges, and trains are the work of Applied Imagination of Alexandria, KY. Today the company is responsible for similar displays in many cities but started the whole concept here at Krohn in 1991. In 2012, station KET created a video profile of this remarkable company which can be accessed from the company website or directly here.

I have made much of my attendance at this event being prompted by the words “yule” and “solstice” in its name. I came dangerously close to making way too much of that and making a big mistake. I’m guessing we have all seen click-bait, stir-the-pot posts of the form “X is really upset by Y” with little or no evidence that X is even aware of Y, let alone upset by it. When Krohn Conservatory announced the title of this year’s winter event, I thought I saw some posts bemoaning the presence of the word “solstice” and the absence of the word “Christmas”. I even thought addressing that would be a major part of this post. Fortunately, I took another look.

As one commenter observed, there were “…more people complaining about people  complaining than actual people complaining.” In all honesty, I found no one complaining. Just some people defending something that was not attacked. I believe what I initially took as a complaint about the name was intended as a many-year belated complaint about a pricing change. I guess that I, like several news sources, had somehow decided this was the Krohn Conservatory Christmas display. It is possible that once upon a time, that was its official name, but of all the online references using the word Christmas that I found, not one came from the conservatory. 

I believe the official titles of Krohn Conservatory’s holiday displays over the last dozen years were: 
2024 – Solstice Glow
2023 – Golden Days of Yule
2022 – Celestial Holiday
2021 – Trains and Traditions
2020 – A Very Merry Garden Holiday
2019 – A Zinzinnati Holiday
2018 – A Crystal Holiday
2017 – Cincinnati Choo Choo
2016 – Whimsical Wonderland
2015 – The Poinsettia Express
2014 – Magic and Mistletoe
2013 – A Cincinnati Scenic Railway

Discovering Ansel Adams at the Cincinnati Art Museum

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I post a lot of pictures on the internet, and occasionally, someone will say something nice about one of them. Any photo of mine that is worthy of a compliment is invariably the result of me accidentally being in the right place at the right time. Just like Ansel Adams — except for the “accidentally” part. The remarkable landscape photos that Adams became famous for were almost always the result of significant study to determine just what the right spot and right time were and usually some significant effort in getting there. The Discovering Ansel Adams exhibit contains plenty of those famous landscapes along with many of his lesser-known works.

The exhibit begins with items from the not-yet-famous part of his life. In addition to family snapshots and letters, one display contains a compass and some light meters used in the complementary “getting there” and “getting the shot” aspects of Adams’ work. The leftmost picture on the wall is the earliest landscape photo by Adams in the exhibit and probably the only one that is fairly well known with the word “inadvertently” in a description from Adams himself. Taken on his very first visit to Yosemite with his parents, the photo and description are here.

Black and white photos from large format cameras are most commonly associated with Adams and those make up the bulk of the exhibit. Many, but not all, are of various national parks. A couple of photos are accompanied by display cases holding backlit negatives and associated laboratory notes.

To support his fine art tendencies, Adams did a fair amount of commercial work including some in color. He even took pictures of people now and then and sometimes used small handheld cameras instead of bulky tripod-supported boxes. Sometimes, he even took pictures for his own enjoyment. Several things we don’t normally associate with Ansel Adams are associated with this photo of Georgia O’Keeffe and Orville Cox, described here, that shows the same crisp detail seen in his large-format people-less landscape work.

Copies of several of the books that Adams authored or contributed to are available to leaf through as part of the exhibit. I spent some time in one of those padded chairs reading bits from The Camera. The exhibit runs through January 19, 2025.

I also took in CAMaraderie: Artists of the Cincinnati Art Museum while I was at the museum. This impressive exhibit is comprised of numerous works of art from members of the museum staff. It runs through January 5, 2025.    

TG ’24

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I did it again. I dunno, maybe I’m in a rut. I see that last year I had thoughts of Thanksgiving dinner at an Ohio or Indiana state park but waited too long to make reservations. I wrote that only the meal, and not an overnight stay, was actually considered for Ohio so maybe the lodges had already priced themselves out of contention. They certainly had this year, which made me drop them from consideration for the meal so quickly that I can’t say whether or not I would have been too late. But I did pick an Indiana park and I did make a call only to learn that the meal was sold out. Thankfully, Kentucky was there for me once again. BTW, one way of producing a washed-out photo such as this is to grab a camera last used for shooting in the dark and start snapping away without so much as a glance at sensitivity settings and such.

I again picked a park I had never been to in a part of the state that I was pretty unfamiliar with as well. Buckhorn Lake State Resort Park lies about 75 crow miles southeast of Lexington. I decided to reach Lexington on a semi-official Dixie Highway alignment, then head to the park on new-to-me back roads. I feared that the Log Cabin Inn would be closed on Thanksgiving Day but it was serving breakfast and had a sold-out dinner planned for later. Today I learned that the dog-trot cabin that forms the oldest part of the restaurant was moved here from Bardstown in the late 1800s. There’s a giant fireplace in each half of the original cabin and some good advice over the bar.

I called this section of Dixie Highway that passes through Falmouth, KY, while connecting Cincinnati and Lexington, “semi-official” because it was included as an alternate path then the Dixie Highway Association disbanded before an official choice was made between it and the original alignment through Florence, KY. Most of the route has been taken over by KY-17 and US-27 and become quite modern looking but some still looks much like it did when it was the DH. Some of the locals seemed mildly interested in my passing, though others could not care less.

That 75 crow miles between Lexington and Buckhorn Lake State Park became a little more than 110 road miles most of which looked like this. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive but there was near-constant — mostly quite light — rain and I did not take many pictures.

My scheduling was far from precise but at one point it looked like I was going to reach the park with nearly an hour to spare. Then I missed a turn. By the time I realized it and backtracked, all my cushion was gone. I reached the lodge at 3:31 for my 3:30 — last of the day — seating. The girl at the desk correctly guessed my name and I hurried downstairs to the dining room. The platters weren’t overflowing but there was still plenty of turkey, ham, and catfish plus most of the trimmings. Stuffing, it seems, had been depleted before I got there. I avoided a more significant disappointment with a preemptive strike. The dessert area was in full view from my table with the pie table filled with pumpkin and pecan pie when I sat down. At some point, I looked over to see the pumpkin pie side still well populated with just one piece of pecan left. I altered my plans just a bit to park that piece of pecan pie beside my plate while I finished the rest of my meal.

I now had time to check into my room in the lodge. It included a balcony which I’m sure offered a very nice view during warmer months. In late November, it simply let me verify that the pool was closed for the season and so too, apparently, was the lake.

Of course, it was too cold to sit on that balcony and really too cold to explore the park. I did return to the lobby to grab a shot of the Christmas tree and a clearer view of the lake at “low tide”.

As I headed out in the morning, I did a little exploring in the warm dry car which suited me much better than on foot in yesterday’s cold and damp. I’ve assumed that the low lake is an annual thing but don’t really know that and wish now that I had asked. I did not see any black bears but did read the instructions. I did see some other visitors. Only a few rooms were occupied in the lodge last night but a whole bunch of cabins had at least one car parked nearby. State parks are a pretty good place for families to spend holidays.

Then it was quite a few more miles of the sort of road that finished up yesterday but without the rain. One of these pictures was taken inside the Daniel Boone National Forest and the other just outside it. Hard to tell the difference, eh?

Breakfast was in Hazard at France’s Diner. Good food, good people, and a little local history on the walls.

I finally made it to the Mother Goose Inn in Hazard. It was built as a market and has been a store, a B&B, and a private residence but I couldn’t tell you what it is now.

I backtracked just a little from Hazard to pick up the Hal Rogers Parkway and head back into the Daniel Boone National Forest. I left it at London to head north on the Dixie Highway. Following one DH alignment to Lexington to start the trip then taking the DH back to Lexington and following another alignment back to Cincinnati seemed rather natural to me but it makes that Kentucky Thanksgiving rut I mentioned a little more obvious. Two years ago, I didn’t even do a Thanksgiving meal but spent the day driving this pair of DH alignments in Kentucky. The blog entry is here.

I paused to take a picture from the Clay’s Ferry Overlook and another at the 1871 bridge below. I contacted owner Jay Webb when I realized I would be coming by the overlook and, although we did not connect today, I do think we will be meeting here around Christmas.

Just a few miles north of the river, a large brontosaurus stands alone in an empty field watching traffic. About a quarter mile away, a smaller version uses a shed as a viewing platform. I assume they are somehow connected but what they are watching for is a mystery.

When I drove these two Dixie Highway alignments in 2022, I did them in the reverse order but that’s not the only difference. I could not cross the Roebling suspension bridge southbound because it was closed for a foot race that has since relocated to TQL Stadium. I did not cross it northbound because a slight detour prompted me to abandon the DH in the dark. This year, it was the historic Dixie Highway and the even more historic John A. Roebling Bridge both going and coming.

African American History along the Cincinnati Riverfront

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I took this Harriet Beecher Stowe House walking tour last Saturday with the idea that it would be the subject of last Sunday’s blog post but it was not. I told myself there wasn’t enough time to create a post for Sunday morning, which was certainly one reason, but another reason was that I felt slightly disappointed in the tour. I should not have. The problem was my expectations were off. For no good reason, I had thought we would visit spots where historic things happened but with just a little more thought I realized how ridiculous that was—the Cincinnati riverfront of 2024 bares little resemblance to the riverfront of the past. The tour took us to places where historic things are commemorated. I enjoyed the tour as it happened and now appreciate it with the passage of a little time.

We met tour guide Zinnia Stewart by the statue of John Roebling near the south end of the bridge that bears his name. Other than a meeting point, the statue plays no role in the tour. Neither does the bridge as anything other than a walkway across the river. I chose the particular opening photo that I did because it mimics the photo that has appeared at the front of this blog since the beginning. Its purpose is to show the river of the tour’s title. Dredging, dams, and other feats of engineering have made the Ohio River consistently navigable for large barges which is something it was not in the days when it separated the free North from the slaveholding South.

The tour began by heading east along the river to a statue representing James Bradley. We were supplied with small wireless (Bluetooth I assume) listening devices so that we could easily hear Stewart as we walked. Bradley was abducted from Africa and worked as a slave until he was able to buy his own freedom in 1833. He then moved to Cincinnati and was the only former slave participating in the pivotal Lane Debates of 1834.

We then headed west past the Roebling Bridge to the string of Robert Dafford murals on the riverfront and stopped at The Flight of the Garner Family. In 1856, Margaret Garner escaped from slavery by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her husband and children. They were captured in Cincinnati and Margaret killed her daughter to save her from a life of slavery. She was prevented from killing herself and her other children as planned. Toni Morrison’s Beloved was inspired by these events.

It was now time to cross the river ourselves. I had taken that opening picture of the River Queen during our visit to the murals and now caught it from the middle of the Roebling Bridge after it turned and headed back. We stopped twice while crossing as Stewart shared stories and photos of people and places along both sides of the river.

On the Ohio side, I spent more time at the Black Brigade Monument than I have ever spent before, and as a result, I know I need to spend a lot more time here in the future. I simply did not realize the many facets of this monument that it seems I’ve only glanced at before. One bit of information that made the whole tour worthwhile is that William Mallory, who was instrumental in getting the monument constructed, was the model for the face of Black Brigade member Marshall P.H. Jones. I thought I knew the story of the Black Brigade but, just like the memorial, there is a lot more for me to learn.

Our last stop was at this statue of politician Marian Spencer. Spencer left her mark on the area in many ways but she is probably best remembered for her efforts to desegregate Coney Island Amusement Park.

Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival

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Although I had heard of lantern displays, I had never attended one so Thursday’s experience was a completely new one for me. Apparently, the event is also something new for the Columbus Zoo but they had more than a month’s experience with it before I got there. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival opened on August 1 and will run through September 29.

It opens at 7:00 while the sun is still shining and remains open until 10:00 long after the sun has set. I initially thought that was much more time than was reasonably required but realized that the lanterns essentially fill the entire zoo. And it’s a really big zoo.

I probably saw less than a third of the lanterns in full sunlight. 

Then I revisited some of those and took in the remainder as things got darker.

In between my light and dark walks, I took in one of the two shows that are offered. These photos are from the Martial Arts show. The other show, which I did not see, is Shadow Puppets.

Of course, darkness and lanterns really do go together.

Many lanterns represent living creatures and some are close enough to scale to be considered lifesize. That is decidedly not the case with this group.

When I searched for this event, I called it a Chinese Lantern Festival and many of the lanterns displayed in Columbus match some shown on a website with that name. The Columbus event, however, mostly, but not entirely, avoids the word Chinese. Perhaps that is because the zoo and the lanterns are organized to represent all the different areas of the globe. Of course, that means there is a section that does represent China.

Admission includes unlimited rides which was wasted on me although I did briefly consider taking a few laps on the historic carousel. And there are bunches of lanterns not pictured here. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival is open tonight and there are two more weeks of Thursday through Sunday operation.

Cars Galore

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I attended the Pap’s Rod Shop Labor Day Bash on Monday but I still don’t know much about it. At least not much about its organizers or venue although both are obviously quite interesting. The venue was the Evans Family Ranch which appears to be a thriving operation offering a variety of products and services. The results of a search for Paps Rod Shop are not so clear cut. Most hits point to a Facebook group or to announcements of or reports on the bash. One of the administrators of the 6K+ member Paps Rods n Kustoms Facebook group claims Pap’s Rod Shop as a workplace. Following that clue led to this video report about that administrator and a not quite public shop near Springfield, Ohio. Good stuff, for sure.

The word “rod” in the title, made me think of cars like these, and pre-1940s coupes and roadsters stuffed with modern V8s were certainly well-represented at the bash.

Of course, there are also some later-model vehicles with upgraded (to say the least) power plants on display. 

There was a time when engine upgrades were not required to make a car a hotrod. In those days, Mopars with toilet-bowl-sized carburetors and supercharged Studebakers came straight from the factory.

Posters for the bash spoke of more than 600 cars on display and I’m guessing that could be right. Among them were some decidedly non-rod and non-hot vehicles. That group is represented here by this personal memory jogger. My very first car was a 4-door 2-tone 1953 Chevy. Mine was a top-of-the-line Bel Air and green instead of blue and it had a 3-speed stick rather than a 2-speed Powerglide. I also believe mine had more rust but other aspects of this example, such as the engine compartment you could pretty much climb into, look very familiar.

Goetta Again

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GoettaFest is that eight-day festival that is spread over two four-day weekends with a gap in the middle. Two years ago I made it to the first day of the first weekend. This year I made it — just barely — to the first day of the second weekend. I knew of the festival’s opening last week but had other things to do. When I did get around to thinking about this week’s itinerary, the predicted weather did not seem a very good match for outdoor activities. Several days of rain were predicted with possibly severe thunderstorms arriving just about the time of the festival’s opening. But, as opening time approached, those storms and even the rain were still marking time in Indiana. I decided to give it a try.

The Ferris wheel is new this year and “The World’s Only Goetta Vending Machine” might be too. I did not try it and now regret not studying it closer so I could describe it here. I believe this is the world’s only Goetta festival so one Goetta vending machine might be enough.

I have previously explained that the Cincinnati area has a near monopoly on Goetta and that Glier’s Meats has a near monopoly on Goetta in the Cincinnati area. The festival is officially the Glier’s GoettaFest. Next to the vending machine, there is a tent filled with Giier and Goetta information. The tent is a Goettafest fixture and I’m sure that the “Goetta Guy” has been here before but this was our first meeting. The “Goetta Guy” is Dan Glier, President of Glier’s Meats since 1977 and the second generation to run the company. Dan’s a very friendly fellow who is there to answer questions or just chat and that’s what we did. I was well aware that Glier’s Meats is located sort of across the street from Anchor Grill where I’ve consumed a fair amount of Gliers Goetta. Today Dan pointed out that the two began in the same year (1946) and have always been neighbors.

Here are a couple of other things that I had not seen previously but which may very well have been here before. I didn’t see anyone riding the mechanical bull while I was there but it was early and the bourbon bar was pretty much idle too. I suspect the two work well together.

Full-time music was happening on both of the festival’s stages with the Billy Brown Band opening on the west end and Red Hot Riot opening on the east stage. They would be followed by Vinyl Countdown and the Kevin McCoy Band.

Of course, there were plenty of food booths offering a variety of creative Goetta-based treats.

I opted for a Goetta Bun Link which, despite the word new on the sign and the fact that I’d never had one, were introduced in 2000. It was quite good and I even have a pseudo-drone shot for the truly curious.

I had every intention of riding that Ferris wheel and, now that I was fed, I turned my attention to it. There was no line but as I was about to approach the ticket booth, I felt the first drops of rain and noticed the breeze had picked up a little. I thought it over only briefly before heading for the car. I was inside the garage before the rain became steady and inside a nearby bar with a $2 PBR before it really cut loose. There was water running in the street when I left but the rain had slowed to a light drizzle.

I am disappointed that I missed my chance to ride the big Ferris wheel on Thursday but just seeing it reminded me of a time when giant “dueling” Ferris wheels were proposed for both sides of the Ohio River. It was just a few years ago that Newport, KY, had plans to build a 230-foot tall wheel on the flood wall near where GoettaFest’s 90-foot wheel was placed. At the same time, Cincinnati had plans to build a 180-foot wheel near the north end of the Roebling Bridge. In a sort of trial run, a 150-foot tall (137-foot diameter) wheel did operate at that point temporarily and I did get to ride that one. Read about it here.

Parade, Precip, Parade, Precip, Boom

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The next day’s weather did not look promising when I went to bed on July 3rd. I had earlier noted a few parades that were candidates for my Independence Day agenda but the predicted full day of rain made actually attending any of them seem unlikely. That was still my opinion when I first checked the forecast after waking up but a closer look revealed that rain, although certainly on the way, might not arrive until very late morning. I decided to venture out to nearby Maineville where a parade was scheduled for 10:00 AM.

I found a parking spot less than a block from the parade route and at the appointed time heard the national anthem being sung a few hundred yards away at the town center. A few speeches, which I couldn’t quite make out, followed and the parade began to move about 10:10.

A lawn tractor pulling a trailer full of Girl Scouts passed shortly after the 1943 Farmall at the top of the page. More Girl and Boy Scouts followed along with cars, motorcycles, and jugglers. Ain’t that America?

It’s also very American to have politicians and local businesses promoting themselves in parades. I don’t know that I had ever seen a hearse in a parade but when one of those local businesses is a funeral home there is no question that it belongs. A festival was taking place in the town’s park but the skies were threatening and I headed home following the parade. Rain started falling before I got there.

I used to have a Maineville address although I did not live inside the village. Somehow, I had never attended an event there before today. I also once had a Loveland address but it was well inside the city limits and I have attended many events — including several Independence Day celebrations — there. Their parade was scheduled for 7:00 PM, the afternoon rain ended way before that, and the next round wasn’t due to arrive until much later. Parking for my second parade of the day was not nearly as convenient as it had been for the first. I parked outside of town at the high school and rode a shuttle bus. 

I don’t doubt that the parade started right on time but I was some distance away and it wasn’t until about 7:25 that the parade’s first vehicles passed by. Right behind the lead police car was the parade Grand Marshall George Foster, former Cincinnati Red and member of the Big Red Machine.

The name Loveland has led to the city’s longtime association with Valentine’s Day. Each year, volunteers see that thousands of cards are stamped with the phrase “There is nothing in the world so sweet as love” and the local postmark. The parade featured both Miss Valentine, Joan Dawson, and The Valentine Lady, Becky Giver. There is a nice article about the Valentine Ladies here

The parade also had Batman, the Loveland Frogman, and its own big red tractor. The frog is there to to promote a new event called Return of the Frogman which is certain to be interesting.

And there’s that hearse again although this time it does not mark the parade’s end but only that the end is near. This parade ended with a horsedrawn, steam-powered, fire pump.

More rain was predicted but it was not imminent. I took the shuttle back to my car where I awaited the fireworks. Rain did fall briefly while I waited but it stopped before the show began.

The city’s show began promptly at 10:00 and lasted just under fifteen minutes. Individuals had been setting off fireworks in various nearby locations before the official show and some of those picked up again almost as soon as the big display ended. In addition to those, which were beyond the surrounding trees, someone began launching rockets from an open area right next to the parking lot. It was nothing like the high-flying Loveland-sponsored show we had just seen but definitely not too shabby.

Herding the Wheel Horses East

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Some may recall the time I accompanied my friend and lawn tractor collector Terry Wolfe in Herding the Wheel Horses South to a show in Florida. In the last paragraph of the report, I noted that the camping involved made it different from most trips I had taken recently and did not “rule out doing it again”. Despite not ruling it out, it did not happen for seven years.

It’s not that Terry had not asked. The Florida show had been something of a bucket list item for Terry. There is an all-Wheel Horse show in Pennsylvania that he has participated in multiple times and which we have discussed in the past. A common conflict is the annual Lincoln Highway Association Conference. This year it was only an almost conflict. The LHA conference is just a day’s drive away and I would be home from the Wheel Horse show the night before my planned departure. On Wednesday, we headed east to the Wheel Horse Collectors Club show near Arendtsville, PA, with a herd of seven — though not all the same seven as in 2017 — Wheel Horses in tow.

There they are in the display area. The two at the left end of the line are what we used for transportation during the show. I rode the restored 1962 702. Terry rode the heavily modified black hot rod which began life in 1963. The third photo is of our view while at rest.

I do not know enough about Wheel Horse to properly appreciate the many restored and unrestored tractors so I find my attention attracted by some of the wilder concoctions.

Here’s a motorcycle made entirely of Wheel Horse parts and a self-propelled Wheel Horse wagon. I guess that engine-less chassis with a hitch attached is an all-in-one tractor and trailer.

Complete ready-to-ride Horses can be found along with “projects” and plenty of Horse parts.

There is a “parade” on Friday afternoon MCed by Wheel Horse maven Wild Bill Pearson. Bill knows pretty much everything there is to know about Wheel Horses and, in addition to asking participants about themselves and their rides, will more often than not tell the riders something about their ride that they didn’t know themselves.

Terry took the “Runt Rod” through near the end of the parade. Its many modifications include lowering part of the frame to accommodate the two-cylinder 16 HP engine without altering the hood, moving the steering out of the way, and getting the engine’s vertical rotation to turn a horizontal driveshaft. Bill became more impressed as he realized now tidily each of these problems had been solved and ended up distracted to the point that he forgot to ask his standard who-are-you and where-are-you-from questions.

Free ice cream and an evening cruise were other regularly scheduled events that Terry had told me to expect. The ice cream, which we ate in our chairs in the shade was quite welcome following a 95-degree afternoon.

Beach Boys’ music (I think it was “Little Deuce Coupe” but my memory is shaky.) signaled the start of the cruise which consisted of everybody who wanted to driving an oval path around a sort of infield. This included some fairly young kids. The show operators are pretty lenient and the attendees are very responsible and it works out well for everybody. During the day, it was not unusual to see pre-schoolers steering a slow-moving tractor while a parent walked alongside. Safe behavior during the cruise is one result.

Saturday’s big event was the backing challenge. The object is to crack or at least touch, a stationary egg without breaking it. Most or all of the participants were pretty young and quite a few were successful.

We were loaded and headed home shortly after noon. Some of our early route followed the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania so I snapped a picture of a marker. Almost as soon as I get home, I will be heading to the Lincoln Highway in Indiana.

CincItalia 2024

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It looks like CincItalia came into being in 2010 so it is not an ancient Cincinnati tradition I need to feel guilty about not attending in years gone by. But it was something I was aware of and thought sounded interesting so I was kind of pleased when things worked out for me on Friday. Yes, it is a church fundraiser and that is something I’m trying to cut back on but I realize that my flesh is entirely too weak to completely avoid a little backsliding now and then.

One of my first stops at the festival was in a large building where some presentations take place and where a couple of culturally significant items are displayed. One is a Sicilian Festival Cart from Palermo, Italy, described by the sign propped against it. The other is a plaster cast used in replacing a bronze statue stolen from Cincinnati’s Eden Park in 2022 as summarized on a nearby sign. A fuller telling is here. A photo of the currently displayed statue is here.

I was here for my evening meal and thought of it as essentially just another dining-out occasion and not so much as a wild festival. With that in mind, I made one “browsing” pass through the area identified in the opening photo as “Little Eataly” and then selected my three-course meal.

Toasted ravioli made a great appetizer and lasagna was perfect for the main course. That’s CincItalia Pils, brewed by West Side Brewing especially for this event, in the cup. Mini-cannolis were three for the price of two. I forced myself.

Plus there were plenty of food and beverage choices that I did not get around to.

No self-respecting Cincinnati church festival would omit several raffles and other games of chance but that’s another thing I did not get around to. I did poke my head into one of the cooking demonstrations but it was full and I’m pretty sure it would have been over my head anyway.

I definitely enjoyed the many “Leonardo’s Fun Facts” that I spotted but I know that I missed a bunch.

Even though I was there, as I’ve said, only for the food, I did stick around for a bit of the Naked Karate Girls show. These guys are definitely entertaining and one or two of them may even know some karate. If so, that would mean their name isn’t a complete lie.

The festival is a three-day affair with Saturday and Sunday presented as family-friendly events. I assume that means, among other things, that the carnival-style rides I saw parked around the edges will be operating. Saturday runs 3:00 to 11:00 and Sunday runs 1:00 to 9:00. Friday’s 6:00 to 12:00 run was billed as adults only but I’m not sure whether that meant a wild Bacchanalia throughout the grounds, some dirty jokes from the bandstand, or old folks nodding off at sundown. I left before I found out and before I nodded off.

ADDENDUM 2-Jun-2024: These photos were not part of the original post but, after tagging a Facebook link to it with the line “There’s a party on the Buddy LaRosa side of town.”, I thought them appropriate. Yes, LaRosa’s Pizza had a trailer there and San Antonio Church had a booth. That’s the church where Buddy sold his first pizzas using sauce made from his Aunt Dena’s recipe.