Tag Archives: Food

Cincy Burger1/2Week

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The first day of this year’s Cincinnati Burger Week was basically over before I got back into town and I spent the second day otherwise engaged. It was Wednesday before I made my first CBW 2021 stop but I still managed to equal last year’s number of new-to-me ‘burger joints (3) along with one repeat. 2020 saw my first visit to the lone repeat so it was an almost-new-to-me burger joint. The 2021 Cincinnati event is about a month earlier than the 2020 event and I found no mention of the statewide involvement that was touted a year ago. I have no idea what that means. It’s just something I noticed.

That first stop was at Blondie’s Sports Bar & Grill where I washed down their offering with a Fat Tire. That offering was a “Burger served in a toasted pretzel bun, bacon, sautéed onions, and beer cheese.” Good eating.

Stop number two was at a new-to-everybody place. Miamiville Trailyard has been open only a couple of months. The ‘burger is “a custom blend of fresh Chuck, Brisket, and Short Rib. Served on a toasted brioche bun with provolone, onion straws and a delicious bourbon Sriracha sauce.” I had mine with a Garage Beer from Braxton Brewing. The Trailyard is right next to the Little Miami Scenic Bike Trail and has a really big yard that I think I’d like to sip some more beer in before the summer is over.

On Friday, I joined friends Rick and Mary at Frenchie Fresh where ‘burgers and birthdays (Mary’s) collide. This was my repeat from last year. Even though the location was a repeat, the ‘burger was not. That’s a Triangle Bacon Black and Blue Burger (blackened with Triangle bacon, barbecue sauce and blue cheese) which was accompanied by a Guinness. Frenchie Fresh offered three choices this year and by pure coincidence, we tried them all. It was the TBBBB for me, Le Pig City for Rick, and Le Gene Kelly for Mary. Strange but true.

I had my final ‘burger of the week at that southeast outlier on the map. It’s the Ugly Goat Social Club which puts it near the edge of the alphabet as well as the edge of the map. They describe their hamburger as an “Unusual Spice Combo In Ground Beef & Pork, Topped With Cheese.” Quite good and I’m thinking that if all the patties I tried were served naked, this one would likely win the flavor contest. I chased this one with an event sponsor’s beer.

Cincinnati Burger week really is a week long, Monday through Sunday, which means it will still be going on when this blog entry is published. And that means you can read this and still down a few of these gems before closing time. ¡Arriba, arriba! ¡Ándale, ándale!

That’s All, Brother

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Lt. Col. John M. Donalson named his C‑47 “That’s All, Brother” as something of a declaration that the Nazi’s success in Europe was just about over. Then he used it to lead more than 800 aircraft loaded with paratroopers across the English Channel to confront those Nazis on the night of June 5, 1944. When I heard that the plane was coming to the National Museum of the United States Air Force on Tuesday, I thought I might be interested in seeing it. When I woke up a couple of hours ahead of its estimated arrival time, I decided that I was interested in seeing it land.

A one-hour window had been announced for the landing and the plane appeared just about in the middle of that window. It made one pass over the runway without landing. Maybe that was so the pilot could scope things out or maybe it was so people on the ground could take pictures like the one at the top of this article. It then circled the museum and dropped onto the runway without a hiccup. Even with a chainlink fence in front of me, I was able to get a shot of the big airplane slipping safely between a water tower and a tractor-trailer.

The museum’s announcement said that the plane would be available for up-close viewing, inside and out, once it was on the ground and parked. Inside viewing would be limited to two at a time. I figured there would be a long and — with the two viewer limit — slow-moving line to get inside the plane so I anticipated not doing that. I did walk out to the plane, however, to get a closer look and better photos. Next to the plane, T-shirts and other merchandise were being sold from a van. It’s a Mercedes. Maybe no one other than me saw the irony in that, and even I am unsure whether using a German vehicle with D-D stripes to support a U.S. WWII military plane is a major insult or simply cynical.

The line was not as long as I feared and the two-person limit was not in place although there was an effort to maintain social distancing and a mask requirement was being strictly enforced. The C-47 is a military version of the DC-3 so it isn’t completely unfamiliar. Of course, passengers seating in the DC-3s I’ve seen looked considerably more comfortable than this. Information on this plane’s history and future can be found at “That’s All, Brother”.

There was a lull in the boarding right after I exited the plane, and I was able to get a shot of the door. One of the operations “That’s All, Brother” was involved in after D-Day was dropping supplies in relief of the siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. With a touch of awe in his voice, the docent inside the plane pointed out that those supplies were thrown out this very door.

I could say that I took these pictures after checking out “That’s All, Brother”, but the truth is that there was a fair amount of time between the plane’s landing and it being available, and that’s when I went inside the museum. These pictures are, in fact, out of sequence. There are a few hundred aircraft displayed at the museum. Like “That’s All, Brother”, these are three with a WWII connection. The all-volunteer Flying Tigers, organized to fight in China before the U.S. entered the war used Curtiss P-40s. The C-47 in the middle picture was the last in routine USAF use. “Bockscar” is the name of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. A mockup of that bomb, named “Fat Man”, is displayed beside it.

I’ve visited the museum several times and actually spent less time inside it today than on almost any other visit. But, for some unknown reason, I was really struck today by the amount of money, energy, and intelligence that has been devoted to creating machines whose sole purpose is the destruction of other machines — and people.

A friend called on Friday evening to tell me about a related event. “That’s All, Brother” was helping with a celebration honoring a local veteran. The celebration started Friday and would continue on Saturday. The fellow being honored was Jim “Pee Wee” Martin who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and would be turning 100 on April 29. I decided I was interested in seeing that, too.

“That’s All, Brother” was joined by “Placid Lassie“, another C-47, and “D-Day Doll“, a C-53. All had participated in the D-Day invasion. As the three planes flew over Skydive Greene County, a couple dozen passengers exited. There were other jumpers, including the Army’s Golden Knights, and music, ceremonies, and fireworks were planned. Promised rain made an appearance about the time the Golden Knights finished their jump which prompted Terry, the friend who called Friday, and me to slip away while we were still mostly dry. 

These pictures are from Tuesday and are very out of sequence. When time permits, breakfast at the somewhat nearby (4 miles) Hasty Tasty is a nice prelude to an Air Force Museum visit. Hasty Tasty was a local chain that peaked at thirteen stores. This is the last and may also have been the first.

Big Bunnies and Lunisolar

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Two years ago, I decorated a post about determining the date of Easter with what was claimed to be a new flavor of Peeps. Last year, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I reused the post after augmenting it with another claimed new Peeps flavor. I once again see those two flavors, Root Beer and Hot Tamales, being touted as new. At best I think they might be called seasonal. So what, if anything, really is new? Maybe Peeps Giant Bunnies. Everything is relative, of course, and in the world of Peeps, I suppose it is legitimate to call something about five inches tall GIANT. Plus, at about two dollars each, they can be used in that old pirate joke about a buck an ear.

But, as I said up top, the original post was about determining the date of Easter and the Peeps picture was just decoration. The bunnies serve pretty much the same role in today’s post. The real purpose of today’s post is to reveal just how much ignorance was in the original.

I presented the formula for finding the date of Easter — first Sunday after first full moon after vernal equinox — as something that separated Christian Easter from Jewish Passover when it is simply calculating the date of Easter pretty much the same way that the date of Passover is calculated. At least that’s what I now think. Although I now know a lot more about the Jewish calendar than I did a few days ago, I am absolutely not an expert.

The Jewish calendar is lunisolar meaning it is based on both the sun and the moon. The more common Gregorian calendar is purely solar with no direct lunar involvement. All months of the Jewish calendar start with a new moon. A new moon occurs approximately every 29.5 days so that the Jewish calendar can keep the months pretty much in sync with the phases of the moon by alternating 29 and 30 day months. Of course, 12 X 29.5 is a little short of the 365.24 days that it takes the Earth to circle the sun so every now and then a thirteenth month is added to the year. The timing of these “leap months” is based on a nineteen-year cycle and there are other tweaks as well.

Passover begins on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan which is the first month after the vernal equinox. Because every month starts with a new moon, the fifteenth of every month is a full moon. Ergo, Passover always begins on a full moon. Being a week long, it always contains a Sunday. Rather than moving Easter away from Passover in 325, the First Council of Nicaea kept the scheduling just the same as it had always been and simply stopped saying the word Passover out loud. Oh wah, tagoo, Siam.  

Minor Ado About Nothing

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Today is the final day of 2020’s Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Week. In normal times, I would have visited at least one or two of the participants, but, to restate the obvious, these are not normal times. I scanned the restaurant list looking for places that I’d not tried but wanted to, that offered something appealing to me, and that had outdoor seating. I came up empty and had accepted the fact that there would be no new restaurant experience for me this year. Then a friend posted something about a pop-up at a restaurant I’d never tried but wanted to. The restaurant was not a GCRW participant and the dates of their pop-up (9/25-10/2) didn’t align with Restaurant Week (9/29-10/4) but the two did overlap. There was outdoor seating and the food offering did appeal to me. As I learned the story behind it, it became more than appealing; It became an all-consuming but short-lived obsession that I satisfied the very next day.

Northside Yacht Club is the place. It has a pretty nice front door but during the pandemic that is used only for picking up carry-out orders. These days, the main entrance is on the side next to the tastefully decorated utility poles. It has been there since 2015, normally has a variety of live music, even now has cool drinks and food, and has done a couple of pop-ups in the past.

Building on an old false rumor, NSYC wore an Applebee’s costume for Halloween in 2017. Last year it combined two Cincinnati favorites, Skyline chili and LaRosa’s pizza, to become SkyRosa’s. It was Ronny Salerno’s tongue in cheese-filled cheek report on the faux Applebee’s that first brought the Yacht Club to my attention. This year, they put on their disguise a little earlier, possibly because the end of September in Ohio usually offers a better outside dining experience than does the end of October. The pop-up that just ended involved Arby’s, but there was more to it than that. NSYC’s menu temporarily mimics that of the roast beef chain but the inspiration came from a punk rocker’s Twitter account. That both the rocker (Brendan Kelly) and the account (@Nihilist_Arbys) are well known is evidence of just how uninformed I am. You’re better off checking out the Twitter feed and this Arby’s-meets-nihilist story than having me try to explain things. There’s a good CityBeat story here.

Each sandwich comes with a nihilist_arbys’ Tweet. Mine was originally published on Valentine’s Day. I chose the beef and cheddar and it was excellent. The Sixteen Bricks bun makes it look like the Arby’s version but believe me it was many steps up in quality. The curly fries, on the other hand, were a near-perfect match for Arby’s in all regards. The beer may look like a Bud Light but it’s Riegele Privat lager. Neither, of course, are available at a real Arby’s.

Before leaving, I checked out the upper deck which offers plenty of additional seating and overlooks a Northside style split-the-yacht wall decoration.

 

Oktoberfest Lite

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As everyone should know, the largest Oktoberfest in the world takes place each year in Munich, Germany. Not this year, however. A very distant second is the Cincinnati Oktoberfest which has also been canceled. Both of these events, as well as many others, are victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the cancellation of Cincinnati’s Oktoberfest was first announced, there was some muttering about a decentralized event whose participants could be counted so we could claim the number one spot for one year. Those mutterings seem to have completely faded and I suspect part of the reason is that a fair amount of decentralized partying is going on in Germany, too.

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati has a website and a Facebook page through which some activities, such as a Zoom based Chicken Dance, have been and will be coordinated — after a fashion. Even in decentralized form, attendance is limited by social distancing requirements and I opted to avoid anything resembling a crowd by celebrating solo in the afternoon. The site of my “celebration” was Cincinnati’s oldest restaurant and one of the most Germanish places in the city, Mecklenburg Gardens. To head off any claims of fibbing on my part, Arnold’s (1861) is indeed older than Mecklenburg’s (1865), but Arnold’s began life as a tavern. Mecklenburg’s has been a restaurant since day 1. UPDATE 9-20-20: Postcard image added.

My pocket camera did not do well in the mottled light beneath the 150-year-old grapevines but you might be able to pick out the photo-op cutouts in the first picture and the open tables in the second. Only one customer entered ahead of me, but several of those tables were filled soon after. A sausage and beer seemed appropriate and Mecklenburg’s offers a variety of each. I chose a goettawurst which is, of course, based on goetta, a Cincinnati creation. I bet you can’t get one of those in Munich. The beer is Spaten Märzen which you certainly can get in Munich, but there I’d be laughed at for drinking it from a tiny half-liter mug.

Before leaving, I stepped inside where I got a not-so-good picture of the bar which the pandemic has caused to be stripped of stools. A pleasant chat with bartender and part-owner John Harten made for a nice finish to my visit. John told me they have started doing tours of the historic building on Tuesdays. That sounds like something I need to check out.  

Here’s the Beef

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Cincinnati Burger Week number six is almost over. Today is the final day of an event that is now part of a statewide Ohio Burger Week. Maybe it has been in the past although I always thought it was local. For 2020, special hamburger deals were/are to be found in five cities — Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo — from August 17 through August 23. I’d seen claims of fiftyish participants but that turns out to be rather low. Nearly seventy restaurants are now listed on the Cincinnati Burger Week website. With this blog in mind, I picked six to try on the six days preceding publication. The number six also fit in with the sixth year for the event and the six dollar (up from $5) burger price. I picked places based on location, the availability of outside seating, and how strongly a specific offering appealed to me. One of the goals of Burger Week is to try something new so half of the places I picked were places I’d never been to before.

The first day went swimmingly and that included perfect weather. Two of my selections were within walking distance but one is closed on Mondays. I headed to the other. At deSha’s American Tavern I enjoyed a Ducking Good Burger at one of the well-spaced tables on the waterside deck. A Ducking Good Burger is described as ground beef, fontina cheese, roasted tomato-garlic aioli, topped with shredded potatoes tossed in duck fat, served on a brioche bun. The only thing keeping this from being the perfect Burger Week experience is that I’m quite familiar with deSha’s (and Belhaven Scottish Ale) so the sandwich itself was the only thing new to me.

The second day was hardly perfect, but it ended well. I decided to head to the farthest away of my selections trying to target a point where the rain that filled most of the day would let up. Not only did I mistime the rain, I really blew it with the ‘burger. I’d made myself aware of the days each restaurant would be closed but not of the time. I arrived at 4:15; They closed at 3:00. But I knew of another nearby Burger Week participant so headed over to Keystone Bar & Grill. The rain had more or less stopped but the outside tables were not yet being used. I sat near the door at a properly distanced table. It turned out that a choice of two hamburgers was offered. When asked, my waitress told me, “I think you should try the donut.” I was well aware that people have been making sandwiches out of donuts but considered them to be totally over the top and had so far managed to avoid them. I tried again today but the waitress and my own curiosity won out. In my defense, this wasn’t just any donut but a Holtman’s donut. I haven’t found a detailed description of the Maple Bacon Donut Burger, but it was delicious even though the touch of sweetness from the donut glaze was a little strange. The new-to-me Three Floyds Gumballhead was pretty good, too. When I went looking for that detailed description at the end of the day, I discovered an apology tacked to the front of the Keystone website. It was an apology for some slow service on the first day of Burger Week that was at least partly due to overwhelming demand for donuts. Henceforth, it said the donut ‘burger would be available for dine-in only.

Great weather returned on Wednesday making it a good day to head to the closest restaurant on my Burger Week list. I placed my order inside Frenchie Fresh Burger Bar then took a seat outside, near the Little Free Library in a phone booth, to await its arrival. Inside seating is available. Burger Week ‘burgers are usually enough to fill me so I tend to skip the extras but I decided to give “Frenchie Fries” with parmesan and truffle dust a try. Good but not necessary. As expected, Le Alpine ‘burger (swiss cheese, caramelized onions, & mushroom demi-glaze) would have been enough. As I ate, I noticed a familiar name in the storefront signage that I had not noticed when checking out things online. Beneath the sketch of a French Bulldog is the phrase “by Jean-Robert”. Jean-Robert de Cavel is a Cincinnati celebrity chef who gained fame at the Maisonette, Pigall’s, and his own fine dining establishments. Apparently, Frenchie Fresh Burger Bar is his move into more casual dining. The beer is Country Boy Brewing’s Cougar Bait which (fortunately, I think) doesn’t seem to work for a guy in his seventies even if he is eating truffle dust.

After starting the week with two places where I’ve eaten many times, I moved on to a pair of new-to-me restaurants. Wednesday was the first I’d been to Frenchie Fresh, and Thursday was my first visit to Brown Dog Cafe. It is one of several restaurants inside Summit Park on the former site of Blue Ash Airport. Both indoor and outdoor seating is available but I didn’t even consider eating inside on such a glorious day. I washed down my fontina cheese, bacon jam, and apple slaw topped ‘burger with Grainworks’ Blue Skies Hero Brew in a Fathead’s Brewery glass. Summit Park really is a park with an observation tower I need to come back and check out. On my way out today, I strolled by a playground I could see in the distance from my table. All distancing and mask protocols were carefully observed by the Brown Dog staff but that was not the case with all the kids playing on the equipment and sliding down hillsides on sheets of cardboard.

On Friday, I made it three new-to-me restaurants in a row by returning to the place where I’d arrived too late on Tuesday. Butler’s Pantry is on the inland side of a building on the south banks of the Ohio River. All COVID precautions are in place and there seemed to be plenty of outside seating. The tasty  ‘burger was topped with pimento cheese, red onion, bacon, onion straws, and root beer bbq mayo although I gotta admit I didn’t pick up much root beer flavor. Maybe the real beer (Braxton Storm, brewed less than half a mile to the south) washed it away. Free parking across the street with validation at the Pantry.

Even though there were still candidates on my list, by Saturday I decided I’d consumed enough hamburgers for the week. I had penciled in the lone non-beef Burger Week participant for a possible dessert someday but used it to fill the last slot in my six-day moving feast. I learned that my impression that only carryout was available was wrong when I arrived and saw the tables out front. I carried my purchase back home as planned, but in hindsight, wish I’d ordered a cup of coffee and nibbled on my beignet sliders at one of those tables along the one time Dixie Highway (now US 42) in Reading. Très Belle‘s Burger Week page describes one of these treats as a berry-filled beignet bun with edible rainbow sugar cookie dough patty and the other as Nutella filled with edible chocolate brownie cookie dough. They only call one decadent but that doesn’t seem entirely honest in my opinion. Maybe advertising double-barreled decadence is against somebody’s rules.

Dam Dents Revisited

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I know I can’t do this forever, but I let the Facebook crowd steer me to another blog post this week. This one is somewhat different in that it doesn’t involve something new to me but some things I’d seen multiple times in the past that I was due for a refresher on. Back in 2006, I did Oddment pages on two dams that altered the path of the National Road north of Dayton, Ohio. Those pages are here, for the Taylorsville Dam, and here, for the Englewood Dam. The next year, I wrote an article for American Road Magazine (Vol V Num 3) that talked about both dams. The name of this post comes from the name of that article.

The first photo at left shows the easternmost edge of the easternmost dent. The road runs south for about a mile and a half before turning west to cross the mile-long dam then turning north to rejoin the original route. The dam is shown in the opening photo, which some will recognize as my attempt to reproduce George R. Stewart’s Photo #27 from 1953’s US 40: Cross-Section of the United States of America. Stewart’s photo and my “update” concentrate on the spillway and the bridge that crosses it. More of the massive earthen dam can be seen in the picture at left. The dams were completed in 1922 in response to the horrific 1913 flood. At that time, this was still known as the National Road. It would become US-40 in 1926. The 1953 and 2020 photos show some differences in the bridge itself due to a 1979 rehabilitation. The National Old Trails Road, a continent crossing named auto trail that existed from 1912 to 1926 never crossed these dams since the NOTR followed the “Dayton Cutoff” south through Dayton and Eaton.

There is a small paved area at the east end of the Taylorsville Dam where I parked to photograph it. On the west end, there is an actual park area with considerably more parking space and several informative signs including one from the Ohio National Road Association on Tadmor and Taylorsville. A section of the extensive Miami Vally Trails system passes through here and makes it easy to get to the former location of the town of Tadmor about 1.3 miles away.

The first of these pictures was taken looking back to the south after I’d strolled beyond Tadmor. I have been to the site since the dual purpose plaque (readable here and here) was placed but there are more labeled posts than I remember. Another difference is the rather impenetrable growth between the path and the river. There is a narrow path next to the previously pictured Tadmor sign that leads directly to the abutments of a short bridge that crossed the canal. Because of the growth and my aging sense of adventure, I did not go beyond this today as I did in 2006. The third picture shows a wall of the canal sluice gate with the canal bridge abutments in the foreground.

The rules called for the National Road to follow a straight line to the capital city Columbus with no grade greater than 10%. At Tadmor, following both of these rules in the early 19th century was impossible and it was the straight-line rule that lost. The road turned to the south on the west bank of the Great Miami and curved around a large hill. The grade, though not as bad as climbing the hill, still gave westbound travelers and their animals quite a workout. A spring near the top was certainly a welcome sight. The spring can be reached by heading east a bit where US 40 picks up the original path of the National Road. Although it’s not easy getting a clear view of the spring-fed waterfall, it is pretty easy imagining how refreshing it was to a team of horses dragging a Conestoga wagon up from the riverbank. A less blown-out version of the plaque is here.

An intersection between the dents has a legitimate claim on the Crossroads of America. In the days before US Numbered Highways, the National Road and the Dixie Highway crossed here. With the coming of numbers, the crossing routes became US-40 and US-25. A fair amount of traffic still passes through the intersection today though not nearly as much as through the nearby intersections of the successors to these routes, I-75 and I-70. The memorial bench and explanatory sign are just west of the intersection. A detail lifted from the sign explains a detail lifted from the photo of the intersection.

Continuing west, I came to the beginning of the second dent. Behind those trees on the right is a bypassed earlier curve which I slipped onto for a photograph. The entrance to the eastern portion of Engelwood Metropark is right at the eastern end of the dam. There is parking space for several cars and that is where I paused to photograph the dam and explanatory sign.

The road through the park is one-way which requires the former National Road, now called Patty Road, to be driven from west to east. Since all my other driving in this post has been east to west, that’s the sequence in which I’ve arranged these photos. The little bridge doesn’t look particularly historic when driving over it but the underside is a different story. The second picture shows the bridge from the north side and there’s a view from the south here. A sign that once stood near the bridge has gone missing so I’ve included a photo of it from 2006. The third photo shows where the National Road once continued westward. I walked down it in 2006 but did not today. There really isn’t much to see as a water-filled borrow pit prevents reaching the river.

This is on the west side of the Stillwater River in the smaller portion of Engelwood Metropark. I’ve been in the park before but did not do much exploring. Today I walked an abandoned section of the National Road down to the river. I’ve heard, and have even told others, that there are pieces of bridge abutments along the river. That might be true, but I didn’t see any today. I also didn’t see an explanatory sign mentioned in a Facebook post by William Flood, author of the upcoming Driving the National Road & Route 40 in Ohio: Then and Now. Further online discussion indicated that it might have gone missing from this wooden post. Not finding the sign certainly wasn’t an issue since looking for it is what led me to the riverside and that’s a good thing.

Yes, I had breakfast. The Mell-O-Dee Restaurant isn’t exactly on the National Road, but about two miles to the south where it’s been since 1965. COVID-19 precautions include a closed counter, plexiglass dividers between booths, and masked staff. They bake their own bread and pies and their French toast is made with that bread. It’s what I ordered and devoured with another COVID-19 precaution, disposable utensils.

Tunnel of Trees

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A link to a story about a nearby tunnel of trees has appeared in my Facebook feed twice in the last month or so. The first time it came from the home of the article, “Only in Your State”. The second time it came from “Only in Cincinnati” despite the tunnel not being particularly close to the city. It is in Sugarcreek MetroPark, part of the Five Rivers MetroParks organization. The associated “metropolis” is Dayton, Ohio. The article, which is here, connects the tunnel with the town of Bellbrook and that’s one of the reasons it caught my eye. Bellbrook is home to one of my favorite breakfast spots but one that I don’t get to very often because of its thirty-mile distance. Friday’s near-perfect weather was all I needed to go tunnel hunting.

Despite my claim that I don’t get here very often, I have actually eaten at the Blue Berry Cafe twice during these pandemic times, and both times I’ve snagged that little table right by the door. Today I was a little too late and a couple who arrived just ahead of me were seated there. The photo with empty tables was taken after I’d eaten and was leaving. Larger groups were given wait estimates of half an hour but I was seated inside, where tables are well spaced and separated by hanging plexiglass panels, in a few minutes. I opted for my favorite bigger-than-my-head Nutty Professor (coconut & walnuts) pancake and left well fed.

This is the nearly full parking lot at Sugarcreek Metropark at 10:00 AM Friday. I asked someone who was getting ready to leave if some major event was in progress and was told, “No. This is just a really popular park.” Noticing my camera, she added, “But the trails aren’t crowded and there’s plenty of room for pictures.”

The opening picture shows one of many signs encouraging responsible COVID-19 relative behavior. The first photo at left was taken just beyond that sign. Trails are color-coded on maps and trailside markers. There are also maps with you-are-here indicators posted at intersections where going astray would be easy for someone like me. It’s the 1.3 mile long Orange Trail for me.

The first named feature along the trail is the Planted Prairie where deep-rooted prairie grasses have been reintroduced to what was once farmland. The empty wooden frame is another indication of pandemic triggered precautions. There are signs encouraging people not to touch various things and some touchable things, such as this swing overlooking the prairie, have been removed. The third picture is of a narrow trail crossing the prairie to connect the Orange Trail with the Green and Yellow Trails.

The Three Sisters is the name given to a trio of white oak trees that started growing here around 1440 CE. The giant trunk of one sister is in the foreground of the first picture with another sister standing in the background. The cluster of leaves about midway between the two is where the third sister lays after toppling in 2008. That’s her in the second picture. The third picture is of the sister farthest from the trail and there’s a better view of the one nearest the trail here. A descriptive sign is here.

Here’s the tunnel. Most tree tunnels or canopies are formed by branches from trees on both sides meeting overhead. This tunnel comes from a single row of Osage Orange trees planted as a hedge as described on a nearby sign. It certainly does look like something woodland fairies and other magical creatures might stroll through on their way to important gatherings. I’ve seen nothing on the tunnel’s length. My very uneducated guess is an eighth of a mile or so.

This picture was taken as the Orange Trail continues beyond the Osage Orange Tunnel and connects with its beginning near the Planted Prairie. There isn’t a lot of altitude change and the trail is far from strenuous but it is uneven with plenty of exposed roots and a few rocks. That doesn’t prevent those much younger and more energetic than I from jogging or even flat-out running along some of the paths. It sure is easy to see why that parking lot is so full.     

Beside the Dixie Highway

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A recent Facebook post reminded me of some roadside markers I’ve been meaning to check out since 2012, and another post made me newly aware of some totally unrelated markers in the same general area. That area also happens to contain a restaurant that’s been on my to-do list for over a year. In these days of dissolved and dissolving travel plans, this trio of minor roadside attractions was sufficient justification for a correspondingly minor road trip. Although not one of the three has any real connection to the Dixie Highway, it once ran by all of them.

The restaurant came first. I first learned of the Fantasy Diner and Ice Cream Parlor from a January 2019 Ronny Salerno blog post. The name comes from its home in what was once the gift shop for the Fantasy Farm Amusement Park. Ronny’s post not only does a much better job than this one in documenting the restaurant but also provides some park history. There are a couple of reasons that I wish I had refreshed my self on Ronny’s post before I left home. One is that I’d have been shocked to find that the great looking wooden counter he photographed has been largely sacrificed for an ice cream cooler and would have at least asked about it. The second is that I might have changed the timing of my arrival in order to try the fried chicken he called “fantastic”. But I was there for breakfast and quite enjoyed my French toast with a view.

Following breakfast, I continued north on the former Dixie Highway to Middletown and made a stop at a marker I’d first noticed eight years ago. The marker is from 1920 when it was erected as part of a Road of Remembrance project. The Road of Remembrance was a proposal to plant a tree for every American soldier who had served in the Great War. A matching marker can be seen almost directly across the road in the second picture and up close in the third. The plaques on both markers look like this. These currently stand near Truth Tabernacle on OH-4, but originally marked the south end of Middletown’s Road of Remembrance a short distance away.

Another pair of markers once stood at the north end of the long rows of trees. Both are shown in the opening photo standing in front of the local American Legion Post. Identical plaques, bearing the names of twenty-four local boys killed in the war, are mounted on the front of both markers. The names of more than a thousand who served in the war are on six plaques mounted on the other sides of the pillars.

References to the Middletown Road of Remembrance often mention a thousand trees lining a mile of roadway. Both seem to have been considerably exceeded. The markers that now stand at the Legion, originally stood at 14th and Main. The southern markers originally stood about a mile and a half away at Oxford and Main. Plans to construct arches over the road where the markers stood were mentioned, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that ever happened. Middletown’s Road of Remembrance was dedicated on Labor Day, September 6, 1920, and there are possibly legitimate claims that this was the nation’s first Road of Remembrance to be completed. The ad image is from American Forestry, Volume 26.

The day’s third set of targets was on a later Dixie Highway alignment which I turned south on when I reached the split near Franklin. This photo is not of an active target, but when you are looking for things on the DH and not in the least related to it, this marker certainly qualifies. I’ve previously stopped and photographed this salute to the Poland China hog, and I did it again.

The real goal of my drive on the later DH alignment was a couple of Great Miami Turnpike mile markers. The turnpike was constructed in 1840 so the markers have been waiting quite a while. I learned of them only recently through a Dixie Highway Facebook group post by road fan Karl Howat. I’d already located and taken a drive-by photo of the southernmost of the two and thought I knew enough to find the other one as I drove south. I was wrong. I visually scoured the roadside as I drove but came up empty. I eventually reached the marker I had already located and parked nearby to take some less blurry photos. According to the markings, C(incinnati) is 17 miles away and D(ayton) is 33 miles away. The current name of this path that has had many is Cincinnati-Dayton Road.

I headed back north in search of the other marker and found it with a fortuitous and pretty much accidental glance to the right. Karl had posted photos of both markers and I could see that both were made to be placed on the west side of the road. Northbound travelers would see the distance to Dayton and those headed south would see the distance to Cincinnati. It appears that this marker switched sides at some point in its past. But that’s not the most interesting thing about it. Perhaps understandably, when I first saw the marker, my mind registered D 26 and C 24. But I quickly realized that the 4 my mind saw was reversed and that it must really be the number 1 with some accidental scratches beside it. That, however, would mean this stone claimed that Dayton and Cincinnati were 47 miles apart rather than the 50 indicated on the other marker. I next tried to mentally convert that 6 to an 8 to make the distance a closer match at 49 miles. That didn’t work and I became pretty certain that the numeral was a 6. A one mile difference between the two stones seems possible if not likely. A three mile difference seems very unlikely and I’ve become convinced that the carver goofed and carved the 4 in backward. Form your own opinion from this composite or go check out the original at N39° 25.809′ W84° 21.947′. The other marker is at N39° 20.126′ W84° 24.144′.

For the second consecutive week, here’s a diner tacked on to the tail of the primary subject. K’s Hamburger Shop isn’t exactly on the Dixie Highway but it’s less than two blocks away and that’s close enough for Mike Curtis to include it as a POI on his Dixie Highway Map. Plus there are some unverified rumors that a temporary DH alignment ran right past the location (even though it wasn’t K’s yet). DH or not, they celebrated their 85th anniversary Friday and I was there. They were totally closed for eleven days due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then open for carryout only. Three weeks ago, with the addition of some fancy plexiglass dividers, dining in became an option. Says Marcia, the owner, “My parents kept this place going through the depression and we’ll keep it going through this pandemic.”

Booths are separated by fixed panels and the panel separating counter customers and staff is fixed, but the panels between individual counter positions are hinged so that couples can chat and sneak fries from each other. Panels and everything else are sanitized frequently, of course. The only not-yet-cleaned spot in the counter picture is where I just finished this. Among the many articles written about K’s over 85 years is an American Road Diner Days installment from an unknown (both then and now) writer. Winter 2007 if you’re a curious collector of old magazines.     

More Cincy Reopenings

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The Cincinnati Reds opened their season on Friday instead of March 26 as planned. Friday is also the day I made the Cincinnati Museum Center visit I’d postponed a couple of weeks earlier. It was supposed to happen on the same day as my Maya exhibit visit, but a service appointment got in the way. The delay moved it from the members-only preview week to a week after the general opening and fountain turn on. Water now shoots high in the air and cascades down through that series of pools in front of Union Terminal. The marker in the foreground stands near where the world’s first professional baseball team had their home plate. Less than two miles away, in an empty stadium, the modern version of the team got the shortened 2020 season rolling with a 7-1 win.

The museum center is using timed entry to keep the number of people in the building below capacity although that hasn’t yet been an issue even though attendance has been slowly increasing. Three museums are part of the CMC. Because just about everything in it is hands-on, the Children’s Museum remains closed as do two of the major components of the Natural History Museum. Keeping the replica limestone cave and the Science Interactives Gallery sanitized just isn’t practical, and some interactive experiences have been temporarily removed as well. I know all of that makes things considerably less entertaining for younger visitors but the most prominent residents of Dinosaur Hall are still there and they’re still awesome.

There are currently two temporary exhibits that are included in CMC admission. I checked out “Inspired by Nature” first. If you’ve spent any time looking over downtown Cincinnati, there’s a good chance you’ve seen some of Charley Harper’s art. It appears in several murals with “Homecoming (Blue Birds)”, on Court Street, being the most well known. The placard at the left of the last picture contains a Harper quote that probably sums up the man as well as any.

This is the centennial year for the passage of the constitutional amendment that allowed women to vote. “An Unfinished Revolution: Women and the Vote” tells of the struggle that preceded that breakthrough as well as the struggle that continues today in pursuit of equality. The 19th Amendment was passed on May 21, 1919, and ratified on August 20, 1920. In between those events, Ohio legislators took steps to assure that women could vote in the 1920 presidential election even if the amendment was not ratified in time. In the center of the first picture, the 1919 and 1920 Hamilton County voter rolls give a visual indication of just how significant a change that was.

Some portions of the Cincinnati History Museum are closed but I think that has at least as much to do with establishing new and reworked exhibits after the big renovation as with anything COVID-19 related. I was excited to find that “Cincinnati in Motion” is now complete. New to me sights included Proctor and Gamble’s Ivorydale complex and Crosley Field where I watched several Reds games and one Beatles concert. Neither “Shaping Our City” nor “You Are Here” were entirely finished when I was here last, but they are now. As we (at least I) struggle to outsmart our phones, it helps being reminded that all new technology requires some learning.

Another thing that happened during the two weeks between my planned and actual visit, was the reopening of the Holocaust and Humanity Center. Entrance to the HHC is not included in CMC admission but it is is the same building and discounted combination tickets are available. This was my second visit and I again found the personal stories and keepsakes extremely interesting. The pictured Torah was saved from a burning synagogue on Kristallnacht. I had taken a picture of the only window in the museum on my first visit but I had not actually looked out of it and that is the whole point of it being there. It provides a view of railroad tracks which is how many holocaust refugees arrived in Cincinnati. The third photo is from the “Humanities Gallery” which deals with today rather than history. I took several pictures of the row of screens and their rotating set of images and picked one to include in this post. Then, as I actually put this post together, I discovered that I had unwittingly selected a picture that was a near duplicate of one I had posted from my first visit. That picture, which can be seen here, obviously made an impression on me undoubtedly because it is evidence of the bigotry present today. I did not want to just repeat that picture and decided I didn’t want to repeat the feeling either. I went with something much more hopeful.

Many things at Union Terminal are now open but absolutely nothing is back to normal. That’s true of the whole world, however, and the folks at CMC and HHC seem to be doing the right thing. Kids have it the worst. I can think of nothing equivalent to the learning that automatically comes along with all the fun in the Children’s Museum and Science Interactives Gallery. I’m sad that they are closed but know that the risk of having them open is too great to even think about. A few interactive displays exist in the Cincinnati History Museum but they are in places that can be constantly monitored and sanitized frequently. In the HHC, pushbuttons are used to activate displays and recordings. Everyone entering is given a rubber-tipped stylus to handle the button-pushing and they are encouraged to “take it with you when you vote”. Hand sanitizer is available throughout all the museums. Every employee and guest I saw was wearing a mask and many staff members also had a face shield. In some sense, this could be considered a good time for adults to visit. It’s not crowded and access to both displays and docents is easy. But empty museums are not, in general, a good thing at all. I really look forward to the return of flocks of noisy kids figuring out where that ball is going to fall and which direction that gear is going to turn.

The picture at right was taken two weeks ago on my way to the Cincinnati Museum Center to see the Maya exhibit. Sugar n’ Spice has operated on Reading Road, about five miles north of downtown Cincinnati, since 1941. They are taking COVID-19 seriously with limited capacity, masked staff, plexiglass dividers, and more. I had heard something about plans to open a second location but I hadn’t really paid any attention to details. As I finished up my original wispy thin pancakes, I struck up a conversation with a manager who showed me some pictures of the new location. I learned that 1) the grand opening was happening the very next day and 2) the new store wasn’t just near the old Sycamore Street diner, it was in the diner.

I stopped here on Friday on my way to see the dinosaurs and suffragettes. It’s a 1955 Mountain View diner that was moved from Massillon, Ohio, to the Over the Rhine section of Cincinnati in 1984. It then operated for many years as The Diner on Sycamore. Its most recent life was as Joe’s Diner which closed in 2016. In between, it had a couple years of life as Vinyl and was dormant for several years. I really like what Sugar n’ Spice has done here and I really like their chances of success. The middle of a pandemic is certainly not the ideal time to open a restaurant but everything was, of course, in motion well before the pandemic hit. Although it’s a family-owned business, Sugar n’ Spice is really an established brand that has brought their bright colors and slightly whimsical decor along with a reputation for quality to a classic factory-built diner. The counter is not currently being used but two outside dining areas are available along with plexiglass separated booths in the Mountain View and in the brick and mortar building it is attached to. I’d totally forgotten how big Sugar n’ Spice omelets are. Five eggs aerated. This is what I had for breakfast — and dinner.