Cincinnati was the answer to the question “Where is a good place along I-75 to kill time during a one week gap between monthly reservations?” It also turned out to be a good reminder that full timing means discovering unexpectedly enchanting locations that we’d never consider as vacation-worthy.
To be clear, expectations for Cincinnati were low. Our assumption prior to arrival was that it was another stereotypical dying Rust Belt city; a sort of Buffalo, NY circa 1980 but without the chicken wings. If you haven’t been there recently, let us be the first to tell you that Cincinnati has their shit together. If someone was making a film of our adventures on the road, this would be the point where the director inserts a dreamy montage set to music, with scenes of us watching paddle boats from a bench on the banks of the river, slurping ice cream cones from a locally famous ice cream shop in a hipster neighborhood, and questioning why the GPS is taking us into Kentucky to get us from the RV park to downtown.
The architecture in the city is amazing. Our stop before this was in Nashville, where urban renewal seems to involve bulldozing everything in sight and putting up something bigger. Cincinnati seems to be taking an entirely different approach and is revitalizing and preserving historic buildings. There’s also gorgeous building murals everywhere, which add to the vibe of downtown being a containment area for expatriate Brooklynites.
Regarding our favorite subject, there may not be a single Michelin star in the state of Ohio but Cincinnati is surprisingly one hell of a foodie city. After a consultation with the Yelp and some of Brian’s coworkers who know the city, we were pretty bummed we only had seven days in town because the list of restaurants we wanted to try would have involved heavy binge eating to sample them all.
What We Did:
Findlay Market – an open air market with local produce, custom cut meats and calorie laden bakery items which almost made me happy that I was personally responsible for participating in all of Beezer’s exercise needs for the week.
American Sign Museum
Lucky Cat Museum
The Mushroom House
Where We Stayed:
Tucker’s Landing, a new RV park at a marina on the banks of the Ohio River. The reservation process was a bit painful due to some initial bugs in their website and they have a serious lack of signage throughout the park, which made getting in a bit challenging. The park is behind a marina and there’s no camp office or dog park, the latter of which Beezer reminded us of frequently. Concrete pads, decent sized spaces. BYO picnic table and fire pit. The sites on the water have beautiful views and it’s convenient to Hyde Park and downtown.
Where We Ate:
Oriental Wok
Arthur’s – old school burger joint that’s been in business since 1947
Taft Ale House
Graeters Ice cream
How Le