Our Third Anniversary Trip

In celebration of our third anniversary we took a long weekend trip to Cincinnati, Ohio from May 17 through May 19. The following is a little glimpse at our trip;

Thursday ~ We slept in a wee bit and took off from the apartment around 9:45ish. Thanks to Shane's new little GPS friend and a distinct lack of traffic we got to our first destination (and all of them, really) without much of a problem.

Our first stop was Jungle Jim's international market. They have absolutely everything under the sun!!! We picked up a few non perishable international treats including but not limited to; squid jerky, ice wine, sour cream and onion crickets, fazer mints (for Jen!) and lots of pictures. We'd like to go back sometime when we have a cooler and plenty of ice so we can take home some of the cold stuff. It was a nice, relaxing way to start off the trip wandering around the world:-) After Jungle Jim's, we grabbed some good old McDonald's drive thru and drove through some of old Cincinnati to Eden Park, home of the Krohn Conservatory. They have a truly amazing display of tropical/rainforest plants spread over three buildings with a waterfall at the center. It's like taking a vacation to the rainforest in the middle of the Midwest, really! They are having their Butterfly Days right now and so they have butterflies from Africa and South America in one of the buildings, along with native plants. Again, amazing and chill. I could have stayed all day but poor Shane was melting. We drove and walked around the Eden Park area some more and went to our hotel to check in and walk around downtown some. We stayed at the Millennium Hotel, it was nice, we had a room on the 18th floor looking over part of the city but, not exactly what we were expecting. After wandering around downtown a bit we had dinner at the Bistro on Elm (the hotel restaurant). It was okay, but again, nothing to exciting. After dinner we went to the Cincinnati Observatory near Hyde Park. It's a beautiful, older neighborhood with loads of charm. Despite the cloudy sky we were able to look out one of the oldest telescopes in the world and the oldest in the United States and see Venus and Saturn. There really aren't words to describe seeing the whole thing. Not only seeing the planets that "close" but seeing them in such a history place. We capped off our day with world famous Graeters Ice Cream. I got the Black Raspberry Chip (what they are known for) and Shane got a Peanut Butter Chip Shake. There is a reason that stuff is so well known. It's heavenly!

Friday ~ We slept in late, got ready and headed out first to the Haufenbraus for lunch. The Haufenbraus is for lack of a better explanation, is homage to a German beer house. I was a little disappointed with the German potato salad (it was too sweet:( but we got stuffed and had some yummy beer! Yes, I drank beer... I know this is history making. After lunch we went to the Newport Aquarium and met all kinds of sea creatures! My personal favorites were Denver the Sea Turtle and Sweet pea the Ray Shark. Shane, though he didn't outwardly admit it liked the South American otters. they were a lot of fun to watch because they played and did things that Macabean does.. very cool. We got to pet sharks and horseshoe crabs which was some fun stuff and watched the penguins for a long time! They had a baby penguin that was the size of the adults so we found him fascinating. We walked around Newport on the Levee some and then drove around the city of Newport and back to our hotel to make dinner reservations. We had decided on the Montgomery Inn Boathouse location since it was so close to our hotel but we weren't able to get a reservation until 8:30 so we watched some TV and gave our feet a break. Dinner at the Montgomery Inn was yummy! They are famous for their ribs which are very good. Shane got chicken something or other and I got ribs of course. I highly recommend them! Excellent food, tasty ribs and we got a free bottle of sauce so I can attempt them at home. We tried to find a Graeters open for dessert but that was a failed mission so we headed to the hotel.

Saturday ~ We slept in, relaxed and watched some TV and then checked out of the hotel and went back to Hyde Park. We had lunch at the Echo Cafe a little local place, walked around and of course stopped at Graeters again (I can not emphasize enough the yumminess of this ice cream!). On our way back to Indy we stopped at the Cincinnati Mills and then it was home again, home again.

All in all, it was a good trip. We have already talked about a mini trip back at some point to go back to the Observatory, Graeters, and go the Zoo and/or Kings Island. What it all comes down to is that it was nice to just go away, spend time together and do it on our own timetable. We both realized the power of a weekend road trip!