Me at Newport Aquarium
Me at Newport AquariumOriginally uploaded by coryhoffman.
You should be in bed folks, but when you wake up, you can read this post. It’s still Saturday, and that’s funny because it feels like there were more than 24 hours in this day. It’s rare because I was actually awake before 7 a.m. and I am still awake now at 10:49 p.m. I have eaten three full meals today (which takes up more time than you would think). My parents and I were at the Newport Aquarium by 9 a.m., see Figure 1. For a Kentucky based aquarium, it is actually quite a gem. The aquarium has an extensive exhibit with some unusual collections. It is also home to ‘Sweetpea’ who is a sharkray (guitar fish?) which is basically the lovechild of a shark and a stingray. Sweetpea is very large for something that you would expect to be not-so-big. I took a photograph of her, but it wasn’t up to my flickr standards – so if you want to see her, I suggest just asking me to e-mail the picture to you. Oh, and I’ll share some knowledge with you; Sweetpea is one of 6 sharkrays on exhibit in the entire world, she’s a very rare fish indeed.
For lunch today, we ate at Johnny Rockets; it’s a 50’s style burger joint if you’re not familiar. I had never eaten there until today and although the wait-staff was very nice, it’s somewhat of a creepy tourist dining space. Every now and again an old song will come on, for example My Girl, and then everyone in the restaurant will stop to do a choreographed skit: the corn-rowed cook adding a little something special to his dance, some urban flair. And after that otherworld display, we moved on to the next event of the day.
The Freedom Center (National Underground Railroad Museum) is a beautiful building in downtown Cincinnati. Its exhibits consist largely of video documentaries with very few static displays, but if you take the time out for the storytelling, you’ll find the presentations more helpful and vivid than inanimate artifacts of pottery and clothing. The museum should cost you about two hours of your time, but by 2 p.m. we needed to be back in Kentucky to catch the boat: event 3.
B&B River Tours runs a decent operation from Newport on the Levee. My parents and I had a sightseeing cruise that departed from the levee at 2:30 p.m. on the River Queen. While the RQ reminded you of an 80s bar on a big steel raft, the commentary from Frank our 79 year old pilot was actually very good. Did you know that 1/4 of all steamships ever built were made in Cincinnati and that in the 1930s the Ohio river crested to a record 83 feet? It sits at a calm 26.5 feet today, for your reference.
Tomorrow, I think I’ll try to get to Eden Park, Mirror Lake, the Krohn Conservatory, and Overlook Park. These are all great places that I’ve already previewed to you before with the exception of the Krohn Conservatory. Cincinnati has some neat things to offer, so if you’d like to come down and visit (notice how my entries have highlighted my wonderful travel/entertainment skills enticing you to come visit me…), you should come visit.
And at this point, it’s 11:07 p.m. and I would like to think that all smart people are in bed. Good for you. Over and out.
Cory
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