Planes, Trains, and Automobiles... and feet.: What's round on the edges and High in the middle?

It's Ohio of course! Guffaw! (I regret the decision to post that joke, but my delete key is broken)

We left Pittsburgh yesterday morning heading to Cincinnati. As we headed out of town and into Ohio I noticed the terrain went from mountainous, to hilly, to flat. It's clear we're heading to the plains.

The route from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati takes you by Columbus, OH. Columbus is the state capital and also the home to Ohio State University, which yesterday evening played Virginia Tech in football (AND WON!!! GO HOKIES!!!). I knew my friend Tim was going to the game so I texted him and found out where he was and we went into the city to meet up with him. It was fun driving through the city and seeing orange and maroon walking around all over the place. We ate at a local brewpub called Barley's that had some great food! Then after dinner, dad and I walked to and around inside the Ohio Statehouse, the capitol building.

After leaving Columbus, we headed into Cincinnati. We met up with some friends we know that live in Cincinnati (Kristen and Phil and baby Mary, and Margie is visiting). We went out to dinner at Skyline Chili. I was still stuffed from lunch, so I didn't get any chili, but it looked and smelled delicious. Then we went back to Kristen and Phil's house and had a blast catching up with them.

The next morning, we went to Kristen and Phil's church, New City Pres. Cincinnati. The people there were super friendly and it was a great service, though they did a bunch of worship songs that I had never heard before. That's fun though because I love learning new songs.

After that we headed to Washington Park in a place called Over-the-Rhine (it's abbreviated OTR all over the place). OTR got it's name from the German immigrants who walked from that neighborhood over a canal which the nicknamed "The Rhine" after the river in Germany. Washington Park was nice with a few playplaces for children and a fenced in dog park and on one side of the park was the Cincinnati Music Hall. The Cincinnati Celtic festival was going on there which had people doing flatfoot dancing, playing bagpipes and there were food stands all around the park. Dad and I walked around OTR for a little while and then headed into the Music Hall and watched the Cincinnati Pops perform selected music from Disney's Fantasia while the video was playing above them on a screen. That was a unique experience to hear the great music live and see the visuals matching up.

After that we drove around the downtown area and saw the Bengals' home stadium and Great American Ball Park (Home of the Reds) and then headed back to Kristen and Phil's home. They sure have amazing hospitality to host us for dinner with a newborn baby and I'm very thankful for them! After dinner we played games and reminisced about old times and then headed back for the night. And tomorrow we will be on our way to Chicago!