#Schummer14: Day 25-26 recap of Summer of Schnyder ~ Cincinnati, Ohio

We made another change to our Summer of Schnyder itinerary by altering our route home. Instead of going through Cleveland, we went straight to Cincinnati because we realized that we didn’t really have time to do much there (and Lee had already been there for a baseball game).

Lee had been to Cincinnati years ago and saw a game at the old stadium; I’d never been. But the main draw was that our friend Melissa had recently moved there and we wanted to hang out with her for a few days.

We arrived on a Friday in time for a late lunch at Dewey’s Pizza, where we had tasty pizza even though their salads looked yummy. These kinds of choices – I’ll let you decide if they were good or bad – were the theme for the entire weekend!

The three of us went to a Cincinnati Reds game that night at Great American Ball Park. We parked at Newport on the Levee in Kentucky and walked across the bridge to the stadium. It was a really nice stadium with great views, and I liked that there were a lot of local food options in the stadium. Lee had a burger from regional fast food chain Frisch’s Big Boy and I went with a Skyline cheese coney. Lee loved his burger, I wouldn’t get the coney again. The Cincinnati-style chili is too sweet for me and the amount of cheese on this tiny hot dog was insane. Next time I’ll go with the $16 helmet nachos. We watched these being made and they looked good & messy: they fill a full-size plastic batting helmet with chips and then pour on ladles of salsa and cheese.

We stuck around for fireworks after the game and were surprised to get to see 20 Reds legends take the field while the pyro team was preparing. The next night was an induction into the Reds Hall of Fame so all of these guys were back for that. It was neat to see the Griffeys and Johnny Bench, and I realized I should have worn my Baseball Bunch t-shirt (I wore it the next day)!

Saturday we had lunch at Tom+Chee, which Lee and I had seen featured on the TV show Shark Tank. They started as a food truck in Cincinnati and became so popular that they now have storefronts and are starting to franchise. The concept is grilled cheese and tomato soup…they have simple as well as fancy versions. I love grilled cheese sandwiches so I don’t mind paying $6 for a good one with bacon! Yum.

We spent the afternoon at Union Terminal, opened in 1933 for the railroad and now home to several museums along with still being an active train station. I love these old Art Deco buildings. Melissa and I went to the Diana, A Celebration traveling exhibit that had been touring the world since 2003 and was at its final stop before the items return to Princess Di’s sons. Lee checked out the natural history and the Cincinnati history museums.

On the way back to the suburb where Melissa lives, we stopped at a well-known local ice cream shop – Graeter’s. We had A LOT of ice cream during a month of driving in mostly touristy destinations but THIS is the ice cream I am still craving y’all. They offer mail-order and I’m considering it. It is hand-dipped and their specialty is chips … so there’s mint chocolate chip, their best-selling black raspberry chocolate chip and seasonal favorites like the one I had – banana chocolate chip. I was expecting the little hard chocolate chunks that I’m not really a fan of but this was chewy chunks of milk chocolate. Amazingly good. Melissa’s brother told us that they had a unique process that results in each scoop of ice cream having different size chunks so I looked it up on their website. They’ve been in business since 1870 and although they’ve now grown to be a commercial ice cream operation, they still use their small-batch process. They use a French Pot method that involves hand-stirring the chocolate in to create the chips and making just two gallons of ice cream at a time.

That night we had dinner with Melissa’s brother and mother at a restaurant called Flipdaddy’s. As you can see from above, I had blown any calorie counting for the day out of the Ohio River so I decided to go big at dinner: I had a Macdaddy, which was a giant burger topped with grilled macaroni and cheese.

Cincinnati = good friends and good food! They are promising me donuts on my next visit, but first we gotta stop for some Graeter’s. I’m thinking the Reds need to start serving a full-size helmet full of their chocolate chip ice cream!

~~~

#Schummer14 – Lee & MeLinda Schnyder are turning their home in Wichita, Kan., over to a friend and taking a month-long road trip. They’ll travel from Kansas to Ontario and Quebec, Canada; then through Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The trip home will include stops in Ohio and Missouri. Beyond the blog, you can follow #Schummer14 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.