Soccer Weekend in Cincinnati

Earlier this year we went to an Atlanta United away game in Seattle - and this year we decided to go to another away game, the last Atlanta United game of the season, in Cincinnati. Our friends and fellow season ticket holders snagged some great seats for the game, and we made plans to drive up.

On a Thursday after work we drove part way, stopping for some fried chicken for dinner at Champy's in Cleveland Tennessee. We've been to the original Champy's in Chattanooga, and we're fans! We drove a couple more hours from there, stopping for the night at Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky, where we stayed at the historic Dupont Lodge. The lodge itself is fine (the rooms were last updated in the early 2000s) but it was cool to stay in the state park quite a ways off the interstate. We couldn't see much while driving in since it was nighttime, but the next morning we were treated to excellent views from the hotel's back patio. After breakfast we drove the short distance to Cumberland Falls, the main attraction in the state park. We walked to a few different viewpoints before getting back in the car to head up to Cincinnati.

Champy's is... a bit much. But the food is good!

David with his chicken sandwich.

Paul's dark meat fried chicken plate.

David with the Harvest tree in the Dupont Lodge.

The back patio.

Walking towards the overlook. So much color!

Paul enjoying a harvest/fall scene.

Kentucky is really pretty.

Cumberland Falls.

From the falls, it was a little less than a three hour drive to Cincinnati. The fall leaves in Kentucky this time of year were very colorful and it was a nice drive overall. When we arrived in Cincinnati, we went straight to lunch at Gatherall, a new food hall (still in the processing of opening, with about half the stalls under construction) in a former playing card factory northwest of downtown. It's a cool addition to the city, even though it's a ways from downtown.

Gatherall Food Hall. Nice architecture!

Inside was industrial chic. 

David with his Korean fried chicken tenders and bulgogi egg rolls.

From there, we made a somber trip to bring flowers to David's Yiaya's resting place. The cemetery itself (Spring Grove) is really lovely, especially with all the fall colors and some of the elaborate mausoleums. We've visited a few cemeteries over the years as city parks or touristic attractions and this one didn't disappoint with it's attention to detail and restoration works.

How bucolic.

Flying buttresses on the Dexter mausoleum, built in 1869.

Salmon Chase (a senator, governor, and chief supreme court justice) is buried in the cemetery.

David's a fan of fall foliage.

Little stone bridge to a small island. Too cute.

The leaves were popping!

From there we drove to Paul's step-brother's house and hung out and visited for the evening. We hadn't seen him for a while so it was great to catch up with him and his family, especially his two adorable kids. We stayed at their house while visiting Cincinnati. 

The next day, Saturday, we drove downtown and met our Atlanta friends for breakfast at Maplewood Kitchen in downtown. It was pretty good, and definitely a worthwhile breakfast stop if in downtown. We visited their hotel next, the 21c museum hotel. It was really interesting, as the first two floors of the hotel are an art gallery. Really cool concept! Next we saw more art at the Cincinnati Art Museum. This is a very large, impressive art museum with free entry. It's probably the top attraction in the city, with its commanding architecture and wide-ranging collections of art and artifacts. Paul particularly liked the 18th century Damascus room.

Fountain square in downtown.

David's chilaquiles at Maplewood Kitchen.

We don't what this is, but we hate it. Part of the art exhibit at the 21c hotel!

Downtown Cincinnati has great urban form.

Pinocchio welcoming us to the Cincinnati Art Museum.

The Damascus room. It's actually cobbled together from a few different sites.

David and Arvo enjoy more impressive rooms and arts.

Just some demons chilling.

After visiting the museum, we drove up to the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood to be closer to the stadium and grab some food at Findlay Market. I think we've visited Findlay Market every time we've come to Cincinnati, it's in a quickly improving urban neighborhood just north of downtown. Plus there's good food options. From the market, we strolled around the neighborhood, did some window shopping, looked at cute streets and made our way over to Washington Park, where the game day fan zone was being held. There were lots of people out enjoying the nice weather in the pretty park. We sat at a café for a bit before heading over to the stadium.

The Cincinnati Music Hall.

The streetcar runs frequently and connects downtown to some of the urban neighborhoods just north.

We come to Findlay Market every time we visit Cincinnati.

Inside the market, this area is mostly grocers.

Lunch arepa!

Hanging out with our lunch outside Findlay Market.

Lots of cute shops around the market, this area is redeveloping quickly.

There are quite a few nice dining and shopping streets in Over the Rhine.

Paul's here for the fun!

The game was a lot of fun. Cincinnati was the number one team, so we expected to lose, but we pulled out a 2-2 tie even after getting a red card. And the seats that our friends got were primo - front row of the top level, just a section over from the Atlanta United away fans supporters groups. The stadium itself is pretty impressive as well. Worth the trip for any soccer fan.

The line to behold/take a picture of the Supporter's Shield.

The soccer gang at the stadium!

I mean, it's a pretty great pitch/view.

The stadium also had a cool light show around its front when it's dark.

The next morning we had a yummy home-cooked pancake breakfast with Paul's step-brother and family, grabbed some iced coffee for the road at Wyoming Community Coffee, and then headed out to pick up David's Aunt Diane, who we were shuttling down to Georgia to visit with David's parents for a few weeks. We made great time back to Atlanta, and enjoyed the fall colors in Kentucky, a stop at Buc-ee's outside of Lexington, and saw some odd random brush fires near the freeway in Dalton, GA. All in all, a great long weekend in Cincinnati and we hope to visit again soon!

Weekending in Seattle

Each year we try to get to at least one Atlanta United away game. This year we saw they were playing in Seattle, where our friends (and former ATL UTD season ticket holders) Lauren and Leslie live. So we planned a three day weekend to see the game and visit with friends.

We flew out on a Friday evening, and had amazing views of the mountains and the city as we descended into Seattle. Normally we try to take transit from the airport when we're on vacation, and Seattle does have a light rail, but unfortunately we picked a bad weekend for Seattle transit. The light rail was single tracking and running on a reduced schedule, with forced transfers at Pioneer Square. So we opted to take a 20 minute Lyft to our hotel rather than a 90 minute transit ride.

Our hotel, The Sonder Boylston, was located in Capitol Hill, a neighborhood northeast of downtown. It's a very vibrant neighborhood, with block after block of interesting restaurants and shops, and is a bit of an anything-goes hot mess. Our hotel was a converted residential building, and was clean and nice although the room was quite tiny. There was no front desk and no frills; we opened our room using a code. It's a good location and much cheaper than downtown hotels, so we'd recommend it.

We were already pretty tired (with the three hour time change) but we ventured out for a short walk and then couple of quick stops within a block of our hotel, starting with some ice cream at Salt and Straw, which featured a variety of unique flavors as part of their "summer picnic" series, including the bizarre chocolate potato salad. Next we went to an Amazon Go market, which is a small grocery store with no checkouts or registers. You scan in, just grab what you want, and leave. A huge array of cameras and sensors track what you take, and you receive a digital receipt after you leave. Maybe a little bit 1984, but it's a really convenient system. 

Tahoma/Rainier, Adams, and Hood in a row.

Seattle was gleaming as we flew in.

The entirety of our hotel. The shower is behind the frosted glass...right by the front door.

They always have interesting flavors.

If you've ever met Paul, you know how he feels about ice cream!

Check out the ceiling of the Amazon Go store.

Saturday morning we woke up very early thanks to the time change. Paul waited for Victrola Coffee to open up at 7am, and we picked up a pineapple fritter and bananas foster Bismarck to go from Half and Half Donuts. After enjoying our coffee and donuts at the hotel, we lyfted up to Discovery Park, Seattle's largest park, which was about six miles northwest of our hotel. We did a fairly long hike around the park, including descending down to the beach and passing the lighthouse before reconnecting to the loop trail through the forest. We ended near the northern end of the park, and from there walked to the Chittenden Locks. The locks separate fresh water Lake Union from the salt water Puget Sound. The locks were quite crowded on a sunny weekend day, especially since it was salmon spawning season. We spotted a couple of harbor seals, saw lots of salmon in the underwater viewing area, and stopped by the small visitor's center. We also saw them letting some boats through the locks.

Victrola Coffee was empty early in the morning.

Coffee and donuts for a very classic start to the day.

The only day we could see across the sound.

Beach views from our hike.

A forested section of the trail.

The bridge at the locks opening for a sailboat.

The underwater viewing area.

Lots of salmon in the fish ladder.

Boats going from the sound to Lake union.

The small museum at the visitor's center.

A short walk from the locks is the National Nordic Museum. We first stopped in the museum's Freya Cafe for some iced chai and a delicious beet and burrata salad with pickled peas, and then explored the exhibits. This is a well done museum, with two floors of exhibits mostly focusing on Nordic history and the history of Scandinavian Americans.

It was a short walk to our lunch spot, Arashi Ramen, where we had spicy tantanmen and black garlic ramen. Next we took the bus a few miles east to the Burke Museum on the campus of the University of Washington. This was a great science and history museum, with several floors of exhibits on geologic history, animals, and indigenous cultures. Before leaving Paul grabbed a cedar blackberry tea latte at Off the Rez cafe in the museum.

A little snack and drink before the Nordic Museum.

One of the main exhibit halls.

The museum had an interesting layout.

Ballard is a cute neighborhood.

Nothing like some black garlic ramen!

Fossil exhibit in the Burke museum.

A modern totem pole.

After leaving the museum, we walked around the campus of the University of Washington for a bit, enjoying the architecture, then took the light rail back to Capitol Hill. We stopped at Frankie and Jo's vegan ice cream, and Paul got some unique flavors - beet strawberry rose and California Cabin (smoked vanilla & pine ice cream with black pepper cardamom shortbread cookies). We walked around the neighborhood for a bit, went in Pink Gorilla Games, then went back to the hotel to relax. 

That evening we had some inventive cocktails at Foreign National. We were discussing cities with the bartender, and she said Denver was like Blink 182 threw up everywhere. Anyway, this was a cool tiny little cocktail bar with interesting drink flavors, such as a fortune cookie gochujang cocktail. From there we walked to dinner at Gokan Katsu, which was decent, and finished up the night with another quick visit to the Amazon store.

A tree-lined path on the UW campus.

Nice architecture around campus.

A huge fountain on campus.

Seattle's light rail is expanding, but for now there's just one main line.

Well, they do need to update their software! :)

Capitol Hill neighborhood is cute.

Ice cream time!

Our cocktails were lovely.

Tempura veggies at dinner.

David occasionally gets a hankering for Japanese curry katsu. Mission accomplished!

This place looks too cool for us.

Sunday was our last full day in Seattle, and the day of the soccer match. We woke up early and had donuts at a General Porpoise. We then walked to the downtown waterfront, where we waited for Wings over Washington to open at 10am. This is an unabashedly touristy indoor ride that takes you on an aerial journey across the state. It's a good time, especially for families. From there we walked to Pike Place Market, and explored a bit. It was very busy on a nice summer weekend. We stopped in Metsker Maps, which was a nice map/travel/book store. We continued our touristy day by taking the monorail up to Chihuly Garden and Glass, on the former site of a World's Fair, next to the Space Needle. We'd seen a similar exhibit in Toronto, and we enjoyed this one as well. We then walked back to Capitol Hill and had lunch at Honey Hole, before resting at the hotel.

Filled donuts at General Porpoise.

A fun little alley in Capitol Hill.

It's true! He is one!

Early morning quiet streets.

It's a long way downhill to get to downtown.

Walking by the library.

Downtown Seattle, and construction on the waterfront refurbishment.

Touristy piers.

Inside Wings over Washington, before boarding the ride.

Pike's Place Market.

The monorail was popular.

The air quality was really bad from wildfires, which cancelled some of the outdoor tours.

One of the main rooms. Very impressive!

We saw a boat like this in Toronto.

A big glass greenhouse exhibit.

There was an outdoor exhibit too, with glass art interspersed with plants. 

View of the Space Needle behind glass flowers and real plants.

Sandwich lunch at Honey Hole.

Later that afternoon we met our friends Leslie and Lauren at Rough and Tumble, and had some drinks and snacks before heading down to the stadium. The air quality was pretty bad at this point from the wildfires, but the game wasn't cancelled. Lauren dropped us off and went to pick up her parents from the airport. We had a great time watching the game and hanging out with Leslie, and Atlanta won 2-0. After the game we walked back to the hotel, which was about a 45 minute walk, mostly uphill (according to Google maps, a 351ft elevation change).

Heading into the stadium.

This is fine....insert meme of burning house in your mind...

The smoke was clearly visible in the stadium lights.

It was great to see Leslie and Lauren! We're sad Lauren got pulled away from the game last minute.

Back to our hotel!

Monday we had half a day before we had to head to the airport. We started with coffee and breakfast at Wunderground, then walked around and visited a few different stores as they opened. We enjoyed Elliott Bay Book Company, a large local bookstore. Finally, we had lunch at Biang Biang Noodles, claimed our bags from hotel storage, and took the light rail to the airport. That wrapped up our Seattle soccer weekend!

Iced coffee at Wunderground.

Elliott Bay Book Company was a great local book store.

Hand made noodles for lunch.

Also dumpling. Yum!

Wildfire smoke after taking off from the airport.