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!

The Mountain State - West Virginia Weekend

Back at the end of July we realized we had a Delta buddy pass that was about to expire so we took the opportunity to get Paul some coaster credits and visit a new National Park up in West Virginia. We flew into Charleston on a Friday afternoon and back to Atlanta on Sunday, so it was a quick weekend getaway. While in West Virginia we visited Camden Park near Huntington, toured the State Capitol and Museum in Charleston, visited New River Gorge National Park (America's newest National Park), and just generally enjoyed the pretty countryside of the "Mountain State."

To kick the trip off, after landing we drove an hour west to Huntington to visit Camden Park and Malibu Jack's (just over the border in Kentucky). Camden Park is a classic, opening in 1903. It's a bit run down, but has some incredibly rare and unique historic rides. It's a small family park, but more than worth a visit for coaster enthusiasts. The most notable attractions are the "Hawnted House" (yes, it's spelled that way), a 1960s dark ride that can be considered a roller coaster, and Big Dipper, a 1958 classic wood coaster that is an ACE Roller Coaster Landmark. Our quick stop at Malibu Jacks, about a 15 minute drive to the west over the Kentucky border, was to ride the small indoor spinning coaster.

The "Hawnted" House.

This was foreboding.

The Big Dipper coaster was great - but could use some paint.

The ACE Landmark plaque.

They let kids sit three to a seat on Big Dipper.

Paul in front of the sign for Camden Park, with its creepy clown.

Credit run at Malibu Jacks.

After grabbing the coaster credits, we drove back to Huntington to look around and find some dinner. A common theme we noticed in West Virginia is that the downtowns for the "larger" cities were actually pretty put together. The fact that they hug rivers and are confined to mountain valleys makes them pretty compact and walkable. Downtown Huntington had a lot going on the Friday evening we visited. There was a summer music festival, lots of people wandering around and a good amount of downtown retail for a city of only around 50,000. We did some shopping at a comic/nerd store, and found a brewpub named The Peddler that had video game themed food and drinks, and an upstairs arcade. Beer names were tongue-in-cheek, like "Mighty Morphin' Sour Ranger." After dinner Paul got some ice cream at Austin's at the Market before driving back to Charleston to check in to our hotel.

Huntington city hall, currently under renovation.

Downtown Huntington had good urban form.

A theater and shopping district downtown.

Summer music festival series.

Dinner at The Peddler. Featuring a pepperoni roll, which is a regional dish.

A flight at The Peddler.

We're digging the video game theme here!

Of course Paul found ice cream.

Our hotel in Charleston served as our home base and we stayed there both Friday and Saturday night, as it was in the middle of everything - with Huntington and the coasters being to the West, and the national park to the Southeast. Charleston, like Huntington, is around 50,000 people and hugs a river in a valley. It's a quiet city, but has a number of attractions.

Saturday morning Paul got some coffee at Mea Cuppa inside the Capitol Market. We then got some food at a regional breakfast biscuit chain (Tudor's Biscuit World) and visited the West Virginia State Museum (because it's closed on Sundays when we were planning on touring adjacent capitol).

View from our hotel of a barge going down the river.

West Virginia is pretty, but there is a lot of poverty and disinvestment. It's the second poorest State.

David digging into a biscuit. Biscuit World is like a Hardees... it's fine.

The West Virginia State Museum was worth the stop. It's free and adjacent to the State capitol building. It's medium sized, and it's easy to spend over an hour here. Overall, we thought it was very well done and informative. It put a lot of effort into theming and telling the story of West Virginia. It had a surprising amount of content on black West Virginians for a state that's around 89% white. So kudos there. Some more questionable information provided by the museum for your amusement: 1) apparently, white settlers just sorta came into the State unimpeded, because for "whatever reason" the natives had already left... uh huh 2) A key reason for West Virginia to split from eastern Virginia was the east's "unwillingness to compromise" 3) Despite talking A LOT about coal and mining, there was only one small exhibit describing environmental concerns which did not include climate change.

David gives county-themed art two thumbs up at the State Museum.

Well if it's "real good" that's good enough for me!

The museum was very thoughtfully themed.

Paul would likely be the world's worst coal miner, but he looks cool doing it. 

We left the museum around noon and made our way toward the New River Gorge National Park. This is the newest national park, established December 27, 2020, and it's a worthy one. It's quite sprawling, and encompasses not just the river gorge but also large forested areas and several historic mining towns. We started at the Canyon Rim visitor's center, which was extremely crowded (well it was a summer Saturday). From here you can see the most famous view in the park, the New River Gorge Bridge. After looking around we drove east and south, skirting the edge of the park, stopping at the Glade Creek Grist Mill in the adjoining Babcock State Park. We stopped at the Sandstone Visitor's Center for a long distance view of the falls before turning back north. Our next stop in the park was the impressive Grandview Overlook, where we took a short hike along the cliffside. This was our favorite part of the park, as it had fantastic views and nice hiking.

A small waterfall on the way to the park.

Awwww.

Paul with the famous bridge.

The old grist mill.

The whole area has a lot of great Appalachian scenery.

Yay, cool roofs on the visitor's center!

Sandstone Falls.

Grandview overlook.

Walking along the Castle Rock trail at Grandview.

By this point we were hungry, so we drove to nearby Beckley and had dinner at Little Sicily. After dinner we stopped by Family Game Knight, a little video game and comic store. But we weren't quite done with the National Park yet - on the way back to Charleston we took a detour to Thurmond, which is a historic district inside the Park. A number of abandoned buildings stand alongside the railroad tracks in this once-booming coal town. Interestingly, an Amtrak route still stops here, although it had only 364 passengers in 2021, as there's literally nothing around. We closed out the day with a drive back to our hotel in Charleston.

The lasagna was meh, but the calzone was decent.

David with Gringar the Pokemon.

The rail and car bridge to Thurmond.

Paul on the bridge.

Downtown Thurmond.

Some, ah, interesting graffiti.

The old Whipple company store, part of the national coal heritage area.

The next day, Sunday, we had about half a day to spend doing touristy things before we had to head to the airport. We walked from our hotel to breakfast at First Watch, then stopped by Taylor's Books. Downtown Charleston has some nice areas, but it feels fairly deserted. A big part of that could be because it was a Sunday morning, but also population decline. The city reached a peak population of 85,796 in 1960, and has since shrunk all the way to 48,018.

View of the river on our walk to breakfast.

Yum!

Downtown Charleston has some nice spots.

Taylor's books.

Some interesting art on a big plaza downtown.

After visiting downtown, we walked back to the hotel to hop in our rental car and check out South Charleston. Oddly, South Charleston is actually northwest of Charleston. The "south" part of the name is because it lies on the south bank of the Kanawha River, while Charleston is on the north bank.

South Charleston is small and sleepy, but we spent some time walking around downtown, visiting a small Asian grocery store, and seeing the Criel Mound. We then drove back to Charleston to visit the State Capitol building. We were able to go inside and see the halls and the interior of the dome. Unfortunately, we couldn't get into the senate or house chambers, but we wandered around for about 15 minutes before leaving.

Our final stop in West Virginia was the Capitol Market. Paul had visited here briefly the previous morning to get a coffee, but we went back to visit the fully opened market. It's a nice place, with a number of vendors. Rather than being a market with just bougie prepared foods, it actually has a number of places selling fresh meat and veggies, wine and beer, and grocery goods. A great amenity for the neighborhood! 

A super weird Big Boy "museum" along the route.

The Criel Mound, probably built around 200BCE.

View of downtown South Charleston from the top of the mound.

The West Virginia State Capitol Building.

It's a standard design but it quite impressive.

Art on one of the capitol office buildings.

Inside of the dome.

Halls of the capitol building.

The outdoor section of the Capitol Market.

Of course we found ice cream at the market.

Paul (right) found a bigfoot (left) at the airport!

West Virginia is a weird State. It has a lot of natural beauty, but has suffered a lot from various environmental and social issues. It's the only state that has lost population over the last half century (West Virginia has fewer people now than it had in 1950). From poverty, the opioid epidemic, lack of diversity (both economic and cultural), and the environmental legacy of coal mining, it has a host of problems to overcome. With the new national park tourism is on the rise, and a couple of prominent universities bring liveliness and economic development. For us, it was a nice weekend trip and we'd definitely recommend a visit to New River Gorge National Park.