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!

Memorial Day in the Smokies

Memorial day snuck up on us this year, but we made last minute plans to drive up to Tennessee and spend a couple of days in the Smoky Mountains. We found a small cabin near Pigeon Forge on AirBnB that was somehow still available. We drove up on Saturday morning, with the intention of stopping in Gatlinburg on the way. However, the town was absolutely packed. To be expected for a holiday Saturday, but it was beyond what we thought it would be. Parking lots were 100% full with gridlock traffic on the streets. Instead we drove up to Pigeon Forge and picked up a couple of alpine coaster credits at Rowdy Bear's Smoky Mountain SnowPark and Skyland Ranch. After settling in at our cabin, we went for dinner at Applewood Farmhouse. The food was bland, but it was atmospheric. We've had a lot of not-so-great food over the years in the Pigeon Forge area. The dining scene could use an upgrade!

Our cabin had a hot tub on the porch and overlooked a lush forest.

The inside of our cabin.

Paul hasn't found a mascot he doesn't love.

The unique go-cart coaster at Rowdy Bear, with the suspended coaster above.

Riding the Wild Stallion at Skyland Ranch.

Dinner time!

Hanging out by the river while we waited for our table.

The fried chicken and greens were good. Everything else was bland. David looks thrilled. Use some spices, people!

Saturday evening it rained through the night. We had been watching the forecast and it looked like Sunday might be a bit of a washout as well. But in the morning the radar looked a better than expected, and it seemed like it wouldn't rain until the afternoon. So we made this our Dollywood day! It worked out really well - although it was a bit chilly, the rain held off and the mere threat of rain kept most of the crowds away. We went straight to the brand new coaster, Big Bear Mountain, which was having some troubles and didn't open up until about an hour later. But we got on the first train of the day. It's a fun family thrill coaster and a great addition to Dollywood. We managed to ride every coaster in the park by early afternoon.

An empty Big Bear Mountain train testing in the morning.

Wheeeee!

Dollywood has a fantastic setting in the mountains.

An installation for the food and flowers festival.

It was cloudy but the rain held off.

Paul waiting to ride the drop tower.

From Dollywood we drove to a new area of Pigeon Forge called the Mountain Mile, which is essentially just a nice strip mall. We had a late lunch / early dinner at Junction 35, which had over-the-top drinks. Paul's smoky margarita came in a literal jar of smoke. We also had "Tennessee poutine!" Even though we were full, we had to get ice cream. A google search showed mostly bad chain options, but one local store stood out - Cruze Farm. This small Knoxville-based chain had decent soft serve, although they didn't have vanilla, which is bizarre.

The Mountain Mile.

Paul at lunch/dinner.

Soft serve time! David was not a fan of their "sweet cream" vanilla replacement.

Pigeon Forge is... a bit of a mess. It's essentially just miles and miles of car-centric strip malls and overpriced tourist attractions, and the target clientele is very conservative. We saw a pizzeria that was promoting an "FJB" pizza, and a store literally named "The Trump Store." The traffic is horrendous - it feels much worse than Atlanta. The redeeming factors are that the surrounding nature is beautiful, there are dozens of coaster credits (a big plus for Paul), and Dollywood is a legitimately great attraction.

Monday morning, Memorial Day, we checked out of our cabin and drove to the Cade's Cove area of Smoky Mountains National Park, which was about an hour drive away. We left early to try to beat the crowds, because the scenic drive in Cade's Cove is a one-way, one lane loop, and we'd heard (and seen videos) that it gets extremely crowded. It wasn't too crowded by the time we got there, then shortly into the loop we hit a big backup. As we slowly crept forward in the car, we saw some rangers ahead, and realized the traffic jam was caused by a bear sighting! The bear was slowly munching its way through a field. We watched for a while, then continued on our way. The loop passes through lush meadows, and past a few historic buildings. We stopped at the visitor center to check out some of the buildings and read about the park.

After the pit stop, instead of going all the way around the loop, we continued south on Forge Creek Road, a well-maintained dirt road, to head toward Atlanta. This is a very lightly travelled road, and was a nice break from the loop. Not too far down the road we saw another bear, this time only about 40 feet or so off the road. We turned the car off and just watched in silence for a while, which was nice. The bear ignored us and slowly ate its way through the clearing.

Great morning views in Cade's Cove.

That's a bear! It was pretty far away but we could see it clearly.

Looking back at the bear jam.

A historic church building.

Nice views on an overcast spring morning.

An old mill building.

Maybe Andy Dufresne's box is buried under this tree.

A black bear!

If not friend, why friend shaped? 

We continued down the road, to the turnoff to Parson Branch Road, which would take us south to a state highway and back toward Atlanta. Unfortunately, there was a sign warning that the road was an 8 mile unimproved dirt road, and 4-wheel drive was recommended. Thanks Google Maps! At this point it would have taken at least 45 minutes (probably longer, due to traffic on the loop road) to backtrack and drive to Atlanta via the more western route, so we decided to risk it. It turned out to be OK - we scraped the bottom of the car once or twice and had to drive through several streams, but we made it. Turns out the road, originally constructed in 1838, reopened last year after a six year closure. Whatever upgrades they made must have helped us out.

Not great, but our Hyundai Ioniq can do this for eight miles. Right?

We drove over dozens of streams, which luckily were paved.

Emerging off the rough dirt road, we were on a state highway known as "The Tail of the Dragon." It's a winding mountain route that is popular with motorcycles. It was a nice scenic drive. A bit down the road we saw a small parking area and an information sign. We pulled over and saw it was a short hiking trail to Yellow Creek Falls, so we took an impromptu hike! It was a nice quick stop to break up the drive. Continuing down the road, we went through Robbinsville, the only city in the area. We had lunch at Lynn's Place before we kept driving toward Atlanta.

Paul at the waterfall.

A little friend we made on the hike.

Overview of the falls.

Passing cabins on a lake.

Corn nuggets at Lynn's place! The menu said "basically fried cream corn."

After driving in to Georgia, we stopped in Blue Ridge, a cute little mountain tourist town. Downtown has a number of shops and restaurants, as well as the station for the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway, which is a four hour round-trip tourist train to another tourist town on the Tennessee border. We stopped in a couple of shops, including Mountain Man Comics.

A classic car in downtown.

The scenic railway leaving downtown.

Downtown is cute.

Yoda and R2D2 in Mountain Man Comics.

We made it back to Atlanta by late afternoon. We still have to get back to the Pigeon Forge area again to pickup some more of the remaining and new alpine coaster credits, and I'm sure we'll be back to Dollywood soon enough!