Spring Break 2021

 Saturday March 13, 2021

This was intended to be a two-park spring break trip.  Fortuitously, on Wednesday, we were at a softball happy hour and a person I’d never met before brought to my attention that a new (the 63^rd) national park was added in West Virginia in late December 2020.  I knew nothing of it but have since converted this into a three-park trip.

So we left this morning at 6:45 after opting for prepaid airport terminal parking.  We arrived to the longest bag-check line I have ever since.  Since we were only checking one bag, the kids and I went on through the security line and left Nick to check the bag. 

I always get stressed getting onto a plane but this was our first time flying since COVID so I was really amped up.  After temporarily losing my ID in the shoe that I was wearing, the kids and I went to the gate.  45 minutes later Nick was still in line.  He texted that he was being told by an airline employee that the bag and he would not make the flight in time, despite arriving 1 hour 30 minutes ahead of time.  With some divine intervention he was the 2^nd to last passenger to board the plane and all of our luggage and bodies made it to Nashville on time.

We arrive around 10:45, rented our Dodge Caravan and drove over to the Vanderbilt campus, stopping first at the Slider House for a tasty lunch of sliders. 

Nashville was a bit of a surprise/disappointment to Ryan who had this placed fairly high on her list of potential schools.  We were surprised that the campus was so integrated with the city.  She was still glad that we drove through it but she definitely didn’t get any happy feelings (she’s in 9^th grade and Grant’s in 7^th).

We then drove up to Cincinnati via Louisville, KY. None of us had ever been there before and we decided to take a quick drive through campus.  We saw the baseball field and football field, not realizing that if we’d just looked to our right as we were looking to our left at the baseball field, that we would have seen the Kentucky Derby track.  Ugh.

After a short drive through campus (very pretty campus and very high acceptance rate), we drove through a McDonalds for a drink, a quick look at a college women’s field hockey game and gas.

Then on to Cincinnati where we are now.  We’re technically still in Kentucky but we’re staying at the Embassy Suites on the banks of the Ohio River, the border between Kentucky and Ohio.  After a short complimentary happy hour in the lobby, we walked across a bridge into the city – my first time ever in Ohio.  

We’re very close to the Reds stadium so we walked around and checked it out.  It really was spectacular, as was the bridge we walked across - the John A Roebling Bridge.  

We were going to eat at Galla Park for dinner but it was like a crazy spring break party restaurant so we settled on Moerlein Lager House for dinner.  The place was good but unless we wanted to wait an hour, we ate outside and it was cold.  We also switched over to the Eastern time zone and tonight is daylight savings time so it’s currently 10pm.  Overall, this was an unexpectedly fun day!

Favorite Part of the Day:

Ryan:     Dinner/city/ball park

Grant: Dinner/city/ball park

Barb: walking across the Ohio River / ball park

Nick: ball park

Worst Part of the Day:

Ryan: Stress at the airport

Grant: Mom losing her ID in her shoe

Barb: Nick almost not making it onto the plane

Nick: Business of the airport

Everywhere we’ve been, the people have generally been friendly and have generally worn masks.  No one’s lost their minds over COVID and people seem more relaxed than I expected.  The “happy hour” at the hotel had lots of people and we were allowed to gather and stay in the bar area.  Compare that to a year ago at the Embassy Suites in Chicago where we could go down for a glass of wine but had to take it back to our room to drink it.  I definitely since that things are starting to loosen up a bit.