Hopefully the Flickr pictures were enough to whet your appetite for a moderately boring recap of the weekend.

Friday:
I left work about noon (much thanks to Bossman for letting me out early) and hit the road. 357 miles later, I hit Newport, KY and pulled into the Travelodge parking lot. There was a nice big sign for the motel as I crossed the bridge into Newport, and there was a fairly new Aquarium and shopping area right across the street so I was hopeful. The lady at the front desk was quite nice, so I was still hopeful as I made my way to the room. Then I opened the door. Not so good. It was a non-smoking room, but it reeked of smoke and I later found ash on the bathroom floor, like the maid had been smoking in there or something while cleaning the shower. The pictures don’t really do it justice. Wallpaper was peeling, the thermostat came from a museum (and was so convoluted, that they included instructions mounted to the wall next to it), electrical plugs weren’t screwed in, etc. Oh well, I had prepaid on Travelocity, so it was too late to change now. And for all it’s faults, the Travelodge is in a really convenient location. So be it. I called my boy Knee to check on his progress, and he had barely gotten started. So I had about 4 hours to myself to explore. I trucked down Monmouth Street looking for some dinner, and to see what was there. Stopped at a joint called La Mexicana that was chosen at random. Turned out to be nice authentic Mexican fare, with a crazed waitress / hostess / cashier basically running the joint by herself.

I settled on a couple of quesadillas, thinking that I could sample a couple of different things, eat 1/2 and then take the rest for Knee to eat on arrival. Finished that meal, then took a couple mile walk around the area. Very strange place, lots of old kinda scary looking stores next to bright new remodeled shops. Lots of liquor stores. White Castle on a weird side street. More liquor stores. And then the aquarium surrounded by higher end chain restaurants and valet parking. And a mall. Strange. Anyway, I explored for a while, then waited back at the Travelodge. Knee arrived about 10:45pm and we trundled off. Even after the little Mexican food snack, we were both kind of hungry so we went out looking for grub. Unfortunately, most everything had stopped serving food. We settled for a drink at the Captain’s Cove (the only bar in the area that wasn’t labeled as an Irish Pub, even though all of those “pubs” were really just a bar with an Irish Pub sign outside if that makes any sense) then got a tip from the bartender that the Pepper Pod diner was open all night. After a quick bite, we called it a night about 2am. I slept about 2 hours, as the bed was as uncomfortable as it was icky. Oh, and then the phone rang at about 5:30am with a wrong number. Joy. I barely dozed after that, so I finally gave up at about 7:30 after getting a total of maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep.

Saturday:
After giving up on sleep, I got up and peeked out the window to see snow everywhere. There had been none when we went to bed 5 hours or so ago, so I was a bit surprised. It was coming down pretty good too. So I threw on my coat and slipped out to watch it come down and take a few pictures. Came back inside to brave the free Travelodge breakfast. Again, not so good. There was a coffeepot with no coffee, a juice dispenser with hardly any juice, a toaster, and a bin with a couple bagels donuts and slices of bread. Nice. Sat with a cup of coffee (fetched from the front desk where the pot wasn’t empty) and read my book for a while to let Knee get a little sleep. Finally, we both got up and around and headed for downtown Newport in search of some good coffee.

Mammoth Coffee was one of the few places that I knew about going into the trip, as I had done a little research beforehand to make sure we could find good coffee. I wasn’t disappointed, as my Cafe au Lait was absolutely delicious. Cool little place I recommend if you ever find yourself in Newport. After coffee, we set back to get the car and head for downtown and some brunch. Went across the bridge into Cincinnati proper and just kind of drove around until we saw something interesting. This sigh peaked my curiosity:

Yep, that is Breakfast, Lunch and Thai. We can’t pass that up, right? So we parked and went inside. Probably the best decision of the weekend as the food was delicious. It looked like every other diner you have ever been in, except for the Thai decorations on the wall and the rice cookers on the counter.

I got a red curry chicken stir fry dish that was nice and spicy, and Knee opted for an omelet and pancakes. Of course we passed it around and had a little bit of everything. After that experience, we wandered around downtown for a couple of hours looking at the sights. We couldn’t figure out why there were huge groups of kids everywhere though. It was a weekend, so it couldn’t be a school trip, right? It was very perplexing. Until we drove by the Cinergy Center.

Ah. I looked around for Kirk Franklin, but didn’t see him. After our downtown tour, we drove back to Newport and made our trip to the Hofbrauhaus. We definitely visited at the right time of year, because the seasonal brew was really something to behold:

An absolutely delicious Doppelback with 8% APV. That is a hard-hitter my friend, let me tell you. Tasty too. We got out of there about the time the dinner rush had started, and the line was out the door. Crazy. We felt very good about our decision to make a mid-afternoon visit. Back at the hotel, we checked in with a buddy that lives in nearby Covington and made plans to head over there to see him. Took a bit of a nap, then went out to find his place. That took some doing as we got bad directions (19th St. my friend, NOT Highland) and got a bit twisted around but we finally made our way there. Visited for a while, until we realized that it was 9pm and we hadn’t eaten since Thai brunch. Got directions to an Italian place (don’t remember the name) and ate a nice dinner. By then we were both pretty bushed and just went back to the Travelodge to watch Showtime and get some sleep. Watched Saw which turned out to be a perfectly acceptable Saturday night movie, then turned in for some much needed sleep.

Sunday:
Not too much happened Sunday. Got up and went to Mammoth for another coffee. Except they were closed. Since they had no hours posted anywhere, it was kind of hard to know when they might or might not be open. Ah well, it is all a part of the “flying blind” weekend I guess. We ended up settling for the Mokka cafe and had some breakfast instead. We had originally planed to have a coffee, go into Cincy for Indian buffet, and then head for home. But since the coffee didn’t work out and we ended up at a restaurant, we decided to just eat then and get an earlier jump on the 5 1/2 hour (for me anyway) drive. Checked out of the Travelodge, and hit the road. I did keep my camera handy as I was driving so that I was able to catch a picture of Kentucky’s greatest landmark:

The trip was very therapeutic, and I’m feeling a lot less like going on a giant city-wide murder spree. It also served as a bit of a practice run for Toronto (more on this at a later date), so valuable experience was gained. Like find a hotel that is NOT a Travelodge.