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| Looking out at the Ohio River from Eden Park. |
On our second day in Cincinnati we tracked down a great vegetarian restaurant, spotted an albino squirrel, learned to skip rocks and spent a relaxing afternoon hanging out at a world-class art museum.
Budget
Breakfast: $7.45 (danishes at Graeter's)
Lunch: $25.28 (Melt Eclectic Cafe)
Dinner: $33.79 (Lemon Grass Thai)
Hotel: Free! (We earned enough Best Western Rewards points for a free night at the Best Western Premier Mariemont)
Total: $66.52 (Phew! We needed a cheap day to balance out yesterday when we went way over)
1) Cincinnati Art Museum
So many art museums these days charge $20 per person for admission. Not this one. The Cincinnati Art Museum is free thanks to generous donors in the community. Hooray!
This dramatic bronze statue called Pinnochio Emotional greeted us at the entrance of the museum.
The Cincinnati Art Museum is a world-class museum and it's one of the oldest in the United States. The museum houses some 60,000 works spanning 6,000 years, and in its galleries you'll find everything from an Egyptian mummy to an Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup can.
One of the most memorable pieces is a 30-foot-long mural by Joan Miro that originally hung in the Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati.
My kids will tolerate art museums, but let's face it, they'd rather be at a playground. And so I appreciated the small yet interactive exhibits that are placed around the museum for kids. Here they're putting together a puzzle featuring a painting by Sisley.
After walking through three floors of art galleries, my kids were ready to run around. The Art Museum is located in the middle of Eden Park, and we found this play structure nearby. Playgrounds are a great source of free entertainment.
2) Melt Eclectic Cafe, Cincinnati
After four days of hamburgers and meat chili, I was desperate for something green. In the funky Northside neighborhood, we found this sandwich shop specializing in vegan and vegetarian cuisine.
Melt is a hippy sort of place where the hummus is homemade, the walls are painted purple, the art on the walls is painted by locals, and the guys cooking in back have bushy beards. Everything we ordered from a greek salad to black bean chili was delicious and hearty.
A fresh green salad has never looked so good! And the lettuce isn't even iceberg.
A ratatouille sandwich on homemade bread served with a side of sun chips and hummus.
Each table had its own magnetic board and poetry set. "Two furry well corn..." My son isn't a poet but he had fun!
3) Albino Squirrel
The coolest thing we've seen on our trip yet is an albino squirrel running through the grass of someone's front yard in a Cincinnati neighborhood. And we didn't even have to pay for zoo admission to see it. Isn't he beautiful?
4) The Little Miami River, Cincinnati
The Little Miami River meets up with the Ohio River just east of Cincinnati. My husband is a river scientist and worked on a project on this river. He was eager to show us this scenic spot. We hiked along a dirt path through lush foliage filled with birds and eventually came to a rocky beach.
The beach was covered in flat rocks, perfect for skipping.
Dad had to give us a lesson in rock skipping.
After seeing the albino squirrel my daughter was convinced that she had found an albino rock.
On our hike, we spotted a fallen tree that had been chewed up by a river beaver. Cool! But we couldn't find the beavers who did the damage.
What's up next? Louisville, Kentucky!
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