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Cincinnati, OhioMay 23-25 , 2008: The Cincinnati club invited me to fly out and speak to their membership...
We left and headed back toward downtown, stopping at Kohl’s to get a bunch of picture frames for the prints Ed had done. These were dropped off at his office, and then we were off to “Taste of Cincinnati”, a three day event where you can sample a variety of food & beverages as you mill about the closed-down streets in downtown Cincy.
Several live bands were set up along the route, and thousands of people were present. I tried a beer that was disappointingly bad, and after a few sips I just had to toss it.
The bratwurst and sourkraut was excellent, as was the Graeter’s hand-made ice cream. It truly was as delicious as promised, very similar to what is produced in Switzerland. As a half-swiss, I’m very fond of their ice cream and tend to praise it as the best of the best, and compare all others to that standard. It looks like one place in the U.S. has finally reach that quality. It can be ordered online, shipped in dry ice. I checked what 12 pints would cost shipped, which was $110. Ouch. www.graeters.com
Someone won a Ford as I walked by.
This guy got himself out of a straightjacket while we watched.
By 6pm, we got back to Ed’s office to find a group of people waiting to get inside. People drove from far away to attend. One person told me he was from New York, another stated he was from Cleveland, while a few came from the Columbus area. We visited with one another as we enjoyed the two tanks in the meeting room, and then each person introduced themselves, told us where they were from, described their tank and if they were a member of the club. Beer was on ice, and pizza arrived shortly thereafter.
I spoke about Pests in the Aquarium, but interspersed the bad guys with some “good guys” slides to let people know what was safe to keep in their tank. The presentation also went into pest corals and pest algaes. Once concluded, some stayed behind to see a brief acrylics presentation, after which I did a very brief photography tutorial at one person’s request. Everyone seemed to have a really good time, and those that won raffle prizes smiled even more so. One person won a gift certificate to Marine Solutions, two people won a frag from that same store, four people won the choice of one of the framed reef prints, and another person went home with a top down photo box. The rest of the prints are going to be hung in Ed’s offices. As we headed back to Kevin’s for the night, we stopped at a Skyline so I could try some of their famous chili everyone was telling me about. And it was quite good. I'll have to try White Castles on my next trip. Sunday morning, I got up and hopped into a taxi to the airport (which is actually in Kentucky), flew back home to find my tank and livestock doing perfectly fine.
I really appreciate the generosity of this club, who went out of their way to keep me happy during my stay. I really enjoyed my visit to Cincinnati, and hope the club members benefited from the information discussed. If you are in the Cincinnati area and are looking for a reef club, go to www.cincyreef.com
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