Sites of Cincinnati #4

Sites of Cincinnati #4:
Race Road

Race Road happens to be one of my favorite drives in all of Cincinnati.  There are other roads that bring you gorgeous trees on both sides, transporting you to a seasonal paradise (Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard).  Or that hug the river for miles out from downtown Cincinnati, and take you through cute, historic towns and gorgeous vistas (State Route 50).  Or roads that give you spectacular views of the Cincinnati skyline (I-75 North, at the cut in the hill -- that's another Site of Cincinnati entry).  Race Road offers none of those things.

But it does have a few things that make it mundanely spectacular.  For one, if you want to get from my house to the Bridgetown area, and you don't want to drive the congested main roads, then you can take West Fork to Race.  You don't lose any time, and you also get to experience ...

some of the best hills in all of Cincinnati.  In fact, I mentioned to my father (who hasn't lived in Cincinnati for over 30 years) that there was this really hilly road that I loved to drive and he said, "Is it Race Road?"  Why, yes.  Yes, it is.  One time, we were caravaning with Rob's family to a local restaurant.  Rob was in the lead and decided to take his family on Race Road, just to make them want to pee their pants.  They're all from Farmland, OH, which is flatter than ... something that's really flat ... so Rob took Race faster than normal.  I was in the van with most of his other family and they all screeched and said things like, "Is Rob trying to kill us?"  It was great fun.


The other thing that makes Race Road fantastic is the road view.  Road view means, like, when you're driving through Nevada and the road is straight for miles and miles, and then you hit a mountain with a slow rise, and you can see the highway going straight, straight, straight up the mountain, and then at the last minute it makes a bend and exits out of sight.  That's a great road view.

At one point on Race Road, you're at the top of a hill, and when you look across to the top of the next hill, you can see the road again, and it's lined up almost perfectly with the orientation of the road on the hill that you're on.  But in between, the road is lost behind trees going down into a small valley.  And you know the road is the same on both sides, and you know the road will do something in between, but you don't know what.

In point of fact, under those trees, the road goes in crazy turns that you have to take super slow, because the road is also at super steep angles.  And you wouldn't expect that from the view you had at the top of the hill. 

And then when you're at the top of the next hill, you can look back and see the start of it all, on the hill you were just at.

Every time I take Race Road, I look ahead and note the end.  And then, at the end, I look back and note the beginning.  Because there's something exquisitely beautiful about a road with a set end and beginning, but an unknown middle.  It's like birth and death, the only two definite points on our life's journey. 

You're born, and you're young, and the only thing you can ever know for sure is that you'll someday die.  And there's all this middle section of sharp turns and craziness.  And then, when you're at the end of it all, you can look back and you can see the distant past, and the turbulent middle, and you know that it's made you who you are.  And you can start to make sense of the twists and turns that your life took.  And you know, too, that the very end of the hill is coming.  You aren't quite sure what's on the other side, but it's all okay anyway.

And that's why Race Road is one of my favorite drives in all of Cincinnati.

Sites of Cincinnati #3

It's time for another installment of Sites of Cincinnati!

Sites of Cincinnati #3:
Jungle Jim's

Exit I-275 and go North on Route 4 to get to one of the coolest places in Cincinnati:  Jungle Jim's!  You don't need better directions than that, by the way, because you CAN'T MISS IT.  Really.  You turn into the parking lot on Jungle Jim Parkway, with its own stoplight, and there's a freakin' monorail circling the building.  The building itself is a mega-building.  It's unlike anything else you've ever seen.

As you walk into this mega-building, there are elephants and giraffes to great you, all lolling around in a pool, complete with a waterfall.  Even though they're just statues, they're freakin' cool!  Take a gander at this image I just stole from someone else's blog:

What is this fantastical place? 

It's a grocery store.

Best. Grocery. Store. Ever.

And Jim is crazy.  Yes, there actually is a Jungle Jim, and you can learn all about him and his story in a movie that they play in the movie theater in the back.  Runs every 10 minutes or so.  Before you can get to there, though, you have to pass all the gift shops, the coffee shop, and the doctor's office.  All INSIDE the store.

And watch for the decorations along the way.  You can see King Kong scaling the Empire State Building; the Lucky Charms guy leading a band of other cereal super stars, churning out Beach Boys tunes; Robin Hood and the gang in Sherwood Forest; a bear Elvis who shakes and shimmies as he sings the King's hits; and I'm probably forgetting a few.  Oh, and who can't love these bathrooms?  Voted #1 in America.



The reason you go to Jungle Jim's, besides the fun factor, is to get the international foods.  They sell just about anything and everything there.  I haven't actually identified all the foods in the produce section, but if you want it, and it's international and hard-to-find, Jungle Jim's has it.  If they don't have it, you can put in a request for it.  They have official forms and everything. 

I go there to get Hello Panda cookies from the Asian section, chocolate spread that's better than Nutella (seriously, after trying it, there's no going back), really good foreign chocolates, and any number of fun things from the German section.  ...  Only I don't go there too often, because I inevitably spend $100 on stuff that I don't "need" but that is SO YUMMY.  Seriously, I usually clean out the Hello Panda rack.  I ran out in October, so it's probably about time to go back.

So while it may not seem like the coolest thing ever to go to a grocery store, it's pretty sweet.  Definitely worth the trip.

Check out the store's website here.

Thoughts While Painting

Been Homeprojecting lately.  It's been fun and tiring and all that.  Plus, Rob is hardly ever home, so I have to do all the normal domestic stuff, plus mow the lawn, etc.  Super fun!

Lately I've been painting a lot.  Most recent paint project:  the front door frame.  Not the front door yet.  Just the frame.  And I know you don't care, but I wanted to put down some of my random thoughts while painting.  Later, I might write about my random thoughts while mowing the lawn.  Yes, those are different.  Interesting?  Probably not.  But different.

Random Thoughts While Painting the Front Door Frame:

- "We got a bill of sale right here that says he belongs to us."
"Elliot, no!"
"You don't need him.  You don't love him.  Watch out, or I'll tear you apart."  ...  "We'd like to see you try it."
"I'll be your candle on the water."

- Passover.  Though I was painting with the wrong color.  "Destroying Angel, please pass over this house..."

- "I'm standing in front of a door, holding an open can of paint, and standing on a chair.  This is the start of a bad joke."

- "I hate that light fixture.  Oh, that's right, we're replacing it.  Good."

- "Why does this take SO LONG?!"

I am now going to go eat some vanilla/cardamom bread and think about what a pointless post this was.