Back to Ohio

Yesterday morning we left Charleston and drove northwest for almost two hours. The wooded hills of West Virginia gave way to the fields of Ohio, and we arrived at the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park. This park protects a half dozen Native American mound sites of the Scioto valley. There is only one visitor center and it’s at the smallest mound site. It was a fairly small visitor center with few exhibits but a pretty good movie. We watched it and walked around the mounds a while, then left. 

We continued northwest for a little over a half hour and stopped at an outlet mall for lunch and some shopping, then turned southwest and drove about an hour to the last hotel of our trip, the Cincinnati Marriott at RiverCenter, which is actually in Covington, Kentucky. They gave us a room on the 14th floor with a partial view across the Ohio River of downtown Cincinnati. 

We settled in a bit then headed across the river to the Cincinnati Hard Rock Cafe, which was inside a casino. I was planning to eat there, but then we noticed there was a Brewdog Pub across the street. We had enjoyed one in Scotland so we decided to eat there, and just have a drink at the Hard Rock, which was my 47th. Even though it was in a casino, it was better than the one we went to last year in Indiana, because there was no smoking allowed. Also, parking was free. 

This morning after breakfast we checked out of the hotel and headed across the river again to visit the William Howard Taft NHS. This sit consists of his birth home and a visitor center next door. We watched the film and looked at the exhibits in the visitor center, learning more about the life of President and Chief Justice Taft, then walked through the house, which contained more exhibits about Taft, although some of it repeated information from the film and the visitor center exhibits. Still, it was cool to see several items that were owned by the Taft family. We spent a little over an hour at the site; we might have been able to stretch it out to two if we read everything instead of skimming some. 

We then headed back across the river to the airport. We turned in the rental and went to the Delta Lounge to have lunch and wait for our flight. We got upgraded to first class. Although our flight was delayed a bit due to weather, we got home safe and sound.