Happy belated Turkey Day. I spent most of the holiday weekend at Deer Creek State Park with my wife’s family. Originally we had planned on coming back Friday, but we were having such a nice and relaxing time that we decided to stay another night and drive home on Saturday. The first two nights we stayed in cottages, and the last night we slept in a room in the lodge. Our weekend was filled with hiking, biking, running, swimming, eating, drinking, campfires, and board games.

Monopoloy

One of the many highlights of the trip was sitting down to play some Monopoly. I hadn’t played this game in years, and it took the four of us a few turns to get all the rules figured out again. I still think we made up some things as we went along. In the end I found myself as the sole survivor and winner of the game. My hotel complexes on the orange and red properties proved to be the deciding factor, though the runner-up nearly knocked me out with his hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place. I forgot how much fun (and how long) a game of Monopoly can be.

It was brought to my attention that I forgot to write about the Newport Gangster Tour that I took a couple of weeks ago with my family. This is put on by the same people who did the Queen City Underground Tour that we all took earlier this summer. We actually bought discount tickets for the gangster tour after enjoying the underground tour so much.

Owners and Tour Guides

We were in for a special treat on this tour, as we soon learned that the founders and owners of the company would be our guides for the afternoon. The amount of research and interviews these two gentlemen have conducted helps fill the tours with tons of historical information and stories. For me the underground tour was great because of the architecture and hidden chambers we were able to tour, whereas the gangster tour was great based purely on the educational material presented.

Northern Kentucky Gambling Museum

I had no idea that Newport was once home to so many casinos and gambling halls. It turns out that there is a Northern Kentucky Gambling Museum, which granted us free admission during part of our tour. In addition Newport was home to many adult entertainment venues, brothels, and some of the biggest gangsters around. While we didn’t get to go into many of the buildings, as most of them have been completely renovated for other purposes, it was very interesting to hear all the guides stories as we walked a few blocks of Newport.

Outside Enjoying The Tour

I’ve really enjoyed both of the tours I’ve taken from American Legacy Tours and I hope to take more in the future.

Check out my little tiger.

This past Saturday was a big day for my blog. Ten years ago I started my online journal as a fun-loving twenty-one year old student just starting my forth year of college. It is really hard to believe that I have been blogging for over 10 years now. Though the updates back then were often monthly, I’ve settled into a nice pattern of daily updates that allow for a quick break during the work day. I’m thankful for everyone who continues to stop by, some on a daily basis and others just from time to time, giving me another reason to write. Here’s to 10 more years!

At the end of July I bought discounted admission tickets through Groupon to the Queen City Underground tour. Tickets are regularly $20 each if you buy them online, but the Groupon gave us buy one get one free admission. After the tour you can also buy tickets for any future tours for $10. So I would not pay full price as half price tickets should be easy to come by. My parents bought tickets as well and we all decided to check it out this past Sunday.

Me and Trey on the streets of OTR.

This is a walking tour along historic Vine Street in the Over the Rhine neighborhood. The tour lasts between 90 minutes and 2 hours and is probably about 1 mile walking. Along the way our 2 tour guides provided a lot of historical information on the neighborhood and various buildings along the walk. We also go the chance to go into a few different buildings, the highlight of which had to be the old lagering cellars of the Kauffman Brewery, which shut down at the time of prohibition. These old cellars sat 70 feet underground, undiscovered for years.

Me and my dad investigating the cellars.

Also on the tour was an old beer garden, Weilert’s Beer Hall. The first floor of this building was most recently a gothic club, and is uninteresting. The neat part of this building is the beer hall that is up above street level. A set of old stairs leads up to this space which has been relatively untouched for decades. We were also able to see inside some old housing units. With a good imagination I could see and feel what life could have been like in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s in this neighborhood.

Over the Rhine

I would easily recommend the tour for anyone looking for a little education and adventure on a Saturday of Sunday afternoon. One thing to note is that the Saturday tours go into the crypt below St. Francis, which I have already seen separately. I think this is much cooler than the old housing units that we were showed instead, so you may want to catch a Saturday tour if possible. We all enjoyed the tour enough to buy additional tickets to the Newport Gangster Tour, which I hope to use soon.

My mom has many more photos of the tour on her flickr page.

Our 2002 Volkswagen Jetta hit 100,000 miles over the weekend! There was a time when we put a ton of miles on the car, especially when it was the only car that Kim and I had between the two of us. These days it mostly sits idle in our driveway, unless Kim and I both need a car that day.

Disregard the check engine light. I was hoping that it would go away soon, since my dad and I recently replaced a faulty coil pack. I guess we are still waiting for the cycle to complete, or there is another problem. The car is running great though and has truthfully had very few problems.

In unrelated car news, check out this ride I was behind earlier in the day.

Both the word Porsche and the numbers 917 are on the back, but I don’t think it looks exactly like the cars on the Porsche 917 Wikipedia entry. Does anyone know what this is?

Yesterday was Trey’s baptism day down at St. Francis Seraph, the same church Kim and I were married nearly three years ago. He was pretty fussy most of the morning, I think it’s teething related, but once the water hit his head and the chrism oil was rubbed through his hair he immediately calmed down for the remainder of mass. Below are a couple of photos from my mom and the rest can be viewed on her flickr page.

To celebrate the Fourth Of July, and to show of our new house, we invited our families over for some appetizers and drinks before moving up to the nearby Ault Park to catch the fireworks. Even though we still have some boxes lying around, by Monday we had a majority of the rooms in our new house setup and looking somewhat presentable. My mom snapped some pictures of the party, though they are mostly just pictures of Trey. She must have really missed our little man while on vacation all of last week.

The fireworks in Ault Park were a nice ending to a really busy weekend. I didn’t get any pictures of my own, but aultparksunrise.com has some excellent shots from the evening.

After an unsuccessful closing on Wednesday night, we finally closed on our new house last night! Kim is at the house now as the movers are taking all of our stuff inside. I cannot wait to get settled in.

Below is a photo that Kim took during our final walk-through of the house.

Additional photos from the listing website can be viewed below. I will try to update my blog as we finish furnishing the rooms with our own stuff.

Trey and I had a great first father’s day! We started off the morning with Kim and my parents at their house. We all (including my brother) got my dad a new Belgian waffle maker for his 31st father’s day. After receiving the gift my dad got busy in the kitchen making breakfast for us, score! After a delicious breakfast we spent a few hours hanging out, splitting time between movies and golf on TV.

Later in the afternoon I traveled to my grandparents house with my mom and Trey. We spent a few hours visiting with family there before Trey and I met back up with Kim and her family to head down to the Florence Freedom game I wrote about yesterday. To wrap up the night I opened a gift from Trey, a new bike pump! With all of the biking we have done and will continue to do in the future, it will come in great use. Thanks buddy!