As you will note from the blog dates, a significant length of time has elapsed since my last post. I did make the journey from MacDonald’s Greenhouse to daughter Leslie’s and family without incident, and settled in to their driveway to spend a week or more in their company. One of the things I always notice about the Cincinnati area is the tremendous number and quality of parks, museums and other entertainments relative to where I live in Maine. For example, during my Cincinnati stay the family once again visited Topgolf Cincinnati (see previous post) and enjoyed a lovely afternoon there. The playgrounds in Cincinnati are also top-notch and offer many unique diversions not available in my area, like this climbing wall for children (the top of the wall is just out of view at the top of the photo):

We also had the privilege of visiting the Cincinnati Museums of History and Science with granddaughter Layla’s Brownie troop. Housed inside a repurposed train station which dates from the early twentieth century, this is one of the finest children’s museums I have ever seen. The photo below really does not do the building justice, as neither the color of the flowers nor the scope of the fountains was completely captured.

The atrium of the building features murals along the ceiling, along with train-related memorabilia to invite you into the museums proper.

We chose first to visit the history museum, which included a scale-model replica of the city of Cincinnati:

There were also replicas of both a turn-of-the-century downtown street, with shops which one could enter, stocked with goods of the day; and a life-sized model of a steamboat similar to those which plied the adjacent Ohio River long ago.

There was a beautifully restored original taxicab from 1925 on display:

On the science side of the museum were dinosaurs!

This science museum was truly excellent, with a huge space devoted to all kinds of exploratory activities for kids. Obviously, I only photographed those displays which especially interested me, but the photos here barely scratch the surface of all there is for children to do and learn here. Here are replicas of Mars rovers which kids can drive, just as an example:

They even have a working television station, which the Brownies really enjoyed!

I would highly recommend that any family traveling in the Cincinnati area make it a point to stop at this outstanding children’s museum. After our day at the museum, we drove out to Terry’s Deli in Lynchburg, Ohio, where they make the most decadent ice cream “sundaes” I have ever seen. One can choose from a myriad of flavors, toppings, and add-ons; granddaughter Layla’s included ice cream on the bottom, a brownie on top of that, whipped cream and more ice cream on top of that, and a variety of toppings over all. Way too much for one person to eat, unless one decides to forgo supper and just eat one of these!

Add in outstanding pizza and a full deli, and Terry’s becomes a destination in itself. We ate supper there and each had one of these gut-busting desserts.

Before I left Cincinnati, I had the privilege of attending Layla’s first-grade orientation, where I got to meet her teachers and see her classrooms. Here she is on the school’s welcoming “red carpet”:

Given the family’s work and school schedule, I decided I would leave for home a day earlier than planned, last Thursday. However, on my trip from Cincinnati north to visit Robin’s family in northern Ohio, I ran into some trouble; the truck began dropping itself out of cruise control and displaying a warning message, “service brake controller module”. Having no idea what this meant, I stopped at a rest area and searched the owner’s manual for some idea of how serious this issue might be, but found no mention of it there. However, once back in the truck, I could once again engage the cruise control! I traveled another hour, only to have the truck kick itself out of cruise control and display the same message once again. So I drove the final hour to the CVI (see previous posts) the old-fashioned way, foot on the gas pedal, and was much relieved to arrive there without further incident. I immediately phoned nearby RAM dealerships for service, only to be told that the earliest they could help me was two weeks hence. This was obviously not acceptable, as I have to be home to play a wedding this Friday, just a week away. Fortunately, the third dealership I called agreed to help me, Sliman’s of Amherst, Ohio. So I dropped the trailer off at the CVI and drove the half-hour to Sliman’s, arriving about 4:30PM on Thursday. They immediately took the truck in and quickly determined that it was not going to be fixed that day — so they gave me a ride back to the CVI for free! I tried to tip the driver but he would not hear of it.

The next day (Friday), the dealership called me to say that they had hooked the truck up to a diagnostic computer, and while they were unable to replicate the brake controller condition, they did note that the steering angle was way off, and suggested that I agree to having a front-end alignment; they believed that this might solve the problem. As I was already having to steer the truck to the right in order to actually go straight, I agreed. I waited anxiously for word from them throughout the day, and they finally called in the late afternoon to say that the alignment was finished and a tech was driving the truck — but they wanted to drive it again the next day (Saturday) just to be sure.

They called again Saturday morning to say that they had driven it fifty miles and could find no issues, so that morning they sent another car for me and brought me back to the dealership to pick up the truck, again at no charge. Nor was any of the expensive equipment I was carrying in the truck bed (generator, compressor, golf clubs, tools) tampered with in any way. So I have only the highest respect for Sliman’s and can highly recommend them should anyone need auto service in the Huron/Sandusky/Amherst Ohio area.

That afternoon, Robin’s cousin Lee invited me out for a sunset ride on Sandusky Bay in Lake Erie, on his vintage Lyman cruiser. Lyman made outstanding wooden boats designed especially for use in the rough waters of Lake Erie, and flourished there in Huron from the 1940s through the 1970s, when they made a misguided venture into fiberglass boats and the company failed. Now, Lymans are highly coveted for big-water use across the country. We were joined by Lee’s wife Mary, along with Martha and her husband Mark:

This morning, I left the CVI and traveled without incident, cruise-control employed, to the Buffalo NY area, where I am staying once again at the Robbin’s Nest farm (see previous post). The plan is to head to Arrowhead Marina tomorrow (see previous posts), spend the night there outside Albany NY, and then make the final leg of the trip home on Tuesday, leaving me plenty of time to prepare for the wedding performance on Friday. Let’s hope all goes as planned!