I awoke about 6am and the sun was already up. It looked to be a great day to ride and the sun was out with no clouds, so I was really eager to get on the road. It was a very chilly morning and I believe it was in the 50's when I departed. I packed up at the campground and loaded up the bike, and got on the road.
I didn't go far as I needed gas, so I stopped at the gas station near the campground and filled up. I had a donut for breakfast, and also put a quart of oil in the bike. On the drive through Chicago the previous day the bike got really hot, and I ended up needing to add a quart. I wasn't expecting problems like that today as I was doing mostly highway driving and didn't expect bad traffic in Cincinnati.
Once on the road I wasted no time in getting on my way to Cincinnati. My plan was to drive down 65 toward Indianapolis, and once there take the northern loop around the city onto hwy 74 towards Cincinnati. I had a reservation to camp at the Winton Woods, which is in the north part of Cincinnati, but not far from downtown.
Going through Indianapolis was a breeze at it was still fairly early when I drove through town. When I got to the outer loop I got onto 865 which turns into 465, which connects to 74 on the southeast side of the city. It is about 50 miles between W. Lafayette and Indianapolis, and I made great time. I stopped when I got past Indianapolis and gassed up for the final run into Cincinnati.
The drive was fairly uneventful and the scenery is very flat for much of this trip, but once you get into Ohio the drive is more hilly and you can tell something has changed. Once in Cincinnati I drove first to the Winton Woods - http://www.hamiltoncountyparks.org/parks/winton.htm. This is a county park that I highly recommend as it is beautiful and the facilities are fantastic. I wasn't scheduled to arrive as early as I did, but luckily the folks on the campsite I had reserved had left already, so they let me setup early. I found the campsite, pitched my tent, and stored my gear inside. I packed my camera onto my bike and headed downtown for the baseball game.
Following signs to downtown I ended up driving directly past the ballpark and following the crowd to parking. This was the only bad traffic I encountered this day as I was arriving near the start of the game and lots of fans were arriving at the same time. I followed the traffic to public parking a couple of blocks from the park, but was not allowed to park there as I was on a bike. I was directed back to the ballpark and had to park in the ballpark underground parking. The entrance is on the road on the south side of the park, and actual motorcycle parking is just inside the entrance to the garage outside of the pay gate. You still must pay however, and it was $15 which made me a bit angry as the parking 2 blocks away was only 5, but what could I do.
Once parked I went to the ticket booth and bought a ticket for the game. I was expecting to be hounded by scalpers, but there were none so I had to go to the ticket office. They had plenty of availability so I got a ticket in left field in the 2nd deck about 1/2 way up the seats. These were great seats and the only problem was the sun shined directly on the seats so you really got hot. I got up and down many times and walked to stand in shade so I could cool down.
Food at the park was the basic ballpark fare, and since my only meal so far today was a donut in W. Lafayette, I decided to eat. The basic hot dog was OK - average for a ballpark. The one standout food was the Cheese Coney's made by the Skyline grill - they are amazingly good. They are basically a coney dog with "Cincinnati Chili" on them, and then loaded with shredded cheese. I bought only one the first time at the stand and had to go back for seconds. http://www.skylinechili.com/signature.php .
The baseball game was a good one, but the Reds lost, so the crowd was very mellow. The final was Cincinnati 4, Houston 13. It is a beautiful park though as you can see from the photo's I took, and I would definitely go back. And there are beautiful views from the park of both the riverfront and also the downtown skyline.
I left the game and headed towards the venue where the concert would take place. The event was called the Union Center Boulevard Bash - http://www.unioncentreblvdbash.com/. The band I was going to see was KingsX, and they were opening for Extreme. KingsX was scheduled to go onstage at 7pm, and I had arrived about 4:30, so I went over to Buffalo Wild Wings to catch some baseball and have some wings and a beer. I ended up talking to the bartender who was excited to know I had a Nighthawk 700 as he had owned one in the past and missed riding it.
About 6pm I went over the the boulevard bash and went onto the grounds for the bash. There was no entry fee and no controlled access, so it was sort of a free-for-all. There were many food and beer vendors and I tried some of the local fare. One of my favorites was the BBQ from Boston Butz - the pulled pork was fantastic and the ribs were very tender. They had a spicy sauce to put on them that was some of the best I have ever had. There were also several beer vendors that were local, so I tried something from most of them and all of it was good beer. One of the most amazing sights however was the Warsteiner vendor which had a huge fan type of awning coming out of their mobile beer stand. I did have one even though they aren't a micro brew, and it was good.
KingsX took the stage about 7 and played for almost an hour. Ty, Doug, and Jerry were awesome as always and covered some old material as well as material off their new album "15". If you have never heard KingsX before I recommend them - http://www.kingsxrocks.com/. They did come out a do an encore which was great as they had played longer than they were scheduled to and I expected it to end at any time. The cool thing was that even though were the opening band there must have been 100 people wearing KingsX shirts, including myself, and nobody wearing "Extreme" shirts that I saw.
Extreme took to the stage later and they sounded good, but their performance looked a little forced. They looked like they were trying too hard and although for the most part they sounded good, it wasn't my favorite thing. It always pisses me off when a band with 15 albums has to open for a bunch of has-beens that haven't released an album for years, and then decides to try to cash in on past success. Oh well - that is KingsX for you and that is how it will likely always be - under appreciated.
I left the venue about 9:30 and headed back to the Winton Woods to sleep. It had been a long day and I was very tired so I was very happy to find my tent and crawl inside for sleepy time. All things said today I had a great time and had a full day of activity and excitement. I got to see a baseball game and also my favorite band, so I would call it a win-win day. Total mileage for the day was 250.3, so much less than yesterday. Tomorrow would be Cleveland and the Indian's game.
Until tomorrow....
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