If you missed yesterday’s post that is probably because I forgot to give it a category and, therefore, no e-mail was sent to subscribers. I apologize for the oversight and you can read about Wednesday and Thursday at the US Air Force Museum here.

I spent most of today enjoying the sights of Cincinnati. I have never visited the city before and there was no particular destination but I have plenty of time on this trip and it was definitely worth devoting a day to sample some highlights. The top attraction listed on TripAdvisor is the baseball stadium called the Great American Ball Park but, since Cincinnati are bottom of their division, I decided to take a ball park tour instead of watching a game. It was interesting to see the  behind the scenes activity in the park as well as several areas that you cannot go to on game days. The stadium only opened in 2008 but the Cincinnati Reds are the oldest professional baseball team and have some amazing stories to tell. Despite all of their records and great players the story that fascinated me the most was a home run that was hit in the park just a few years ago. The stadium is about 100 feet from the Ohio River which is also the boundary between the states of Ohio and Kentucky. The home run was one of only two that have been hit out of the park but it landed on a concrete slope and rolled into the river. For some reason the Ohio River here is actually part of the state of Kentucky and so this is believed to be the only home run in history that was hit into another state.

After the ball park tour I spent some time exploring the riverfront walk and parks. There are five bridges that cross the Ohio in downtown Cincinnati and two are notable. The Roebling Suspension Bridge opened in 1867 and, at the time, was the longest bridge span in the world but it s probably more significant in that it was the forerunner to the Brooklyn bridge which was also designed by Roebling and opened, as the longest in the world, in 1883.  The second bridge of note is the former railway bridge which has now been converted for pedestrian use as the Purple Peoples’ Bridge. I used this to walk to Kentucky and back.

Today was the opening day of the Cincinnati Oktoberfest which is second only to Munich in size and they were in the process of closing down several blocks to install stages and beer stalls. After a late lunch at an Oktoberfest bar I went to my last destination, the National Underground Railway Freedom Center.  For non-Americans let me explain that the Underground Railway has nothing to do with trains and was the name given to a number of different routes by which slaves escaping from the South made their way to non-slavery states in the North. Along the way they were often able to get help from abolitionists, sympathizers, free blacks or native Americans despite strict laws that made helping a slave escape punishable by many years in jail. Unfortunately, the Freedom Center was not particularly inspiring in its presentation and I actually found the most interesting exhibit to be one about present-day slavery and human trafficking in all its forms.

Finally, I headed north west to Indianapolis for the night. The map/video is here.

The closest I will ever be to home plate in a professional ball park.

The players’ view from the home team dugout.
Bridges over the Ohio River. Most of the Peoples’ Purple Bridge can be seen.

The similarities between the Roebling Suspension and Brooklyn bridges are easy to see.

A general view of downtown Cincinnati with the Oktoberfest stalls being installed.

One of only two 3D structures in the Underground Railway Freedom Center’s displays was a replica slave pen, where slaves were held for sale, which looks way too nice to be realistic.