Me and the Big Boys

We are on our way home now, with several fun stops planned along the way. From St. Louis, we headed to Cincinnati, Ohio, so that we could go to the Newport Aquarium and experience the walk-through shark tank, penguin parade and jellyfish exhibit. Cincinnati is a little out of the way for our journey home, but not by much. It's a 6-hour drive from St. Louis, and about one hour south of Dayton, Ohio.

The Franz family in Newport, Kentucky, with a Cincinnati skyline backdrop.

The Newport Aquarium is actually in Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Newport, Kentucky is considered part of the Cincinnati region. I opted to stay at a Quality Inn on the Ohio side, about 3 miles from the aquarium, because it was about $40 cheaper than staying on the Kentucky side within walking distance of the aquarium, and the other hotels I found online were further away. I like to be close to my destination, especially since we wanted to catch the Penguin Parade at 9:15, and the aquarium website warned me that the line for tickets might be long.

In retrospect, I would recommend arriving earlier in the day and staying in pedestrian-friendly Newport, because the "riverwalk" area near the aquarium has a lot of activity: outdoor music, concerts, restaurants and shopping. The Cincinnati side was run down and there was nothing close enough to our hotel to walk to. We drove around a while looking for a place to eat dinner, but it was late and the kids were tired, so we settled on the place recommended by our hotel check in girl, a Big Boy. The kids enjoyed their meals of spaghetti, fish sticks, vegetables from the salad bar and french fries, but Paul and I are not big on that genre of food. However, my goal was to quickly feed my kids a healthy meal and get them to bed, and that I accomplished, so it was a good choice for the moment.