This afternoon we went to the Cincinnati Zoo to wander around this year’s HallZOOween! It’s another of our October traditions! Remember 2013, 2012 and 2011?



There were a bunch of people and kiddos at the zoo…


Hump Daaaay!

Someone lost their Reds hat…



The red pandas…





































The zoo is always so much fun. We really love it! Especially during HallZOOween!
Click to see all the photos I took at this year’s HallZOOween.

This afternoon we drove out to Lebanon to visit the Iron’s Fruit Farm. It has become almost a yearly tradition (2013 and 2011) to head out Iron’s to pick out some pumpkins, get some fresh apple cider and maybe wander through their giant corn maze…







Here are the pumpkins we picked out…




We didn’t do the corn maze this year…

But the theme was a Salute to Our Military…


We did get some of their delicious homemade donuts and apple cider…

Just look at those apple pies…


It’s always a fun way to spend a fall afternoon visiting the Iron’s Fruit Farm. 🙂

Tonight, we went over to the second to last Rocktober on Fountain Square…


These nice folks from “I and Love and You” were on the Square handing out some free samples of their cat food and dog treats…




There’s just one Rocktober left before the Square becomes an ice skating rink for the next however many months.

All of the flowers have disappeared from Lytle Park except for this sole survivor…

Taken with Instagram. 🙂

It’s been forever and a day since we’ve walked up into Mt. Adams to do anything. Actually according to our Swarm, the last time we checked-in up in Mt. Adams was for our holiday party last December. It was another dreary, grey, overcast Saturday afternoon. What better time to head back up into Mt. Adams?


We were going to have lunch at The Rookwood…

But it was closed for a private event. There’s no shortage of stairs in Mt. Adams…

And it’s good to see the construction isn’t limited to just downtown…

We’ll have to go back and check out Sprout Market & Eatery…

After watching some football at a couple different spots on St. Gregory Street, we ended our evening at City View Tavern…

With their great views of downtown…


It was a pretty fun Saturday afternoon up in Mt. Adams. 🙂

The sun is actually out this morning in downtown Cincinnati! 😀

Taken with Instagram. 🙂

It seems like we’ve been dodging the raindrops for the past few weeks now. And tonight was no exception. No raindrops when we were out on our walk this evening but the skies looked like they could have opened up at any second…




I thought we were living in Cincinnati not Seattle.

We stopped by Fountain Square to watch most of the Bengals game…

The played the Carolina Panthers to a thrilling 37-37 tie after overtime. It’s not very often
that you see a game end in a tie in the NFL. Leave it to the Bengals.

On this cloudy Saturday afternoon, we walked down to Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove
along the Ohio Riverfront to check out the River Grill before the Big Chill. It was a 2-day
food and music festival celebrating barbecue, local brews, home cooking and hometown
music that ran Friday night and all-day Saturday. Officially sanctioned by the Kansas City
Barbeque Society, Cincinnati Parks’ River Grill before the Big Chill, welcomed 50 pro BBQ
teams and 29 amateur teams for a chance to win over twenty thousand dollars in prizes. It
was the marquee KCBS event of the region for the fall of 2014. And winning contestants
of the “River Grill” could be eligible for state and national competitive placements. Sounds
pretty interesting. We’ve never been to a competitive bbq before. And we’ve been waiting
for weeks to check this thing out…









They had all the food vendors circled around Lucius Cincinnatus…






The lines for BBQ were kinda silly. It was downright impossible to tell where one line for
BBQ ended and where another line began…

But we found a line that wasn’t unbearable. Luckily, it was for Moerlein Lager House…

We got a couple of pulled pork sliders and a beer brat. You can’t beat that Lager House.

We wandered over through Yeatman’s Cove to check out the Pro-Division Grilling Area.
Apparently, Professional BBQ Teams competed in four categories: Chicken, Ribs, Pork
Butt, and Brisket. KCBS Certified Judges evaluated each meat on appearance, texture
and flavor; looking for “absolute excellence in Barbeque.” And somehow, we managed to
miss all the competitive grilling action. But we still got to see their set-ups. They really
weren’t joking around…




Wanna get in the professional BBQ game? You can for just $4000…










A BBQ sauce fountain?

And then back to Sawyer Point for the River Grill before the Big Chill awards presentation…


They were about to reveal the Grand Champion….


The Grand Champion also was going to take home a golden ticket to the KCBS National
Championship in Las Vegas…

And the Grand Champion of the 2014 River Grill before the Big Chill is…

Bubba Grills!




And with that everyone left to raid the Bogey’s Sizzlin’ BBQ Bubba Grill trailer…



But then we found out they were out of ribs. And chicken. Oh, and brisket. Oh well.





What a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon! We can’t wait for next year’s River Grill
before the Big Chill! 🙂

We’ve been wanting to try the burger at Jimmy G’s for a while now. But whenever we’d
wander into Jimmy’s, we’d always end up going with steaks especially while they were
still doing their Steak :30 Wednesdays. Sadly, those days have passed. Tonight, we
finally got to try Jimmy’s Barge Bash Burger: dry-aged grind, smoked bacon-tomato jam,
bleu and house pickle…

And it was delicious. I’m usually not a huge fan of bleu cheese on my burger but this was
the exception. It may not be the best burger I’ve ever had (Estelle’s). I mean, how could
you possibly definitively award that designation? I don’t know. But Jimmy’s burger is
definitely right there in that conversation for the best burger I’ve ever eaten…

Whenever you’re at Jimmy’s, you definitely have to get his creme brulee.

Have. To. It’s just inhumane not to treat yourself. Some amazingly delicious flavors that
Jimmy has going on. Great stuff. 🙂