Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Road trip: Who-dey’s and eh’s.

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Guest article by Steve Garner, Canadian

Five guys from Canada, one tightly-packed rental Dodge Caravan (affectionately named “The Silver Bullet” ), and a 3,000 mile roundtrip – all this and much more just to see the Cincinnati Bengals’ season home opener? Perhaps we need to explain ourselves, eh?…

You see, back home all we get is ESPN’s version of what a Monday Night Football experience is all about. Believe us, we eat it up all season long, but for five guys from Saskatchewan, actually being in an NFL stadium was an itch that needed to be scratched. Why your Bengals, you ask? It all starts with our buddy Stuart.

Believe it or not, Stu has been a die-hard Bengals fan for as long as he can remember. He’s been there for you through the thick and thin. When the opportunity arose to snag tickets to the first Monday Night home-opener in Bengals’ history, Stu couldn’t pass it up and began the task of rounding up a rowdy pack of Canadian travel companions. Five members strong, the trip was born and the Silver Bullet was eating asphalt for 23 hours through six states and one Canadian province. What we were about to experience was one of the most pivotal weekends five guys could share together: a solid weekend of sports, the realization that no hotel room is big enough for five guys, and a true love and respect for our new home away from home… Cincinnati, Ohio. What did we think, you ask? Here’s our perspective on the weekend and your lovely city.

After the long drive, we arrived in Cincinnati and celebrated by purchasing (and tasting) an 18-pack of Miller Lite for $13 – a feat accomplished in Canada, but at over twice the cost. Forget the border-crossing… this was our real welcome to the United States! The first thing we noticed about Cincinnati was that the weather was so much nicer than it had been back home for weeks. After checking into our hotel, we landed at the Cadillac Ranch for some eats and beverages. We have to tell you, this place is one of the best bar/pubs any of us had been to in a long time and we made sure it was one place we’d visit again over the trip. After checking out some of the major sights in town, and after taking in some (okay, a lot) of the Cincinnati night life, we earned ourselves a pretty heavy night’s sleep and woke up early Saturday. We had a big day ahead of us… we were all going to our first MLB game.

Given that none of us had been to a ball game, all we wanted was to see just one homerun. Instead, we saw six, including record-tying lead-off back-to-back-to-back jacks! Unbelievable… then came the Bengals game.

We have never seen such camaraderie. Seriously, Friday through Monday we walked around downtown and someone always had a “Who-dey!” for us. The entire downtown seemed like it was going to burst at the seams. We’ve just never been in the mix with 67,000 people at a football game before. Everything about that day we’ll remember for many years, including the 400 lb guy sitting beside Evan and Steve who almost broke Steve’s arm while dishing out high-five’s.

We’re not going to re-enact the game for you, but we bring it up because we have a point and it is two-fold: the Bengals are fun to watch and hard not to cheer for, but more importantly, the whole experience defined Cincinnati for us. For each of us, this trip was our first venture to your home and we felt just that: right at home. In fact, we enjoyed Cincinnati so much we thought we’d write just to tell you about it. Here is why we like Cincinnati (besides the Bengals):

First, the people of Cincinnati are amazing. We had a ton of fun meeting new people and everywhere we went, we were treated like gold. From the restaurants to the pubs to the piano bar we visited, everyone was interested in us as visitors and took the time to chat. Particularly, our best experience came at the Cadillac Ranch. By some fluke chance, we had the opportunity to meet Nick Lachey and Justin Jeffre, both heroes to Cincinnati in their own respects. It floored us when these guys not only sat down with us, but took a few hours to just hang out and treat five tourists like they were always welcome. You have good people, Cincinnati… real good people.

Second, your miles and miles of beautiful riverbank is just like back home in Saskatoon. You have to believe us when we say it’s what really makes Cincinnati a beautiful city. Actually, in Saskatoon, a project is underway to revitalize the riverbank to ensure it remains a staple Saskatoon’s attractiveness. In our opinion, Cincinnati needs to ensure the same for its riverbank. Even the smallest projects are worth investigating.

The last thing to mention is your city at night. It is likely we have more photographs of the sights at night than we do images from the football game, which speaks volumes given we set out to take hundreds of game photos. 

Being from a different country, areas for improvement also tend catch the outside eye.  Of note, getting around the city wasn’t the best experience. With the beauty of the river comes a logistical issue: transportation

At the end of the day, it was just exciting to be in the mix in Cincinnati with all the fanfare Monday Night Football brings along. Looking back, we can all see that an interesting change in focus occurred once our trip was over. Remember, the whole intent behind our trip was football, but we came away with so much more than that. We noticed that every time one of us told a story or was asked about some aspect of the trip, the football game was the last thing we spoke about. We noticed that what we were really sharing were our positive experiences of Cincinnati and the desire to someday go back.

So, for those who are interested… for those who care and take pride in your city… this article is for you. It’s our Saskatchewan review. After coming home from our trip, we can’t stop talking about Cincinnati. And we just wanted to tell you. Cincinnati ROCKS! WHO-DEY, EH… who-dey.

Team Saskatchewan
(left to right: Keegan McKay, Steve Garner, Evan Olson, Fred Reibin, Stuart Keshane)
Photo courtesy of here.

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JFD says:
10 Oct 2007  at  12:24 pm | #

Glad you guys came and had a good time.  Hopefully when you come back we’ll have our street car line in place and getting around downtown will be easier.

Jones says:
10 Oct 2007  at  08:55 pm | #

I’m so glad you Gents had a swell time in Cincinnati.  You’re always welcome for a return visit! 

I have to agree our public transport isn’t of superior quality. It is very difficult to navigate the system when compared to say, Toronto, London, Paris, New York.

Thanks for the kind comments!  Who Dey??!!

Kevin LeMaster says:
11 Oct 2007  at  11:48 am | #

I’m glad you had a good time, and I enjoyed reading a non-resident’s perspective.

says:
11 Oct 2007  at  01:47 pm | #

So, you found Cincinnati a great place to visit, eh?...but I doubt you’d want to live here, following link details how we treat senior citizens.

http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/index.php/the_other_side_ron_brown_lawn_mower_lover_and_vacuum_collector/

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