We started the morning almost as early as we wanted to, but unfortunately it was still a struggle to get all the kids up and moving. The forecast called for rain but it wasn't raining yet, so "A" and I ran downstairs to start loading the bag on the roof of the van. We finished and remained dry, so we went inside and met everyone else downstairs for breakfast. Every hotel we've stayed at so far has had eggs available during breakfast, but today was the first day that there were fried eggs available in addition to scrambled. I'm sure you don't care, but I wanted to share anyway. We finished filling our bellies and went upstairs to finish prepping to leave - a few dishes to clean, sandwiches to make, and a couple bags to pack.
We went out to the van and it still wasn't raining yet, but it was definitely looking ominous. We drove a few miles down the road to Dollar General and grabbed a few umbrellas and ponchos. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, the sky started POURING. A few more miles down the road and parked outside the Cincinnati Zoo. During the height of the covid lockdown, the Cincinnati Zoo was putting out frequent videos and live streams on YouTube, so we made sure to add this stop to our itinerary as a thank-you.
The sky seemed to go from a light drizzle to dry to monsoon-like downpour on a whim. Most of us got umbrellas, but "A" and "C" got ponchos. "C" was MUCH too short for her poncho, so we tried to tie it up in the back and she wound up looking like she had a tail. The best part was, any time you mentioned her tail, she'd stop to shake her tail at you. Due to the rain, there wasn't a ton of activity in the zoo, but I definitely appreciated the lower temperature. We couldn't see any elephants, but we saw giraffes, kangaroos, penguins, tigers, cheetahs, pandas, hippos, and more. The kids had fun, "C" seemed to enjoy splashing in puddles the most. Towards the end, "A" had decided he'd had enough and he tried to make us as miserable as he was so we'd leave. We left shortly after. In the car, we peeled the drenched clothes off of "C" and revealed her very cold, very pruney feet. She didn't quite have trench foot, but it was pretty gross.
For lunch, we stopped at Skyline Chili, a quite popular Cincinnati food. It was about 2pm and the place was packed but they leave a table empty for groups of 5, so our group of 7 was able to get right in. I know a couple days ago I said I don't normally take pictures of my food and here I am doing it again, but I just needed to share this with the world. It's pretty crazy. They put their chili on top of spaghetti noodles and then PILE cheese on top. That's a 3-way, but we went with a 5-way which adds onions and beans. "A" and I split that and he had a coney and I had a chilito, which is a chili cheese burrito. The other kids all got coneys as well, and "K" got a cheesey potato. For dessert, we got a couple orders of Funnel Fries, which are short little funnel-cake babies, essentially. Quite tasty, and insanely fast. Kinda spendy, but it was good!
Finally, we piled into the car and drove to Monroe, Michigan, a little ways south of Detroit. 17 states down, 31 to go!