Cincinnati in gingerbread!

Another grey dismal day, but at least the rain had stopped! We went to downtown Cincinnati to the Museum Center to see the IMAX movie Rocky Mountain Express, which highlights the adventure of building North America's first transcontinental railway, through weaving together IMAX aerial cinematography and western vistas, archival photographs and maps. The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in the Rockies in 1885 ranks among the greatest engineering feats in history. We had also planned on seeing the model train exhibit, however, whilst I was able to get tickets for the movie online, the tickets for the trains you could only get there, and I have never seen the building more crowded, so we abandoned that idea, which was a shame. The model train display used to be housed for the season in the Duke Energy building downtown, but this year moved to the museum center, a very appropriate setting, since the museum center is in the former railway station building. After the movie we went to a crepe place for lunch, then went for a short wander downtown, primarily to see the Christmas displays in some of the downtown hotels. This Cincinnati in gingerbread exhibit is in the Netherland Hilton Hotel, which opened in 1931 and is a National Historic Landmark and charter member of Historic Hotels of America, and is a fine example of French Art Deco. The gingerbread display features a number of Cincinnati landmarks - among them Great American Ballpark, The P&G Towers, the Carew Tower, Paul Brown Stadium, the Freedom Center, the Scripps building, and, new this year Great American tower, Cincinnati's new tallest building.

In the evening we went for a stroll around the display at Niederman Family Farm. Then late at night, Roger and Jen went down to the airport to meet Philip, flying in from New Mexico, so the family is now complete for a few days.

One year ago: Newport on the Levee