We had an early wakeup, did a few errands including getting gas, passing by the library to pickup books for the little guy and some last minute house checks before we headed out.  After the usual arguments and inevitable delays that come naturally with kids who live in a parallel universe where timing has no logic and random discussions have no ultimate meaning.  We drove towards Windsor, Ontario with a plan to have lunch at a Lebanese grill house.  The drive felt longer than it should, especially given that we are used to longer road trips, but I feel like I’m slowly getting ill with a slightly sore throat and tired muscles.  But nothing will hold me back, especially when it comes to travelling.  So after what seemed like ages we reached the restaurant we had in mind, it said open, the sign said open, the timings on the door showed it was open – but it wasn’t.  Doors locked, dark lights, and no one inside – we found a similar place nearby that was a hodge podge of Middle Eastern cuisines and had our kebabs and rice.  It was satisfying and for a hungry person it was really good.  Off we went to the Ambassador Bridge border check and waited what seemed like another lifetime (about 30-45min), we were “lucky” to go through the slowest customs officer and I instinctively knew this person asks a lot of questions. 

Sure enough, my visits to Saudi and China were questioned, so was my “random” reason for going to Atlanta instead of Disneyland?  I mean I go where I want to go buddy, plus we went to Orlando 6 months ago!  Anyway, we finally made it out and passed Detroit and Michigan to our first stop in Toledo, Ohio.  We had a quick rest and off to the Toledo Museum of Art we went.  I was planning to see the Imagination Station Children Museum, but timing was not on our side. So the Art Museum was massive and had a great collection, especially liked the ancient Mesopotamian art.  Had some beautiful Van Goghs, Renoir, and Monet.  It was a nice cultural injection to our otherwise child centric trips, especially lately.  They were good about it and stayed on their best manners, as much as they could anyway.  There was the odd “move away from the art installation – you are too close”, a little more the odd time.  After a good one to two hours we headed to the glass pavilion which was equally impressive, albeit much smaller.  We were lucky enough to see a glass blowing demonstration but didn’t stay through all of it – got most of the just of it though. 

On our way back, we had severely underestimated the Saturday night life in Toledo and had to wait a good 30-40 minute to dine at the Real Seafood Company.  The food was amazing; I had the crispy Brussel sprouts.  With the calamari, blue cheese Cole slaw, and my stuffed salmon – I was in food heaven but the portions were massive so I was uncomfortably full.  We capped our day back at the hotel and because of the ridiculously full tummy we foregoed the pool tonight (even though it closes at 11p.m. and decided to wake up early tomorrow to do that instead after breakfast,  This might be more of a challenge given the spring time change where we loose an hour.  We’ll see how this goes, off to Kentucky we go tomorrow for some horses!

(Holiday Inn Express, Toledo – Oregon, Day 1 at 10:00p.m.)

Never underestimate how much more annoying kids can be than they already are – God bless them but it took a good two hours to finally get them to sleep last night.  As they get bigger, they don’t sleep better, they just take up more room in the bed so I had a good 2 inch width worth of the bed and my 4 year old had the rest of the queen sized bed.  Two inches might be an exaggeration, more like 1 inch it was ridicules.  After everyone waking up cranky for not sleeping enough – we had our “just ok” inclusive hotel breakfast and headed out during a snow blizzard of all things.  Cleaned the car, got the gas, and made our way to Kentucky for our stop in Lexington.  We stopped once at an Arby’s – can’t get enough of those roast beef sandwiches, but it was weird because of staff shortage the doors were closed, even though we were within opening hours so we can only do drive thru orders.  After a long wait I second-guessed drove back to the speaker and asked them if the order was still a go, they just didn’t have enough staff apparently.  We made two more stops, one because my toddler opened the passenger door of all things in the highway, and my older one needing a bathroom break (we pit stopped in a Tim Horton’s of all places).

We finally made our way to the Kentucky Horse Farm, perfect timing but it was really cold.  A classy place to visit with plenty to do and beautiful scenery.  We then made our way to the hotel and finally made good on our long overdue promise to the kids for a swim.  Despite being there with a rambunctious kid who kept asking for our names and being overtly social, we had a good time and really tired ourselves out.

For our evening dinner we made our way to the Summit- Fritz Farm , after everyone had their nice warm showers.  Beautiful high-end shops, which were nowhere near our price range, luckily they were all about to close for the day.  We had some choices for food so we opted for Grimaldi’s Pizzeria.  The Pizza was amazing and between the 3 and a half of us we shared 3 12” pizzas and a Bruschetta appetizer.  Capping off with some Italian desserts (Tiramisu, Cannoli, coconut cream cake and an Oreo Cheesecake.  Having our traditional major fights we made our way “silently” to the hotel – made up and now chilling to rest up for a long day tomorrow.  A bit of a drive tomorrow but the plan is to stop in Chattanooga to see the Rainbow Gardens, let’s see if things go according to plan.

(Glo Hotel, Lexington, Day 2 at 7:50p.m.)

I knew this leg of the trip would be the longest, but it seemed endless for some reason, not sure what it was but we got road trip fatigue early on this trip and what would otherwise have been an easy ride because tedious – and fast!  After a seamless checkout and a pretty standard hotel breakfast we got our gas and water bottles and headed out.  I had marked Knoxville as a lunch stop but we could have easily avoided the extra 1.5 hours and kept going to Chattanooga as the second put stop – however given we got claustrophobic fairly quickly we made our Knoxville stop.  I was glad we did too, their main street was really ice and fully of character, we made our way to the Japanese restaurant called Nama Sushi Bar.  The Sushi was good, but what was really impressive was the fusion options including a wasabi hummus of all things and an Asian style fish taco (which is what I ordered). 

We moved on to Chattanooga to visit the Rock City Garden which looked nice – from the outside – and the weather was certainly perfect for it.  I didn’t realize though how popular this place was and it was packed with a long wait time.  So as I compromise we opted for me to do little stops down the Lookout Mountain road and take pictures from there – of course not as impressive but I wasn’t going to make an already long day into an absurdly longer one. We continued on to Atlanta, our final destination, despite not stopping by a Starbucks for a quick coffee (the closest one was in downtown Chattanooga which was also full of character but parking was hard to find). 

We finally reached our hotel apartment, which was more like an Air BnB – and despite some early issues with the parking, the apartment itself was updated, clean and modern.  Had everything we needed and more.  Location wise it was great but the building itself was a little run down and a tad sketchy looking.  But couldn’t complain about anything other than visual aesthetics, everything was working fine.  The security guard was fun and a great character herself (yes I know I’m using the word quiet a bit here) – she even told us she was dreaming of retiring in Ontario after she saw my driver’s license (she’s originally from New York). I still wouldn’t begin to understand why on Earth she would pick that of all places, especially the cooler winters!  I guess you don’t appreciate what you have till it’s gone and we should be grateful where we set up home base.  Anyway we had a nice dinner at the nearby Hard Rock Café and called it an early night for a, hopefully, productive day tomorrow.  I will just finish my laundry load and then will call it quits for another eventful day tomorrow.  I did want to see the Illuminarium, but apparently they don’t have any shows tomorrow – and today was just too much to stuff it in the schedule, so will have to plan something else instead.

(Landmark Condominiums, Atlanta, Day 3 at 9:30p.m.)

After a bit of a rough night sleep, I was too lazy to pull out the sofa bed and just slept on the sofa while the other three were fighting it out in bed and dragging things out to midnight, we got our acts together and headed out for the day.  The little one was already grumpy, and the older one started sniffling with what would be a full on cold by the end of the day.    

We walked through a brisk cold day (it’s been really cold here, more so than even back home which is crazy – I almost brought shorts thinking I was going somewhere significantly warmer!  Started our day at the Waffle House, a bit of a wait but eventually we got there and had our fill.  It’s been slow n a few places part of a problem with staffing and needing more people to fill out vacancies, not just in Atlanta but in other towns we passed by.  We kept going through the Olympics Park which was a very photogenic piece of public space and then into the world of Coca Cola we went.  The 3D movie and the range of things to see was impressive, we easily spent an hour and a half (I thought it would be 45min max!).  The tasting was very memorable but we went overboard and I got a bit nauseous from trying all the different flavours all at once.  I was very self aware that I was paying to see the history of a capitalist multinational conglomerate, but as an unabashed cola drinker (both Coke and Pepsi) it had to be done!  IT was well worth it too – even for the kids who don’t drink it at all.

After a quick vote we didn’t go the Aquarium or CNN but rather walked back to the hotel and took the car to the Ponce City Market.  It had a “WeWork” feel with hipsters, loft designs, and niche stores and food dives.  We had our Chinese food fix with great scallops, bit over ordered with the shrimp.  After a quick walk around and a quick look at the City’s Beltline (A pedestrianized old railway corridor for the geeky urban planners out there) we headed back to the hotel to relax and replenish.  Took a nice quick nap and was ready for the last part of the day.

We drove up to the Buckhead Village district, which was the City’s answer to Rodeo drive.  Lots of very upscale shopping luxury brands like Jimmy Choo, Hermes, and Dior and a few high end dining spots.  On the way there we passed by some beautiful houses along Monroe Street backing on to the Botanical gardens, the cherry blossoms made for great views through the drive.  We had dinner at the Gypsy Kitchen restaurant with Spanish style tapas full of fusion flavours like crispy Brussel sprouts, saffron sumac carrots, patatas brava, octopus, and falafels.  We rounded it off with a nice Turkish spice cake and Basque cheesecakes (the latter was ok, nothing special).  We finished off with a quick walk in a still brisk cold day (now night) and are now relaxing before we call it a day.  Tomorrow we head towards the north to our home but not before passing by a few other memorable Cities in the US’s southeast and mid west as we enter the second half of our week long trip.  Atlanta was impressive, clean, organized, felt safe and had a very confident but chill vibes.  Not so many tourist traps, but with more time would have loved to see more of the architecture, and with better weather some day would love to visit the natural features of this area.  Although the landscape and the weather, is very similar to up north and did not have the sub tropical feel that I thought it would.  Beautiful city, with very friendly people all over.

(Landmark Condominiums, Atlanta, Day 4 at 8:50p.m.)

Everything was smoothly organized and sorted when we were getting to leave Atlanta.  What a great City it has been and we capped it off with our last breakfast at the Flying Biscuit in Midtown. Everything was great and the décor was quirky and fun, the biscuit with cranberry and the creamy grits were a special highlight.  Despite going through a one way street – next to a cop car no less the rest of the drive went smoothly – The beautiful purple, pink and white cherry blossoms were a site for sore eyes and the views were really impressive.  Since we reached Nashville well before the check in time we went and visited the Gaylord Opry Resort.  We did this just after a quick stop at Walmart to get our guy some new goggles after the ones we brought broke.  The Resort was incredible a hype maze of wings, one more impressive than the other.  Beautiful lush greenery, white washed hotel buildings, waterfalls, retail and café stops all in an enclosed glass ceiling!  What a site it was and we easily spend a couple of hours there, even managed to have the kids play some arcades for a little bit.

We had what should have been alight lunch of mushroom soup, roasted cauliflower, and spicy shrimp (the kids had grilled cheese) ended up being onerous with heavy sauces and massive portions.  We were waited on by Egyptian staff who were well happy to be chatting in Arabic with some tourists, we even got an invite to visit our waiter’s home!  At some point too we were surprised that Nashville was in a different time zone and that meant we had an extra hour to kill before check in.

We made our way to the hotel and had a quick mishap (we went to the Hyatt hotel instead of the Hyatt Place Hotel (across the road).  The wifey broke one of her favourite water bottles and the valet guys were really cool, they even pushed the luggage cart across the road to the other hotel.  We had a quick break and headed to the pool.  The little ne started swimming without my help (with floaters though) so she wanted to stay in the pool forever but a couple of hours and she was beat and ready for the last part of the day.

After a quick shower we walked down 2^nd street to Broadway to enjoy main street Nashville.  It was so alive! Full off lights, kitschy signs, and literally every place to eat had a live band  including the one we ended up going to (Jimmy Buffet’s Margertaville).  The food was good, and my Cajun shrimp with cheesy grits was delicious.  Walked around al little more to soak up the sites and sounds of Nashville downtown (the good and the bad) – the bar taxis were especially entertaining to watch. Between the horse drawn carriages, the homeless, the overdose of cowboy boots and hats, and the blaring music – including a catchy metal rendition of Ice Ice Baby, gave us a nice assault on the senses.  My son and I loved the vibes, my wife was more paranoid and scared than anything and our little girl was oblivious to it all singing to herself.

Great town, glad we made a pit stop here and ready for Cincinnati tomorrow, literally no expectations of that City whatsoever, so should be interesting.

(Hyatt Place Downtown Nashville, Nashville, Day 5 at 10:00p.m.)

It was another short and quick goodbye to another memorable pit stop on this trip, but would have loved to stay a little longer to savour some of its character a little more deeper.  We headed out for the drive with a couple of bathroom stops – for some reason my kids in this trip have been more difficult than usual.  We have done longer stretches of road trips with less stops while they were younger but for some reason on this trip things have backtracked a little – not sure why that is but we have to make do with what we have.

The weather the past few days have gone from a cold snap, that as a Canadian I have found slightly unbearable – especially in Atlanta, to a rather mild wave.  We have gone without Jackets and the further north we go the warmer it seems to get!  I’m sure this won’t last past tomorrow but it was a nice respite on this trip which was meant to be a break from our storm after storm waves that I had to shovel through the past few weeks back home.

We headed straight to the Cincinnati Museum Centre and it was really impressive.  The architecture alone of the 1930’s former rail station was impressive and truly heaven for me.  I loved the retro décor and design throughout.  The natural history museum was equally impressive and because the place was near empty and spacious, it made for a real pleasant visit.  It helped that on the way on – for some reason, a random lady walking out gave my wife her adult and child ticket saving me half the price,  I guess she changed her mind after she bought them or had an emergency to tend to – a nice random surprise.  The Cincinnati History exhibit was really well done with a nice massive miniature of the City, yes I note the irony in that statement.  We had a quick half hour to visit the Children Museum section which was full of different child size scenarios from a supermarket, to a kitchen, to a school – and the massive teeth in the dentist portion was a nice touch.

We opted for Italian at Brio where I had an amazing Sicilian Spaghetti dish with shrimps and at this point, we were exhausted so happy to check in.  The hotel was great and after we did our nightly family swim we headed back to relax; the swim ended with both kids having muscle cramps.  I guess the nightly swims have finally caught up to them.

I like Cincinnati despite the fact that I barely drove passed it, but we did cruise through the waterfront and some fo the downtown.  Although our hotel is technically, in Newport, Kentucky just across the bridge, the Cityscape for downtown Cincinnati was impressive and I really liked what I saw.  I hope I make it back here someday to really enjoy the City properly.

Tomorrow is the last leg of the trip and hopefully we will make the most of it – so far it has been an amazing experience; despite the constant arguments, but that’s how we role.

(Hampton Inn Newport, Cincinnati/Newport, Day 6 at 9:30p.m.)

Overall a very smooth day and surprisingly things went according to plan.  The drive went quicker than we thought and the kids were better able to keep themselves busy.  We didn’t even have to do a long pit stop (just a quick bathroom break/gas refill).  We headed straight to our pre planned lunch spot – Iraqi lunch at Arbeel Kebob given the Arab American community in Dearborn that we heard so much about.  The food was excellent and tasted like a nice hearty home cooked meal.  Service a bit slow but that seemed a bit of a pattern in this trip given the wider short staffed  problem apparently the retail industry is facing.

We then headed to the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation.  Despite coming 2 hours before it closes, we did a 45 minute movie so we went through the exhibits fairly quickly.  A couple of rude staff people with chips on their shoulders, the first ones so far this trip so no complaints, but I was close to giving some attitude back. Not having it when I’m paying a good coin for the entry tickets. Other staff were good though.  Back to the exhibits, they were really impressive and went beyond cars – they were an ode to creative thinking and an era of new challenges and solutions.  They even had an exhibit of nostalgic items over the decades, which was really cool, train and aviation history were incredible.  Even household items, furniture and technologies over the years was equally impressive. 

Despite going through them I savoured a few exhibits and it was amazing to see the Model T and the previous model cars – it went beyond to even talk about auto branding, logos, and advertising which added depth to the whole lifestyle.  We left thoroughly satisfied and I was really impressed overall – I would definitely consider another stop if we head to Chicago or somewhere else in the future.  The movie was great too, going into “Superdogs” talking about rescue dogs all over the world from anti poachers in Kenya, avalanche rescue in Canada, swim rescue in Italy, search and rescue and therapy dogs in the US.  All in 3D and with a nice emotional touch – even my little one was into it the whole way through.

We did our check in – and the hotel did not disappoint.  It was a nice polished hotel with amazing paintings throughout, I could not stop looking all around.  We took a quick break and drive a good 2 minutes to the nearby Fairlane Town Centre Mall.  We got a couple of reduced price toys from Macey’s had quick bites in the food court (Pretzels and I had a grilled chicken sandwich) and then after getting slightly lost made our way back.  It was a very interesting mall, dominated by ramps and a good selection of stores.  A little dated but couldn’t fault it for anything else and the size was substantial.

We capped our day with a good hour and a half swim at the hotel pool, which was in and of itself a highlight of the hotel.  Ready for a solo self-guided tour of Detroit art deco architecture tomorrow, hopefully it goes well.

(The Henry Autograph Hotel, Dearborn, Day 7 at 10:30p.m.)