For our weekend entertainment, we took a few days off  and traveled to Cincinnati to visit our friends Ed and Kim, and their young son who I hadn’t seen yet.  Whew, good times, but I”m beat down.  We took off driving that direction Wednesday night after work, and made it as far as St. Louis, where we stayed with Donette’s sister and brother-in-law.  I wasn’t sure I was even going to make it that far, I could hardly keep my eyes open driving.  We finally got there though, and visited for about 5 minutes before I fell asleep.

Thursday we got up and hit the road again.  It was a generally horrible drive the rest of the way to their house, not that there is such a thing as a good drive.  We hit some brutal construction along the way, and spent a fair amount of time at a standstill on I-70.    We trudged through it though, and got there right about dinner time.  We toured their new  house, then took a walk around the corner and ate some grub  at a nice local diner.

Friday Ed had to work, so Kim was  left home  to entertain us.  We slept in a bit, then loaded up the car and headed down for a little  exercise at a nearby state park.  We parked at the Avoca trailhead, which is part of the Little Miami Trail.  It’s rather similar to the Katy Trail in that it is an old converted railway, but it is much longer and asphalt-paved.  Luckily I’d hauled my bicycle with me, and I got in a quick 25-mile ride along the flat smooth path.  Donette and Kim did some jogging with the baby meanwhile, and somehow or another we finished up at the same time.  After that we went out for lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant, then back to the house.  After a bit, Ed showed up from work, with a big bag of assorted sausages from their Whole Foods Market.  He grilled those up for dinner, then some friends of theirs came over and we all sat in the back yard and enjoyed the weather.

Saturday Ed and I got up early-ish and headed out to his parent’s house for the big Pigfest party.  We pitched in a little and helped set up all the various events, such as the wiffle-ball fields, the cornhole tournament, etc.  I spent no small amount of time standing around admiring the new pig roaster they had for this year’s event too.  For many years they’ve done the pig over an open pit, which while certainly functional isn’t necessarily too efficient and involves quite a bit of work.  The rig they borrowed this year was an enclosed cooker, with several well-thought-out features that made the job a little easier.  The crowd started trickling in around noon, and by 3:00 the party was in full force.  I couldn’t even guess how big the crowd got, but to give you some idea they had a 200 lb. pig and there wasn’t much left over.  After dinner MER put on a good show for us all, and then the evening degraded into the traditional revelry.  I posted a few carefully screened photos here.

Sunday brought the inevitable drive home.  We had a little better luck with the construction, and honestly it wasn’t that bad.  We broke things up a bit by stopping by her sister’s again, and also in Columbia to see her niece at MU.  We got back home around 10:00 or so, and promptly crashed out.  Today we both had the day off, so we could get reoriented a little bit before heading back to work.  Donette’s parents were nice enough to take care of the 50-lb. wiggle-bomb while we were gone, so we drove up and got her, and now I think I shall take a nap…