In Cincinnati, I visited the American Sign Museum. This museum displays signs from various time periods...business signs. You walk through & see descriptions on the colors, the lights, the lettering, etc. This museum take about 60-75 minutes.
After this, I drove over to the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, which is the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge. I understood the similarities as I walked on the bridge & noticed that the suspension cables were very similar to the suspension cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.
I also visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. When I was there, they not only covered the period up to & including the Civil War & Restoration, but they also touched on slavery in different forms going on in today's times, & how they are trying to fight it on those multiple fronts. Below are two pictures of how a few people were able to escape.
And the following two pictures show how they disguised messages back then.
I think I played pretty well in Cincinnati, though I didn't win any money. Below is a 3rd round game versus a local master where I had to fight to save a draw.
2 points (+1, =2, -1) out of 4 rounds.
On the way down to Cincinnati, I discovered that 11 different Grant County communities erected a Garfield statue. Garfield is the legendary fat cat comic character created by Jim Davis, & his home county growing up was Grant County. So, after visiting the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum (60-75 minutes), I drove around Grant County taking pictures of each Garfield Statue.
After a day long side trip to Chicago (Who knew "Keep me in the loop" is a reference to downtown Chicago?), I went to the Benjamin Harrison House. There were plenty of interesting facts I learned on this 60-75 minute tour, including but not limited to:
First president to electrify the White House
Digs into his own money to provide fire protection for the neighborhood, & is given a lamp at the stair base
Loved Cherry pie, said it was sweeter than beating a Democrat
Brought 6 states into the Union, most by any President
Last president to have a beard
At the US Open, the hotel rooms provided for the USCF players & staff was terrible - I thought these rooms were worse than college dormitories. Stuff was broken, requests for items didn't get fixed, hallway continuously smelled of smoke, rooms were in terrible shape upon arrival, desk was sticky - I would recommend not staying at the Indianapolis Conference Center Hotel ever again.
Below is my fourth round game to put me at 3 points after 4 rounds, ensuring that I played up rating-wise until my score drew back to even prior to the final Round 9.
Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than to be good. 5 points (+4, =2, -3) out of 9 rounds.
Chief TD Brian Yang ran a pretty good tournament. I didn't witness any problems during the tournament, & there were no missing results in the first 8 rounds.
I also visited CrossFit NapTown. Coach Rachel did a fantastic job in demonstrating the movements & working with each person individually to ensure that everyone was doing the movements correctly.
I thought that I would not have a chance to play Ultimate Frisbee during this vacation as I missed a chance to play on the first Sunday due to the Hunt for the Garfield Statues. Luckily, my opponent on the second Sunday lost early (dropped a piece on move 15), so I got to play Pickup with the Tuesday & Thursday Indy Frisbee Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/downtownindyfrisbee/
They also play Sundays at 4pm - 6pm or later.
This was a good group of athletes, & I highly recommend playing if you can. Parking is free on Sundays.
I also did a hunt for the Ndy Statues (Warning: They can be moved without notice, so keep this in mind.) This hunt was inspired by a woman from CrossFit NapTown doing a handstand for the I!! While I cannot do that, I did find all three of them listed on the website, even though one of the locations was outdated.
And that concludes this post. #fiftystatesofchess
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