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Sports Travel / Marathons / Running / Active Travel / Ohio Travel / Cincinnati Travel / Events / → All Tags

Run with the Pigs at Next Month's Marathon in Cincinnati

If you missed the Boston Marathon earlier this week—don’t worry—there’s still plenty of marathons where you can risk injury to gain access to a gold medal. The Boston Marathon doesn’t really have a theme or anything clever going for it, so that’s why we’re glad we skipped it to focus on the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon.

The main even takes places on Sunday, May 1 where runners from across the nation and the globe will make their way through the city and to the Finish Swine—their words not ours—as quickly as possible. We’re not experts when it comes to road races, but this has got to be one of the few marathons that actually takes runners across a state line—here they even run into Kentucky.

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Full-Body Scanning / Airport Security / TSA / Airports / Airport News / Travel Rants / CVG / Cincinnati Travel / → All Tags

Firsthand Body Scan: A Best-Case Scenario

Backscatter scanners at Pittsburgh Airport

The issue of whether or not to going along with full-body scanning at airport remains a hot one. Earlier this week, one of Jaunted's special operatives found himself facing a scanner at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport. He chose the pat-down and this is his story:

I made it to the shitty Terminal 2 [at CVG] with plenty of time before my flight. There was no line at security, but I did notice the TSA people were using the type of body scanner that looks like two monoliths on either side [ed. note: this is the Backscatter ray scanner]. It also seemed as if they had standard security open with the metal detector, but when i was about to put my belt and things down for their scan, a TSA lady was like "body scanner!" and i said, "I would like to opt out, please." And she said, "okay, hold on."

Even if I was in hurry, I still wasn't interested in getting drilled with not entirely tested radiation. So I waited there and after two minutes, they said that their only male groping artist was busy just then. Okay, so they didn't use those exact words to describe him, but he was busy—patting down an elderly man on a scooter.

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Cincinnati Travel / Animals / Ohio Travel / Zoos / Nature Travel / Green Travel / → All Tags

How to See the Cincinnati Zoo's New Baby Giraffe

You might not think of Cincinnati as a hotbed of animal and botanical conservation, but it turns out that the city has one of the best zoo and conservation programs in America. Though the park is relatively small, it's the second-oldest zoo in the country and its Reptile House is the single oldest zoo building in the United States. That plus a bunch of other stuff was enough to earn it a National Historic Landmark designation, and today the grounds are a mix of old buildings and heavily renovated modern displays.

There are over 500 species spread across the park, and the zoo's breeding program focuses heavily on larger mammals like cheetahs, tigers, rhinos, and gorillas. The big news this week, though, is that their giraffe Tessa gave birth to the park's first baby giraffe in 26 years.

We obviously recommend flying in for the weekend to see the still unnamed little girl—viewing details are here—but in the meantime there are photos aplenty plus the video of the birth we've embedded at the bottom (the video starts off kind of messy so this is your official content warning).

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Movie Set Travel / Ohio Travel / George Clooney / Ides of March / Movie Travel / Cincinnati Travel / → All Tags

George Clooney Returns to His Cincinnati Roots for 'Ides Of March'

George Clooney may have spent New Year's on a beach in Cabo, but he'll soon be turning in the sunshine of Mexico for the Midwestern snow and cold.

Clooney is set to begin shooting Ides of March in his hometown of Cincinnati and northern Kentucky next month. George is a graduate of Augusta, Kentucky High School, which is about an hour outside of Cincinnati. His dad Nick, who still lives in the area, also worked at several Cincinnati television stations throughout the 1960s and 70s and has written columns for the local newspaper too.

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Food Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Ohio Travel / Cincinnati Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: Gotta Get Some Goetta in Cincinnati

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Mmm...breakfast meats. We know that Cincinnati, Ohio may exactly be the most exotic of locales for finding this week's featured "foreign" grocery, but it's such a special and region-specific item that it's totally worthy of the limelight.

What we're talking about is Goetta, patties made of ground meat (typically pork) and pinhead oats, a peasant foodstuff devised during the earliest days of Cincinnati. According to good old Wikipedia, "the dish originated with German settlers from the northwestern regions of Oldenburg, Hannover, and Westphalia who emigrated to the Cincinnati area in the 19th century." It's origins are older than Skyline chili and it's far harder to find, but when in southern Ohio, you gotta get some Goetta.

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John Weikle / LCCs / Low Cost Carriers / Project New Horizons / CVG / New Airlines / JetAmerica / → All Tags

John Weikle, JetAmerica Still Scouting a Hub

Officials at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International--one of America's most expensive airports--have confirmed that Skybus founder John Weikle toured CVG's Terminal 1 and is considering rebuilding his ultra-LCC JetAmerica in Southwest Ohio. The Cincinnati Enquirer had the news this morning, along with a money quote from an airport spokesman:

It was a feeling-out process to see how interested we were in him and how interested he would be with us. We think that what he's looking for is venture capital--and that wouldn't come from us at the airport, but rather from the community at large.

We all remember how well that worked out last time! Maybe they could get a little seed money from California?

Related Stories:
· New Airline for CVG? [Enquirer]
· JetAmerica coverage [Jaunted]

RIC / CVG / Airport WiFi / Airport-WiFi-Map / Airport WiFi Guide / Free WiFi / → All Tags

Airport WiFi: Rejoice, Delta Flyers

Contribute your airport wireless report by leaving it in comments, uploading your airport photo to Jaunted Flickr Photo Pool, or via email, and we will add it to our U.S. Airport Wireless map.

You may not think of Cincinnati as a major airport city, but the Delta hub just south of town means more than a few passengers have layovers at CVG. Luckily, the airport just announced it'd be offering free wireless to flyers through a partnership with a couple local companies.

True, it's ad-supported, but we're not complaining. To get online, you'll need to be in Terminal 2 or 3 or in Concourse C. (No luck for you suckers in Concourses A and B.)

Elsewhere, Jaunted user dmlaenker let us know that Richmond International has free WiFi; just sniff out the network named "RIC." As always, we've added these to our Airport WiFi Map.

Related Stories:
· CVG Passengers Enjoy Free WiFi [Official Site]
· Best US Airports for WiFi [Jaunted]
· Airport WiFi coverage [Jaunted]

Lists / Travel Media / → All Tags

Best of Cincinnati 2007

Just out is Cincinnati CityBeat's Best of Cincinnati 2007, a combination readers and editors poll. The poll covers just about everything (think of any other weekly rag's list), but the issue itself is dedicated to the music of Cincinnati and contains extended features on the local scene.

This year's "Best Heart Attack on a Plate" comes courtesy of Dink's Gourmet Hotdogs. It's the Frito Pie and deep fried Twinkies that bring the Downtown diner that honor. Tycoon Harry's is the "Best Hair Salon for Dudes," Rockquest provides the "Best Indoor Rock Climbing," and the "Best Tribute Band" is a local Led Zeppelin cover act called Winds of Thor. Awesome.

[Photo: Joe Dunckley]

Related Stories:
· Best of Cincinnati 2007 [Official Site]
· Cincinnati City Beat [Official Site]

Vanessa Minnillo / Nick Lachey / Cincinnati Boat Cruises / Ohio River / → All Tags

Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo's Miller Light River Cruise

As we told you earlier, Nick Lachey finally decided to stop spending all his tourist dollars in Cabo San Lucas and took a trip to Cincinnati Ohio.

But what exactly does one do to show off Ohio?  Well, the Cincinnati Tourism Board must be thrilled that the attention loving Lachey, with girlfriend Vanessa Minnillo and Drew Lachey, appear to have rented, chartered, bought, borrowed, or stolen a yacht and cruised up and down the Ohio River Miller Light's in hand, wrapped in bright yellow cozies, of course.  All that is missing is Nick mouthing the words, "Come to The Queen City."

Boaters can reserve a slip at the Cincinnati Riverfront Marina if they are interested in taking a boat to a Reds or Bengals game.  Most of the time a cruise up the river will also get you a glimpse of the tall stacks, but spotting a Lachey can be a bit tougher, though all you have to do is follow the every present flash bulbs.

[Photo: Gossip Rocks]

Related stories:
Cincy Marina [Official Site]
BB Riverboats [Official Site]

Celeb Travel / Ohio / Vanessa Minnillo / Nick Lachey / Boats / → All Tags

Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo in Ohio

It must be getting serious between Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo--as serious as it can get with two intellectuals of their caliber--as they flew back to Nick's hometown in Ohio last week so Vanessa could spend time with Nick's family and friends.  

While hopping around Cincinnati with Nick's brothers, Vanessa gushed that she, "felt very much at home," there. Maybe she's always been a Bengals gan? She was also spotted guzzling a cold can of Miller Lite (tucked away in a can-cozy no less) aboard a baot with Nick and friends. Those Lachey's are a classy bunch.

Nick and his lady are now back in NYC camped out at Chez Minnillo for the time being...

Related Stories:
·   Vanessa Minnillo, Nick Lachey "In Love" Labor Day With Folks [TT Post Chronicle]