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Foreign Grocery Friday: Ohio's Peanut Buttery Buckeyes

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!

Buying off-brand Peanut Butter Cups is risky. Oftentimes they just aren't as yummy as Reese's and, even worse, they could come in a holiday tin with a Currier & Ives scene printed on the top. Yuck. That's why it's high time to share a secret indulgence of our own which can only be gotten in parts of Ohio.

The peanut butter and chocolate treats are Buckeyes, shaped like the actual nuts they're named for, but tasting so much better. Their existence is a school- and state-spirit thing, and you'll find them in Columbus to honor OSU, and Toledo, because that's nearest where they're made (in Perrysburg, Ohio). Both cities are usually passed through on road trips, but we advocate taking an hour to detour and find Buckeyes.

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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 / The Avengers / Geek Travel / Cleveland Travel / Movie Travel / → All Tags

'The Avengers' Will Come Together in Cleveland

Usually we think of superhero movies as taking place in big cities, vast deserts, or some other exotic locale, but that won't be the case with The Avengers.

Yesterday, Ohio's governor John Kasich announced that The Avengers will be filmed in Cleveland next month, at least in part. The movie was originally set to be shot in New Mexico, New York, (where they still spend some time shooting) and Michigan, but after losing Michigan's tax incentives they were on the hunt for a replacement location, and Cleveland was more than happy to step up to the plate.

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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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Full-Body Scanning / Airport Security / TSA / Technology / TOL / Airports / Naked Travel / Nude Travel / Terrorism / Ohio Travel / → All Tags

Why Does Toledo Express Airport Need a Full-Body Scanner?

Yesterday, it was announced that the latest airport to receive a Full-Body Scanner was Toledo Express Airport, in Toledo, Ohio. Our first thought: "umm, why?" Toledo Express isn't exactly known for being a high-traffic airport with a variety of passengers passing through; in fact, it's barely known at all, seeing as how it serves a whopping average of five flights a day to such exotic locales as Chicago and Minneapolis, and—if they're lucky—Detroit, only 45 minutes north by car.

Now we're not blindly hating on TOL; we've got family in the area and we've flown into and out of this airport more times than we care to admit. It's just that Toledo Express Airport has no reason to have a full-body scanner, other than the vague cry of "terrorism." All the potential knife-wielding gang members flying out already hustle up to Detroit to catch flights anyway. Toledo can't even call itself "Toledo International" because it only offers regional flights. But wait, now let's talk about the current security at TOL and why it's enough...

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Airport Security / Don King / CLE / TSA / Celeb Travel / Stupid Ideas / → All Tags

The TSA Caught Don King with Ammunition in Luggage at Cleveland Airport

Chalk one up for the TSA today as they've gone and actually caught something dangerous in someone's luggage. That something was ammunition and that someone was promoter Don King, who was attempting to fly out of Cleveland's Hopkins Airport several hours ago, while packing heat for both .38 caliber and .357-caliber firearms, while the actual guns were not present.

Although it sounds like King stopped by Cleveland for a little "shopping," he was actually in town for the funeral of his wife, who recently died due to complications from stomach cancer. It's been a sad week for Don King, and even more so now that the TSA took all his ammunition. He was, however, allowed to continue with his flight to Florida once they'd taken all of the dangerous items from his luggage. Go here to see a short video report on the incident, from the AP.

[Photo: BBC/Getty]

Sports Travel / Ohio Travel / Halloween Travel / Football Travel / → All Tags

This Saturday, The Football Hall of Fame Does Its Best to Celebrate the Season

If for some reason you feel compelled to combine football and Halloween then there’s only one place to go this weekend. Head to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio to trick-or-treat among the bronze busts of football’s finest.

This Saturday is HALLoween Family Fun Day—clever, right?—so if you’re stuck with the kiddos you can easily disguise a little begging for candy along with you love for the pigskin. There will be 20 different places to do you trick-or-treat thing—they’re even promising Hershey branded candies so skip breakfast. Make sure to help out the little ones as best you can, because if they do well in the scavenger hunt you can help yourself to their $50 prize to the hall of fame’s gift shop.

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Worlds-Scariest-Roller-Coasters / Roller Coasters / Theme Parks / Amusement Parks / Halloween Travel / Scary Travel / → All Tags

World's Scariest Roller Coasters: CedarPoint's Mantis, during HalloWeekends

Halloween has hit theme parks across the country, but there are only a few weeks left before all the thrills and chills go into hibernation for the winter. With zombies and werewolves lurking behind every corner, some coasters have become even scarier. We took a look around, and here’s what we found:

CedarPoint’s Mantis is a pretty intense roller coaster on a warm sunny day, but things get even more extreme as the weather turns cooler. The coaster is the park’s only stand up coaster, so even when you climb aboard you won’t have a chance to sit and relax before heading about 150-feet into the air. Don’t worry, it’ll only be a few seconds before you dive into a 119-foot loop. Be sure to hold off on the candy corns before riding this one, as we have before, and aside from your stomach dropping, your head gets banged around a tad bit too.

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My First Flight / Vintage Travel / Retro Travel / Airplanes / Island Travel / → All Tags

My First Flight: 'It Was the 1960s, and a One-Way Ticket Was $7'

One of the Port Clinton-South Bass planes, loading passengers off the ice of the frozen lake

Everybody has a story about their first time. The anticipation, the nerves, the worry...but then the pure wonder when you finally take off. Of course we're talking about your first flight—the first time you boarded an airplane and discovered the skyways. We're telling those stories in a new series simply called "My First Flight." Want to share your first flight story? We've love to have it! Send it along to us here.

This story comes from a reader and close friend of Jaunted. Enjoy!

I never would have known it at the time, but my first flight—onboard an Island Airways' Ford Tri-Motor plane between Port Clinton, Ohio and the Lake Erie Islands—is a part of aviation history. It was once (or maybe still is) known as the "World's Shortest Airline," since flights typically lasted no longer than 30 minutes. And one day, in the late 1960s when I was in my late teens/early twenties, I decided that the "Tin Goose" was something I wanted to experience.

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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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