Karen’s Opinion

That is the sound of the vendor’s cash registers here at the Quilt Festival in Cincinnati. I have been doing my part to help the economy. It has been a fun weekend of shopping and eating at new restaurants. I have been walking a lot so I have been getting a bit of exercise too!

Tonight we walked around the Fountain Square area of downtown Cincinnati. The panhandlers were annoying. We got hit up three times!

We enjoyed seeing the art exhibits displayed around the fountain. They were made from recycled products like plastic shopping bags, pop cans and other items. This tree was made from 2 liter plastic pop bottles.

There were nice restaurants to choose from and we ate at the Rock Bottom Brewery. The food was amazing.

Have you ever heard of Duckpin Bowling? I never had until a friend was telling me that she and her family played. There is only one place in Indiana where you can play and that is at Fountain Square.

As described at Fountain Square’s website:

the game was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1900 and it was one of Babe Ruth’s favorite games! Ten-pin bowling used to strictly be a winter sport and most alleys closed during the summer except for a few that remained open to play odd bowling games using the smaller balls. Summer bowlers suggested that it might be interesting to trim the standard pins down to match the size of the small ball. Because it was much harder to get strikes and spares, the rules were changed to allow three bowls on each turn but only counted as a score of ten if all ten pins were knocked down with the third ball. Duckpins became so popular that during the 1920′s duckpin bowling spread along the east coast, from New England to Georgia. Today duckpin houses are still found only in the eastern states with the exception of our two locations here in Fountain Square, the only authentic Duckpin Bowling in the Midwest!

We might have to try this after the Butler ballgame this afternoon.