Cincinnati Reds - June 14, 2012

Our trip to the Cincinnati Reds was a part on an epic week-long road trip that started with Cincinnati and would take us to St. Louis (for Cody and Lindsay's wedding) and to Chicago. We would end up driving 1,166 miles.


Cincinnati has a beautiful park.  It feels like a cathedral to baseball.  The river view is amazing and the park feels like a slice of America itself.  The concourse is lined with statues of Reds' greats.

Aliyah celebrated her birthday at the stadium.  We had her name put on the scoreboard.  Unlike other stadiums, where the birthday names are huge, Cincinnati has the tiniest font on the smallest screen.  It was a little disappointing.

The game was packed, the fans were enthusiastic and it was a gorgeous, sunny day!  Aliyah got a new hat to go with her beautiful birthday smile.

The best thing about Cincinnati was that we started a new food tradition.  We get the ballpark guide and check out the regional or local favorites.  Any ball park can sell hot dogs, brats, nachos or popcorn.  But how many places can offer FRIED KOOL-AID?!?  Aliyah and I saw this in the ball park guide and we were determined to try some.


We took the escalator down to the food court area, which looked just like a state fairground.  We found the fried Kool Aid stand.  It turns out that fried kool aid is a cake donut batter mixed with cherry Kool Aid and deep fried.  Then the outside is dredged in a sugar and unsweetened Kool Aid powder mix.  The Kool Aid powder is sour and red.  The sugar makes it sweet.   From then on, we always checked the stadium guide and sought out the oddest, most regional, most unique ball park food in every place we visited.