June 23, 2014 - North Bend, Ohio

I think it has been since 2009, and two previous trips to this area that I have tried to see the Penquin Encounter at the Newport Aquarium in Newport, Kentucky. The first trip, we came out in August 2009, to visit our youngest daughter Kell while she was living in Ohio. Kell had stopped at the Newport Aquarium on her way from Louisiana to Cleveland, Ohio area. She so much enjoyed it, and felt I would too. So when we came out to visit her in '09, we also met up with one of my best friends, whom I hadn't seen in person since 11th grade when she moved to Texas with her family. George's Mom, George and myself toured Ohio and Indiana, and we were on the down swing and were camped outside of Cincinnati. As soon as I purchased the tickets for the Penguin Encounter, we received a phone call from an ill relative and rushed home cutting the trip short. The next time we traveled to Kentucky to a Good Sam RV Rally with our travel buddies, Laurie and Bob. After the rally, they went home and we went to a campground in northern Kentucky near the Newport Aquarium. Once again, I bought tickets for the Penguin Encounter. One needs to buy them in advance of the day going as they sell out fast. So between the time I bought them and the day the tickets were good for, we received another call from home, that another family member was ill. So off we went back home. So here we are again, in the area, staying at yet another campground and different from the last previous times. Last night, I tried buying tickets in advance for the Penguin Encounter as well as general admission tickets, however the website wasn't working, and would just keep sending me to the same page over and over again. Then I tried later and it only wanted me to buy a season pass or renew a season pass. So I aborted the mission. So this morning, I was finally able to get on and buy the tickets. Save a penny Benny, chose to print the tickets herself, as we do have a printer which my computer sees over the wireless connection. Ten times I tried to print those tickets, and ten times I failed. I was starting to think that I was going to have to go buy a flash-drive, and download the PDF on to it, and take it to Staples to have the tickets printed. I was lamenting by this time, that I hadn't paid the extra $2.00 per ticket to get them at Will Call. While trouble shooting my Mac and the printer, I suddenly remembered that when we hooked up the printer, we needed a WiFi connection, that we always would have, so we chose my phone's Hot Spot. So I looked at my connection, and it was on the WiFi for the campground. I then put my Hot Spot on and Whaa Laa! It began printing, only problem was, that I had ten jobs in the printer, so I began to madly delete them all but one! After that was finished, we headed out to the National Museum of the Air Force at an AFB in Dayton, OH. It is a huge place with 3 huge hangers full of planes. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil

This place is incredible and its Free. It was an hour away from our campground as, I had a choice of picking one close to the Penguins or close to the AFB, so I chose the Penguins. When we go sightseeing, we normally press the map on our SUV GPS and it records that location, so we can find our way back. However, today, we forgot to do that. And of course, both car chargers were in the motorhome. I had the address of the campground on my phone but with limited battery life left, and the GPS eats battery life like a piranha. I tried programming the GPS built into the SUV but the road wasn't in its data base. So, I set mine to the location and hoped it would hold out. George was tired so I drove back. Of course my phone quit half way back, so I then used George's phone. I had the map program on the SUV GPS on, it just didn't have any guidence marked on it. So when George's phone said to turn right on State Line Road, that is when I noticed, that the idiot SUV GPS had the road on the map, so why wasn't it showing up in the data base? Well, its because the road is in Indiana and the campground is in Ohio. We had BBQ chicken, leftover augratin potatoes, mushrooms and cucumber salad. The campground owners had recommended a local ice cream place just down the road. As we drove down to get some it began to pour rain, so we went back to the campsite without getting any.