Two Days in Cincinnati with My Girl Scout Troop: On the Second Day, We Got Some Education and Ate Ourselves Silly

The previous evening, all my Girl Scouts were still going strong when I was beyond ready for bed. I left them to their own activities of working on photo embellishment crafts for their Ambassador Photographer badge, playing card games (Professor Noggin is still a hit even with these big kids!), eating snacks, watching TV, and just generally having a lovely time together, but I asked that before they, too, headed up to bed, they load and start the dishwasher.

I woke up on this morning long before any teenagers, so I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of cold-brew coffee from the refrigerator, and I found that the kitchen? Was PRISTINE! Not only had the kids loaded and started the dishwasher, as requested, so that all the dishes were sparkling clean and ready for breakfast, but they'd also tidied up and organized our kitchen island full of snacks, and spray cleaned the stovetop and all the counters, The space looked as nice as it had when we'd checked in!

I LOVE traveling with teenagers!

The oven was still not working, so the camping-style breakfast sandwiches we'd envisioned, with all the different ingredients baked on sheet pans, then sandwiched inside English muffins, wrapped in foil, and warmed up back in the oven, were a bust, alas. But at least breakfast sandwiches, unlike the previous night's pizzas and cookies, are amenable to being cooked on the stovetop. After my first cup of coffee, I prepped leftover meats and veggies and cheeses that kids might like to mix into omelets or scrambles, then whenever a teenager appeared, I directed her away from my jug of cold-brew coffee and towards her own homemade breakfast prep.

If a kid told me she'd never cooked her own egg before, I just handed her off to another kid who had. Stretch those leadership skills, Girl Scouts!

We had a REALLY full day of sightseeing ahead of us, so as soon as we'd all finished breakfast, we packed up and headed back out into the city. I 100% had a panic attack about the lack of parking in downtown Cincinnati, and at one point, as I drove in circles around the city streets, pretty sure that our entire lives would just be circling these same five blocks until we died, a Girl Scout in the passenger seat literally held my phone up so my co-leader driving the other car could coo reassurances at me via speakerphone, so hallelujah that eventually an extremely kind parking attendant of a completely full parking garage directed us to another garage that had space for us.

It turns out that Pink was playing a concert in the downtown baseball stadium that night, and everyone in the world was planning to be there!

But first, a museum!

The Ohio River was a very important crossing for the Underground Railroad, and there are numerous important Underground Railroad sites in both Ohio and Indiana, so we planned to spend the morning at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to educate ourselves on these topics of local and national history.

The museum was VERY interesting, and I think we all learned a ton, but sensitive content warning: the exhibit on contemporary human trafficking is going to be way too dark for a lot of younger kids. 

There were also art and fashion exhibits--

Look who has now graduated to Troop Helper!

--and the incredible exhibits on the Underground Railroad.

Y'all. This is a literal 1800s slave pen:

One day, out of nowhere, a nearby property owner on the Kentucky side of the river called up the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and claimed that on their property was an old tobacco barn that local legend said had once been used as a slave pen. Would the museum be interested in it?

Through archival research and physical evidence, the museum was able to verify that this building was, indeed, an actual slave pen. They had it carefully removed from the site, then carefully rebuilt, exactly as it had been, inside the museum. 

It's so sad, and so powerful, and such a testament to the importance of knowing your local history. Neighbors transmitted this story of the building's former life from generation to generation, orally, from the early 1800s to today. People passed the story on to the current property owner, who had no historical connection to the property and no way of otherwise knowing its history. And that property owner, instead of discounting the story or just ignoring it, recognized its importance and reached out to the museum. It wasn't too tough to verify, but without that word of mouth, and that property owner's initiative, that slave pen would be rotting anonymously in its field today, because historians don't just roam the back roads, looking for important things that have been forgotten, and they don't just troll the newspaper archives, looking for places that might still be there. It's our job to preserve our own local histories, to pass down stories to the next generations, and to research our own properties and families to see if there's something important to discover.

At least, that's what the docent said to me when I mentioned that I've got kind of a weird old building on my property, too. I was all, "Oh, but it's not important like THIS building!", and she was all, "Well, why don't you get your butt down to your county archives and make sure." So I guess I have a weekend project this autumn!

You can see more about the slave pen here.

I also thought that the exhibit on other local sites important to the movement of enslaved people was interesting. The photo below says that it's a buffalo trace, but I think it looks like a holloway!

Eventually, six hungry Girl Scouts and two hungry adult chaperones left the museum and walked a couple of blocks over to our meeting point for our food tour!

I was VERY excited that the kids picked this activity! I'd never done anything like it, and it was so fun! It was part walking tour, in which we'd follow our guide while she told us about the history of Cincinnati and its local food scenes, and part tasting experience, as we dipped into several restaurants and shops and markets and ate a sampling of their offerings. 

bangers and mash at Nicholson's Pub

Tyler Davidson fountain: it's an actual water fountain, too, and has a spigot you can drink from!

This is the hotel where Pink was, and there's the car waiting to take her to the stadium.

The tour ended with Belgian waffles at Findlay Market. Funny that a year ago, I'd never been to a downtown market like this, and now I've been to two different ones in Ohio and two different ones in London!

We practiced our food photography during the tour. Those Ambassador Photographer badges aren't going to earn themselves!

The kids enjoyed browsing around the market, and a few bought delicious souvenirs. My troop helper "forgot her credit card," and yet still ended up with some fudge somehow, ahem. College students are supposed to be spoiled when they're back home with you!

Not gonna lie: I was too full after that food tour, and the overwarm, overcrowded streetcar back downtown did NOT help, blurg. Time to all get some fresh air and some beautiful photos of the river by walking the Roebling Suspension Bridge!

As a bonus, at the time there was actually a Roebling Suspension Bridge photo contest underway, which I encouraged all my Girl Scouts to enter... and one of them WON!!!

And then somehow the kids were all hungry AGAIN, so we walked to Graeter's and bought them all ice cream before finally heading back to our cars that were safely and miraculously parked in the middle of the downtown chaos.

I was so tired that I blasted my Favorites playlist the whole way home and sang along loudly to every single song to keep myself revved up, and the kids in my car were so tired that not one of them uttered so much as a peep in protest. You're welcome for the two-hour concert, Girl Scouts!

Postscript: I wrote a three-star review of our Airbnb, mentioning the oven problem and the host's lack of communication. The next day, the host hit me with a Resolution Center Reimbursement Request for over a hundred dollars, claiming that we'd stolen a USB port and broken the dishwasher door. When Airbnb asked me if I wanted to file a rebuttal, I wrote them a 29-page Google Doc that used photographic evidence both from our stay and the Airbnb's listing to prove that the host was lying, and documented a pattern I'd uncovered in which whenever a guest posted a negative review of their stay, this host would write a public response that said they were going to file a Resolution Center Reimbursement Request against them. 

Airbnb decided the issue in my favor. 

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, handmade homeschool high school studies, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Two Days in Cincinnati with My Girl Scout Troop: On the First Day, We Met Kangaroos and Delved into DIY Oven Repair

In Girl Scouts, there's a standard travel progression that troops are encouraged to follow. As in, your troop should be comfortable taking field trips together before they take a day trip. They should master day trips before trying an overnight. Overnight trip mastery leads to regional travel, and regional travel mastery leads to national/international travel and longer trips, etc.

When I teach this travel progression to Girl Scout volunteers, however, I always emphasize that stepping up to, say, international travel doesn't mean that you don't go on field trips or overnight trips, anymore. Instead, you still take smaller trips, but you use those smaller trips as chances for the Girl Scouts to develop more sophisticated travel skills.

Case in point: the last time my Girl Scout troop took an overnight trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, that was their first overnight trip. They voted on the main event, an overnight in the Newport Aquarium, but my co-leaders and I planned the rest of the activities. The kids focused on building travel skills like carrying their own bags, unpacking and packing their sleeping bags, bedtime independence, staying with the group, getting along with each other for an extended period of time, picking what they wanted to eat, etc. 

This time around, we've taken I can't even tell you how many field trips and day trips together, several overnight trips, several two-night trips, a couple of regional and national trips, and an international trip. And this time around, the kids planned EVERYTHING. They wrote a packing list. They planned our meals. They decided on our activities. They voted on our accommodations. They decided what badge they wanted to earn (Ambassador Photographer!) and planned the activities to earn it. 

Essentially, they made themselves (and their two adult chaperones) an AMAZING overnight experience in Cincinnati!

First up: the Cincinnati Zoo! My kids and I have been to this zoo several times, but this was our first time since the free-range kangaroo habitat was created. Check out the roos!

As part of earning the Ambassador Photographer badge, all of us--kids and adults--concentrated on taking lovely animal and nature photos at the zoo.

The Masai Giraffe are really cool because their spots do NOT look like interlocking puzzle pieces:

Love this snoozy lion!

Does anyone else remember Meerkat Manor? One episode of Meerkat Manor used to be part of my bedtime ritual with the kids back when they were just a toddler and a preschooler, but they both swear that they still remember it, and we all still love meerkats!

I'm a meerkat!

The African painted dog is one of my two favorite animals at the Cincinnati Zoo, tied with the Florida manatee:

Remember Fiona, the baby hippo? Cincinnati Zoo is her home, and now she also has a baby brother named Fritz!

I have been to SOOO many zoos in my lifetime, and I can count on one hand the number of times that I have seen a red panda 1) awake and 2) in motion. I think this is the third time ever, and the second time was also here!

Hanging out with the Galapagos tortoises is my favorite thing to do here. You can pet their shells!

Every now and then, I lent out my camera so that the Girl Scouts could have a go at using a DSLR--most of them were using their smartphones for photos, which is fine, but it's important to see how a professional-quality camera handles, too. So for a change, I have a few photos of ME on this trip!

I got so distracted taking a photo of one of my Girl Scouts petting a tortoise that I didn't notice that I was being stalked...

We just about closed that zoo down, then drove just a couple of miles north to our Airbnb near the Over the Rhine neighborhood. 

I am normally a BIG fan of a good Airbnb when I travel with my Girl Scout troop. Instead of divvying up into five separate hotel rooms, with kids isolated and poorly supervised, and no good group space for activities or meals, a good Airbnb lets us all hang out together, do activities together, and cook meals together. 

Unfortunately, this was not a good Airbnb. It was run by a company with several properties, and I will avoid that kind of setup in the future. I checked in with the host a couple of days before our visit to specifically ask about the oven, because my anxiety likes me to double-check shit like that, and with the host's reassurance that the oven had just been repaired and worked great, I let the kids plan a multitude of cooking projects for our evening and morning there. I made several pounds of pizza dough and cookie dough so the kids could make personal pizzas and have a cookie challenge, and we packed eggs and sausage and frozen hashbrowns so they could make breakfast sandwiches the next morning.

The first kid was literally putting her pizza in the oven when she stopped and said, "Um, I don't think it's preheated yet?"

Thus began my multi-hour saga of attempting to contact the host to help me with the oven, and the host's multi-hour saga of successfully dodging any attempt to be of actual service. It seemed like the gas line wasn't actually turned on to the oven part, just the stovetop, but the host kept texting me to turn the knob in a different direction, or turn it more forcefully, or pull the oven away from the wall and check behind it(?!?), and completely ignored my requests that someone actually, you know, just come over and turn the knob themselves or look behind the oven if it was supposedly so simple. Ugh! 

Fortunately, we're Girl Scouts, so my co-leader figured out a hack that let the kids more or less bake their pizzas on the stovetop, but they didn't turn out great, and the kids (and I!) were all pretty sad. The cookies worked okay in the microwave, and the next day, every kid who didn't already know how to cook eggs on the stove learned that useful life skill!

Fortunately, these hungry Girl Scouts had a BIG food adventure planned on our second day in Cincinnati. Stay tuned!

You Should Take Pumpkinhead Photos

This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World in 2022!

It's unwieldy, unbalanced, and will definitely put a crick in your neck, but it's so worth it! 

This photo shoot with Jack-o-lanterns on our heads is one of the funnest Halloween activities I've done yet in my life. And I used to get paid actual cash money to work in a haunted house and scare the snot out of people! 

And happily enough, this pumpkinhead photo shoot is also one of the most eco-friendly Halloween activities! You don't need any single-serve candy with assorted wrappers. There are no costume components to source. No plastic, no face paint. All that's required is a fresh pumpkin from a local farm, your favorite comfy fall clothes, and a lovely natural space, ideally with deciduous trees in the process of transitioning.  Here are all the components for the perfect pumpkinhead photo shoot:

• fresh, whole carving pumpkin. You have to go pretty big with these, so I found a place that was selling them per pumpkin, not per pound. I can eyeball it better now, but the first time I took my teenager with me and held pumpkins up to her head to make sure I wasn't buying one that was too small. The trick is to find a pumpkin tall enough that it can touch your shoulders. Too short, and not only will it slide around, but the top of your head will be taking the entire weight of the pumpkin, which is HEAVY!
• pumpkin carving tools. Yes, I use those cheap-looking mostly-plastic carving kits that all the big-box stores sell, but, um. Those pumpkin carving kits are the bomb! Not only are they easy to use and give super accurate results, but my family has been using the same cheap tools for probably over a decade by now. If you gave me one of these nice stainless steel and wood pumpkin carving sets, though, I wouldn't be sad...
• autumn apparel. Jeans, boots, and flannel shirts look suitably autumnal.
• head protection (optional). The Jack-o-lanterns really are quite heavy! To provide a little padding and avoid getting pumpkin guts on your hair, you can opt to wear a washable fuzzy beanie or a shower cap.
• wagon (optional). We walked down a local trail for a bit to find the perfect autumn scene for our photo shoot. A folding wagon made sure we didn't have to lug Jack-o-lanterns in our arms while we hiked!

Step 1: Carve your Jack-o-lantern!

Carve the opening in the pumpkin at the bottom, not the top. Make it just big enough for your head to fit.  

Scoop out all the guts, and reserve the pumpkin seeds to roast. 

Any simple face works well in a pumpkinhead photo shoot. I think that smiling faces are funnier and neutral faces are slightly creepy. I've found through trial and error that anything detailed that you might try to carve will just get lost amid all the other details in these photos. In this case, simpler is easiest AND best!

Step 2. Take a lot of photos!

Take the photos the same day that you carve the pumpkin. The only thing worse than standing around with a fresh pumpkin on your head is, well, standing around with a not-so-fresh pumpkin on your head! 

For the best results, your background should be fairly simple and autumnal, and have some depth. Fields always look good, and forests can look good if you can get a little distance from your pumpkin-headed subjects. Placing your pumpkinheads close to the camera in front of a flat vertical surface like a wall is likely going to make your photos, in turn, look flat and too posed.  

Pumpkinhead photos are awesome for people who are awkward in front of a camera lens, because they don't have to pose in any particularly cute way. They don't even have to smile! You can literally just stand there, arms hanging limply at your side, half-blinking with a weird expression on your face, and as long as you've got a Jack-o-lantern on your head, you'll look awesome.  

Certain posed photos can look especially funny, though. I searched Pinterest for family, couple, children's, and graduation photo shoots, and made a list of several to try. My partner and kid thought of more to include, as well, as we got into the groove. 

We did end up having to ditch all of our ideas that involved various dance poses or anything requiring good balance. Those heavy, wobbly Jack-o-lanterns play fast and loose with one's center of gravity!

Step 3: Edit photos to make them even spookier.

 

Your photos will look awesome as-is, but you can edit them to make them even more awesome. 

Adding grain or using a sepia filter makes the photos spookier, as does vignetting them. Play with the saturation and temperature to make the leaves and pumpkins pop. 

If you can use Photoshop, you have even more options to make your photos spooky and fun! My partner darkened the eyes and mouths of the Jack-o-lanterns, removed joggers from the background of some photos, and, as in the photo above, popped the head right off my teenager. That photo is my favorite! 

And when you're finished with your photoshoot, I actually think that having the opening at the bottom makes the pumpkin even better as a Jack-o-lantern on our porch. It's a win-win!