Cincinnati/Newport, Part 1

We've been gone! For just over a week, even. Thanks to auto-post, I only missed one day of posting, although I may have bored some of you with all the cat photos, but that's all I had left at the time I was scheduling the posts. ;)

I mentioned awhile back that Jess and Alex were moving to Cincinnati in July. Actually, they bought a house in Newport, Kentucky, which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Grandpa and I drove down there to visit and help them with painting and fix-up jobs in their new (old - 1899) house. We had fun and got a lot accomplished besides. Of course I took lots of pictures. Now, where to begin......

Okay... this looks like a good place... here's Jess greeting you from her front porch:

Speaking of front porches, we noticed that people sit out on their porches a lot. Or at least they did while we were there, because we lucked out and hit a stretch of unusually cool, less humid, and beautiful weather! We visited with a couple of the neighbors and found them to be very helpful in getting to know the ins and outs of the neighborhood and even getting information about the houses themselves.

This is the view from the front of J&A's house. They have quite a variety of plants and flowers.

Below is the view from their back door. All the houses in the neighborhood are narrow and tall... and very close together, like often just 3-4 feet apart. J&A's house has 3 stories, plus a basement.

They have lots of plants in their back yard, too, most of which I couldn't identify. At least they have no mowing to do!

We did notice that people like to grow corn in their yards, which we found quite interesting.

It remains to be seen whether Jess 'n Alex will harvest any corn or not from those plants. The neighbor next door, however, did have ears on his cornstalk.

There was this pretty red-flowered plant almost hidden beneath the corn plants. There were moss roses, too, and even some rosemary and sage growing back there. Jess added her own basil and mint.

Then there were bugs. HUGE bugs. Wasp-looking bugs, that kept flying around all over the back yard during the daytime. They looked quite intimidating. I forgot to get my own photo of them, so here's one I borrowed from Wikipedia:

A neighbor informed us that they are cicada killer wasps. They are harmless to humans, but they kill cicadas for their young to feed on after they hatch. Read more about these big ol' bugs on Wikipedia here. We were happy to learn we didn't need to be afraid of them!

We had a great time! Cincinnati/Newport is beautiful, with trees and plants everywhere. Sure beats all the concrete of Chicago, in my book! I'll show you more pics this week. We just got home Friday night after driving all day long (about 14½ hours including stops). I'm still catching up around here... mainly on sleep!