It's fall again in Kentucky. For the past few years this favorite season of mine has been kicked off by my love's birthday. This year we went to Newport, KY to see Cirque Du Soleil's performance, Saltimbanco. As always, it was incredibly colorful, lively, and musical. There was really only one performance that I wasn't too fond of involving a woman with a clackety jump rope. The premise was interesting; creating a percussion performance with tricks using a jump rope, but after 30 seconds it got boring.
After the show K and I went back to our hotel room to regroup and then went walking in search of food. K has a number of allergies, all of which make eating out difficult at times. This particular evening we never actually found anything for her to eat, but what we did find was still exciting: a booming night life in a beautiful and historic area of Newport. There were people everywhere, loud music, bar after bar after restaurant after music venue after bar. It was the kind of scene that you might expect to see in our home town of Lexington which, unfortunately, has a very sad and lacking night life. The biggest drawback to the night was the smoke, something K is fairly allergic to, although she didn't let the smoke get in the way of enjoying the evening.
The next day we checked out of our hotel room and decided to do a little geocaching before heading south back to Lexington. After inputting the coord's into our GPSr we set off in search of the cache. After walking 3 or 4 blocks from the hotel, K and I came upon a huge outdoor antique festival. Vendor after vendor had lined up on either side of a grassy median between two down town streets to sell their wares. Being the last of a series of monthly summer events, everyone was openly willing to haggle over tons of treasures. K and I walked away after several hours of shopping with an old woodworking plane, two brass candelabras, a pair of ladies gloves, and a few old comic books. We ate at a wonderful, albeit smoky restaurant called Chez Nora, and then set off to finish what we had originally started. The geocache was hidden at the edge of a park that overlooks downtown Cincinnati; K picked up a set of colored pencils and I left a travelbug that I had picked up in Sandusky, Ohio.
Not being ready to head back home yet, I pressured K to go sightseeing around Newport Aquarium. Built adjacent to the aquarium is a large, half indoor, half outdoor shopping area known as Newport on the Levee. The area wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near as fun as walking around throughout Newport's more historic district. There was one spot that stood out near the aquarium and that was the Purple People Bridge. What was once a railroad bridge, originally built in 1872, it was eventually retrofitted to allow for auto and pedestrian traffic. The bridge was closed to all traffic in 2001, and then in 2003 reopened expressly for pedestrian traffic after $4 million in renovations. Although a bit faded when we went to visit, the bridge got its name from the color the city decided to paint it, which was chosen based on studies involving focus groups (source). The Purple People Bridge spans the Ohio River, connecting Newport to Cincinnati. Walking across was nice in a big city, lots of concrete and steel with a few trees and some water kind of way.
Of all the things we did, the best part of our stay in Newport was the wonderful time K and I got to spend together. The town is friendly, beautiful, lively and wonderfully accessible; qualities that are always conducive to an enjoyable weekend with the one you love.
