Day Off in Cincinnati

Up and at 'em around 9 this morning. No damn newspaper outside my door - again. I've never had so few papers on a tour. Not sure what's up with that.

Putzed around the room for a bit, then headed out to go to the Post Office. Gotta mail my absentee ballot for the upcoming election.

Ran into our merch guy, Richard Carter, en route. He joined me for the journey. After the P.O., we walked around a bit. I don't know downtown Cinci too well, so I needed to scope out a bar and a restaurant for later today. Found a couple of interesting places, then headed back toward the hotel, stopping at Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte and a USA Today. I've been real good lately about avoiding Starbucks. I think this is maybe my third one in about 5 months. So I have no guilt.

Tell ya what, downtown Cincinnati looks like shit. This town is just u-g-l-y.

Spend the afternoon in my room, chillin'. Met up with John at 4:30 and we headed over to the Cadillac Ranch, a bar/restaurant about 4 blocks away with a killer outdoor bar. We grabbed a high-top table along the sidewalk rail, perfect for people-watching. Five or six other roadies joined us over the next couple of hours. We had a pretty good little crowd going.

Somebody spotted something up at the corner of the block. Looked like an accident involving a bus. Half-buzzed and curious, I walked to the corner to check it out. Not smart. We're talking dead body under the bus. And you would think between a firetruck, an ambulance, and 6 police cars, that they could have blocked the view a little better. A 14 year-old kid (who HAD the right of way, I was told) was flattened in the crosswalk by the bus. The bus had supposedly been cut off by a car, causing the driver to divert somehow, striking and killing the kid. Not a good way to die.

And man oh man, did seeing that bum me out…