Today is Jamie Farr’s 89th birthday! Inspired by the character he played on M*A*S*H, everyone’s favorite “company cluck,” from Toledo, OH, here’s a look back at the highlights of the “Klinger Tour of Toledo,” a trip we planned in Jamie Farr’s and Klinger’s honor, that we took last month.
We stopped by Jamie Farr Park, located not too far from Michigan and Galena, which is where Klinger said he is from. The quote on the plaque is absolutely lovely, and of course it made me cry!
Our trip to Toledo would not have been complete without a meal at Tony Packo’s, and it was just as delicious as Klinger promised it would be. The M*A*S*H memorabilia everywhere was so much fun to look at, and we loved taking a picture with Klinger and Hawkeye. What was really special, though, was seeing how much Toledo loves Jamie Farr!
The other must-do for our trip to Toledo was a Mudhens game, which was one of the most perfect ball games I’ve ever attended, ending with a walk-off home run followed by a fireworks show. We saw Klinger on the retired numbers wall of the ballpark (I personally think they missed an opportunity to retire number eight in his honor, since he spent so much of M*A*S*H trying to secure a Section 8 for himself!), and also saw Jamie Farr’s name at “Farr Out Funnels.” We had hoped to try a funnel cake there, but unsurprisingly, the line was really long, and we never had the chance.
This was a Big Deal for the boys and me (we’ve been talking about going to Toledo and eating at Tony Packo’s and seeing a Mudhens game since before the pandemic, I think), and I’m so glad we finally got to have this experience together!
As we left Toledo, we all had one thought…”And you made it out alive?” In all seriousness, it was a fantastic trip, and I can see why Klinger (and Jamie Farr) loves it so much!
And now we reach the end of our summer 2023 road trip. There’s not much to say about the drive from Bowling Green back home, but we did stop at Lic’s Deli and Ice Cream, an Evansville staple since 1950, for the first time, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be back!
I really enjoyed our trip (and our other travels this summer), but it’s always nice to be back home!
Before we left Toledo, we stopped for coffee and donuts at Tim Hortons. I had hoped to go there when we were originally supposed to fly through Detroit on our way home from Disneyland, and I was not going to be denied again!
I wanted to see Lake Erie, so we drove to Luna Pier in Michigan before we headed south. The lake itself was nice, but they were having a mayfly situation, something I hope I never see again!
It was a tedious drive…we sat in construction for what seemed like an eternity. We did get to stop and eat at Skyline Chili, which helped break up the monotony some. I’m still not sure how I feel about chili served on spaghetti (and with that amount of cheese on top!), but the chili itself was good.
The rest of our drive back to Bowling Green was fairly uneventful, other than some random rain showers along the way…at least we didn’t run into any storms!
Our trip was inspired by Jamie Farr’s/Maxwell Q. Klinger’s love of Toledo, but you can’t take a trip in his honor without also recognizing his mentor, Danny Thomas, so we stopped by Danny Thomas Park in the morning. As Jamie Farr said when his park was dedicated (keep reading to see that) “The great Danny Thomas has a park named after him on the south side of Toledo and I have a park named after me on the north side of Toledo. This is the only city in the United States guarded by two noses!”
After visiting the park, we drove a bit outside Toledo to The Historic Canal Experience, which gave us the opportunity to ride a canal boat down a section of the Miami & Erie Canal, go through a lock, and tour an old mill. It was a really cool experience…stay tuned for full details!
One of the main destinations of our Klinger road trip was dinner at Tony Packo’s. I absolutely loved the place…it felt like a neighborhood pub, but Hungarian, which makes sense since it’s in Toledo’s Hungarian neighborhood (see St. Stephen of Hungary Parish just down the street!). I felt like I had come home!
We also stopped at Jamie Farr Park, which is not too far from the intersection Klinger says he’s from in “The Grim Reaper”…Michigan and Galena. I really love the quote on the plaque!
And then on to the Toledo Mudhens game! I really liked their ballpark, and it was so much fun sitting so close to the field!
We didn’t see Muddy, but we did get to have a picture taken with Muddonna!
Ryan also found Cat Trick, one of the Toledo Walleye’s mascots:
It was a great game…the Mudhens were in the lead for most of it, but the Buffalo Bison tied it in the ninth, setting the stage for a walk-off home run by Joe Rizzo.
It was a fireworks night, so while they set that up, the crowd was entertained with music, dancing, and a giant beach ball!
The fireworks were amazing!
I kind of didn’t want to leave when they were done, but we had a day of driving ahead of us, so I bid Toledo a reluctant farewell.
We were up extra early on the third day of our trip, because we were headed to Cincinnati!
On the way to the zoo, we stopped in Covington, KY, to see this new Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland-themed bench that is part of a project to bring literacy and artistic expression together by the Kenton County Public Library Foundation. I love a public art installation!
On to the Cincinatti Zoo!
One of the main reasons we wanted to visit the Cincinatti Zoo specifically is because they have little blue penguins (just like Roald from Animal Crossing!), and I have always wanted to see them!
The other main reason for our visit was to see as much of their hippo bloat as possible. Not only did we see all four hippos, Fritz put on quite a show, doing his best to harass his big sister, Fiona!
There’s even a special “Bloat Float,” featuring grape soda over vanilla soft-serve, available at the zoo this summer!
We also saw quite a few different kinds of pigeons, including the Victoria Crowned Pigeon:
It was a beautiful day to walk around the zoo!
On our way to Toledo, we stopped in Lima to eat at Kewpee Hamburgers, the second-oldest fast food chain in the country. The location that we stopped at dates back to 1928…what is the 20s version of mid-century marvelous?!? Moderne marvelous perhaps? It was a cool place, the food was good and also surprisingly cheap!
After we ate, we finally made our way to the main destination of our trip…Toledo, OH!
The second day of our M*A*S*H-inspired roadtrip still had pretty much nothing to do with the show…we spent the whole day in Bowling Green, and after watching the most recent episode of Guy Fieri’s Guy’s All-American Road Trip, we went in search of The Groovy Gus Donut Bus. While we did find the bus, we actually bought the donuts from their brick and mortar shop, and they were outstanding. They make mini donuts right in front of you, and then you choose your topping. We picked birthday cake and cinnamon roll, and both were excellent…they literally melted in your mouth!
We took our donuts to Fountain Square Park, where we enjoyed the view and talked to a nice lady out walking her dog.
Our family vacation this year was inspired by the TV series M*A*S*H, and took us to the beautiful state of…Ohio? Yes, our main goal in our travels this year was visiting Klinger’s Toledo, but we had some stops along the way!
We started out, as is so often the case, by heading to Ryan’s parents house. We took two cars, and the girls and I decided we wanted to stop and enjoy Smothers Park in Owensboro, KY, this year, since our planned stop there last summer was interrupted by COVID-10. But first, I had to drive across this scary bridge:
We were rewarded with a fun visit to the park once I made it across, and I especially enjoyed the fountains!
After that, the rest of the drive was quick and easy, and we made it to Bowling Green, KY, without any trouble, where we’d hang out for a day before continuing our journey.
And so we arrive at the “Bonus Day” of our trip. Trying to look for a silver lining, I will say that if we hadn’t had to spend the night in Bloomington, MN, we wouldn’t have seen this cool airport art at MSP. That’s the best I can do.
We left our hotel on the first shuttle out, at 4:30 a.m. We were not taking any chances on not getting to the airport on time! Once we arrived, we went to Caribou Coffee to use our meal vouchers for breakfast. Fortunately, we had enough money to each have a coffee and a breakfast sandwich!
We cautiously made our way to our gate, and it seemed like we would be leaving as (re)scheduled. There was a brief moment where the gate agent seemed doubtful, and started trying to put people on alternate flights, but then they decided they were worried for nothing, so we just sat and waited for our boarding time.
The flight wasn’t very full, so we boarded pretty quickly. We buckled in for what was scheduled to be a relatively short flight and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Because the same issue that had delayed the flight the night before (lack of a first officer) was still a problem. They finally found one on an inbound flight, and I assume she hurried over as fast as possible after she landed, and she was cheered by the entire plane when she stepped through the door. I’m not going to lie…I help my breath while they did the pre-flight check because at that point, I was pretty much assuming they were going to find a mechanical issue. They didn’t, though, and we finally took off (after I had already watched most of the first Downton Abbey movie).
We made it home without further complications, and we didn’t even have to wait too long for our luggage.
And that brings us to the end of our trip. It was an amazing experience, even with the trouble we had on the way home. I’m so glad I had this special time with Turkey and Bunny to celebrate their accomplishments before they move on to the next big thing!
So this is the point where our trip started to fall apart a bit. We had a fairly early flight from L.A. to Detroit, so we were up at 4:30 (I was up even earlier, because I was pretty nervous about going back to LAX). We called our Uber without any trouble, got checked in with only a little trouble, and made it through security.
We headed to our gate in Terminal 3 (which is apparently the “new” terminal, as in, not quite done…there were very few food options, and they were doing construction on an escalator the whole time we were there). I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on around me, until I heard the word “cancelled” over the loudspeaker…yes, it was our flight. After a moment of panic, we headed to the help desk to find out what we needed to do. They put us on a flight back through Minneapolis-St. Paul, which was fine, but the flight was scheduled to leave many hours later than we had planned…did I mention there was almost nothing to do in that terminal? They gave us meal vouchers for our trouble…which covered the cost of two meals…did I mention there were three of us? Anyway, we had a very long, very boring, very uncomfortable day in LAX, where we tried really hard not to fall asleep for too long with some success. If I never have to go back to that airport again, it will be too soon!
I did still have one goal before we left California…I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. We didn’t see it on our arrival, but shortly after our plane took off from LAX, Turkey poked me and told me to look out the window…we had swung out just enough that I actually got to see it!
While I was disappointed not to be landing in Detroit (I had a heard a lot of buzz about a cool fountain, and I was also hoping we might find a Tim Hortons there), it was nice to see Minneapolis-St. Paul again (or so I thought).
We managed to get to Wendy’s (directly across from our departure gate no less) right before they closed, and food improved our mood greatly. Until…
Our flight home, which was schedule to leave at 9:55 p.m. was delayed. To 9:00 a.m. The next day. And that delayed flight was the last flight to St. Louis that day, so it’s not like we had any other options. So I figured out how to request the hotel room they let us have, and after a very long wait, we finally got on the hotel shuttle (at around 11:00 p.m.) and made it to the hotel for a very short sleep.
We saved Disneyland for our second (and final) theme park…seeing the train station for the first time was just as much of a thrill as it was at Disney World!
We got to watch the welcome show that is held on the steps leading up to the station when the park opens. The characters (minus Donald and Daisy, sadly), were all were their beautiful Disney 100 costumes!
We decided to take care of two things at once, and rode the Disneyland Railroad (something I really wanted to do since its Disney World counterpart was closed last summer) to the back of the park (where we wanted to get coffee).
What I didn’t realize is that station was practically on top of “It’s a Small World!” So we rode that first thing, and I loved it (of course)!
We then made our way to the Alice in Wonderland area, where not only do they have the teacups (a different experience because in California, they’re fully out in the open), but a second Alice-themed ride as well. And we ran into Alice herself, plus, the Mad Hatter!
We also visited New Orleans, home of the Haunted Mansion and beignets, and also Princess Tiana!
We wanted to make sure we saw the Sword in the Stone and the Wishing Well, since we missed both of those things at Disney World. Sadly, none of us was worthy to remove the sword, but we did all get to make a wish!
We were lucky that the “Star Wars Month” events were still going on while we were, and Turkey and Bunny got to ride “Hyperspace Mountain.” While they did that, I walked around and took some pictures of the castle (and let a Disney photographer take a photo of me!). Not as grand as the Cinderella Castle, but still lovely!
We walked back to the castle when they were done, and I found someone to take our picture:
The Disney photographers also got some nice pictures of the three of us:
And then we headed over to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. I’m pretty sure there are some minor differences, but it felt pretty much the same as the Disney World version! We got to have ronto wraps for lunch, and do some shopping and sightseeing.
One of the things Turkey and Bunny were most looking forward to, though, was having another lightsaber building experience at Savi’s Workshop (especially since they updated the parts since last summer). It was pretty cool to just get to be an observer this time, and watch other people do the work!
We didn’t see the Mandalorian and The Child, but we did get to meet Boba Fett!
We didn’t get to go on Rise of the Resistance because it was either shut down or the line was two hours long or it closed early (that was probably the biggest regret of the whole trip), but we did go on Smuggler’s Run…I got to blow things up!
After that, we walked through Downtown Disney on our way to dinner. Of course we had to stop at the Lego Store and admire their creations:
I really like this beautiful floral display:
And then we went to the Disneyland hotel to have dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen…it was so much fun! (Full details to come…)
After our meal, we hopped on the monorail to get back to the park:
We rode Star Tours (always a fun experience), and then went in search of Dole Whips:
We were barely able to find a place to view the fireworks…the crowd was massive!
The park is open for a couple of hours after the fireworks, so we had time for a few more things. We were three minutes late for Rise of the Resistance, so we headed toward Runaway Railway, instead. I love how the line is set up like a museum dedicated to Mickey Mouse!
After that, Turkey and Bunny decided to ride the Matterhorn while I took care of what was left of our shopping, and took some more pictures:
We rode the teacups one more time, and even managed to get on Dumbo the Flying Elephant.
We shut the park down (which I would somewhat regret the next day), and didn’t get back to our hotel until about 12:30. It was really hard to get to sleep after all that excitement and knowing we had a full day of travel ahead of us!
