A grand day out

With a ticket for tonight's Dayton Flyers college basketball game providing the reason for returning near to my hometown area, I decided to make a full day of revisiting some old favorites and dropping in on a place unfamiliar to me. (Despite that statement, I didn't actually go to my hometown but cities close to the little burg.)

My first stop was for lunch. My love of barbecue and the ridiculous name of the newly opened restaurant motivated me to go here. OinkADoodleMoo in Englewood is sharing space with JD's Old Fashioned Frozen Custard. What a combination this place will be when warmer weather returns.

The barbecue was good. It's better than the national chain joints but not yet on the same level as City Barbecue, which I consider the local standard. That said, the smoky sweet sauce was a nice twist on what I'm accustomed to. They do beat the City in one area, though. Oink's kaiser roll easily tops City's regular white bun.

While the custard shop is closed for the season, their workers were present to fulfill holiday orders. Lucky me. I ordered a scoop of the peppermint. It was amazing. I don't recall this place being there when I lived nearby. Then again, I haven't been around much since midway through my time at college and very little since my parents moved out of state.

When I was looking for things to do during my brief visit, I kept returning to pizza. Having just polished off a good sandwich and great frozen custard, I wasn't hungry, but I figured I'd next get a pizza that I could bring home with me to eat this weekend. Such is the nostalgic pull of local food and eateries.

I've been partial to the Dayton chain Cassano's, although I'll admit to it lacking much substance. This time I thought I'd pop into Marion's Pizza, which was just around the corner from where I had lunch. Yes, I realize how silly it was to buy a pizza that was going directly into my car's trunk, but I can't remember the last time ate something from there. I got an individual size, not the least of which is because they only took cash, and will hopefully enjoy it on Saturday.

Their restuarants are known for having old photos of celebrities eating at their shops. The actors were in town for Kenley Players' summer stock productions. You might be able to pick out a few celebrities you recognize in the above photo I snapped at the Englewood Marion's.

Then it was off to the University of Dayton area for a little bit of browsing. Second Time Around was a place I'd go regularly with my friends to shop for used CDs. I was pleased to see that the store looks to be booming and that the neighborhood it's in has been built up since I was last there. A used CD store with decent selection can be a dangerous place, but I held myself in check and left with just two CDs, which I bought for the price that one of them alone would have been new.

A short walk up the street let me catch a glimpse of the UD campus, seen above, and pop into the fan store for all things Flyers. Then it was a a couple blocks' walk to Cassano's for some pizza that I would actually eat rather than squirreling away for another day.

Finally it was time for the main reason I'd come back here: the basketball game. My dad was a season ticket owner when I was growing up, so my affection for the team runs deep. I try to attend one game a season as a reminder of all the fun I had as a kid going to the games.

I did not have as good of a vantage point as you see in these pictures. (Best I could do was seven rows from the top. Keep in mind I even bought the ticket a couple weeks in advance.) The first was taken upon my entrance during pre-game warm-ups. The last was snapped near the end of the game after I had made my way down to stand at the back of the lower bowl. The idea was to be poised to see the final seconds tick off and then quickly hop outside to be in a prime position to catch one of the first shuttle buses to where I was parked. (The empty seats you see are the result of others doing the same.)

I had a delicious Mar-Chele soft pretzel. The Flyers won. What better way to cap a really good day that gave me tastes of home.