We woke up and got a relatively early start to our day. We had a long one planned. The first order of business was the drive from Rochester to Cleveland, about 4 hours in reasonable weather and traffic. The traffic cooperated but we had our first bout with seriously nasty driving weather. Coincidentally, the weather got nasty shortly after we were welcomed back to Pennsylvania, near Erie in the far northwest corner of the state. I think it is a sign that we should be avoiding that state for the time being. We will do our best to cooperate for the next few weeks.
The weather stayed pretty nasty right into Cleveland. Luckily for me, my barnstorming partner is gallant; he dropped me off at the front door of the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame and went to park the car in a torrential rain storm - the same one that I hear caused power outages back home in PA.
As you'll recall, Lester is all about his music so today's stop was all about his bucket list. There was simply a ton of awesome stuff in the museum. In this case we will go with the theory that a picture is worth 1000 words.... We arrived about 1 p.m. and stayed right through to the Hall's 5:30 p.m. closing time. We had our fill but could have spent the entire day there too. Figure out a reason to visit Cleveland so you can visit the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. It's worth the trip.
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| John Lennon's acoustic complete with doodles |
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| John Lennon's costume from Sgt, Pepper |
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| Sly Stone stage costume |
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| Sign from Yasgur's farm - site of Woodstock |
As luck would have it when we left the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame the rain had stopped and the sun was shining and it had cooled down nicely. We had some time before our dinner reservations so we wandered around downtown Cleveland for a bit. Another city with new sports stadiums smack dab in the middle of the downtown area. The Indians were hosting the Yankees tonight. It is quite a pretty little city with lots of public art and it seemed the downtown area is really thriving. We were happy to learn that it will be the site of the 2016 Republican National Convention - the city looks like it will be a great host town.
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| Public art in the midst of major rehab |
Dinner was also a bucket list item. We ate at Lola's, a Michael Symon restaurant. Our reservations were for 7:30 but we were ready early and they graciously accommodated us at 6:30 instead. My grapefruit gimlet was very refreshing after our stroll through downtown Cleveland. We both agree the winner item of the night was Lester's appetizer, beef cheek pierogis. Dinner was enjoyable but it was not the spectacular dinner we had been hoping for. We actually struggled to find a dessert we were interested in. We settled on what turned out to be just average ice cream and sorbet. Their beer list was very disappointing. Two IPAs and nothing interesting or local.
Once again, Hotwire won the hotel wars. We are comfortably settled into our hotel for the evening, king sized bed and balcony near the airport. It will make for an easy departure tomorrow morning. And, since we have a long drive to suburban Chicago tomorrow we are happy to be a bit out of town.
A&L
Rock On, Barnstormers!
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