Cleveland piqued my interest originally because I heard good things about the exhibits. My girlfriend, on the other hand, wanted to get me out of the house. That was a compromise easily reached and off we headed down Interstate 80.
We arrived at our hotel and were delighted to see that we were near Progressive Field (named after the political party that ran presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace in 1948... or an insurance company, I don't know). Where there's baseball there's bound to be beer. So we threw our bags carelessly into the room and set out to look into the local hot spots.
Our first stop was your average, everyday sports bar. The food was good and the walls were littered with a dazzling array of televisions, from the classic, clunky CRTs to those newfangled Hi-def monsters. They were all tuned to the same station. No matter, the food was pretty good, their beer was refreshing and they had a pinball machine I really wish I had stopped to play.
Next we proceeded to this little warehouse bar where all the baseball fans go after watching the Indians lose. After asking for a couple of Sam Adams, the bartender informs us that we can get a pitcher for $12. We were expecting the pitcher to be of some cruel portable variety that you can fit in a fanny pack or kangaroo pouch. But no, it was a normal sized pitcher of beer. There was genuine shock since where we come from, $12 barely buys you two lukewarm bottles of Coors Light, and you have to pay extra to have the caps removed.
ABOVE: Me standing next to John Goodman's mobile home.
A prediction I had about the Cleveland locals came true. As I had imagined, the moment someone found out we were from New York, they asked if we ever saw "Major League". Fair enough. New Yorkers will often stop tourists on the street and ask if they've ever seen "Ghostbusters".
The next morning we proceeded down to our main stop and reason for this entire trip: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It's definitely an amazing collection of music memorabilia, but by the time we were an hour in, we grew slightly restless. If you plan to go, get plenty of sleep and try not to drink too much the night before. Nevertheless, a good many of the rock artifacts were fascinating to gaze at and interesting to read about. You just have to be careful not to trip off the many security booby-traps they set by learning too far, breathing too hard or breaking the slightest of wind.
After exiting the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and spending a few minutes gazing at Lake Erie, we headed off to a couple of more bars. Still amazed at the great deals we got the previous day, we were further floored when we got pints for $2.50 and got to keep the glass. That's pints of GOOD beer, mind you, no tinkle water or anything like that with the added bonus of an instant souvenir. However, the bars were dead which is to be expected on a Monday.
I told you the bars were dead. Actually this is "The Boneyard". There's so much wacky stuff on the wall you'll swear you're at T.G.I. Friday's.
We drove home the next afternoon, chucking the GPS that got us to Cleveland in the first place to the wayside in order to have a nice, I-80less drive home. It took us a lot longer but at least I got some cool pictures of a bowling alley and a nuclear power plant. Take a break from reading, scroll down and have a look-see.
I would have written a lot more about Cleveland but, honestly, we spent 90% of it drinking. If you wanted to listen to drunk talk, just rent "Arthur". That's another movie New Yorkers accost tourists with.
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