They were wrong. They were all wrong. Cleveland definitely does not rock. I would like to welcome you to the third installment of the recent surprise weekend get away that my girlfriend and I took. Today is Saturday.
We get up, after having had nearly twelve hours of sleep, and decide it is time for some breakfast. Sheryl walks herself down to the breakfast nook (I want a nook) and grabs some waffles and cinnamon rolls. They were the cold and hard variety, but tasted like cinnamon none the less. She brings it back to me in bed and basically tosses it on my to get my sleepy butt up. (OK, she did not toss it on me. But she did want me to get up and eat.) So we have our breakfast, get ready to leave for the day, with me still having absolutely no idea where we are going or what we are doing.
We jump in the car and I mention to her, “The next time we are close by we need to go to Cleveland.” We had recently been near Cleveland a few weeks prior for a wedding and did not make the trip. And she gracefully replies.
“What is in Cleveland my dear? What would we do there?”
Duh! Cleveland has several pro sports teams, the rock and roll hall of fame, a science center, and China Town. That is also where the house from A Christmas Story can be found. So yeah, Cleveland rocks.
We turn onto the highway and only mere moments later do I see a sign that says Cleveland. Yes! We are going to Cleveland. Sheryl surprised me with a trip not only to Cedar Point and luxurious Sandusky, but also to Cleveland. And it is not that long of a trip either. We got there in under an hour. And guess where we were going? That’s right, the rock and roll hall of fame. And the hall happens to be right next to the Browns stadium and said science museum.
So when we finally get to Cleveland we get lost. We miss our turn, rather our turn was blocked by cones and police men, and we ended up somewhere in the middle of the ghetto. I have no idea how we got that deep that fast, but thanks to an iPhone and GPS (the little blue dot, we managed to drive right into the hall of fame. Well, not actually into the hall of fame, but you get the idea.
So we park, walk through the ground floor of the science building, and head over to the rock and roll hall of fame. We walk in, tickets in hand (my baby bought a pass that got us into both the hall of fame and Cedar Point) to the entrance only to be told that our tickets were not actually tickets, that we need to get tickets. So we walk upstairs only to wait in line. And when we get to the ticket counter to give our tickets to get tickets (stay with me here) Sheryl gets a little irate with the guy behind the counter. Long story short he couldn’t care less and we walk back downstairs. Then we are told, to boot, that we need to check our cell phones due to the fact that they might have a camera in them. No, not happening and did not happen. We took plenty of photos.
We walk around all six floors, and finally make our way past the wall and into a video that was a good half an hour of all the inductees into the hall over the years. It was pretty interesting to see all the greats, one hit wonders, and the requirements for being accepted into the hall. All was good except for the blind lady sitting next to me that seemed to know every word to every song.
After that all we could think about was Chinese food. So we make our way to China Town only to see store after store either closed or closed down all together. The city was a ghost town. Nothing was open and when we finally did find a Chinese buffet (because you can only eat Chinese from a buffet) they were not serving the buffet on the weekend. So we make out way back to the car to find a Chinese buffet in some random strip mall between Cleveland and Sandusky. (Why is that all the good Chinese places are either named New China Buffet, China’s Best Buffet, or Super 8 Buffet? What is the trend there? And what does that 8 stand for? 8 cats per every ounce of chicken? They all have red lettering as well. But that is for another time and another post.)
And we did succeed in finding a Chinese buffet on the way home. It was just in time as well since we needed gas. And the buffet, even though was more than we wanted to spend on what we considered lunch, was quite good. I told Sheryl that I was going to eat my weight in food (that would be 500 pounds) and after four plates full (one plate was sushi) I was finished. So I did not quite make my 500 pounds of food but I came close.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get rested up for the next day! It was almost coaster time. Stay tuned as in part four I will talk about twists, turns, and the Indy 500. (Yeah, we watched it on TV.)
