Amish Village and Cleveland (6/22/2015)

The plan for today was to drive over to Middlefield, about 10-15 miles east of us, to experience the 4th largest Amish settlement in the U.S.  We received a message from Doris on the way that Nicki was being released from the hospital today and moving over to the Ronald McDonald House, for about a week, then she should be released to go back to Arizona, so that put us all in a good mood.

As we came into town, we began to see the "yield" signs with a horse and buggy picture.

 

Shortly after hitting town, we spotted our first horse and buggy, parked outside a store.

Our first "official" stop was at a cheese store, and they had windows allowing you to watch the cheese-making process.  Since we were going into Cleveland from this village, we didn't buy any cheese because it would have to sit in the car all day.   There was another shopper in the store too.

We stopped at a craft store next (Amish Home Craft and Bakery), and they had some lovely things (above).  Marilyn bought a pan of fresh cinammon rolls and Mazie bought a black raspberry pie here (which they both shared with all of us).

And we began to see other horse and buggies taking farmers to town.  The horses moved along at a pretty good clip.  We got behind a horse team (draft horses) pulling a manure spreader.

We stopped at a flea market, then found another Amish store called the "Bargain Bin."  Joe finally bought a new umbrella, a full-size one, not that little fold-up style he had, so now he can shelter both of us (and maybe more) during the next rainstorm.

Monday was apparently laundry day because almost every house we passed had laundry hanging on the line.  Some of the lines had pulleys and the clothes went all the way to the roofs.

At noon, we left here and headed into Cleveland for our Lolley Trolley tour that we missed yesterday.  We had lunch at the station and board the trolley at 1:00.  Joe was in charge of the camera on the trolley, and we ended the day with 235 pictures.  Since we can't remember much of what the driver told us about the buildings, I will just post a few groupings.

We saw lots and lots of huge churches.

There was a "statute" of a rabbit left over from the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, that was very colorful.  This year is the Year of the Lamb, and we eventually did see one of those but we didn't get a picture.  He said there were a few of them scattered around town.

This city has lots and lots of statutes, as well as art sculptures.

This one commemorates cancer survivors

 

And we saw at least 3 of the big stadiums here.

Cleveland Indians (baseball)

Cleveland Cavaliers (basketball)

Cleveland Browns (football)

The Cleveland Browns stadium (First Energy Stadium)  was used in Draft Day movie with Kevin Kosner.

We went through the theatre district and the driver informed us that Cleveland has a very large theatre following, and I think he said they are second to New York City in Broadway productions.  There was some kind of huge chandelier out over the street here, but we couldn't see it from where we were seated in the trolley.

This state also has lots of flowers everywhere, beautiful, colorful.  Lawns, shops, offices, and even mediums in the middle of the street are filled with flowers.  Middlefield had a lot of hanging baskets at street corners and we even saw a truck watering them (it's rained on us every day for almost two weeks).

The tour included some of the old mansions on Million Dollar Row.  Not many are still standing, but here are a couple.  The driver told an interesting story about these old mansions.  He said sometimes the owners worried that after their death the mansion would be bought by someone who did not have enough money to take care of the mansion and keep it up, so in their will they would state that the mansion was to be destroyed after their death, like  within 30 or 60 days.  One had that it was to be destroyed on the day of his death or funeral, I forget which.

The tour took us by the Cleveland Clinic, the exact building we were in yesterday visiting Nicki.  I don't think we got a picture of the pool yesterday (we forget what they called it), but its very beautiful.

This huge building with the flag on top is reflected beautifully in the building across the street.  Must have had sunshine for a little while then.

This Sunoco station is across the street from the Cleveland Browns stadium, and it was used in some of the scenes in the Draft Day movie.  We missed that movie, so now we will have to make an effort to see it since we know some of this "behind the scenes" stuff.

Also, the restaurant we had lunch at yesterday, Flat Iron, was included in the tour today since it is the oldest Irish pub in Cleveland.

We had a brief stop at the airport right next to Lake Erie, but otherwise this was a non-stop trolley.  It is advertised as a "2 1/2 hours covering over 100 points of interest including the Flats, Downtown, the Warehouse District, Ohio City, Gateway, the Playhouse Square Theater District, the Cleveland Clinic, University Circle, the Cleveland Cultural Gardens & Rockefeller Greenhouse, a little of the Lake Erie Shoreline and North Coast Harbor."   It was very informative, interesting, and we learned a lot about this historical city.  Most of the old buildings have either been well preserved or have been restored, but it was all pretty impressive.  We got back to our boarding place about 4:30, feeling that we had "done Cleveland."  It was a good tour, and I would recommend it to anyone traveling through here, especially if they were interested in old buildings and the history of Cleveland.

Joe wasn't quite done with Cleveland, however, so he and I took the scenic drive again, while the rest of our crew headed back to camp.  We drove west from downtown, again along the shoreline, for a little while.  We stopped at a fishing pier at Whiskey Island, but the mosquitos were too bad to spend any time outside enjoying the view.

You can see the storm clouds moving in, and it wasn't very long before it was raining on us, the first time today.

He took one street through a residential neighborhood to check out this gateway arch that led right down to Lake Eric.  This was probably private property, and the houses on both sides of this arch were pretty upscale, so we didn't hang around.

We continued on for a while, then turned back to the east and stopped for dinner to wait out the traffic and the rain.  We did find has here in the area for $2.539, so Joe fueled up the car.  Gas prices seem to head up the further east we get. 

We assumed the other group had gone straight home, but I found out later that they too had a little adventure.  Usually it's Joe's "unexpected" side trips that keep us entertained, but this time Collins makes the blog.  When he and Dave had left the group yesterday, they followed their GPS and it took them on the interstate and straight home with no trouble.  Collins intended to do the same today, but his finger hit the location below the campground on the screen, and after they were driving for a while, Marilyn saw on the screen that it was 100 miles to Dayton (or some such number).  She asked him if he was going to Dayton, and he replied no, he was following the GPS back to the campground.  They drove along a little further, and Marilyn again said, "I think you are headed to Dayton."  Finally, she convinced him, and Marilyn found a route that would take them back to the campground.  She said they had about a 20-mile side trip, not too bad.

We too finally wandered back to the campground, about 8:30.  The storm here had passed through here by then, but Marilyn said just as they pulled into the campground, some lightning hit really close, maybe just right across the lake.  Now we too are done with Cleveland, and we all plan to move on to Pennsylvania tomorrow.