Cleveland (6/21/2015)

Today we ventured into the big city of Cleveland, and on the way we saw a deer, the first one we've seen in a while.  Our first stop was at Ronald McDonald House, then Cleveland Clinic to visit our Arizona friends Nicki and Doris Paulik.  They were glad to see some Arizona faces.  The Ronald McDonald House is a beautiful facility, run by volunteers.  Doris and Nicki have stayed there many times, and it has been a Godsend for them.

Doris came over from the hospital to meet us and lead us over to Nicki's room.  Nicki's roommate was asleep, so Doris brought her out into the waiting room to visit with us, along with her IV pole.

Before we left the hospital, Doris took us up to the rooftop to see the view of downtown Cleveland from here.  The clinic was state-of-the-art, and even the rooftop was a nice place to get outside for a few minutes.

Doris walked us back to our cars, and I saw this Ronald McDonald House guitar at the bus stop.   I saw a few other guitars scattered around the city.

We had intended to take a trolly tour next, but by the time we found lunch and the trolley area, it was too late to get the 1:00 tour.  So we will try that again tomorrow.  Our lunch was at the oldest Irish pub in Cleveland, just pure chance that we stopped here.

So instead of the trolley tour, we went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  Collins and David opted out of this tour and headed back to camp.  This was an impressive-looking building, pyramid-shaped, right on the banks of Lake Erie.  Apparently, the local disc jockeys were instrumental in Cleveland's rise to fame as the birthplace of rock and roll.

This was my kind of museum, so I was in charge of the camera here, and I took plenty of pictures.  Right inside the building were several cars in various poses, including hanging from the ceiling.  One of the more colorful ones was Janis Joplin's Porsche.

This was a great museum.  There were recordings playing all the time, and lots of places where you could select a singer, a song, and put on earphones to hear your selection.

The first exhibit, which was clips of performers, was the Inductees for the class of 2015.  Since my music taste is stuck in the 50s and 60s, many of these performers were unfamiliar to me, and it is a huge class.

 There were lots of exhibits, posters, window cases depicting a single singer or band, and film videos of important starts like Elvis, the Beatles, etc.  There was also a Dick Clark American Bandstand show with real short clips of performances during the years of that show.

Lots of costumes on display.  Remember back inn our day, performers "dressed up" for the stage.

Then I got to the good stuff -- the Elvis area!  The video of Elvis, of course, captured my attention for a while.  Also on display was one of his motorcycles -- a 3-wheeler.

The video covered his performing years.  He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

And photos, of course, even one in his Army uniform.

And one of his guitars.

And his costumes

There was another area about the Beatles, you know, those other rock & rollers who were sort of famous.

More photos from inside.

The top floor had famous pictures of the artists, many were magazine covers.  A very interesting one of Cher.

 And Prince.  I actually thought this picture was awesome, although I never was a Prince fan.

 Paul McCartney

More guitars

We finally regrouped and took our leave of this place, but we all thought it was worth the time and money we spent ($17 each).

Joe, of course, decided to take a scenic route home.  He wanted to find a road that followed the Lake Erie coastline, which he did.  He found a couple of parks that we could pull into, and we got out and soaked up some of the Ohio sunshine (rare) and the beauty of this Great Lake.

We have seen these flowers a few times, don't know what they are but they are lovely.


We came across one of Mazie's loves, a totem pole.

And a beautiful "Boulevard of 500 Flags," which is a war memorial.  Joe had to turn the car around and go back to this because he didn't see it in time to turn in.  But no problem, we turn around a lot, sometimes because we are lost, sometimes because we missed something, sometimes because he/we changed our minds.  But that saying "All those who wander are not lost" certainly applies to us.

And one more stop along the lake.

We finally headed back to camp, but somewhere missed a turn and all of a sudden Marilyn realized the sun was on the wrong side of the car.  So I checked the map (I had finally put it down because I thought we knew the way home), and sure enough, we were headed to Pennsylvania.  I think we were about 20 miles from the state line, and my o my, would that have been a shock if we came upon that state line sign!  But no problem, we took the next intersection, finally plugged the address of the campground back into Lucille, and drove right on home.  The fact that it was 7:45 p.m. was beside the point.

We stopped at the camp office and added another day to our stay here, then went to our separate campers and grabbed a bite of supper.  A long day, but a good one.