I understand why Lebron left Cleveland...

My recent road trip to Cleveland was of course fun (that's all I ever do), but I must say it quickly became apparent that Cleveland is not an up-and-coming city. Like most midwestern cities it was relatively clean, spacious, and had some random attraction to draw in tourists, but it certainly seemed to lack people and open businesses--something I'm not used to coming from Philadelphia. Anyway lets get back to the real story...

Saturday morning, Kevin and I woke up before the crack of dawn to start on our 7 hour journey to Cleveland, Ohio, to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and frolic around the city for the day. And so we left Philadelphia at 4:30 am--not really awake just yet, we managed to get lost before we even left the city. We eventually found I76 and stayed on that wonderfully dark road for the next 5+ hours before hitting the Ohio border. 

After arriving in Cleveland, we checked into our snazzy hotel and went in search for some lunch--we had been cooped up in a car for 7 hours so we were starving for food and excited to explore Cleveland. Off we went, walking throughout Cleveland and to our surprise 90% of the restaurants and stores we passed were closed. Slightly confused, Kevin and I wondered if we had missed the "apocalypse is starting in Cleveland" memo. Not only were most stores closed on this relatively nice-weather Saturday but there was almost no one on the streets, except for some extremely outgoing homeless people. 

After lunch at Susy's Soups, we continued on to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I had actually been to the museum once before about 3 years ago while on a road trip from Minnesota to Philadelphia but didn't get to explore it as thoroughly as I would have liked. This time I was able to spend much more time exploring all of the museums interesting memorabilia. Unfortunately they do not allow you to take photos in the museum but some of my favorite parts were John Paul Jones awesomely hippie-bass guitar, everything involving Otis Redding, all of The Supremes sequen dresses, and Janis Joplin's hippie porche. It's very interesting to see the evolution of music and the cities genre emerge from--Seattle has produced some big genre's in the last 20 years, i.e. grunge rock and now indie rock--makes me wonder what the next big music style will be and where it will come from! Kevin and I had a great time in the museum, soaking in all of the music history and artifacts around us. 

After the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap before enjoying Cleveland's poppin' night life. We had dinner at a local Irish restaurant before heading over to The Winking Lizard. The Winking Lizard has over 300 beers, which no longer benefits me now that I have a diagnosed gluten allergy, but Kevin was in heaven and I enjoyed my new drink of choice: Blood Mary! We hung out for the rest of the night drinking, enjoying each other's company and watching random sports on TV. 

Even though Cleveland wasn't as hoppin' as I would have liked it to be, Kevin and I made the best of it and enjoyed our little adventures outside of Philadelphia. I'm not sure if I would ever go back, or necessarily reccommend anyone going to Cleveland but it was still fun for what it was. =)