We stayed overnight in a hotel in Akron. Apparently, it wasn’t too far from the house where LeBron James’ grew up. We didn’t bother looking for it, however. The interesting thing about this particular hotel is that it had sleep number beds. I’ve slept on sleep number beds before, but I had always been alone. With Jim next to me, it was an entirely new experience. Our body masses are slightly different. Certain places on his side of the bed sunk in a bit, which made that same area on my side rise. At times it felt like I was laying over a beach ball. When he rolled over, I practically bounced into the air. It was similar to sleeping on a trampoline. In the morning, when we were waking, Jim rolled over and I put my arms in the air and yelled, “Whee!” May as well have fun with it… or I could have been delirious from the lack of sleep. Either way, as a result we laughed hysterically and he made a concerted effort to bounce me out of bed.
Once we got our land-legs back, we started the day with a trip to Bob Evan’s for breakfast. Or, as Van called it, the Pancake Store. That boy loves his pancakes! We enjoyed a delicious breakfast. It was too delicious… once again I ate too much. Ugh! Jim keeps telling me to feed his baby, but feeling stuffed is not a good thing when you have to sit in a car for a while.
After breakfast, we made our way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. In typical Griswold style, we missed the exit that the GPS told us to take, but we ended up getting right to the Hall anyway. At least we didn’t end up driving in circles! Sometimes I don’t understand why GPS gives the directions it does anyway. Our route was much better.
The Hall of Fame was incredible. The only disappointment was that we were not able to take pictures in the exhibit halls. That’s were all the cool stuff was! The artists have an agreement with the Hall to not allow pictures to be taken. I did see a kid use the camera on his cell phone. I was jealous, but I just went on admiring the amazing pieces of memorabilia.
Some of my favorite things in the museum were:
John Lennon’s guitar – he drew 2 pictures of himself and Yoko Ono on it, each representing one of their sleep-ins.
Original lyrics – there were many notebook pages of lyrics for songs – Cherry Bomb, We Didn’t Start the Fire, and a whole section of Bruce Springsteen’s songs
Michael Jackson’s glove – ok, a little cheesy, but it was still cool to see it on display
Michael Jackson’s Thriller jacket – see statement above
Bono’s Fly outfit – the black leather jacket and wrap around glasses… is there anything cooler than that?
Johnny Cash’s tour bus – it was fun to go in and see how they traveled
The videos – Video Killed the Radio Star and the video of all the inductees thus far were both really well done, entertaining and informative.
My favorite moment in the Hall of Fame happened when we were in the special exhibit about Bruce Springsteen. We saw an accordion. I told Van, “Your Grandpa Marty used to play this instrument.” He said, “I wanna play it. I wanna play de a-kor-din, too.” I told him we’d find one for him when he gets a little older. 🙂
There were so many articles of clothing and instruments on display, it is hard to remember all of them. It was so impressive that the artists donated these things for the public to enjoy. There was one group’s memorabilia missing that Jim really hoped to see… KISS. I know, I know, but you have to remember he is a child of the 80’s and hair bands were his thing. Speaking of hair, you should see the pictures of his permed mullet! Moving on… He asked one of the employees about KISS and why they didn’t have anything in the museum. He was told Gene Simmons wanted a portion of the ticket sales for each ticket sold to enter the Hall. WHAT? Why should one artist get admission sales? If all artists demanded that, there wouldn’t be enough to support the Hall. Besides, each person would get a fraction of a cent! I guess that’s why KISS is not in the Hall of Fame… yet. Jim is still hoping they’ll get something worked out.
After our adventures at the Hall of Fame, we planned to eat at another DDD establishment. We arrived at our choice, The Melt, at 4:30pm. We decided on this restaurant because of the fabulous and extensive variety of grilled cheese sandwiches they make. We entered the restaurant and I approached the host station, put in our name, and was told it would be a 2.5 hour wait. Yikes! There was no way we could wait that long. We decided to try the next place on the list.
We drove about 2 miles and located Lucky’s Cafe. Unfortunately, Lucky’s closed at 5:00 on Sundays. Ugh! Next! We drove about 3 miles and found Momocho. I went in there to see how long a wait it would be. I was told it would be 45 minutes and that was for patio seating. All of the indoor seating was reserved for the night. It was 95 degrees outside. That did not sound very appealing. Double Ugh! Next! By this time, we figured we try the last place on the DDD Cleveland list and if it didn’t work, we’d go back to the Melt (I left our names on the list when we left there).
We drove about 2 more miles (we’d pretty much traveled in a big square now) and found the Parkview Nite Club. I’m not sure why it was called Parkview. I didn’t see a park anywhere nearby. There was some kind of dilapidated factory across the street, but no park. This place definitely put the Dive in Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. It was a great place, though. The food was good and it was a fun atmosphere. They had a very old bowling game that Doodlebug loved. They also had a lot of interesting “art” on the walls – various posters and signs, both antique and modern, and dead animals. A deer head was wearing bunny ears. Yeah, that one confused me too.
After our meal, we made our way back to the hotel. It had been a long day, and we knew we were in for a long ride tomorrow. We thought about the 13+ hour trip from Cleveland to Minneapolis. We decided it was just too much to do in one day. I mean, it certainly could be done, but we wanted to maintain whatever remnants of our sanity we had left, so we decided to reserve a hotel in Madison. That cut the trip to about 9 hours. That was much better.
We fell into our beds playing in a rock and roll air band on our roly-poly air beds!
The New Griswolds 