Oh, Hi. Ohio – Part 4

Wow, it's been a while.  Sorry, all kind of stuff has been going on.

Let's see…

1. Cora and The Daughter left me…
   … to go to Washington for 10 days for some court stuff.  Without going into details, papers have been signed, sealed and delivered.
2. I took a 10 day trip out to Washington to see them and to visit with the family out there.  (More to come, promise.)
3. Cora and The Daughter are still in Washington for another 2 weeks, so I'm batching it.

Now, to recap the story I am telling from earlier this summer – We're summering for a week out in Northern Ohio with my family (most of them anyway) for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary.  (And to read/see my wife's account, click HERE.)

And we're heading to Cleveland for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and to an Indians vs. Reds game.

Cleveland was about an hour or so east of where we were staying, so we all got up, loaded up the family trucksters and rolled out.  When we got to the glass pyramid that houses the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (RNRHOF), there were a whole mess of art guitars on the plaza.  When we got inside, we saw some cool cars hanging around…

U2 – Zoo Tour

ZZ Top - Eliminator

And then there was THIS dude hanging around, too.  Unfortunately, there we weren't allowed to take any pictures in the exhibit halls.  What I will say about the exhibit halls is, "If you are in Cleveland, you owe it to yourself to do this, but give yourself all day."  The Hall does a pretty good job of having interesting & educational exhibits as well as the "stuff" you expect, like Michael Jackson's glove and Janis Joplin's car.

They have a movie with all the inductees playing, but just a warning, it's a LOOOOOONG mofo, so make sure you've peed before going in.  A couple of things we noticed while watching the movie:

1 – All the Beatles but Ringo are in as individuals.  And Ringo's my favorite.

2 – While David Crosby is only in twice (The Byrds & Crosby, Stills, & Nash), he seemed to be in every third picture they showed on the screen.

After the Hall, we had to haul, haul our butts across downtown to Progressive Field to see the baseball game. 

My sister's family is really into baseball, and are slowly trying to pickup every baseball stadium they can on various vacations.  And the Indians were playing my childhood favorite team, the Cincinnati Reds.  We got to the stadium, and the sun was BLAZING, so Cora and The Daughter hid out in the shade for the first couple of innings.

They did eventually join me for the game.  That's my dad behind me, and my sister and my talking to my nephew in the upper right.

And, of course, I met a giant hot dog, and then watched him kick buns in the hot dog derby.  Sadly, the Reds didn't do nearly as well, and got THUMPED by the Indians.

So, we make it to the van and head for home.  Unfortunately, my GPS just isn't locking onto a satellite.  Even worse, my mother, in the back seat, had hers out, and it was.  And the thing is psycho.  First it had us going the wrong way, but that might not have been a bad deal if it had just swung us over to the interstate.  But no, it U-turned us BACK toward the stadium and bumper to bumper traffic, and road construction.  Finally, I rebooted my device, and it got a lock right away, but too late to help.  As we got to the stadium, again, Mom's device, and hence my mom, too, insisted that I need to take a left to get on the expressway.  She must have told me a dozen times.  The only issue was that any fool could see that the on ramp was under construction.  Finally, I told her that it was her car, and if she REALLY wanted me to drive thru the barricades, up the partial ramp, and plunge into the abyss, I would if it would make her happy.  "Well, I'm just telling you want the Tom Tom says."

And that people, is how people die by GPS.  Unfortunately, this wasn't the only time I threatened to take a hammer to the her GPS as it drove us around in circles.

But more on that next time.