Today we are heading to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHF) on Lake Erie in Cleveland OH. We have never really had a desire to see this place but we are in Cleveland and damn it we should see it while we are here! We also reserved a dinner and Comedy Show on the main downtown Cleveland happening area on East 4th Street. This will be our short visit to Cleveland Ohio.
We headed off to the RRHF around noon figuring that we would need an hour to get there and parked and then 3 hours tops to see the RRFH. Good thing we figured an hour to get there and parked. We are after season but it is still a Saturday and we are technically still in summer. We couldn’t find a place to park! The RRFH is right on Lake Erie so the parking is basically on both side of the place. Next door to the RRHF is the Browns Football Stadium which didn’t seem to help for parking. Finally one of the commercial parking lots about a block away had an opening while we were in position to get in. We had been watching this place for a while as we drove around in a routine looking for a place. As a car would leave the place, the attendant would move the traffic cone to let someone in. It was finally our turn! So now we are up to $10 for the privilege to park near the RRHF.
We didn’t know before why the RRHF was here in Cleveland but now we do. We learned that the term “Rock and Roll” was first coined here in the early 50s by a local disc jockey to describe black rhythm and blues music to a mixed white and black audience. We had thought the RRHF was here because they couldn’t find anywhere else for it. Well we were just wrong!
The RRHF is a very modern building right on the lake and next to the Cleveland Browns Stadium. It really is a nice place and for the cost of admission it should be. It was $24 a piece to get in to what is basically a showcase of Rock and Roll memorabilia; sort of like a Hard Rock Café on steroids. We spent 2.5 hours in the RRHF and we are not really in to it that much. There really is a lot to see here even if only some of it matters to you.
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| Janis Joplin's car. |
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| ZZ Top guitars. |
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| Inside one of the Rolling Stones on-stage music cases. |
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| Don't know why for this, but here it is at the top of the Hall of Fame. |
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| Cleveland from the inside of the hall of fame. |
The bottom line for us on the RRHF is that it is only worth it if you are a hard core music fan or, like us, are in the area anyway and have the time. It was a fun time but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it.
We had reservations at the Pickwick & Frolic Restaurant and Comedy Club on 4th Street at 5:30. It’s 4 when we leave the RRHF and head the couple of miles to the restaurant. Again, we have a very hard time finding the restaurant and then finding a place to park. It looks like Cleveland has done what many other cities have done across the country have done and converted an area in downtown to foot traffic with a club atmosphere. Cleveland has done this with East 4th Street. The problem for us was that our Garmin and Google maps have not caught up to this. We finally found a place to park about 3 blocks from 4th Street at 5:15 leaving us just a few minutes to get to the restaurant.
Even though it was a Saturday night, 5:30 is still very early for a dinner reservation so arriving a little late was fine. We got a nice table outside so we could watch the Cleveland happenings up close and personal. Seems that this area, as well as the RRHF, are places for weddings. We saw 5 wedding receptions and pictures taking place; 2 at the RRHF and 3 on 4th Street.
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| Our dinner seating area right on the main drag. |
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| 4th Street at night. |
We had one of the specials, prime rib cooked on an open pit fire. We were a little dubious about the open pit fire but were pleasantly surprised. The prime rib was just about the best we have ever had. Man, was that a great piece of meat and you could taste the wood fire it was cooked on! It was a 16oz piece of rib and cost accordingly at $30 each. Probably the most I have ever spent on prime rib but it was the best I have had so I give it a big thumbs up!
Now, for the comedy show at 7pm in the basement. They had the usual 3 acts, the presenter, a main act, and then the headliner. The best part of this show was the presenter; the other 2 were not good at all. We were surprised that the headliner could even be called a headliner.
All in all we had a good time but not a great time in Cleveland. We got a good feel for Cleveland Ohio and know a little about the city now so that was good thing. Again, Cleveland is a place to visit if it is on your way and a convenient place to stop. It’s a good thing we found the Fairgrounds for a camping spot as it really would not have been worth it to be 30 miles away. By the way, it was a little better in that we were not charged for our site in Cleveland. The office was closed when we arrived on Friday so we were shown our site by the superintendent who said he would be back to get our money, but he never came back!
Sunday the 21st we are taking off for the final leg of our journey to Elkhart to have our RV frame repaired. It is a 230 mile boring ride on route 80 from Cleveland to Elkhart Indiana. The weather wasn’t nice to boot. The farther we went the rainier it got and the colder it got. By the time we reached the Elkhart Campground it was 55 degrees with 25 mph wind and spitting rain. We are still in shorts and tee shirts as it was near 80 when we left Cleveland and we really do not like long pants anyway!
This is a quick bump and run for us as we are going to deliver the RV to the Prime Time Manufacturing repair facility, Recreational Specialties, 6 miles away in the morning. We got a 30A water and electric site in the open grass area so we could get satellite TV. This is our 3rd time being in this campground now this year so we pretty much know where to go and what to expect.
Monday the 22nd we are up at 7am to get ready for the trip to the repair facility. Since the repair requires the removal of the bedroom floor and the slide we need to remove all of our stuff from this area. The bedroom dresser will be removed so we took the six drawers out with our clothes and put them in the center of the living room. The slides on both sides are very close to these drawers when retracted. Then we removed all of our clothes from the area in the under bed storage. We also had to pack for the next 4-6 days to stay in a hotel while this work is being done. Including the bedroom clothes removal and packing and our usual leaving routine it took us 2 hours to get on the road to the repair facility.
We left the 5th wheel at Recreational Specialties around 11am. The place was packed with RVs which didn’t make us feel real good about getting ours done by Friday. We were told originally that this work should be done by Friday but when we said something about picking it up on Friday we got a less than welcome response. We shall see!
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| This is where we left her at the repair facility. Note the RV nose on the ground in back of our unit. That is a Sanibel front nose that has been taken off just like they are going to do to ours in the next few days. |
Also, the RV-Dreams Rally just finished and there are a few people left that we can visit with. We really hope this repair gets done quick!
Stay tuned!
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