5.7.2012 – 5.7.2012  35 °C

After our late night last night, we started later than normal this morning. Our day today saw us leave Toledo, Ohio and head into Cleveland, Ohio. Our drive today wasn’t actually that far but as per usual it seemed to take all day (especially because we like to take the back roads to better get a feel for the area) J.

Toledo itself is a fairly industrialised city on the banks of Lake Erie. We didn’t get a good chance to look at the city the night before but it seems to be a bit more prosperous than many other towns we’ve been thru. It still had its fair share of rusty, boarded up warehouses and old industrial sites but in all seemed to be a bit better off! (We discovered today that this area, Mid West, of America is sort of known as the rust belt and I can understand why!! Apparently, one guy is talking about reclaiming a lot of this dead, derelict land and returning it to agricultural land…. Probably a better use of the land than rusty, derelict old buildings)

Anyway, we left Toledo and followed the lake all day to Cleveland. We saw our first nuclear power plant today… parked on the banks of the beautiful Lake Erie…. Hmmm, beautiful lake and nuke plant…. Our lakeside drive took us passed the town of Sandusky home to the ‘best’ theme park in the US  (well according to Google) so we had thought we would stop in to check out the twenty odd roller coasters. With the weather still hot, and it’s the day after 4^th July, we thought we’ll have to find ourselves roller coaster somewhere else….

We arrived into Cleveland right on lunchtime so we started driving around looking for some sort of lunch. Cleveland is another half dead city (lots of boarded up buildings) so we actually found it quite hard to find something to eat! We finally drove into a shopping mall (half closed down) and found ourselves a sandwich shop which sold tuna melts.. yum… so after a tasty melted lunch and a chocolate milk shake, we left the car in the lot and headed down towards the river to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (HoF).

We’ve now been to lots of music museums so I have to admit that I was a little, “do we have to do another music museum?” The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is well worth a visit and far better than the Country Music Hall of Fame. (In fairness, I far prefer RR music; I’ve never been a fan of Country so at least I knew most of the acts in this museum.) It is set up with lots of memorabilia and lots of displays that cover the different eras of RR.

The displays covered everything from the early days of Blues right thru to artists from the early 90s. (The HoF stops at early 90s because to be inducted in the HoF you need to have been successful a minimum 25 years prior.) The displays were really good. Nearly each display had a great sounding speaker that would be playing a song of that era or artist which really set the scene for each area. Some of the costumes were just outrageous and were so “Rock and Roll”! The most amusing section was dedicated to punk music and the impact of the Sex Pistols… I’m sure they were the bad boys at the time but now their stunts and attitude seem quite tame. Shows you how times change!

The interesting thing about the HoF is that you will find all the big names; Elton John, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Madonna, ZZ Top, Michael Jackson etc etc but you can also find some groups that I had never heard of.. I’m guessing they must have been hits here in the States?? The Allman Brothers as an example??? I’m sure I’ll get plenty of notes from those reading who will tear me to strips for not knowing these guys but…..

The HoF ends by actually taking you thru the inductees by showing you a video of some of their songs/ performances and the year they were inducted. It’s really well done and really worth a look if you love to listen to Triple M!!

Song of the Day– Bill Haley and the Comets, Rock around the clock