You know you have a hard day ahead of you when you look forward to stopping for breakfast at McDonald's. You know it's a bad day when you get to McDonald's are you are greatly saddened that they have stopped serving breakfast. We had executed the morning drive beautifully, getting out of Milwaukee and through Chicago traffic in great time, with a McD's stop at a rest stop planned shortly. It is a well known fact fast food breakfast closes at 10:30am, a fact not lost on us as we try to beat the clock to Cleveland. We stop at 10:00am ready to eat. No breakfast. Angry face. Apparently we are on the border of CST and EST and it's now 11:00am. Yet another one of our classic tactical errors. Stupid EST.
We then drive, angrily, at high speeds, for seven hours. Ohio is kind of depressing.
While Milwaukee is home to the best free tour in the Midwest, Cleveland can lay claim to the best $17 student price tickets museum in likely the country. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, housed in a glass structure reminiscent of a similar "hall of fame" in Paris, is undoubtedly Cleveland's greatest achievement now that LBJ has vacated the city's limits. Lennon's Sgt. Pepper uniform, Michael's glove, Redding's plane, Mick's union jack cape and so on and so forth, all housed here. Most impressive to me however is their collection of handwritten set notes, song lyrics, fan letters and doodles all written on legal pads, hotel paper, notebooks, and cocktail napkins. Few things are cooler than reading Bruce's notes as he tries to work out lyrics to Born to Run (he wrote the suicide machines line three times!). I could spend an entire day here, this is my louvre. Alas, we only have 90 minutes today, our newest passenger is landing.
We pick up Megan Blanck-Weiss at the Cleland airport, a surprisingly small hub that directs incoming traffic to "ticketing" or "baggage claim" instead of departures and arrivals. Our plan is to go check into the hotel - we came straight to the R'nRHOF to maximize time - explore Cleveland a bit, buy cheap LBJ gear and get what are supposed to be the best grilled cheese sandwiches east of the Mississippi.
Cleveland, does in fact, actually kind of rock. At least from an architectural standpoint. We walk around our hotel to see the Arch building and Federal Reserve and are impressed enough to take photographs. The city does shut down kind of early however, limiting us to a few stops. Sadly, the sporting goods stores and team shops are closed (also it is reported they pulled all the LBJ stuff from the team shop at Quicken Loans; a quick onion search verifies).
On our way to get the best grilled cheese sandwiches east of the Mississippi, we drive past Quicken Loans and while stopped at a light notice a younger gentleman with neck tattoos putting two Bron jerseys in a trash receptacle for a photo op, or so we believe. As the light changes to green, the young man is observed leaving the jerseys behind in a fit of disgust, not just taking photos for his myspace page. Three minutes and an aggressive u-turn later, they are mine, in the backseat of Scott Lee's car. Asians 2, Cleveland 0.
You will notice this picture is not of the greatest grilled cheese east of the mississippi. This is because Melt, home of said sandwich, is quite possibly the worst operationally run restaurant east of the mississippi. Going in, I knew of the legendary long waits at this establishment. When I ask the host how long, he stumbles, at first saying three days (mental lol) before correcting himself and saying "three hours". The place isn't particularly crowded, no line forming out the doors or anything. We ask about take out and they say "one hour". Unless they are actually waiting for the milk to pasteurize so they can make the cheese on site, I'm pretty sure it doesn't take 60 minutes to make a sandwich. Bianco's is a three hour wait. A round of golf is a three hour wait. Avatar is a three hour wait. Grilled cheese is not.
In case you are curious, the picture is of a pitaza at a Greek place we eat at down the street. It is good, but I'm not going to spend my precious time in the car driving on Ohio Turnpike waxing poetic about their hummus. Cleveland losses this round too.
Tomorrow is another big day of driving, our longest actually by total drive time. But we have some nice breaks scheduled, including our pilgrimage to worship at the palace of Caesar in Atlantic City where we will be serenaded by no other than Huey Lewis himself, News included. Maybe we'll go to the gym while we are there too. Or layout by the pool and tan. Or do laundry.
Tomorrow's Agenda:
Route: Cleveland > Philadelphia > Atlantic City > Philadelphia
Estimated Distance: 553 miles
Estimated Time: 9 hours, 57 minutes
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