Day 30: Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame and on to Erie

Miles driven to-date: 8, 508
States visited to-date: 26

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we had eaten a very early dinner on our way to Cleveland and thought we could hold out and just eat breakfast in the morning, but our rumbling stomachs kept us awake last night. At about 1:30am Steve started talking in mouth-watering detail about what he would order from Taco Bell and the next thing we knew, we were making a run for the border. Several tacos later, we were stuffed, exhausted, and content – though both of us woke up in the morning with food hangovers!

With mixed feelings, we checked out of our last hotel today. We will be traveling for another week but are staying at my family's cottage in Erie, PA and then with friends and family, so our night spent just outside of Cleveland was the last in a hotel.

After skipping breakfast (still full!), we headed to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. You might wonder why this is in Cleveland . . . well, we learned that a local DJ coined the phrase rock ‘n roll back in the day. The building, designed by I.M. Pei, was beautiful and huge with six floors of exhibits.

I enjoyed seeing all of the outrageous costumes worn by rock’s greatest over the years. The highlight for me was feasting my eyes upon the actual blue jeans, white t-shirt, and red hat from Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” album cover. Steve really liked the special exhibit on Bob Dylan, and we both enjoyed the video montage showing clips from all of the Hall of Fame inductees. Visitors weren’t allowed to take any photos inside the building which is fortunate for all of you, since I would likely have taken a few hundred pictures to later bore you with.

On our way to Erie, we stopped on the northeastern border of Ohio for a “Roadfood” lunch break. The White Turkey Drive-In has been around since 1952 and serves excellent food that you eat while sitting around the original counter. My root beer float was a meal in itself!

We were then only about 45 minutes from the Erie cottage so we drove on, excited to see my family. Pulling into the driveway and seeing their happy faces greeting us was wonderful! We spent the evening catching up, telling them all about our trip so far, and giving out souvenirs. The weather was overcast and muggy but soon we enjoyed a classic cottage storm out over the lake; the sound of the rain pounding down on the roof is one of my favorite noises. Later in the evening, we watched “The Rock” – Steve and I had wanted to see it now that we’ve visited Alcatraz.

I’m not sure how exciting the next couple of days will be since we usually just relax at the cottage, but I’ll post a few updates anyway. Hope you are well!