Something of an update!

So way back in July, Patrick and I went to Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for our tenth anniversary.

(There was the hope to visit with theferrett and zoethe, but alas, plague fell upon Casa McJuddmetz and it was not to be. However, I discovered Cleveland is only like four and a half hours away! Some other time, then.)

Cleveland was pretty awesome. The city itself was kind of unusual; it felt like neither a suburb nor a downtown core, but some weird amalgamation of the two. (Also it seemed really empty on the weekend; unless we were in the area of the Hall of Fame or at a restaurant, the streets were basically people-free... on the other hand, there were baseball games all weekend which might have accounted for it.) I have also never seen a city with (simultaneously) such large, untraveled streets and so much need for valet parking...

We left Ontario Friday mid-morning, pausing only briefly in Pennsylvania to eat at a Cracker Barrel. (Patrick was insistent upon this point. I got the best score on the peg board with 2 remaining.) We made landfall in Cleveland around 5:30, stopped at a Starbucks to poach wifi and get a hotel.

We wound up staying at the Intercontinental (thank you, William Shatner) - which seems to be part of (or at least affiliated with) the Cleveland Clinic. The hotel itself was beautiful, and for the amount of service we got (in-and-out valet parking being the big one, along with free wifi), we paid a pretty amazing price.

Friday evening we ate at Gusto! in Little Italy, which was quite good. I had the osso bucco. Pat had lasagne.

Then Saturday was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was pretty awesome and neat, although people tended to bogart the listening stations (which to me were the most interesting part, being able to track influences and stuff like that).

Also, I was somewhat miffed that Alan Cross/The Ongoing History of New Music was never mentioned in their radio broadcasters section. RECTIFY AT ONCE, ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME.

Saturday evening, Ferrett had suggested Lola's for dinner for us, but Pat is not really into French food; instead we wound up going to DANTE.

And oh my god.

I got the prix fixe "Chef's Whim" menu (where they let you state allergies/food preferences, but then it's up to the chef). I also got it with the wine pairing.

It is probably up there as one of my top three meals, with Corduroy in Washington being tied with it for first. (LIV at White Oaks in Niagara-on-the-Lake is #3.)

Did you know Ohio has a winery that makes ice wine? It does! And it was actually pretty good!

Then Sunday we went to the Cleveland Museum of Art and the gardens surrounding, which was a lot of fun and gorgeous. We also wanted to go see the Archives for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but when we got there, they were closed? (Despite the website saying it would be open. We weren't really sure what that was about.)

We also saw the USS Cod, which was fun except Pat and I are tall people not designed to be submariners. I hit my head multiple times going between parts of the ship (SOLID METAL BAD FOR SKULL) and Pat almost couldn't get back out of the ship because he couldn't effectively bend his knees to climb the ladder (the hole was too small) and so had to kind of pull himself out.

And then we drove home, and waited like three hours to cross the fucking Peace Bridge WHY GOD WHY.

But all in all, an excellent trip, A+ would do again!