Sunday in Cleveland

Lake Erie, airfield, parking lot site of tailgating, from hotel parking garage roof.

Browns stadium, with part of the science center museum to the right.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Fans streaming past the R&R HOF to the stadium.

On Sunday -- 10/10/10 -- we left our wonderful Staybridge Suites in Elkhart, IN, and spend the day and night in Cleveland, OH. We chose to stay at the Doubletree downtown, as our main plan was to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As we approached town, I suddenly wondered whether the Browns had a home game (oh, why had we not checked that in advance!?!) and, sure enough, they did. Fans all over the downtown area, decked out in orange and brown! But Washington has horrible traffic, and the NFL team has the worst traffic jams in the NFL, and we were early enough before the kickoff that we had not problem getting to the hotel, but snagged on of the last parking spots on the roof of the parking garage, which was also popular with football fans. The tailgating we observed in a nearby parking lot looked like an orange-and-brown carnival. We were hungry & didn't have a clue where to have lunch, so we ate in the hotel's small restaurant. We both wanted club sandwiches, so the waitress suggested we split one, as she said they were huge. They were -- half a sandwich was equal to one normal sandwich. That and half of the fries satisfied my hunger. Then we walked over to the HOF, along with the river of fans streaming towards the nearby stadium minutes before kickoff.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a beautiful building designed by I.M. Pei; it has been described as like a record player. The exhibits are mainly clothes (heavy on the stage costumes), instruments (heavy on the electric guitars), and other artifacts. Unless you are enthralled by seeing the items owned or used by performers, it is a less-than-thrilling experience. But I did enjoy the exhibits, especially the one on Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, I'm a fan of his, but how many pages of lyrics (original and blow-up copies), posters, guitars, clothes (Care to see the jeans and hat he wore on the cover of Born in the USA? They are there.), etc. of his do I really need to see? I did enjoy seeing video of early Springsteen (pre-E Street Band) performances and the early posters, etc. But the motorcycle he used in the early 1980s, not so interesting to me.

We then went back to our hotel room to watch the rest of the Browns game on TV (Jake Delhomme, late of the Carolina Panthers, was the QB). They lost. Oh, well. We watched the fans stream away from our window. We also were very tired, so splurged and got room service: another club sandwich with fries, a salad, and bread pudding to split between us.

It was fun to experience a Browns game vicariously, and to see the R&R HOF, even if it wasn't the most thrilling experience of my life.