Cleveland Rocks!

So, I've been going to visit my daughter in Ohio for several years now. We usually go see my parents and sister. But, sometimes we will just pick a city in Ohio and go there. We've been to Dayton, Columbus, Dayton, Bowling Green, Dayton, Columbus........so this time we picked a different city, CLEVELAND!!! Furthermore, I knew it was going to be freeeeeeezing cold! But, we still went.

Headed out from Asheville early Friday morning...took the day off work (hard to do where I work). This is driving from NC to TN near the Smokey Mountains on I-40.

Lets skip all the exciting pictures of TN, KY, and Ohio. Here I am with my little girl at pick up. Notice the books in the foreground.....yeah sure, she gets this from me! You may be able to spot a High School Musical poster or something if you look closely.

After getting lost a few times in Masfield, Ohio we had dinner at Donatos Pizza. Well, her and I eat a lot differently. I, with the bicycling and all, tend to eat foods that are not greasy, breaded, fried, etc. She likes everything breaded and cheesy! Here we are at Donatos Pizza in Mansfield, OH. I figured this would be okay.....but we ended up getting pizza with super extra extra cheese!!! Yikes! I did get tomatoes on my half of the pizza. My weakness is that I hate to waste food, so it all gets eaten. We did manage to leave a few extra pieces un-eaten.

So, I was playing with the flash of my camera and took a bunch of picts in the mirror.....wanted to get something that looked like a floating orb above my head.....and pretty much all my attempts failed to accomplish what I was trying to do. But, I do enjoy the comedic relief of these shots.

More comedy, times two! Yeah, just trying to snap a few good shots.
Oh yeah....here is a good one. Notice my stole of feathers, i.e. boa! Actually it is not my boa....it is hers.

Oh, did I say this was a road trip? That means Starbucks Coffee (SBX) stops. Well, here we are on Saturday AM. I had the hotel coffee and I HATE hotel coffee. Here I am in front of my favorite evil corporation that treats their employees unfairly, SBX! I love SBX on the road. I think we stopped at 5 or 6 SBX's over the weekend.....we hit this one in Brecksville, OH twice.

We made it to the Cleveland Town City Center mall. I remembered going here a long time ago when I was in college at BGSU.....we went and partied in the Cleveland Flats during those years. I still remembered how to get to this mall. I'm not a big mall shopper at all. It was cool though for a short while. A lot of things were over priced.....but we didn't care.....it was cold out side.

Okay.....we spent so much money on overpriced candy that they gave us a free heart-shaped pillow!!! (pillow not pictured here.) Something like $18 for approximately 1.5 pounds of candy or something.....I think we got ripped off.......but, the pillow wasn't considered "free" after charging us for $2.79 per 1/4 pound.....or something like that.

Dear Mr. Blogspot, How many pictures can I upload into one blog?
Here is one of those "under the city" pictures.....are we lost?...the sign said I-77 Akron this a-way! Lock the doors!

Abusik reunion, guitar players Frank Obusek and Damon Conn. MAN! We hadn't seen each other since like 1994 or something. Our hairs were much longer then. We were good heavy metal kids. It was a great time to hook up with Damon again and talk about old times and what we are up to now. Damon is teaching kids in the Twinsburg Orchestra. Em wasn't too excited, but she was a great trooper listening to how her dad played music in a metal/thrash band a long time ago. I may be able to get some video posted soon. Stay tuned for that!!!

Near Lake Erie (it is 150 feet away to my right).....parked outside the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame. It was so freakin cold and snowy that we just had to take the opportunity for pictures. Notice the SBX cup in my hand! Just trying to stay warm.

It is cold!!!! It was single digits and below freezing with the wind chill.

Outside the RnR HoF. I had been here once before for some wedding pictures (not mine) of a friend. We had not gone into the building at that time, just sat in front with pictures. Here is Em in front with the snow and the lake-front blowing snow.....lake-affect snow on the ground.

When they took this pict, I had absolutely no intention of buying it!!!! I would have posed or something to make it more interesting. But, as we left we just "had" to buy it.

Here is the final shot....it is the full moon as seen from I-40 in TN. We skipped a lot of picture taking after the Hall of Fame.....like swimming and eating and shopping.....I can't count how many movies we bought. We had a great breakfast this morning. We left Richfield at 7:30 AM....got to Findlay around noonish.....and I made it back to Asheville at 8 PM. 1500 plus miles of driving round trip! I am zonked!!!