CLEVELAND ROCKS

For those of you who are slackers and don't want to be bothered reading this post you can take the easy way out and just head on over to our picture blog and look at the pictures.
http://www.chrisandeveyspics.blogspot.com/

Earlier this month we went to Cleveland for a few days. It was Chris's 30th birthday and the Seahawks were in Cleveland playing the Brown so I thought it would be fun. We ran the idea past our good friends Shawn and Celeste and they too thought it was a good idea. So we bought plane tickets and booked rooms at the same hotel. We planned to fly in at the same time on the Friday night, them from Seattle and us from Boston.

Chris and I landed in Cleveland shortly before 8 pm. Our flight was pretty uneventful. I don't think I will ever get used to it and I don't think I will ever not be a total nervous wreck during take off. None of it seems natural to me. I mean who actually thinks being strapped into a metal tube and shot into the air in insane speeds is a fun time? But anyways, I digress. We did not check luggage so we just headed straight to the baggage claim where Shawn and Celeste would be claiming their bags. Once they arrived we all took a cab to our hotel, got checked in and headed out in the streets of Cleveland in hopes of finding somewhere to eat. We clearly picked the wrong street to walk down because there was nothing, at least nothing open. After finally finding a restaurant we enjoyed a late supper and the on the way back to the hotel decided to walk down a different street. THAT was where we should have walked. There were tons of pubs and restaurants open and people everywhere. I suppose next time we should ask before we just start walking.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites downtown Cleveland. Every night they have a "managers reception" with free drinks and every morning a cooked to order breakfast. It was nice to have breakfast every morning and not have to go out and pay for it. The rooms were really nice and big. Big kitchen/slash dining room area. Living room with pull out couch and a separate bedroom. All rooms had two flat panel HD TVs. It was pretty sweet. And the bed was SO comfortable. We have a crappy old futon and believe me when I say I have not slept that great in a long time. All three nights I slept like a log. Saturday after breakfast Chris, Shawn and I headed to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Celeste wasn't really interested in going so she went off shopping for the afternoon. Chris and I both really enjoyed the Hall of Fame. We were a little disappointed to learn that we could not take camera's into the actual museum part because of agreements with the artists who have donated all the stuff. I understand why you can't but it still sucked. There are so many things I wanted to take pictures of to be able to show you. It would take me forever to tell you all the things I saw and all the different displays they had but I will do my best to give you a run down.

They pretty much cover all the bases of rock in the museum dating back to the early 1920's/30's. They even have a display showing the evolution of radio and DJ's all over the world. I thought that was pretty cool as you could choose any year and city, state or country and listen to DJ's as far back as the beginning days of radio. Does anyone remember Rick Dee's and The Weekly Top 40? I remember every Saturday morning I would get up and turn my radio on and listen to the ENTIRE top 40. I think he still does it, I had no idea. There were so many displays of music from different eras filled with instruments, clothing etc. It was neat see the evaluation of even the simplest of things like clothes, concert posters and all that sort of thing. Probably the coolest display (at the least the one I enjoyed the most) was the Jimi Hendrix one. They had everything from different articles of his clothing, guitars, note paper with lyrics on them in his handwriting. My other favorite was Janis Joplin's Porsche they have on display. And no I did not take this picture, I found it online. It was obviously taken by someone when it was on display elsewhere.They had an section with all sorts of clothing of different artists from different concerts and videos. Probably the neatest part in that was the jacket that Michael Jackson wore in the Thriller video. There was also a display of letters etc and there was a rejection letter to U2 from some record company saying that they weren't what they were looking for at the time but good luck. Ha!! Can you imagine how dumb those people felt once U2 skyrocketed to stardom. We had a great afternoon and it was definitely worth the price of admission.

That night we decided to have dinner at The Cleveland Chophouse and Brewery. We all had amazing steaks and had the best waiter ever. His name was Vance and he was money. I suppose you had to be there but if your ever in Cleveland and you eat there you better be praying your waiter is Vance.Sunday was game day. We got to the stadium early so that as soon as the gates opened we could head down to the front rows next to the visitors tunnel to watch warm ups and get some autographs. We had so much fun, ended up with 2 autographs and got a lot of great pics of the guys coming and going.We lost the game but we had a lot of fun. We lost in OT which was disappointing but it was my first Seahawks game and I had a great time. The Cleveland fans were a bunch of jerks, which kinda sucked but what can you do.Monday was our last day in Cleveland and after we checked out of our hotel we headed to Canton, Ohio to go to the NFL Hall of Fame. Celeste didn't want to go so we dropped her off at the mall. I wasn't sure how much I would like the Hall of Fame but I actually really enjoyed it and saw some really cool stuff. Old uniforms, footballs, pictures, benches. Basically anything you can think of we saw it there. The gallery with all the inductees busts were pretty cool. Although they were a little on the creepy side.So there you have it. That was our weekend in a nutshell. Our flight home was okay. It was really windy in Cleveland so the take off was a little on the scary side, the plane was all over the place all the way up. Needless to say I did not enjoy it at all, and yes I even cried. Other than that we had a great time and were happy to spend time with Shawn and Celeste.