Day 10: Cleveland, OH 51/2 hours

After a restful two nights, we hit the road again. Today’s destination: Cleveland, OH.

We consulted a new guide today, a book we picked up at the Cracker Barrel gift store. (Anybody else think it’s kinda weird that a restaurant has a gift store that is not solely dedicated to their own merchandise? Then again, I did buy stuff here, so guess it is a good idea…)

The book was called, appropriately, “The Great American Road Trip.” It pretty much summed up our trip—big, crazy and wacky sights to see all across America! I was a little bummed we didn’t know about the book at the beginning of the trip, but turns out, we hit many of the cool sights anyway. I was a little excited and worried all at the same time how many of the sights we’d seen, and how many we went out of our way to see (hello, Corn Palace, I’m talking to you!).

I gave the book to Mark and told him we’d be driving through Kentucky, Ohio and maybe Indiana (have I mentioned I’m really bad at geography?). I told him to find us some cool stuff to see along the way. He immediately called out the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, or the Wall Drug in South Dakota.

“Oh!” he said, surprised. “Let me look again then.”

But he did make one good find, a random castle in Ohio. It was called Loveland Castle, and was made from rocks dredged from the river beside it. We checked the GPS and found we’d be going right past it—it was only four miles off the highway.

We drove through some lush Ohio neighborhoods, turned down a little road, and suddenly, there it was. It was kind of surreal.




Apparently, somebody built it as a place for Scouts (boys and girls) to have campouts. It would be an awesome place to camp out! There are lush gardens surrounding the castle, a lookout point over the river, and a fire ring down by the water. I was not expecting to see a castle on this trip, and this was a very cool one.







We spent maybe 30 minutes checking it out. Back on the road, we passed through some more cute neighborhoods, and at one point, passed a deer right on the side of the road! We also spotted a yard sale, which we did not pass. Edra wanted to see what kind of wares you could buy in Ohio, and the most obvious answer was coats. Lots of them. Big, thick winter coats, which told me the winters are a little colder than in California. The home owner was complaining that he hadn’t sold many coats, but it was almost 100 degrees and humid as all get out. Just looking at those coats made me pour sweat, I couldn’t imagine actually trying one on.

Edra didn’t find anything, and the owners weren’t nearly as colorful as the yard sale owner we’d met in Illinois. (He drove up on a motorcycle from somewhere when we stopped, and then told us about all the great aunts he had in California. He spoke about the riots—yes, the Los Angeles riots in 1992!—and struggled to remember the lyrics from a song he’d written about it.)

There was a whole lotta nothing in Ohio, at least nothing new. We’d seen most of it before—giant rolls of hay, corn, the occasional barn. We got some occasional barns, and things got a little crazy when we drove through Columbus—we saw a car crash, a cop checking out a dead deer on the roadside, and an 18-wheeler that flipped on its side on a curvy off ramp.

“Be careful,” I told Edra, who was driving. “There’s all sorts of crazy stuff going on right now!”

We stopped for lunch somewhere far out in the country, but changed our minds as quickly as the lady changing her baby on the tables. (Good eye, Edra!) That was really the only really scary dirty place we encountered along the trip, and we hurried to get away. We found a cute little diner a few miles up the road, although it had a curious-looking clientele. The women all wore skirts and flowered shirts, and piled their hair up high on their heads. The little girls all wore flowery dresses and bright bows in their long hair. We couldn’t figure out if they were some kind of cult, polygamists, or a Tiaras and Toddlers audition. Or maybe this was just the way small-town Mid-West folk dressed. But it was still pretty odd…

We did pass some other nice places on the way...like Ashland, OH.




Ashland was also home to Grandpa’s Cheese Barn. We weren't sure what that was, but we could't pass it up--we had to stop.




The first thing I saw made me literally clap my hands in excitement--an Amish buggy! (I am not at all religious, but I am fascinated by religion, and religious people, and I've never met an Amish person before.)

There was a little Amish boy playing by the buggy. He was the cutest little guy, with blond hair, a long sleeve shirt, a vest and pants on. The humidity was too much for me in shorts and a t-shirt, but it didn't seem to bother him at all.

He was swinging around a pole, and walking around the buggy. He was a sweet, quiet kid, and when I silently waved to him, he waved back.

We saw his mom, who was selling baskets under a tent. She was also dressed in Amish clothes (duh!), a long dress and a bonnet.

The baskets were adorable, but fragile. I really, really wanted one, but could tell there was no way I'd get it home without crushing or breaking it. The Amish woman told us all about how she made them, and was just really nice. (And no, I don't have any pictures of them to post--I really wanted to take some, but I know they don't like to be photographed, so I was respectful of that. But here's a pic of half their buggy!)




Grandpa's Cheese Barn was a fiesta of crackers, soup mixes, jams, sauces and yes, cheese. It was fun to sample the different salsas, and we bought a couple soup mixes. But we were most excited at the ice cream counter below, where we bought some gigantic cones.

Cleveland was just a couple hours away. We rolled into town in the late afternoon, at the same time a Jehovah's Witness conference let out. (Seems like all the hotels we picked were popular with the religious groups!) There was a huge line at the elevators, but once we got upstairs, we were delighted to find a huge room. Even better, there was a free happy hour below, so we left our bags behind and hit that.

Mark and I decided to explore downtown Cleveland a bit. Although the happy hour and elevators were packed, the downtown area was dead, dead, dead. There were no people in sight, anywhere. I don't know if it's just that we were in a business area on a Sunday night, or if it's normally like that, but it kinda creeped me out. We went back to the hotel, which was fine by Mark, since he got to go swimming instead of exploring. (Turns out he's not much of an explorer...)

Cleveland also taught me, yet again, how little geography I know. The Indians were playing when we entered town, which is kinda funny because we keep rolling into towns while the baseball games are in action. We saw an even split of Toronto Blue Jay and Cleveland Indian fans, and I couldn't figure out why there were so many Canadians in town. Until I looked at my map--turns out Canada is just on the other side of Lake Erie.

Anyway, our day was pretty mellow compared to the rest of our packed-to-the-hilt days. But it was nice to have a leisurely, relaxing day. And of course, tomorrow is the real big day, the one I've been waiting for the entire trip--our jaunt to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame! So I was fine turning in early, while visions of rock stars danced in my head. :-)

Day 9: Louisville, KY, no driving!

Today was very exciting because we had lots of cool plans, but also because we didn’t have to drive anywhere. After six nights in six different hotels in six states, we were a bit road weary.

But not too tired to have fun! We’ve learned on this vacation that the best way to see stuff is to get there first thing in the morning. It’s difficult to wake up early and rush to a museum, but you really do beat the crowds, which means you see more.

Our first stop this morning was the Louisville Slugger bat factory tour and museum. When we saw the gigantic bat out front, we knew we’d found the place.





A tour was just starting, so we jumped on it. A very funny guide led us through the tiny factory, showing us how baseball bats were created from start to finish. We learned about how the trees were selected, and how the round billets were extracted from the logs. (A billet looks like a smooth, rounded fence post. The bat is then carved from that wooden post.)





We watched them drop the billets into a carving machine, where it was shaped, smoothed and turned into a bat in about 2 minutes. It was so cool!

The tour guide described the different kinds and sizes of bats they create, including for your average Little Leaguer on up to the customized bats for the pros. The amateur bats rolled off the line unbelievable quick, but the pro bats had their own computerized machine. The bat makers could create a specific sized and shaped bats for the pros, depending on what they liked as far as weight, feel, grip and barrel size. Once they have a template created for the pro bat, they put the measurements into the computer, which then carves out the same bat every time, down to the exact measurements. It was pretty impressive.

Each pro slugger orders about 12-15 bats a year. They didn’t say how much those bats cost, but based on the size and accuracy of the fancy computerized machine, I’m guessing it’s a lot.

Even more impressive was getting to hold the bats the pros would use! The guide passed around bats for the various pros, and Mark was stoked to hold Andre Ethier’s bat (he held another Dodger’s bat as well). I was more excited for Derek Jeter’s bat.

Next up, we saw how the workers burned in the Louisville Slugger bat. We learned that besides branding the bat, the logo also tells the players how to hold the bat—logo side up. The logo is the weakest part of the bat, and if it points anywhere other than up, there’s a good chance the bat will break on contact. The guide said they spend a lot of time telling this to the pro players, most of whom grew up using aluminum bats.

The next step was painting and drying the bats. Each bat—more than two million a year!—is hand-painted. Hand-dipped, really. There are eight different colors to choose, from a basic clear varnish, to cherry red, to black or even double-dipped black to eliminate the wood grain. (That one’s called the Tony Gwynn, since he preferred his bat to look like an aluminum bat—shout out to a hometown hero, go Tony!)





The tour ended after that, but there was a cool museum to check out afterwards. We saw all sorts of awesome bats used by some big name players—Mark swung bats belonging to Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth and even Mickey Mantle. They had some cool exhibits, including a pitching machine that whizzed the ball passed you at 90 mph. (Turns out that’s pretty darn fast!)

Mark with Babe Ruth's bat

Mark with Jackie Robinson's bat

One other cool thing they had was a visiting exhibit one of Norman Rockwell art. There were all sorts of original Rockwells depicting sports. We saw a bunch of famous works, like the picture of the umpires with their hands out, feeling for rain, and a scrawny little boy flexing his muscles in front of the mirror. It was so cool.

It was lunch time, so we asked a local for a recommendation. He pointed us to a sandwich shop, which turned out to be kinda weird. It was located in an old lawyer’s office. The reception and main conference room had been turned into dining areas. The bathrooms were at the end, and when I strolled back there, I passed more individual offices and another conference room. The kitchen was in one of these offices, which just seemed really odd.

But what was even weirder was the general décor of the restaurant. It was kind of a homey, country-kitchen style, but the owner obviously loved beagles, so there were pictures, statues and signs of beagles all over the place. The restaurant had even been named after a beagle! The whole lunch was kind of surreal!

After lunch, we walked through downtown, which had all sorts of cool buildings. The buildings that were full all seemed to be occupied by architects. The other half of the buildings were empty, but still beautiful, with decorative trim and dark, rich colors.

The buildings of downtown Louisville

Gorgeous Louisville house

We made our way to the Muhammad Ali Center, which turned out to be all kinds of awesome.




It started with a movie about Ali’s controversial life, and it really gave you a sense of respect for all that he accomplished. I’m not a boxing fan at all, but I am definitely a Muhammad Ali fan. He worked hard to get to the top, and once he got there, he took on other fights, against racism, ignorance, and spirituality.

It was humbling to read how Ali had won an Olympic medal, triumphed in his sport, and then returned home, only to be denied service at a local diner because he was black. And I gained a huge amount of respect for him refusing to join the military because of his religious beliefs—he refused to fight or die for a country that wouldn’t even let him sit in the front of the bus, and denied him the most basic civil rights solely based on his color. He started out a hero because of sports, but I admired him more for his humanity.

The museum had five floors, each jam-packed with information. The exhibits were awesome, a blend of multi-media movies, signage and pictures. My only complaint was that there was too much information, and we had too little time to really absorb it all. I wished I’d had time for a couple visits, so all those anecdotes could really sink in.

Next up on the agenda was…the Kentucky Derby! It was about a 15-minute drive from downtown, but I couldn’t miss out on a trip to the famous Churchill Downs racetrack.

I made it!

Edra dropped us off at the track, where we picked up a tour. Mark was excited to see the place, but a little disappointed there weren’t any actual horses around—the racing season had ended a couple days earlier. But he ran all over the place anyway, taking pictures.

We learned about some of the Derby traditions—how the emotional song “My Old Kentucky Home” is played before each race, the importance of wearing a hat, and the difficulty of obtaining a ticket in the stands. But the guide told us for 40 bucks, we could buy a ticket to the infield, or to the outer perimeter, where the real party was. People arrive at the crack of dawn, well before the race even runs, and the whole city shuts down to observe it.

The famous finish line

We learned about the few, the proud, the Triple Crown winners, including the most famous, Secretariat. The guide told us how, unlike most horses, Secretariat actually ran faster with each consecutive lap, gaining momentum while the other horses were tiring out. He attributed this to Secretariat’s huge heart, which turned out to weigh 22 pounds, three times more than the average horse’s heart! Secretariat had a huge engine running under his hood…

It was pretty cool to be there at the track, to see where the horses line up, and to see those famous twin spires. I texted pictures the whole time to my horse-crazy niece Hannah, who texted back that she was insanely jealous.

The famous spires

The track also had a nice museum. I was a little burnt out by the humidity and the other two museums by then. I took a cursory trip around the museum, then found myself a nice little bench and watched some movies about race day. Mark found a video game, where he got to mount a big, fake, leg-less horse and race against other visitors. He figured out what to do, and whipped them all every race. I finally kicked him out so someone else would have a chance.

Ride 'em, cowboy! Errrr, I mean, jockey!

We decided to eat dinner at a real Southern restaurant that night—the Cracker Barrel. We’d seen signs all along the road trip, and we were intrigued. Unfortunately, we weren’t quite hungry enough yet for dinner, but when we arrived, we found rows of rocking chairs and oversized checkerboards. So we rocked and played checkers for awhile, until the dinner crowds started arriving, and we figured we’d better head inside.



The Cracker Barrel food was…Southern. There were some healthy options on the menu, but all the people around us were eating fried stuff, so that’s what we ordered. I had the fish with carrots and fries, and they were a similar shade of orange. It wasn’t great, but at least we could say we’d eaten at a Cracker Barrel now.

And so we headed back to the hotel, tired but happy. I felt like we’d seen all the highlights of Louisville, from the architecture to the sports museums. It was a really nice town, but, like the Cracker Barrel, I feel like I’ve been there, and barring any unforeseen reasons, probably won’t be back anytime soon.

But I sure had a good time while I was there!