Wednesday July 14, 2021.
Temp: 81 /72, Humidity: 64/85%, Top Wind: S15 mph, Precip: none!!, Miles Traveled: not far
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It is still humid, and our shoes are still soaking wet. It was nice to sleep in and not have to wake up to an alarm and try to figure out where we are! It was a nice leisurely morning. I flipped all of our clothes around, put some up in the sun in the fly bridge and hoped they’d dry.
Our only plan for today was to go to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum, which is close enough to hit with a marshmallow. It was warm out with a chance of rain at any time, but we found some dry shoes to put on and moseyed on up there.
It is an interesting building and there are exhibits all the way to the very top! Out in the circular courtyard were a couple of food trucks and some picnic tables, but there weren’t many people just milling around. However, there were lots of people inside!
I didn’t take many pictures, and it was overwhelming the amount of collectibles, memorabilia, and information about SOOO many artists! Of course there was a wonderful display for Elvis. I was beyond amazed at how small this suit was. I had no idea that Elvis was such a small person – at least in his early career. He was six feet tall, and only 170 pounds!
I’ve always appreicated Jimi Hendrix’s style and contribution to the music scene – maybe because he was from Seattle. This is just one example of how much stuff can be displayed – clothing, guitars, contracts, etc. One cool thing about the Hendrix collection was some of his own handwritten lyrics and drawings.
One cool area in the museum was where it displayed and described the various styles and influences in Rock ‘n Roll by city:
*Memphis (1948-59 early rock-n-roll like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike & Tina Turner)
*Detroit (1962-71 Motown -Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Jackson 5)
*Liverpool (1963-66 British Invation – Beatles, Animals, Yardbirds)
*San Francisco (1965-69 psychedelic era artists such as Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead)
*Los Angeles (1965-79 troubadours and folk like Eagles, James Taylor, Crosby Stills & Nash)
*Seattle (1985-95 grunge – Nirvana, Pearl Jam)
Way up in the top of the building was this re-creation of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
Oh look out the window! There’s Island Girl!
So if you’re like me, you’re wondering why is this museum in Cleveland of all places. Why not a well knows music city such as Detroit or Memphis, or ?? As it turns out, the PHRASE “Rock ‘n Roll” was born here in Cleveland by a radio disc jockey in 1951, to describe the uptempo black rhythm and blues music he was playing. So now you know!
We spent 2-3 hours in the museum and got overloaded with information. It is a pretty cool place, and I discovered that the rock-n-roll music library in my head is really small. There were more people in the Hall of Fame that I’ve never heard of, than ones that I have. 🤷♀️
We headed back to the boat and Kenny checked all the strainers down in the engine room. We’ve been in some pretty weedy marinas lately. They weren’t bad, but they got cleaned out anyway. Then since we didn’t have dry shoes for distance walking, we had a home cooked french dinner …. french toast! 😁
There was some rain forecasted again this evening that I don’t think ever actually happened, and we got just a sliver of a sunset. That seems to be the best we can get here in Cleveland.
A couple of boats left the marina today, but most stayed to check out the museum and have a ‘down’ day. Tomorrow looks pretty nasty out on the water, so we’re going to stay tomorrow night as well. We don’t have any plans for tomorrow, so I guess we’ll just take it easy!
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Thursday July 15, 2021.
Temp: 88 /73, Humidity: 53/87%, Top Wind: S18 mph, Precip: some, Miles Traveled: not far
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Warm, humid, windy. As predicted, I looked at the weather sources when I got up this morning, and they all said it was gonna be bumpy out there today. So we asked the marina if we could stay another night. There was one or two boats that left our marina this morning, and then about six more loopers came in this afternoon, but there’s still a lot of empty slips. Tonight we have 16 looper boats here! This one is our favorite. Scope out that registration number! WN…. that’s Washington for those of you who don’t know. We talked to him for a little bit, and discovered that he is from Port Angeles. He had the boat trailered to Mobile Alabama, and that is where he started his loop. See? Even Washingtonians can do the loop!
We spent the day hanging out in the boat and helping the one dock guy with all the boats coming in. It was windy, so having an extra pair of hands available to catch and tie lines was good for our fellow looper captains and crews coming in. I figured that since we were just sitting around, I’d order up some groceries from InstaCart. That took a few hours, between shopping and getting them here, but now we have some fresh food! YAY!! In the meantime, I was scoping out the potential weather for the next week, figuring out where we want to go and for how long, and making reservations. We don’t usually make reservations a week in advance because of weather uncertainties, but we are entering Lake Erie’s island playground, so we figured we better have a plan. We’ll adjust if the weather makes us.
For a late lunch, since our shoes were finally dry, we walked into town to a barbeque place. On the way, we went past the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank. A glass door on the right. A steel door on the left. And I don’t know who the character guarding the place in the middle is.
This is a boring photo, simply to show how deserted the city is at 4:00 in the afternoon on a Thursday. Wow! I figure it hasn’t always been this empty, due to the number of lanes in the streets…. but there is just NO traffic! So weird.
We found the street where the BBQ joint was located, and discovered that it’s a cute little blocked off street with all kinds of restaurants.
And here we are! Mabel’s BBQ. We opted to eat inside because it was windy, hot and humid outside.
Not many people were here yet at 4:00, but it was a big place with a bar that included a huge variety of bourbon, whiskey, etc. We didn’t order anything fancy, but the ribs were amazing. The chef had an interesting twist on his menu, with a nod to eastern European influences in the area. His standard accompaniments were a slice of rye break, kraut, and spicy pickles. 😳. Not your typical cornbread and beans kind of southern BBQ! The Cleveland BBQ sauce is a vinegary-mustardy kind of sauce. They didn’t put it on anything, but it was available and suggested, and there was a sweet traditional kind of tomato based sauce available also. Occassionally ya learn somethin new! I didn’t even know Cleveland had their own style.
I captured this along the way.
As we were walking the several city blocks back to the boat, we noticed this ALERT on several electronic reader boards along the way. ‘Special marine Warning issued July 15 at 5:14 until 6:45’. Interesting! I suppose they must get some radical weather in a short amount of time around here, and this is the quickest way to alert people that are out walking about. Just as we walked past, we got a huge gust of cold wind, and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees! Uh Oh! Not again! We walked fast to try to get home before another big rain storm.
It didn’t rain right away, and finally just sprinkled a little bit a couple of hours later. Whew!
Tomorrows weather looks WET WET WET, but low wind and low waves. So we’re going to make a break for it, and maybe we can dodge some raindrops. We’re going about 55 miles to Sandusky, and then we’ll stay within about a 20 mile area for the next week or so, and enjoy Lake Erie’s Islands! After that, we’ll head up the Detroit River and make our way up to Lake St Clair and Lake Huron.
