Misadventures in Cleveland A Journey to the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

CECELIA FRANCISCO PHOTO/WEB EDITOR

Two questions popped in my head while driving through the remnants of hurricane Ivan in the middle of Pennsylvania. around 4 a.m.; Why am I doing this and is this worth it?

It’s early morning on a Saturday, I should just be going to sleep at this point, not on the turnpike in drenching rain.

“Check out those clouds, that’s hot,” my co-pilot, Meg, said. I looked out the window and saw against the dark clouds in the sky, a section of lighter clouds that looked oddly like a forming funnel.

“That’s not cool, it looks like a tornado,” Ange said from the backseat.

“Yeah, let’s keep going.” I said as I leaned on my gas pedal and squinted as the rain splattered the windshield in the darkness.

Eight hours of wondering why in the world I was spending my weekend driving to Ohio, of all places, we arrived in Sandusky. Sandusky is one hour west of Cleveland. It is on the edge of Lake Erie and is home to the Cedar Point amusement park.

Meg and Ange strapped themselves into roller coaster cars and were shot 122 miles per hour up a hill and dropped 400 feet at a 90 degree angle on the “Top Thrill Dragster,” the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster

After we meandered around the park, went on a couple of rides and in a few stores, we decided it was time to leave. Meg and I were walking stiffly, soaked to the bone from a water ride.

We walked through the parking lot to section 33D where my car was parked. As we changed our soaked pants under the cover of car doors, I spotted something on my driver-side window.

“Gross! That seagull must’ve been pretty full to leave that lovely present for me,” I grimaced at the giant blob that resembled bird poop. Meg and Ange laughed at me as I found a napkin to clean it off with.

I discovered, mid-wipe, that indeed it was not bird pooh, but it was purple, cotton candy flavored, Bubblicious. I spent many expletives, yelling about how rude people were before we got back in the car and were heading for Cleveland, where our Hampton Inn hotel room awaited us.

“Hi, we’re here to check in,” I told the woman at the main desk in downtown Cleveland. I was wearing an orange t-shirt and bright red pajama pants with coffee and hot chocolate mugs all over them. She looked horrified.

After we checked in, it was off to room 913 with our nifty card swipe keys. We spent the least amount of time possible for three girls to change and clean up from our day of sweat, coasters and water rides.

We headed downstairs and found ourselves a taxi. It’s nice to know that you may be in a different city, but the taxi drivers will still hit nearly everything around them as they zip through the city.

We arrived in tact at the Hard Rock Café. It was a couple of blocks from the baseball stadium, and the lights were on as a game raged inside.

Dinner went off without a hitch, until Meg knocked her water all over the place and we succeeded in causing lots of trouble for the waiting staff. They didn’t mind though, because they got a good tip out of it.

Next on our agenda, was the mother load-our reason for traveling 400-some odd miles to such a random city Yes, we were there to witness the Mecca of Rock ‘N’ Roll history…the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Who knew that looking at costumes from music videos, old and broken guitars, handwritten song lyrics, journals, timelines, videos and listening to the Jimi Hendrix Experience could make one’s life complete?

Inside, we witnessed the real life replica of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” You walked through missing bricks in the wall and turned around and sporadically around the white bricks were bricks filled with the story of how Roger Waters came up with the idea and felling for “The Wall.”

For those who don’t know, “The Wall,” is a movie that Pink Floyd made about conformity, and its soundtrack contains the well known song “Another Brick In the Wall.” The movie is quite possibly the freakiest movie you may ever experience in your life, but well worth it.

Gospel, rhythm & blues, rock ‘n’roll, pop, country and even rap came together in six floors of exhibits, audio, video and written information about people, feelings, places and time. It was surreal to experience that much about music.

We left on Sunday to return to Philly with a much greater knowledge of music then we had before. For a music-obsessed trio, that is impressive.

Our ride home, however, was nothing short of a disaster Detours sent us in the complete opposite direction and we wound up driving until 1:30 a.m. I found myself, dazed and sore from driving in a stationary position for so long. One question still lingered in my head; was this worth it?

The answer came to me as I parked. We had dropped Meg off and were now back at our dorm on campus. We were picking up our bags when I nodded tiredly to myself. Yes, I thought, this was more than worth it.