Hey y'all, I'm off to Cleveland tomorrow on business, and if all goes well I'll have most of Wednesday afternoon to go to the Hall. Has anyone in our circle of friends been there before? I'm back late Wednesday night, will try to take some pix & give a summary.
Back from Cleveland, where the temp was well below freezing & they had gotten 6" of snow the day before. Roads were clear though, so it was actually a not-too-bad winter experience. Had a nice time the first night going to a Cavaliers game with one of my customers who turned out to be a local born & raised, so he gave me a lot of interesting background.
Meetings yesterday morning went a little long but I still had about an hour and a half to spend at the Hall. Not enough time by any strecth of the imagination, at least not for denizens of this board. But still worth it. Architecturally the Hall is stunning (I. M. Pei designed it) and the interactive stuff is a lot of fun. They have a special exhibit on
Tommy which I could have spent 2 hours on by itself, but after going through the main exhibit area in just under 1 hour (s.b. 2.5 if you have the time) I had less than 30 min to spend there. Photography is
strictly prohibited, so sorry for not having any pix. 5 mintes in the gift shop & then I had to go turn in my rental & check-in. Glad I did it, but barely did it any justice. Can't wait to go back now.
Travel note: like most airports these days, Cleveland-Hopkins Int'l has an off-site car rental center with all the companies in one building. When I got there Tuesday I didn't have a reservation, figuring I could check around for the best deal. I mean how many people could be flying into Cleveland in mid-December? (my flight was less than half full, fer instance). Well joke's on me as I go from line to line and ask "Do you have any cars available?" Answer is always "No", and there is at least one other guy doing the same thing as me. We team up & finally are down to just Thrifty & Budget, he goes to the latter, I the former & we both get the same answer once again. "No cars, you'll have to wait until an extra car is returned, cleaned & gassed up." I can't wait that long, but by now the Budget people have no one else in line, so I go there to ask for advice on alternative sources of rental cars. The lady who had just told the other guy "No cars" 2 minutes earlier tells me, "Well, we do have a 12-passenger van, if you want that?" What the hell, price was acceptable so I took it, and spent the next 24 hrs driving around NE Ohio in a gigantic Ford van all by myself. Both of my meetings were well outside Cleveland (as in closer to Akron & Erie PA respectively) so I put some miles on. Each of my customers took one look at it & just laughed, but it beat being stranded at the Cleveland Airport Rental Center for hours.