Update: LeBron James announced his return to Cleveland July 11th, which makes this post from my day in
Cleveland on September 13, 2012 more timely than I originally imagined.
Late to Rise
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Cleveland, birds were
singing, children were laughing, and Rock continued to roll. I slept so poorly,
however, that I took little joy in these circumstances as I rose late, like
11am late. I got ready slowly, and Naomi was kind to serve me some brunch to
get me going. I lugged all my stuff out to the car, and wound my way back out
of the greenery of Eastlake:
Like I was saying last blog post, this is the pall that most
people perceive when they think of Cleveland:
The downtown, however, isn’t quite like that in real life:
The Long, Strange
Trip
One could possibly describe my road trip the same way as the
Grateful Dead tagline. The “long” part for sure. I had to take a picture of
this sign to try to explain to myself, and now to you, why the Rock’n’roll Hall
of Fame is in Cleveland:
Regardless of whether you agree it should be there, it’s a
pretty cool place; it’s a glass pyramid above ground, ringed by guitars of all
colors and designs, and there’s a Johnny Cash bus in the lot as well:
I finally went inside, and was slightly surprised (shouldn’t
have been) that I couldn’t take pictures within the actual museum, but I could
in the outer display areas:
This was touching: 9/11 Memorial guitars
Linkin Park was the basic soundtrack for my swimming career
in high school, so I had to capture a shot of one of their guitars:
Into the Hall
I then put the camera in the bag and hurried through all the
museum displays, which were fascinating to say the least. I don’t know a ton of
music history but I like music from nearly all decades and most genres. You can
learn more about the information in the Rock’n’roll Hall of Fame at http://www.rockhall.com/.
I had to hurry because it was already 3pm by the time I
bought my ticket to the Hall of Fame, and sunset at Niagara Falls, over 200
miles away, was at 8pm. I’m clearly not a great planner when I’m operating on
my own! This experience of reading the displays as fast as possible and trying
to absorb images and details quickly is reminiscent of my blitzkrieg through the San Diego Zoo weeks earlier. It was fun though, what a great
opportunity!
I bought a t-shirt that was too small at the gift shop that
had the list of Hall of Fame inductees from the 2012 class, including the Beastie Boys, Guns N' Roses, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers! I also got a CD (remember those?) of the Hollies, their Greatest Hits. It includes
the well known Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress:
Not only for road trips, for in general, it’s good to feel
that late 50’s early 60’s nostalgia through the tinny echoing voices of the
singers and confident plucks of the guitar strings. I needed the good music for
this afternoon, I had quite a task ahead considering it was 4:30 by the time I
left the Hall of Fame. Even knowing that, I had to satisfy my itchy camera
trigger finger along the waterfront of Lake Erie:
From there, it was an hour plus to my pass-by of Erie,Pennsylvania. Lively green American grassland and forest along the way:
I had plenty of daylight left then, but I knew at the end of
the line, I’d be severely pushing my luck on sunset time. I didn’t have a
tripod with me at the time, which would have greatly extended my nighttime
photo-taking capacity. I drove farther over the speed limit than I felt
comfortable with, willing the horizon
to come closer, quicker!
Empire State, Take
One
New York and “Lady Liberty” welcomed me at the border with
PA:
The scenery of upstate New York could definitely be
described as welcoming:
Sorry native New Yorkers, "Upstate New York" means "any part of New York that's not New York City or Long Island" to us non-natives. Seeing the place for the first time though, the word “idyllic” springs to mind, and has made it into my
conversations with anyone who has brought up Upstate New York ever since. I
really wish I’d been able to relax and soak it in more visually, but this
wasn’t the time. See how low and dim the sun has gotten?
I hope I was playing some very urgent song on the iPod, like
the song from the Burly Brawl in the Matrix Reloaded. Buffalo looked faded
and dated, like old industrial America preserved for our modern eyes.
In fact, as you look at the faded gold coming from that
gilded tower, doesn’t it look somewhat like a lower-rise Gotham?
It took another half hour to reach Niagara Falls itself,
driving along the Niagara River and Grand Island with all the bridges going
across:
The Deep Breath
Before…
I swooped into Niagara, past the casinos, and into the
parking lot at the falls, practically throwing my camera equipment into a bag
and hurrying along the river banks, where the river began to churn into
whitewater:
It then changed to an undulating deep blue flow as it
approached the dropoff…
The Plunge!
Deafening cascades those were. It’s the combination both the
sight and sound of the constant falling oceans of water that makes it
mesmerizing, and peaceful. There was a lot of misty spray coming off the falls
that was cooling off us bystanders as well. I was snapping away with the
camera, bracketing to change the lighting of the falls and the smoothness or
granularity of the water as it hung suspended in each picture:
These are the hotels, casinos and other assorted buildings
lit up on the Canadian (eh?) side of the falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario:
This is the best shot I could manage with the Duckies due to
my ineptitude with a camera in low light:
The river seemed to be churning even more fiercely, perhaps in farewell, as I walked back to the car:
A nearby cafeteria-style restaurant was close to shutting
down, but I managed to order and wolf down a huge pile of fried rice and orange
chicken, which was needed because I’d neglected food for a while in order to
make the sunset deadline at the Falls.
Final Destination:
Not Niagara Falls
If you’re tired just reading up to this point about how far I’d
come to make it to the Falls, then you’ll no doubt feel the same weight on my
physical and mental energy when I figured out that I had another 160 miles (2.5
hours) of driving left in inky blackness of night to Syracuse. Like, ah I was
all ready to bed down there close by the Falls, but in order to pace the rest
of New England in a manageable fashion, I had to make it halfway across New
York state.
I had such a feeling of accomplishment, though, from getting
to see Niagara with enough light left to get pictures of the Falls and enjoy
them for a few minutes that it
rejuvenated my drive (pun) to go further that night. INXS and Snow Patrol
provided the usual evening’s entertainment, and I made it to Syracuse near 1
am, and the night manager at the hotel was awake and attentive to get me in my
room quickly. Thank God, at last I could rest and ready myself for almost the
rest of all of New England the next day. That was good night, from Syracuse!
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