Nothing Wrong in Cleveland

My Friends are taking all kinds of exciting vacations this year. Disney World, the Outer Banks, and TWO went to or are headed for France.


We were actually all set on the idea of international travel ourselves this year. We were considering either a New England-Canada cruise or a trip to Toronto (a four-hour drive from our house). Unfortunately, because of some bizarre government plot to keep us from leaving the country (they now require birth certificates with parents’ names on them to issue passports) we were unable to get our passports in time for those glamorous trips. So, we settled on Cleveland as our vacation spot.

When you tell people from Pittsburgh that you are going to Cleveland for vacation, you might as well be telling them you are going to some far-off unfriendly foreign land, like Baghdad, for the reaction you get. This is all about –you guessed it- football. The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns are bitter natural rivals, like lions and buffalo.

Look, it was an easy drive, okay? We wanted something close by and affordable. We have been VERY busy this summer and we didn’t want to work very hard just traveling to and from our vacation destination. Besides, Cleveland has a couple of non-sports-related world class attractions to recommend it.
One of those, the Cleveland Museum of Art, provided to be an ideal start to our vacation. My husband and I are perfect companions in an art museum, just as we are everywhere else. It is a serene and happy place for us. We like the same exhibits, spend the same amount of time with each piece of artwork, and walk quickly through the same exhibits. I was elated to discover an unfamiliar Monet painting that thoroughly captured my imagination. I left with a bookmark, magnet, key chain and 8 x 10 print of my new find, all of which cost me $17.49. This is MY version of “art collecting.”

We stayed at J. Palen House, a lovely and affordable bed and breakfast located in Cleveland’s historic Ohio City neighborhood. Our room boasted a comfortable King-sized bed (covered with more pillows than we knew what to do with), a roomy Jacuzzi, a rain forest shower head, and our own balcony so surrounded by foliage that you could almost forget you were on a city street. You can keep the beach – hanging out in a room like this is my idea of relaxing on vacation. Our hostess was gracious, and the breakfast freshly made and delicious.

Clevelanders are almost excessively friendly and cheerful, yet polite and savvy enough to say only nice things when we said we were from Pittsburgh, without as much as a grimace or sideways glance. If they weren’t sincere, you never would have known it. Only once did anyone mention the Steelers.

A two-hour Trolley Tour taught us many interesting facts about Cleveland, and you doubters should know that we learned that Cleveland is actually THE most awesome city in the whole world! We also learned that trolley seats are pretty uncomfortable after two hours, and that our tour guide had been an art teacher and a flight attendant before taking on this latest gig, and that she was not in the least bit happy about the way “The Avengers” filming in the city was affecting her tour route. I thought the most interesting factoid we learned was that city founder Moses Cleveland left the city about 90 days after landing there and NEVER CAME BACK. Maybe he was a Steelers fan.

I think my husband summed it up the best about a day into the vacation when he said, emphatically, “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with Cleveland.” I will go a step further and say that Cleveland was actually an excellent vacation destination.

In retrospect, we probably should have just said that we were going to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (the second world-class Cleveland  attraction) for vacation. Pittsburghers get that, and many think it’s the only reason that one would voluntarily go to Cleveland. And we DID visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but that visit warrants its own blog. Tune in next week.