We slept in! Maybe the trains were more disruptive overnight after all, since we were right next to the railway tracks. Or maybe we needed to catch up on sleep regardless, as travel can be tiring at times! Our late start meant that we didn't arrive at St. Theodosius Orthodox Cathedral until lunchtime (but we later learned the cathedral is currently closed for restorations due to fire). It's considered one of the finest examples of Russian church architecture in the United States, and is the oldest Orthodox Christian Parish in Ohio.
Lunch in Cleveland
We drove to West Side Market afterwards, which is the oldest operating indoor/outdoor market space in Cleveland, since 1912. There are about 70 family-owned businesses, including bakeries, delis, pierogis (Polish dumplings), popcorn, and more--one section has more prepared foods, while another building focuses on produce. We thought we'd get lunch here, but there weren't many options beyond treats and produce, but further down on West 25th Street there are plenty of restaurants, including Market Garden Brewpub and Pizza, where we ended up dining in for lunch.
The restaurant is dog friendly, so Sheila was able to sit with us (there was already another cattle dog--a blue heeler, sitting nearby, giving us the side eye!). Michael ordered a burger and fries while Lisette had a Cleveland-style pan pizza, which has a thin crust (thicker than the ones from New York, but slightly thinner than a Detroit-style pizza). Apparently a Cleveland-style pizza is usually round, but this one was rectangular since it was a pan pizza. The food was delicious! Michael also wanted a sour beer, but they didn't have any on the menu--since it's now officially fall, he ended up ordering the Franklin Castle Pumpkin Ale. Michael isn't as big of a fan as Lisette is of all the fall seasonal products (especially pumpkin in everything!), but this drink was actually pretty good!
As we were eating, a massive dog--about the size of a small pony--wandered in with its owners, sitting a stone's throw away from us. Sheila was not comfortable with this and let it be known loudly, barking nonstop! So we had to take our food to the front of the restaurant and eat outside by ourselves, like outcasts. Oh Sheila, definitely more comfortable with people than dogs!
Trying Tahitian Dancing for the First Time
Lisette had researched dance studios in Cleveland and found a studio called Inlet Dance, which has West African dance classes, but the dance company was still on break in September. But a company called Pacific Paradise Entertainment uses the studio space as well, offering Polynesian dance classes (including Hawai'ian, Tahitian, Maori) by so she signed up for a 2-hour class this afternoon. Yay--first time trying a Polynesian dance! Lisette has seen performances before, but has never done a class.
The building where Inlet Dance is also is home to the Cleveland Museum of Art's Community Arts Center, which is open every weekend. There were families making art, there was an event happening, and there's also a fun, vibrant and colorful exhibit showing various art pieces for Carnival celebrations all over the world. It's so cool that this is offered to the community--and it's free!
Lisette then went into the dance studio where Audrey (the founder, artistic director and instructor), was just wrapping up the children's dance class. Audrey made Lisette feel welcome immediately, providing her with a skirt to dance in for the lesson, and diving straight into showing the various dance Ami (circular hip movement), Tamau (lateral hip sway), Fa'arapu (fast hip circles), Varu (figure-eight hip movement), and Ruru (hip vibration).
Pacific Paradise had just had a big show recently, and they also have classes on Tuesdays and Fridays. Today's class was a bit smaller, but perfect for a beginner! Another instructor came, Jeanie, who broke down more of the moves (there was a lot!), before we all did a choreography to a popular Tahitian song. It was challenging to be able to move the hips and control them, while also remembering the rest of the hand and feet movements, but it was so, so fun! If we were in Cleveland for longer, Lisette would have definitely returned to a class. If you're ever in the Cleveland area, definitely check out this school--everyone is very warm and welcoming, you'll learn a lot, and while it may not look very aerobic, it's deceptively dynamic and you'll sweat a lot from the workout!
In the evening, we ended up heading back to the Cracker Barrel where we stayed at the night before. While we would be going back to downtown Cleveland tomorrow to explore more of the city, parts of it aren't necessarily the best place to hang out after hours. When we got back, the same man we'd seen sitting outside his RV the evening before, hanging his laundry outside, was still there, perched in the same spot. Does he... live here, in the Cracker Barrel parking lot?? Well, at least it's a good sign that he's comfortable in this area!
Day 219: Cleveland on e-Bike
Cleveland has a ton of cool bridges! We passed quite a few on the way back downtown, with some painted vivid blue, and also saw the industrial side of the city. One of the more unique bridges is the Cuyahoga Jack-Knife Bridge #464, a huge old lift bridge from last century, which is now standing ramrod straight towards the sky, covered in rust and vines.
In major cities, riding around on our e-bikes is now our official way to explore the city, and we each hopped on our bikes (Lisette on hers now that we have a working battery--yay!), with Sheila riding alongside Michael in her dog trailer. We parked next to Huntington Bank Field, the NFL stadium for the Cleveland Browns, hopping on our e-bikes and stopping first at the Jesse Owens statue, who is permanently celebrating a victorious race. One of the most famous US track and field athletes (he was the first to win 4 gold medals in a single Olympics), Jesse Owens was born in Alabama, but moved to Cleveland as a boy to escape the segregated south.
The Cleveland Public Square is a lovely place to hang out, and it has the city's four tallest buildings all facing the square. In the middle there's also a commanding Soldiers and Sailors Monument, commemorating the American Civil War. Nearby, one of the most gorgeous buildings we saw the interior of was The Arcade, which opened in 1890 and was the first inaugural indoor shopping center in the US, which still has retail stores inside. It's a Victorian-era structure with a glass skylight, which illuminated the balconies, balustrades and floors inside. To us, it looked so similar to the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney, which is also an extravagant-looking indoor shopping center built in the same decade.
Continuing to cycle down Euclid Avenue downtown, we passed the Cleveland Trust Building (an iconic, columned building that looks like it could be used as the backdrop of Gotham City), and even saw a huge outdoor chandelier, standing at 20 feet tall (over 6 meters), and suspended by a 44-foot (13.4 meter) high steel structure. The GE Chandelier is made up of 4,200 crystals, aptly sitting in Playhouse Square, the city's theater district. It's always showtime in this part of the city!
Since we are in the US, we went straight from seeing the country's largest outdoor chandelier to the world's largest rubber stamp sculpture (of course!). Its dimensions are 28 feet 10 inches (8.79 meters) by 26 feet (7.9 meters) by 49 feet (15 meters). While the stamp clearly shows the word "FREE" on it, although if you read the history of this aluminium and steel sculpture, it's had a lot of obstacles--which you wouldn't realize just by looking at it resting innocuously on the grass in Willard Park!
Along Lake Erie
Cycling back towards the shores of Lake Erie, there are also a number of interesting attractions. The International Women’s Air & Space Museum is a free admission museum that celebrates the history and achievements of women in space and aviation. While we didn't go in, there are a couple of aircraft outside, including one from the US Air Force and another from the Blue Angels. Not far from this is the USS Cod Submarine Memorial, a Gato-class submarine that you can walk around in and tour ($15 for adults).
While we've been to cities like Memphis, Nashville and Detroit and have visited the music museums and attractions that they're well known for and associated with, we had no idea that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland! Apparently Cleveland lobbied to have this museum and hall of fame, being considered among other cities including Philadelphia, Memphis, Detroit and New York City. As a matter of opinion, it's a good thing that Cleveland successfully bid for this, as the other cities have many other music attractions, so this spreads the love out more! Outside the museum there was a screen showing the list of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees for this year; Lisette was surprised to see that besides Soundgarden and The White Stripes, artists like Cyndi Lauper and Outkast were included as they seem to be more pop & hip-hop than rock & roll. The more you know!
On the water's edge, we could see the Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse. While we've seen photos of it cocooned in ice during the winter, fortunately the wintery gusts have not yet arrived for us to see such a chilly sight! Rather, we were quite hot after finishing our e-bike ride, with the sun beating heavily on us in the middle of the day!
Cleveland Outskirts
Driving away from downtown Cleveland, we arrived in a quiet neighborhood that's home to Tim Willis Monster Trucks. Tim is self-taught, designing and building these fun vehicles for extreme competition and recreation, and behind a fence, we could see his various creations, most in electrifying red and yellow paint, with 2 in the middle (a sort of Transformer human-like creature and its pet), in futuristic silver and red. The photos that we saw online beforehand didn't do his creations justice--we saw more than what was posted, and they're bigger and cooler in person!
As we were leaving Cleveland we passed the Museum of Contemporary Art, which has a huge silver sculpture of a hand called Judy's Hand Sculpture, that looks eerily similar to "Thing" from the Addams Family! Unfortunately we couldn't find parking in the area, but where we did park was the next stop in the town of Mentor, to see a different Judy, by sheer coincidence. Judy's Jungle is a filled with all sorts of fiberglass animals, including camels, elephants, giraffes and other non-jungle creatures. It's a bit overgrown with grass and weeds in areas, and it would be nice if the animals got a bit of a clean as well.
Fall is Here!
We crossed into Pennsylvania again from Ohio, stopping briefly to see more animal art in front of a home in Erie. Schaefer's Auto Art has a number of large sculptures made from old automotive parts, including a bumblebee, a kind of bug with a VW Beetle within it, as well as a lofty rocket, dinosaur, and more. We just managed to stop on the side of the road to check out the structures in front of the home. Lisette isn't a fan of huge front lawns as these tend to be unused, wasted space--but here's an artist that has made the most of the front lawn to create some art over the years!
The sky was rather grey and gloomy as we drove through Pennsylvania, and it was raining a little bit as we continued on our way along the coast. And then... hello New York! We have now entered state #38 on this trip. As we cruised along, we saw a few pockets of Amish communities, with the distinctive horse and buggy street sign noting that we were passing by the areas where they lived. We did indeed see horses and carriages on the road, and Amish folks going about their daily work along the way.
While the weather was gloomy, we could see that fall had well and truly already arrived in upstate New York: the leaves were all shades of green, yellow, orange, red, and brown, and many trees were in the process of shedding their leaves. This was the season that we'd been looking forward to for a while now--to see the leaves turning different colors, cooler temperatures, and all the delicious foods and flavors that the season brings! Plus we're ready to experience a different season, after the long and at times, excruciatingly hot summer that we'd had for months.
Surprising to us, the cooler temperatures also provide fertile ground for so many different fruits and vegetables! There was still corn (because it's omnipresent in the US), and we also saw stone fruit trees, a ton of apple trees (some still starting to blossom, while others looked to be bountiful in their crop already), vineyards (there are so many wineries here!), and green leafy crops that looked like cabbage. It turns out that upstate New York is one of the nation's largest producers of the Concord grape variety, and Welch's a grape juice brand, had a few signs denoting that some of the crops are theirs, and will end up in its products.
Since we were driving along Lake Erie, we wanted to stay at a place by the water to stop for the night, and found a peaceful spot at Barcelona Harbor Pier that was perfect! There was a small beach shoreline, a boat launch area, picnic areas, and the historic Barcelona Lighthouse all in this area. A few folks were hanging around, wrapping up their day's fishing or boating activities, but the night was so peaceful and quiet--we had us, a gorgeous view of the harbor (and a beautiful sunset), and the calm lapping of the small waves alongside us. It's these sorts of stops that make the RV trip so worth it, when we get to sleep by spots like this!