Started the day with a long lie, to take advantage of the late checkout that my Priority Card afforded me. That and the fact that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn't open until 10.00.
For $18.00 each you get a trip round the museum and Hall of Fame which contains some fascinating memorabilia and talks you through the how Rock and Roll was started. Now Cleveland is not a particular hot bed of Rock and Roll and some may ask why the Hall of Fame is here and not in Memphis or somewhere more famous. Well it's simple really. Basically Cleveland put up the most money. They've actually done a very good job of it and you can easily spend the day here. Unfortunately we only had a few hours as we had to check out of the hotel.
After checking out and leaving our bags in the luggage room I went off to discover Cleveland. I of course had to visit the sporting Stadiums. I had to get to Jacobs Field, home of the Cleveland Indians, as it is the setting for my most favourite film 'Major League'. I also managed to see the Gund Arena, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Cleveland Browns Stadium, home of the Cleveland Browns. I have been really impressed with all the stadiums I've seen. They are all state of the art and totally up to date. A lot of English stadia look like meccano sets with mishapen bits bolted on here and there.
It's also impressive that in the US there are 4 major sports and each major city hosts at least 3 teams playing in the different sports offering each team state of the art facilities that are central and really accessible. I guess money talks as there is not alot else in Cleveland. It's quite nice to visit though.
Mx and I met again at 16.30 to take the walk to the Bus Terminal to catch the 17.50 to Detroit. The route took us through Elyria, Ohio, Sanduskey, Ohio, Toledo, Ohio and finally into Detroit, Michigan at the 21.45. We sat at the back of the bus with all the local jailbirds who seemed to have just been released today. The bloke I spoke to said that the first thing he was gonna do when he got home was get a bath. Boy did he need it!!!!
He actually seemed quite pleasant, but I don't mind telling you that I stuffed all my valuables down my sock, just in case. The Rough Guide also warned us that the Detroit Terminal is situated in a bad part of Detroit.
When we arrived in the Detroit Mx and I made eye contract and we both knew that was the signal to get outta here and to the hotel ASAP. Collected our bags and straight out the exit preying for a taxi to be waiting. We were confronted by a load of guys offering us taxi rides, but instead headed for the only legit taxi that we could see. The driver flipped the trunk and we put our bags in. The next thing we knew there was a bloke trying to take our bags out of the trunk saying this taxi wasn't the first in line.
Mx got his hand out of the way and slammed the trunk shut and we got in the back. In the meantime our driver got out the cab and started scuffling with this other driver. We're there saying 'Can we just go, please', so eventually our driver gets back in muttering under his breathe.
He's still getting a load of verbal from outside, so he gets out again and this time draws a baseball bat from behind his seat saying. 'I'm gonna smash your head in', but much more colourfully than that. At this point Mx was heard to say "This is all very childish, can we just go".
It seemed to work as the driver got back in, put his bat away and pulled away, until some one threw a bottle at the windshield. He stopped again, but we managed to convince him to take us to the hotel, as long as we were happy for him to go back and break there heads. Good luck pal.
Welcome to Detroit!!!
