Taking a day off - In Rochester! - Day 11

Having found a good room at a good rate, and since both of us were really tired (and tired of being in the car all the time) we decided to stay an extra day here and take it pretty easy. And what a lovely relaxing day it was! We slept in, went for breakfast at a cute family restaurant a couple of buildings down (my breakfast cost $3!) and then Adam stayed at the hotel (to work on my super secret anniversary present) and I went out to the laundromat.

Busy setting up the fair

Laundry done, secret present re-hidden, we headed into town. Well, actually, we skirted around the edge of town to go to the Charlotte Genessee lighthouse.

There were so many beautiful churches and buildings on the way
(in fact, one of them is having a fair this weekend!) and the lighthouse itself was beautiful!

Also, we got to see another Great Lake (Ontario), although I didn't get to put my feet in this one - the beach was quite a ways away from where the lighthouse was.

Another cool building downtown

Looking at the Kodak Building
from Lake Avenue

 Straight back south on Lake Avenue (which turns into State Street when you get into downtown), we drove through the main part of downtown, and then back east to Eastman House and Museum.

Eastman House

George Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak company and developed and championed the use of roll film, which, understandably, brought photography much more into the mainstream. It also (according to Wikipedia) effectively turned his business rivals into partners, since as the competition heated up in the camera making business, he focussed on making film for all their products.

One of the pipe organs

He never married (in fact, no evidence he had any romantic relationships with either women or men) and lived in this gigantic house with his mother (who had raised him and his sisters alone after his father died). He obviously loved music (the house contained not one, but two pipe organs, a giant music room with a huge grand piano, a 4-stand music stand for string quartets, and an old Victrola in the games room) and founded the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

Music Room

The house has been restored (they're still working on the top floor, so it's not open to guests yet) and the gardens are lovely.

Looking up to the third floor

Originally, there were huge vegetable gardens (basically, it was a farm) and that part of the property has been converted into a beautiful museum and gallery. We only had about an hour to look around, so we only looked at two of the galleries - the "history of photography" gallery - with all kinds of old cameras and beautiful photographs, and the current Lewis Hine photography exhibit, which was also awesome.

Garden view of house and museum

 As the lady at the front desk said, "if you think you don't know his photography, you actually do," since anytime you see old photos of the building of the Empire State Building or people arriving at Ellis Island, or child labourers, you're probably seeing a Lewis Hine photograph.

One of the gardens

After looking around the museum until it closed (actually a few minutes after, since we were still allowed to wander around the gardens a bit), we went for dinner and some beers at one of the ubiquitous Irish pubs (pretty corporate, but we got to have a nice sandwich and a tasting flight of beers that neither one of us had even heard of before) and then went to a movie at the theatre near our hotel.

We went to see Hercules, and while the movie was pretty good (summer blockbuster romp) but the thing that made me want to just stay there and never leave was that the entire theatre was made up of la-z-boy style recliner seats. It was so comfy and awesome!

All in all, a fantastic day off! Back on the road tomorrow - stay tuned!

Erie, PA to Rochester, NY - Presque Isle State Park - Day 10

It was hard to leave the hotel this morning... the bed was so comfortable, the room was nice, we hadn't even had a chance to check out the pool (granted, we had a jacuzzi tub) and we were both really tired. It's been a great 10 days, but a lot of sightseeing and driving and staying up too late (because we haven't adjusted to eastern time yet) and waking up too early (because we want the "free" breakfast). I was glad we did today, though, because the "free" breakfast was really yummy.

We'd gotten quite a few suggestions from Adam's stepmother Judith for things to do when we were in her old hometown - things that she'd enjoyed doing on summer vacations when she was young. So armed with her ideas, we headed into town.







Since we drove a little too far, we wound up at the top of a steep hill overlooking the lakefront, and you could see our ultimate Erie destination, Presque Isle State Park, across the water. (Of course they pronounce it Presk Aisle around here, but who am I to quibble?)

The name is pretty apt, actually, for those of you who speak French, as it is indeed, almost an island - it's a peninsula with a pretty narrow entrance. We drove around the park, first stopping at a monument to Commander Oliver Hazard Perry (yes, that's right, Hazard is his middle name) who fought and won a big battle of the war of 1812 at Misery Bay, where the monument stands. It wound up being called Misery Bay later, as the cold and an outbreak of smallpox took their toll on Perry's men. The fact that Misery Bay ends up in Graveyard Pond is no coincidence.

Erie, and the Bicentennial Tower

From the monument, you can look back across the water to the city, where the Bicentennial Tower was erected for the city's 200th birthday. I imagine there are binoculars in the tower to look back at the monument, as it's a pretty clear visual between the two.

Fun fact - apparently Commander Perry was afraid of cows.





We continued around the park to the lighthouse. It was a bit hard to see from the beach (if only we'd had a boat!) but I took the opportunity (and the brief moment of sunshine) to take my shoes off and squish my feet in the sand (which was pebbly in the tidal area but soft and gorgeous right where the water met the sand and above the high tide mark) and let the waves break over my feet. We've been on land too long!

This girl needs her beach time!










On the way out of the park, we could see an amusement park with a nice looking carousel and a wooden rollercoaster, that is also attached to a waterpark. It looked great, but the weather was starting to turn back to rain, and we needed some lunch and to get on the road for New York State.

Service Area off the Highway

We decided to aim for Rochester, which happens to be where Adam's brother Corbin did his doctorate. So after lunch, we called him to get ideas for things to do... which you'll hear more about tomorrow.

Because we found another inexpensive, weird but adorable (like us!) motel just outside of Rochester and we're going to just take it easy tonight (and I'll be able to get all caught up on this blog), and then *gasp* stay here again tomorrow! I'll do some laundry tomorrow - apparently Adam needs some time by himself to work on my anniversary present. And I want to encourage him in that endeavour! Then, we'll drive into Rochester, see the sights, drive back here (probably no more than 1 hour in the car TOTAL) and go to bed.

Relax Inn - Webster, NY

It's going to be great!

Elyria, OH to Erie, PA... Cleveland Rocks! - Day 9

Ohio was very, very good to us! A dip in the pool last night, waffles in the morning at the free breakfast bar, and then a 1pm check out so we could eat said waffles and then go right back to bed!

Then a quick drive into Cleveland - Well, not entirely quick, since there was an accident on the highway, and we waited a long time in traffic, and although it was pretty easy to figure out routes, you then seemed to always have a detour or two... it seemed like all of Cleveland was under construction!

We were able to find the "A Christmas Story" house - it was in the middle of a neighborhood that was really trying to clean itself up - on the other side of the freeway, the area was really rough, but the street where this house was sort of reminded me of the street we lived on in Vancouver... some sad puppy houses, some beautifully maintained, and a little bit of renovation/new construction.

They were charging admission to go into the house, so I just decided to take pictures of the outside. You can see the leg lamp in the window... that was my main memory of the inside of the house, anyway! 

Then we headed downtown to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum - which was awesome! I happened to go into one of the theatre rooms just as they were playing a clip of Aretha Franklin singing a duet of "Chain of Fools" with Annie Lennox! It doesn't get much better than that... exept maybe the "super group" of Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, etc, etc, etc singing "Let it Be" at McCartney's inauguration. 

This is the R&R hall of fame from the side/ back. Adam is in a little gondola type thing that had "Sigma Designs" signs all over it, so he's busy texting Mark Schoening to see if it's the same "Sigma Designs that Mark works for.

 So this is one of those "street pianos" - And it's been sculpted to look as though someone smashed a guitar into it. It sounded pretty "honkytonk-y" (that is to say, "out of tune") but it sure looked cool!

Janis Joplin's car - I want it!

Crazy piece of art related to the germination of the project that became "The Wall"

It took us a little while to figure out how to get out of downtown, which was ok, because there were a lot of really awesome buildings and monuments to take pictures of!

 Once we got on the right road, we headed out to Chagrin Falls, which is essentially a suburb of Cleveland. The Falls themselves are pretty cool (and I'm sensing kind of a theme to this trip - waterfalls across the USA!) Here are some pictures of the Chagrin River, and the falls.

It's a two-stage falls. The first part is on one side of Main Street, and it has a dam and bridge across it.

The second stage, which is larger, comes out under the bridge and the river continues on into the woods.

But let's be honest. The Falls are not why we came to Chagrin Falls. THIS is why we came.

Calvin was born in Chagrin Falls. 

Because Bill Watterson lived in Chagrin Falls. 

Refer to this drawing, and compare to these photos. It's awesome!

Under Calvin's left leg

The shop in Calvin's hand

The bentwood gazebo in the park

The clocktower at the bottom

The street along the left side 

This town has been the part of the trip so far that has made us grin and giggle the most. You really expected to see Calvin and Hobbes at any moment. And the best part is that since Watterson never licensed any of the Calvin and Hobbes world, you don't see Calvin or Hobbes in every store window. Just at the bookstore, and in your imagination. It was great.

When we left Chagrin Falls, we went on our way to Erie, PA (where Adam's stepmother, Judith, grew up). It was a pretty manageable drive, and we found our way easily to a large hotel strip just outside of town. We went into the first hotel that looked nice, but there were no rooms available. There was another hotel just down a hill from the first one, so we just left the car and ran down the hill. There was one room left, but it was pretty pricey (for us). It did, however, have a king-sized bed and a jacuzzi tub and hot breakfast included. When the desk clerk offered us $20 off the room, we took it!

What a great day!