Day 24 - Never Too Old To Rock 'N Roll!

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Today will be our first day on this trip so far where we never even started the motorcycle. We intentionally selected qa hotel that was in walking distance of the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame so that we didn't have to deal with parking or anything. In fact, since we are parked at a free meter, if we move the bike and lose our place, we will be forced to park in the $18 per day Guest Parking. Not knowing what to expect, I looked around to find some other things to do downtown if we finished early. That would not be a problem. There is a Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel, so rather than having a formal breakfast, we just stopped at Starbucks for coffee and a muffin. The girls at Starbucks were a riot, and insisted that since I was carrying a camera that I must take their picture. Of course, I obliged.

After breakfast, we took the 5 minute walk over to the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame. It was 10:30 and the place had opened at 10:00 so people were beginning to arrive. It's an interesting pyramid shaped building with all kinds of open space and exposed structure. The main floor and gift shop do not require admission, so they use an arm band system to figure out who paid. We stopped to get our Rock 'N Roll picture taken and moved to level 0 to begin. The museum opened in the mid-80's and has been inducting people ever since. Since it's been about 30 years, there's plenty of memorabilia to see. We started with a 20 minute introduction video that showed clips from all the inductees since it opened. There was some great footage from 30 years ago when early inductees looked so young, and more recent inductees that were still rocking even though they looked pretty old!

From there, the exhibits are laid out in chronological order, starting with early, mostly black blues musicians like Muddy Waters and Lead Belly, but even included Les Paul and Mary Ford for their innovations. There were short videos espousing the evils of rock 'n roll. From there, of course, it was on to Elvis, with the big break at the arrival of the Beatles. The memorabilia included pictures, posters, costumes, letters, contracts, instruments, and even handwritten original lyrics. From there it was the British Invasion and lots of American bands. These were the bands I grew up with: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Doors, Janis Joplin, Buffalo Springfield, Credence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix and on and on. Then the later bands like Aerosmith, Electric Light Orchestra, Yes, U2, and more. Most of these bands I still have record albums from, and many are on my playlist on the bike MP3 player.

Once past the bands of my era, we were into the bands from Jody's. Bands like The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and lots of small Punk and Grunge bands that I had never heard of. It then moved on to some of the later pop stuff like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, but neither of us have much interest in pop. There was also a section on Rap and Hip-Hop, but mostly just the early beginnings. All of the exhibits in this section are inductees, and I assume it expands as each year more bands are inducted. The museum is certainly large enough to accommodate new inductees for many years to come.

The second level is dedicated to the pioneers of rock 'n roll, with equipment, radios, disk jockeys and the like. Level 3 is currently just restrooms, but and a few displays including an "In Memoriam" for those that died last year. But on July 1 a new theater will be opening on level 3 called The Power of Rock Experience, but we are a couple of weeks too early. Level 4 is a 3D theater playing a 90 minute concert film called U2-3D which is a U2 concert in a soccer stadium in Buenos Aires in 2008. The sound system was great, and the we had never seen a 3D concert film which felt like you were right on stage with Bono. Needless to say, we stayed for the entire movie.

By this time, we were getting pretty hungry, so we headed back down to level 1 for something to eat. After a quick lunch, we headed back up to level 5 and 6 for the special exhibition of 50 years of Rolling Stone Magazine. On level 5 there were several short films of Rolling Stone interviews with various artists and celebrities over the years. There was also a bunch of correspondence, like letters from Charles Manson and Paul McCartney. Level 6 was devoted entirely to the Rolling Stone Covers and all the people who had been on them. It was really great seeing all of these.

By the time we finished level 6, it was getting close to 4:00, we were surprised at how much time we had spent there. Mostly, it was the film clips and U2 movie that really ate up the time. We were so glad that we had devoted the entire day to the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame and we weren't trying to rush off somewhere else. It was really enjoyable. We headed back to the hotel, as Jody wanted to make a couple of phone calls to check up on her friends back in Orlando, and I went to work uploading pictures. For dinner we decided that last night's restaurant was just fine, so we went back again. This time we noticed that since it was called the Winking Lizard Tavern, there was this big iguana living in the front window, so we stopped to take a picture.

Tomorrow we are heading to Akron, actually we are heading to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad for a 9:00 continental breakfast train ride. It should be great fun!

0.0 Miles Today

3803.6 Miles Total

0.0 Gallons Today

95.618 Gallons Total

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