Cleveland Trip - The Food Tour

The trip to cCleveland was filled with amazing food. We had a delicious BBQ dinner and pancake breakfast with Theresa, Aaron's cousin in Colorado. We had some amazing BBQ Pizza, Chinese and "Cheddars" with Mike, Natalie's brother in Kentucky. And in Chicago we decideed we wanted to try the famous Chicago style hot dogs pizza and popcorn. The pizza and hot dogs were great. (Chicago dogs have mustard, onion, sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices and peppers.) But the popcorn...

I realize ordering popcorn sounds easy. Well, so is reading signs for most other people But unfortunately this is me we are talking about. Lets see if you can spot our mistakes before I point them out.

1 - Loyce and I entered the popcorn place and stood trying to figure out what we were supposed to order.

MISTAKE: Never enter a popcorn place BEFORE you have decided what you want. Don't know what your options are? Too bad. You are in Chicago now. Remember the soup nazzi? Enough said.

2 - We satarted to ask questions about Chicago style popcorn and whether there was toffee popcorn but became very confused when the person who was supposed to be helping us folded her arms and refused to look at us or talk to us anymore.

MISTAKE: Never enter a popcorn place BEFORE you have decided what you want. Never Never Never.

3 - Loyce ordered a tin of popcorn and I ended up getting another fellow to say they would get me what I wanted. As it turned out I wanted nothing because that is what I got. Loyce, on the other hand, got her tin but didn't wait in the right place for her change.

MISTAKE: Not telepathic? Popcorn probably isn't for you.

As it turns out, Chicago style popcorn is a mix of a great caramel corn and cheese popcorn. Doesnt' sound good, does it? Well, it is. Even Aaron could see why people would like it (and YES that was after actually tried it.). My only complaint is that the cheese popcorn is covered with so much brigh orange cheesy butter that it is really EASY to walk a few blocks in Chicago with it all over your face before your mother-in-law bursts out laughing at you. Well, at least it is easy for people who can't read signs or order popcorn.

Cleveland Trip - the Hotels Tour

As you can imagine, we had the opportunity to stay at a few different hotels as we drove to and from Cleveland. The nicest hotel was the Chicago Hilton with its luxurious rooms and ornate architectural details. Of course I didn't notice HOW ornate it was until a cleaning lady gave us quite a stare as we sat eating our chicago hotdogs and popcorn on the floor outside our room to allow Braden to sleep...

The hotel that suited us the best was the Residence Inn where we stayed for the 2 weeks that Aaron was in class in Cleveland. There we had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining area and living room - keeping us a little safer from censure during naptime.

But the most interesting hotel by far, was the one we found at the end of our first long day (see earlier blog) at a Colorado resort. The area was beautiful - set in the mountains surrounded by snow capped pine trees with a lovely view of a frozen lake. And although the hotel was older, when we went inside we were amazed to find a beautiful gas fireplace. So why "interesting" and not "amazing"? Simple, I averaged the thoughts I had about it that night. I thought it was amazing when I first saw the gas fireplace. I thought it was interesting when I turned up the thermostat and the gas fireplace came on as the room's only heat source. And I thought it was irritating as the night wore on and the fireplace woke us up repeatedly as it blazed into action to heat he room 1-2 degrees before it would cut off and wait to perform its duty again in a few minutes. Interesting. Very interesting ...

Are you Smarter than a 2nd Grader?

After being home from Disneyland for 1 1/2 weeks, we packed up the car (andAaron's Mom, Loyce) and drove to Cleveland. We knew it was going to be a long trip so we brought games, movies and food for the road. Sadly we forgot our 2nd grade reading comprehension primer that apparently would have come in very handy.

Only a few hours into our journey, as we sped east thru sunny Wyoming, we spotted a sign that said:

Road Closed Ahead.

Hmmm. It was so puzzling. What could this sign really mean? After all, we were on I-80. The "I" stands for Interstate. Not the kind of road you can just "close". Especially not on a sunny day in May. Its not like some abominable snowstorm was ravaginging the entire area near Cheyenne preventing ANY alternate routes. We decided the sign must have MEANT to say: Road Closed Ahead, Alternate Provided, and we continued on our merry way.

We remained sure of our conclusion even after being presented with about 10 additional versions of the above sign, all worded differently yet failing to mention an alternate route. Our spirits were not dampened when dark looming clouds hid the sun and snow began to swirl in the air around our van. We didn't lose hope when we started passing truck after truck parkeed by the side of te road - truckers give us so easily, don' they? In fact, we weren't completely clear on the meaning of the sign until we got to the police road block and had to have it explained to us VERY directly. (Did the officer really have to be so rude? Its not like we're idiots - oh wait ...)

Perhaps if we had learned our lesson we would have booked a room in the closest hotel, wated for the storm to pass and continued on the next morning. Instead, we decided to change the world to fit OUR version of reality and back-tracked to find the closest alternate route. 5 hours later as we stared with amazed deja vu at our alternate's "Road Closed Ahead" sign we did what any reasonable person would do. We took the sign at its word, turned the car around, and found the nearest hotel. Horray for a college education.