While the boys weren’t all that jazzed up about today, Mike and I were really excited to check out the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But it turns out, the museum did a great job of incorporating hands-on things for kids and folks who really aren’t music people.

The Hall of Fame is a giant glass pyramid, and on my word, I’m so glad we wore shorts because once you got out of the basement, it was warm!

7 floors of our favorite music/musicians, and of course, I started with the best

Although Leo was not a fan of the King’s fashion sense…

The boys did not appreciate our singing throughout the Tom Petty area

But they played along and managed to earn a warning about playing on the escalators. Don’t they know Rock & Roll doesn’t follow the rules!

We LOVED the Garage Band section. You got to pretend to be your own garage band with guitars, drums and keyboards. There were video instructions on how to play, and then you played a set. It was really cool!

They got to create a band and stickers – of course, they picked inappropriate band names 🤪🤦🏻‍♀️

They had a concert-setting style movie that showed highlights of the Induction ceremonies from years past – highlights of Run DMC, Cher, Fats Domino, Fleetwood Mac, Prince, Tom Petty, the Beatles. It was awesome with lights and sounds as if you were in a concert!

Practicing my Joan Jett moves in preparation for our concert in June.

After we finished at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, we walked next door to the Cleveland Browns stadium.

Outside the stadium they had 2 statues – one to the service and sacrifice of the firemen of Cleveland, and the other to Jim Brown, one of the greatest running backs of all time, who played for the Browns.

Overall, it was a really impressive stadium.

We headed back to the car, and Mom’s Cafe opened up its new Cleveland location. And then we made our way into W 11th Street in Cleveland… right beside Bumpas’ house…

“Fra-gee-lay… must be Italian”

Yea, it’s the Christmas Story House!

The house is real but all the things inside are replicas, so you are encouraged to be as hands on as you want, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves pretending to be Ralphie and family from different parts of the movie.

The Museum across the street had the actual items from the films. Well, at least the ones that they had. The movie didn’t do well initially and some of the props were just trashed or lost. Only years later did it become a holiday classic. In fact, the current owner of the house bought it off Ebay, remodeled to return it to style from the movie, and opened as a museum and tour.

We honestly came into Cleveland a little skeptical about the city, but it has been a great visit and everyone we met has been so nice. We will definitely be back for a longer visit once the 50-State Quest is complete.

We left Cleveland and headed to Canton for our stop for the birthday boy tomorrow! On the way, Mike wanted to divert to Kent State. We told the boys the history of Kent State and specifically what happened on May 4, 1970.

The campus is beautiful with a simple plaque and walking tour of the events of May 4th.

When you stand and see how far away the students were from the National Guardsman, it becomes extremely hard to understand why they felt the need to fire into the crowd of students.

On a much light note, we became fascinated with the black squirrels of Kent State. They are crazy looking!

And then just to make us giggle 2 big fat groundhogs came wandering… but one jumped in their hole before we could get a picture.

We made it to Canton, Ohio and checked into the hotel. The boys went for a swim before dinner and then we decided to grab dinner at an Asian Grill that we could see from our room, BiBiBop. It was absolutely fantastic! Think of a Moe’s/Salsaritas style with Asian rice bowls.

We talked with the owner and she told us they just opened a new location in Cary, NC so if you’re nearby, absolutely give it a try. We’re trying to figure out how to buy a franchise or at least buy some stock in one. It’s that good!

Tonight, we are enjoying our last night with this 12-year old, because when we wake up tomorrow we’ve got another teenager! Heaven help us… nah, he’s pretty great!