... here we are, on the road ... adrien and i have been planning this little excursion almost from the day we returned home from our pacific coast trip last spring ... the plan consists of adrien, jon, and myself, fourteen days, 4,500 miles of driving and seeing lots of really cool stuff ... we left new hampshire just before lunch yesterday and made niagara in time to view the falls by the light of huge colored spotlights ... eleven o'clock on a drizzly night in march, we had the spectacle pretty much all to ourselves ...
... we left the falls at midnight, just as the lights were being extinguished for the night, and drove south on the new york thruway almost to the pennsylvania border, where we parked at the last service area on the pike and tucked ourselves in for a night of car-cabin-camping ... the next morning we were off to cleveland, where we visited the rock and roll hall of fame ... no pictures, but not because photography wasn't allowed ... nope, seems i forgot the flash reader for my little pocket "spy" camera ...
... the hall of fame was nice, but, at $22.50 for each of us to enter the museum, it wasn't near as good a deal as the 25¢ we dropped in a parking meter so we could see "the world's largest rubber stamp" ...
... from there it was a short drive to visit ralphie's house from "a christmas story" ... (read that: somehow the map, g.p.s., and "to 70" vs. "270" confused me enough that we got to take a bit of a wandering tour through the cleveland steel mill district) ...
... we visited the museum then toured the house itself, where we learned about the filming of the movie, the cast, and the man who "restored" the house so that it could be enjoyed by fans ... did you know that the "snow" in the film is actually detergent flakes and fire fighting foam ... seems that cleveland had an unusually snow-free winter that year ...
"Immediately, my feet began to sweat as those two fluffy little bunnies
with a blue button eye stared supply up at me."
"The snap of a few sparks, a quick whiff of ozone, and the lamp blazed forth in unparalleled glory.
Oh, look at that! Will you look at that? Isn't that glorious?
It's... it's... it's indescribably beautiful! It reminds me of the Fourth of July!"
"No! No! I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"
"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."
... from cleveland we drove down to columbus ... tired, but pleased so far with how much we're enjoying our little drive-about ... jon treated us to supper, now it's the blue-ray version of "the italian job" on jon's gimongous television, then a good night's sleep so we'll be all rested up for our visit to dayton tomorrow ...
NIKON D200 & OLYMPUS E-PL1