The Great Lakes

I have been posting photos of our traveling companion, Flat Merary, and suddenly realized that I should explain who she is. There is a children's book titled "Flat Stanley", about a boy who is "flat as a pancake" after a bulletin board falls on him. He is totally fine, just flat, and he has lots of adventures and finds many advantages to being flat - such as being able to fit in an envelope and be mailed to another state.

Our son's fiance, Jaclyn, teaches first grade and has read this book to her class. Each of her students has made a "flat friend" who looks like themselves, and has asked friends and relatives in other areas of the country to take their "flat friend" on adventures in their respective areas and then send photos and write letters back to the child telling about what the flat friend did. One of the girls in Jaclyn's class gave her "flat friend" to us, and she has been with us on our trip. And we've been having lots of fun with her.

This morning we took her to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.



No photography is allowed inside. The museum consists of mementos and memorabilia from musicians and singers as far back as the 20's and 30's all the way up to the present. You can listen to music from all eras, and trace the progression that led to what became known as rock and roll in the mid-fifties and beyond. I think the best music of all times is the music I grew up with - I love the 50's and 60's and even the early 70's. Who can top Elvis, The Beatles, and all the other groups from that era!

When we finished up there, we decided to take a walk along Lake Erie . . .

You can't see my feet, but I'm standing on the edge of Lake Erie.

This is Lake Erie with the Cleveland skyline in the background.

It is huge - looks like the ocean but without waves. You can't see the other side. There are islands in the middle, and they run ferries back and forth. We didn't take any of the ferry rides, we had hoped for a boat ride of some sort, but everything would take up most of the day, so we opted to just drive along the lake.

What a beautiful drive - we were basically a block off the lake, passing huge mansions that backed right up to it. Between these mansions we could see the lake. These had to be multi-million dollar properties on a gorgeous tree-lined street.

We came to a little down called Sandusky, which is also right on Lake Erie and stopped for dinner, and then decided to stay there for the night. After dinner we drove around town. There are lots of turn of the century (1900) vintage buildings that I thought were really cool . . .

Downtown Sandusky, Ohio




This was the jailhouse back in the day -
Now it's part of the public library

This is a flower clock that is in a pretty park not far from the lake.

They haven't planted the new spring flowers yet, but what I thought was interesting is that someone has the job of changing the date each day. Wonder what a job like that pays . . .