On Vacation

I'm sitting in a hotel in Cleveland, Ohio (or the outskirts of...) as I write this. Jeff and I have been on vacation since Friday... and a great vacation it has been! Wish I could upload pictures, but won't be able to do that until I get home -- since I managed to forget to bring the cable to upload pictures on to the computer....sigh. Speaking of organized, (or, in my case, disorganized), we met our very dear friends Paul and Jean in Niagara Falls on Friday. My goodness, Jean is one organized person! I'm lucky I remembered my underwear, and she shows up with enough food, appetizers, drinks, plates, utensils, napkins, etc... for a week! LOL! Within a few minutes of arriving at the hotel and bringing our bags to our room, she had an entire spread set up and ready to go -- grapes, cheeses, apples, crackers and much more. Mimosa's for breakfast? She had the ingredients! I felt organized because I brought a coffeemaker -- she was so organized she even brought a toaster and bagels! LOL It was quite daunting, but also a wonderful way to travel. I'm thankful for her making our vacation just that much more enjoyable. Of course, just her company and Paul's company was enough to make it a spectactular holiday. It's not often that a husband and wife find another husband and wife that they enjoy just hanging out with -- but Paul and Jean are definitely it for us. I hope we can talk them into future vacations with us -- perhaps Utah?? And Jean, I promise to be more organized if we can talk you into another trip!! We arrived in NF about 5pm on Friday, went out to a very nice Italian restaurant in the area. Our hotel wasn't great (I chose it off the Internet and it wasn't as great as reviewers lead me to believe), but the beds were very comfortable, the place was reasonably clean (though Paul had to wash the window in their room!), and they had a great continental breakfast each morning. We drove to the American side of the Falls that evening, and got thoroughly soaked (and chilled) and didn't get much of a view of the Falls. Saturday morning we were up and out by 10am, and headed to the Canadian side where we thoroughly enjoyed our day. Why is Canada so much cleaner and more friendly than the American side?? Everywhere we went, prices were high -- $12 for a burger, $20 for admissions, etc. But, despite being cold (and my back giving me fits), we really enjoyed ourselves. I hope Paul and Jean did also! This morning ( Sunday) we headed to Buffalo in our separate cars, and went to the Buffalo Naval and Military museum. Wonderful! Access to battleships without having to have a tour guide, and without exhibits being glassed off or hands off. Because of my back problems again, I missed a bit of the tour but had a wonderful, peaceful time sitting in the sun. When we went to the gift shop, I started seeing vintage military models that I knew Jeff would like, and got talking with the hostess of the shop there. Jeff was like a kid in a candy shop -- he bought MANY models -- around 100 models, kits and packages of misc accessories! Someone (an Admiral) had donated them to the Gift Shop, and apparently Jeff was the first to really look at them. He was so happy when we left that gift shop, and I was so happy for him. From there we parted ways with Paul and Jean -- they headed home to Maine, and we headed to Cleveland where we had a reservation at a hotel... UGH UGH UGH. As soon as we pulled into the (trash-strewn) parking lot, we both knew we didn't want to stay at the hotel. We decided to at least check out the room, and were approached by a homeless gentleman for money as we walked to the front door. Inside, the hotel itself looked OK, but once we got up to the room, the smell of urine turned us back immediately. No thanks! Just for anyone's reference, it was a Days Inn on Euclid Avenue... Thankfully the manager was willing to refund our (non-refundable) payment, and we headed out of Cleveland. We're now about 20 miles west of Cleveland in Westlake, at a very nice Super 8 motel. There doesn't seem to be anyone else here, though I understand all hotels in the area are booked tomorrow for a baseball game (play off) in Cleveland tomorrow night. It's been a long day, and we're not quite sure what we're going to do tomorrow morning. The original plan was to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but with the baseball game in town we're wondering if we're going to find any access to parking, since the museum is directly beside the Brown's stadium...sigh. The best laid plans. We'll find something to do for the morning, then head to Hocking Hills to our cabin rental... I'm really looking forward to that!!!