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July 17, 2018

Sagamore Hills Ohio, Cleveland Ohio

Today was the day we were going to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. This was a place We had considered going on a couple trips in the past, but never made it. Today was the day. Took us about a half an hour drive north from our Airbnb house and then it came into view.

Building triangle of glass. As we get closer we saw people getting their photo taken with the large sign saying “rock lives on.” Of course, Patti wanted her picture taken with that sign.

As we walk towards the entrance we both smiled when we heard mariachi music playing. It appears that the rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame makes deals with Musical groups from around the country who come and perform outside the building, in exchange for free entry for their group. This morning's group was a mariachi band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They had a wonderfully energetic woman director who also played the violin. They appeared to be college-age students who played with entusiasm. A nice start to our visit.

As we paid our admission fee and we were hopeful that this museum would include things that would be of interest to us and people in our age group. We were pleased to see people older than us and younger, all the way down to elementary school children enjoying themselves in the museum and finding music that spoke to them.

We appreciated that the museum began with a tribute to the early influencers of rock 'n' roll. This included musicians black and white kitten has jazz blue rockabilly folk and country music. Right The way there was opportunities to listen through headsets to some great music. Part of the story was rock didn't just suddenly started in the late 1950s. It was a natural progression of music building on other music.

The first artists who is really featured in this beginning part of rock 'n' roll was Elvis. We enjoyed watching a movie about him made for the museum. As well as seeing some of special artifacts that came from Elvis. Throughout the museum there was lots and lots of guitars and programs at record albums and clothing from all of the different artists. We both found those to be mildly you Trysting, but what was really fun was listening to the music and watching the videos of musicians that we were familiar with.

There was a room featuring music from the summer of love, 1967 in San Francisco. As the video played snippets from music famous at that time parentheses one of the most fun was dancing in the streets Parentheses it's rode up, there are gathered a large group of people in their 50s and 60s who sang along with song after song on. What fun OK.

. There was also a fascinate Section focused on ministers and other cultural critics who were protesting rock 'n' roll music as the music of the Satan and wanted to censor it. We saw a graphic video of a Beatles record album burning party. We think about how mild music was back then as compared to now.

Another display that we spent a long time at was one that allowed you to pick the year and then see what the top 100 hits were for that year we spent a lot of time in the 60s and 70s picking out songs and singing along To everything from wipe out to YMCA to

Another The prize was a whole room that was filled up with rock 'n' roll seemed old school pinball machines. With your admission band, you got some tokens to play these machines. Patty was especially sent back in time to her freshman year in college when she had a boyfriend who was a big-time pinball Wizard. Patty was gratified to find She still knew how to play the pinball machines. She was tempted to try to tilt the machines and played and played and tell we had to leave.

We ended the day up in the actual hall of fame. There were over 35 years of awards.  Again, we were pleased to see so many of the early influencers being honored. It was fun to see individuals and groups that we knew and liked, and then there were people we were totally unfamiliar with appear. That fit with our experience of the museum. We skipped sections that were focused on rap and hip-hop music. Not really our thing. And we looked with amusement at the excitement of the young people who wanted to get their photos taken in the section for what is happening now. Squeals of glee met clothing and instruments from current musicians that we had only vaguely heard of. But, such is how old music operates. Every generation has "it's real music" and the music before and after our youth never seems as powerful as our music.

So after about five hours, we were filled and headed out. We made a brief stop to Johnny Cash is touring bus. It was sitting out in front of the museum. It was interesting to think of Johnny Cash and his band traveling around on that bus. That custom bus. A good way to end a really fun day.

We got out of downtown Cleveland and headed south. Back to our Airbnb where we cooked up a lovely meal, and spent the evening working on photos and Listening to political news. This is a crazy time we are living in, and we alternate from focusing on news to taking a break. We had a lovely day in the Cleveland area.