This post offers an introduction to our Fall for New England 2021 road trip with a stop at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. We spent five hours reminiscing about the good old days – watching videos and looking at old photos and beautiful displays about our favorite musicians from days gone by.

Click on the first photo in each group and scroll to see the square photos at full size.

Introduction

Let’s be honest. Some people love road trips. They return home from one and can hardly wait to start planning another! But others think of aching backs, sore derrières, swollen feet, and boredom beyond belief. They think of one, two – or for God’s sake THREE? – long and grueling days in a car and they’re on their phones searching for cheap flights. They wonder how our marriage can survive being stuck together without escape for days on end. Simply put, they think we’re crazy.

There are times when the negatives do come to the forefront, like with any marriage – I mean road trip. We put a LOT of effort (long before we leave home) into making the trip interesting, so we’re not bored and crabby or spinning our wheels – especially on days when we have to stay on schedule to cover more ground. We usually Google things that would be interesting or fun (or stupid) that we can see along the way. It gives us a nice excuse to stop and take a break, and something to talk about later – good, bad or just WTH was THAT? We’ve found the planning stages to be almost as fun as the trip itself!

Back in June of 2012 we took a challenging spring trip northeast, where we experienced a LOT of rain (often torrential), fog, gloom, and stuff not open for the season yet. BUT since we’re glass half-full people, that also means no crowds, bountiful waterfalls, ominous clouds and our first look at three states that we had always wanted to visit. At that time we were still working and our two weeks was not even close to being long enough to take in all that New England has to offer. Fast forward nine years…

Prelude to Picturesque

Click on the link just above to see our reasoning behind the “if we find places through RCI that we want to visit we jump on them” scenario. We found back to back weeks in Vermont and New Hampshire and we built a month-long road trip around the aligning of the stars! Since Covid kept us pretty much homebound for a year and a half, we had plenty of planning time to make this trip even better than our last.

Our route took us very near one of our long-time bucket list items – the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The eight-hour drive to Cleveland made it a logical first stop, then we could stay two nights to recover. We chose the Double Tree by Hilton for its location, location, location and our room was very comfy. We were able to get checked in, grab a bite and a beer at the hotel bar, and get a good night’s sleep to kick off our trip. We ordered our tickets online several months prior to make sure we could get in at all – given some things were still closed due to Covid. We scored tickets right away at 11am – when Rock Hall opened its doors.

Living close to Lake Michigan for 35 years, we were expecting “cooler by the lake”, so last night’s brisk wind off of Lake Erie was no surprise with remnants of several hurricanes making their way north. This morning however, was absolutely perfect for our quick ten-minute walk. The brilliant blue sky helped make great reflections in the glass buildings of the city, and flowers accented an orchestra eager to start its performance.

60s and 70s Music was the BEST!

Of course all baby boomers concur that we have the greatest music EVER, but probably hundreds of documentaries about our favorite bands always give tribute to the ones who came before. “Rock and roll’s roots are many and varied. They stretch back to the early part of the 20th Century and encompass several styles of American music, from the blues, gospel and rhythm & blues, to country, folk and bluegrass… To pay tribute to rock’s roots, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame includes a category of inductees called Early Influences. While these artists were not rock and rollers themselves, the music we celebrate would have been inconceivable without them.”

Several areas covered the influences from Memphis, Detroit, London and Liverpool, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with extensive coverage of the artists from those regions. Even though I’m not old enough to remember Billie Holiday during her time, Lady Sings the Blues was one of my favorite movies from back in the day (1972), played by Diana Ross. In 1988, Diana was inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Supremes, but to date has not been inducted as a solo artist.

Wear your Walking Shoes!

Mostly glass with seven levels to explore, the building itself is so cool. We spent almost five hours here, watching interactive videos and catching glimpses of awesome old photos of most of our favorites. We paused for a while near a “studio” where visitors could jam with a drummer and a woman singer who I think were staged there to help the wannabes. Her rendition of Stairway to Heaven reminded me of the outstanding performance by Ann and Nancy Wilson at the Kennedy Center in 2012, which paid tribute to Led Zeppelin.

What do Elvis and Jimmy Hendrix have in Common?

Not much, or so you’d think! There were rooms-full of dedications to Elvis, the Beatles, Jimi and Janis, and a floor dedicated to the Hall of Fame Inductees, with videos of some of our favorites like the Mamas and the Papas, (without Mama Cass) accepting the honor to be placed on the wall in the Hall. More than one of them made me cry.

The Wall

One of the upper floors had an awesome installation that was created for the opening of Rock Hall in 1995. Pink Floyd’s The Wall looks similar to portions of the set used for Roger Waters’ all-star charity performance in Berlin in July of 1990 commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. A brick in the wall read, “In the old days, pre-Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd played to audiences which, by virtue of their size, allowed an intimacy of connection that was magical.” Another read, “However, success overtook us and by 1977 we were playing in football stadiums. The magic crushed beneath the weight of numbers, we were becoming addicted to the trappings of popularity.” The third photo below goes on to tell how the Wall was conceptualized by Waters’ feelings of isolation and his traumatic life.

Temporary Exhibits

The top two levels feature temporary exhibits including Keith Richards. On his video he gave us some incite as to his “inspiration” to hand-magic-marker his guitar in a very detailed, very beautiful and colorful design. Eddie Van Halen was always looking to create a sound that was new and different. He was known to tear several guitars apart and interchange features to get just the right sound. Not being a guitar aficionado, I was lost through most of the videos, but was totally in awe of the artists and their mad skills!

Toward the end of our tour we were encouraged to go into an auditorium to watch a compilation of short clips of some of the greats playing their greatest hits. There was a huge screen and the music was loud and awesome, but I found myself wishing we could see the entire song instead of just a clip. About that time, the recording below (click to hear) started mid-song but continued to the end. Seeing Prince and Tom Petty alive and well and doing what they did best, along with the others, and Dhani Harrison (looking so much like his dad) was the highlight of my day.

Relax and Reflect

After our visit, we walked down by Lake Erie (behind Rock Hall which now looks like a square white building) to explore while we waited for Nuevo Modern Mexican & Tequila Bar to open at 4pm. Margaritas (mine was mango) were the drink of choice and a fabulous dinner topped off a great day of music.

Long Live Rock!

Next up: Cheers to the Empire State

Happy trails,
Barb