Niagara Falls, Skyline Chili, and Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame

The last week of the trip was essentially dedicated to driving back across the country.  But we took it upon ourselves to do as much along the way as possible.  After hitting up the baseball hall of fame and spending the night in buffalo, we drove north to Niagara Falls to take the Maid of the Mist boat tour.  In our blue ponchos we boarded the boat and took off towards the falls.  I thought the Canadian side was more spectacular than the American side – it created a semicircle around our boat as we inched closer and closer to the fall.  At this point, the ponchos didn’t seem so silly.  The mere sound of the water falling was amazing, and we could hardly hear the person talking next to us.  After getting off the boat, we hiked up the side of the American side to take one last photo.  We then hurried back to the car to drive to Cleveland.

Do you like our blue ponchos?

The American Falls in the background

The ultimate destination was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but we had a little score to settle with the Skyline Chili.  After missing it in Cincinnati, we found there was a single Skyline in the Cleveland area.  From the outside, it looked like a respectable establishment.  But as we sat down and wondered if we were making a mistake.  Nevertheless, Brad and I opted for the 3-way, a plate of pasta topped with chili and a mound of shredded cheese, and Ryan decided to go for the 5-way, which added on diced onions and red beans.  Somehow, Ryan and I ate our entire plate; Brad, the obvious smarter of the three, did not.  We all felt pretty queasy and contemplated how a place like this can legally operate.

Under that mound of cheese, there is chili and pasta.

We trudged on into Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  The building was a giant glass pyramid located on the shore of Lake Erie.  Inside there were tons of impressive exhibits; origins and influences of artists by genre, cases on places and periods in history, and profiles and garb of individual bands.  Certain bands were dedicated entire exhibits themselves (Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and many more).  The lackluster yelp review said we would be able to make it through the museum in 2 hours tops, but we spent that amount of time just on that, and that was only the bottom floor.  Floors above included progression of music in television, radios and headphones, iPods and recording devices; the wall of fame captured the signatures of each band member of those who had been inducted.  Speaking of the wall, they had one of those from a Roger Water’s Concert too.  The top floors were dedicated to special exhibits that are constantly changing.  For us, it was the Grateful Dead.  I’m not too much of a deadhead and for such a huge band, we didn’t recognize any names other than Jerry Garcia.  However, it was cool seeing how the band from San Francisco progressed and changed over their career.  

There were giant painted guitars outside.  You can just see the start of the pyramid on the left.

We left the museum as it was closing.  I think we were still feeling the Skyline a little bit – that sort of thing doesn’t go away very easily.  But the museum was great and we enjoyed what time we did get to spend there.  Just like everything else we’ve done in the past four and a half weeks: wish we had more time.