Rain and Samantha's Excellent Adventure: The Continual Epic of Cleveland Day

Samantha: Ah, Cleveland! So glorious with its gentlemen and museums, eateries, breweries, an all around surprising city. I was completely enamored with what little I did see at the museum – there was a delightful, whimsical exhibit featuring mythical beasts and the art work that has accrued from each tale through human history. We made our way through enchanted creatures to the fossils of those which had inspired them. I was most satisfied with the collection of dinosaur and large mammal fossils the museum had on hand, including a mastodon, a mammoth, an Irish Elk (whose kinfolk of the time seemed to have awful luck with falling into bogs), and that glamorous "missing link," Lucy, who I was very happy to meet, finally. I was thrilled to learn that, aside from the museum, there is an entirely separate science center, and with that the prospect of moving to Cleveland became more tangible. For those of you who I haven't had the chance to tell, I'm finding that teaching science is striking a very bright and hopeful chord within me. To work at a science center, marvelous!

From there, we made hast home in preparation of a night out. What a lovely night, indeed. Had a fantastic sampling of brews, and one delectable mixed drink composed of dark rum, ginger ale, and lime juice. Forest, the ever vigilant good-willed man, split a fine beer with me, and made sure both of his charges were well hydrated and happy. This particular bar was subterranean, with a fascinating painting of what we discerned was a deer eating a penguin. A nice establishment.

The following morn consisted of a rapid tour of the final sights of Cleveland. I had banished myself to my car for some phone tag with folks back home, but Forest quickly found me and easily read my intent to devour some delicious Italian pastries for breakfast. We stopped at the Cultural Gardens to bid fair wishes to some historical figures, darted to Pres. Garfield's tomb (who knew he lay at rest in Cleveland? Certainly not me.), atop which we viewed dear Cleveland from on high, then off to the Kirkland area for a brief science-major indulgence in geology and local botany. Fair Forest ended our jaunt with an overview of the city, a visit to his home (his dad gave us honey from his apiary!), and farewell hugs (though he claims immunity to pathos! Ha! Such a warm person could not be entirely impenetrable to two women of our kind).

Rain: So hanging out in Cleveland was totally awesome. The city gets a bad rap- it’s like the redheaded stepchild that everyone makes fun of and says is ugly and weird and nobody wants to be around, but then you get there and realize that gingers are awesome and this place is totally beautiful and wonderful and filled with awesome things and the people who live there have probably just been keeping it all a secret on purpose so annoying outsiders don’t butt in. Good strategy on their part, actually.

We went to Cleveland to see my friend Forest, which I was super excited about because before now I’d only seen him two times since he moved from Vermont back to Ohio 4 years ago. We had a wonderful little nerd-fest of a reunion before we got down to partying and being awesome. Samantha and I got to Forest’s part of Cleveland later Tuesday evening, settled in for a bit, and then went out to a local brewery for a drink. Forest and his roommate Nathan are of that wonderfully rare breed of 20-something guys who manage to be smart, respectful, classy, and goofy all at the same time, and we had a wonderful time hanging out with them. They decided that we should try and see everything there possibly was to see in the city all in one day, which we didn’t even come close to but still had an awesome time trying. We started off the day with breakfast on the terrace (complete with bacon and homegrown veggies, the only way to properly start off a day) , then went out adventuring. We went to a really neat store in Coventry Village called “Big Fun” that was packed floor to ceiling with all sorts of toys and had mustache-themed pretty much anything you could ever want. We went to the Natural History museum and saw a bunch of awesome fossils and plants and stuff, which was also really cool (in case you don’t know, I love dinosaur fossils. Enough to have some interesting tales about licking dinosaur fossil-like things. But that’s another story.) We went to some more cool places, then met up with another friend of Forest’s and went out on the town. Samantha almost succeeded in drinking all the beer in Cleveland, and I decided that Dark and Stormies are most definitely my new favorite drink. The next day we stopped by some of the Cultural Gardens in the city, as well as the tomb of President Garfield. As a last stop before we said goodbye we went hiking in a local place called Chapin’s Forest. It was pretty hard to say bye because we didn’t want to leave, so we procrastinated until we finally left for Chicago at about 2 in the afternoon. But that’s another adventure, which the next blog post will be for!

Mas picturas, apre vous:

PG 13 playground graffiti.

That's what we are!

Creme Brulee beer and a dark and stormy

Samantha talking to Lily of South Korea at that subterranean joint - She hopped a plane to the US without knowing a soul, how brave! Forest on hand as the watchdog. Good boy!