August 9-16, 2011
This week I visited the state of Ohio for the first time. The purpose of the trip was to do research for Polansky Report and to drop off a bunch of t-shirts that are being converted into t-shirt quilts.
I started my journey in Columbus. After misconnecting in DC I had to wait five hours for the next flight. This caused me to miss my appointment with the quilters, so I rescheduled for the following day. Upon arrival in Columbus I went to my hotel, took a quick nap and then attended the Columbus Clippers Game.
The Clippers have a great park. I’m clearly not the only one that thinks so being that it was voted Best Park of the Year in 2009 by baseballparks.com. I also had one the best sandwiches of my life at Huntington Park. It was a turkey panini on a pretzel roll. Words can’t begin to describe how delicious it tasted.
Huntington Park in Columbus Ohio.
Thursday morning I was up early to make my rescheduled quilt meeting. It took a couple hours and went very well. I then drove to the outskirts of Cleveland to attend a Lake County Captains game. The Captains are the single A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. Shin-Soo Choo the left fielder for the Indians was rehabbing with Lake County which made for an entertaining evening. I sat in front of an obsessed group of girls whose constant banter made for a fun evening.
I spent Thursday night in a hotel a half hour outside of Cleveland. In the morning I drove downtown checked into the Hilton Garden Inn next to Progressive Field and set off to explore the city by foot.
There was a ton of construction in the city along with a huge Hollywood movie set. This made my walk down to the Cleveland Browns Stadium take a lot longer than I originally planned. By the time I got to the riverfront it was pushing 12:30 p.m.. I did a quick stroll around the football stadium, popped in the proshop, took a few pictures and then made my way down the street to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Avengers movie set in downtown Cleveland.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the myriad interactive listening stations around the museum. I was also surprised by the small stature of nearly all of the musicians. I bet on average the male performers with clothes in the Hall averaged 5’ 7”. For an additional $3 I decided to buy a ticket to the U2 3-D concert experience. I would highly recommend this for any U2 fans visiting the Hall.After making a quick stop back at the hotel I was off to Progressive Field for the Indians Twins game.
Progressive Field is a very nice ballpark. I chose to get a ticket in the all-you-can-eat club section for this game off Stub Hub. I’m pretty sure I drank my ticket price worth of diet soda out of the self-serve soda fountain. At the end of the night there was an Elvis themed fire work spectacular. It was a quite a good show as can witnessed below.
Saturday morning I was up early yet again to drive to Canton to visit the NFL Hall of Fame. I particularly enjoyed the exhibits describing the history of the NFL. The uniforms and protective equipment from a 100 years ago looked more like something from Silence of the Lambs than a football game. Overall Canton is worth a stop for any NFL fan.
A football helmet from the turn of the century.
After the Hall I had a long drive back to Columbus that was greatly shortened due to a most entertaining phone call with B. I spent my second night in Columbus at a Crew soccer game. This was the third MLS game I had attended. It was fun but the environments in Seattle and Portland are certainly better.
I arrived in Cleveland around 11 a.m. on Sunday morning. Before attending the Reds game, I checked out the Reds Hall of Fame. It was a fantastic museum. There was a great mix of historical items and interactive exhibits. They happened to be giving away Johnny Bench bobble-head dolls to attendees, which I found quite cool.
Another highlight of the game was getting to see Chad Ochocinco break dance outside one of the entrances.
The game itself wasn’t all that exciting. The Padres put a pretty good shellacking on the Reds. I sat by a very nice couple who were in from Texas for the weekend. They reminded me that the ATP tennis tour was in town. Since the Reds game was a day game, I decided it was worth pursuing tennis in the evening, even though it was opening night of the tournament and the big names were unlikely to be playing.
The Western and Southern Open was a blast. The only singles match taking place on the first night was James Blake vs Marco Baghdatis on center court. The most entertaining happening, however, was on second court where Rafael Nadal was practicing. While watching I learned that Rafa seems to pick his wedgie after every point. As an underwear endorser for Armani, I think he needs to ask for a more tennis friendly product.
Rafael Nadal practicing at the Western and Southern Open.
On my final full day in Ohio I stumbled upon a true gem. I was in Dayton and looking for something to do prior to attending the Dayton Dragons minor league baseball game in the evening. Based on Trip Advisor recommendations I decided to go to the Air Force Museum. This place was AWESOME. It was six ginormous hangers full of things planes. I highly recommend a visit to Ohio simply to visit this fantastic place.
The Dayton Dragons game was fun but not as fun as I was expecting being that the team had recently broken the professional sports team record for consecutive sellouts.
Overall the trip to Ohio was a rousing success. I think my quilts are going to be awesome and anyone who knows me knows seven sporting events in six days is my idea of fun.
Until the Ducks vs LSU in Dallas,
Katy
