Cleveland Weekend 2007

This weekend was our annual trip to the Cleveland Grand Prix, and what a weekend it was! Each year we travel with our friends Chris and Karen (except for last year when Karen and Ed came instead. Chris' mom and dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on race weekend) and spend the weekend in beautiful Cleveland.

We started out on Friday night and instead of taking the congested Bluewater Bridge to the USA we took the Sombra Ferry. 4 adults on this trip and it was the first time any of us had been on the ferry! We drove right on and a few minutes later we were in the States. A really nice change from that rotten bridge where we would have sat for an hour easy. We borrowed my brother's GPS which was the coolest thing. (Thanks Jeff). If you are travelling anywhere I recommend this machine, which we nicknamed Sally. Sally took good care of us, leading us in the right direction most of the time! She had the nerve to call us "Ding Dong" as we approached our turns!


We stayed in a beautiful, comfortable Sheraton on Friday night. Unfortunately there was a family (with kids) that thought they should be loud and obnoxious from 1-4 am. I don't sleep well in a hotel and I heard every door slam, conversation etc. I was not a happy camper on Sat. am when they started up again at 8am. Thankfully, my sweet husband opened the door and said to them "Excuse me people. Could you please keep it down" And they did!! I wish I had of had the nerve to confront them myself during the night! I didn't want to get shot! Chris and Karen heard Mike and they were giggling. Chris was going to bang on our door, pretend to be the neighbour and yell "Did you yell at my kid!!" The odd thing was Mike said it was a mom, dad, grandma and about 4 kids. You would think the adults would know how to act in a hotel. As you can probably tell, I'm still annoyed about the whole thing! I guess I'll forget about it from this moment on.

After breakfast Karen and I shopped all day while the guys went to the track. Karen tried on a zillion dresses for a wedding she has and for Kali and Courtney's high school grad this week. We had soooooo much fun. There are some very strange patterned clothes in Cleveland! We thought that the stores must have the same clothes that were available when our mother's were teenagers! Funky 60's style clothes everywhere! We also saw some long haltered dresses that we could envision Cher in!

• The new look of Champ Cars.
  

• Mike with a NBA player who is 6'10". His name is Lance somebody. Cleveland has a basketball player right now whose nickname is Boobie. (Why, I don't know) But you can buy T-shirts that say "Got Boobie.....we do". No, I didn't buy one!
  

After Karen and I met back up with Mike and Chris we went for dinner at Shooters. Shooters is a fun bar/restaurant on the river. Yachts dock there and sometimes you can see the most amazing million $ yachts. They will have their own parties on board and we just stand on the boardwalk and watch what's going on. This year there wasn't any yachts worth drooling over. There was a strange man there though who had a T-shirt on that said "Drunk Chicks Love Me" in silver, glittery duct tape. His belt buckle was a sign (like a ticker on the bottom of CNN) that said Cleveland Rocks! Karen and I considered having our picture taken with him for the blog because after a few Corona's you think that's funny....but we didn't! We saw him the next day at the track with the same shirt and belt on and were quite thankful we didn't!

• Mike and Chris ordered these huge 32 oz beers. There was a little peer pressure involved...ie: "Well, since you ordered such a big beer, I better too" Chris said his beer was good for the first 22oz but was grossed out for the last 10. He's looking a little grumpy about the swill left in his glass!

• When Karen and I were walking to the mall she said that she feels like a Beatle walking on the painted stripes on the road. When we were walking back to the hotel Sat. night Mike said exactly the same thing Karen said about feeling like a Beatle. I had to take a pic of them imitating the Beatles.
  

When we got back to the hotel, we met a family in the elevator who told us that we should go over to the bar in the Ritz Carlton because Lionel Ritchie was in there just sitting in the bar. Nobody but me wanted to go there.

"Lionel Ritchie...no thanks" they said.

but I was trying to convince them:"How many times do you get the opportunity to say you saw Lionel Ritchie in a bar" Anyway, we didn't go but spent the next 1/2 hour trying to think up songs that he sings. We thought of 4!! We aren't big fans obviously! At the race on Sun we hear someone being introduced "....and the winner of Grammy and Emmy awards....." We all look at each other "Lionel Ritchie!!!!" He was at the race. Oh well, we have a story about him anyway!

Thanks to Hugh and Mary Jane for looking after the kids. We never worried for a second about them! And from the sounds of it you all had a good time too.

Thanks to Chris and Karen for all the laughs. These weekends are so much fun....