Rock'n'Roll, It'll poison your mind kids!

After Niagara we continued west and headed for Toledo and the Cedar Point State Park at the far end of Lake Erie. We decided to detour along the way and check out the Cleveland Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, on the recommendation of a fellow camper. We checked it out in the ever faithful Rough Guide and it sounded promising. Cleveland hasn’t had much of an influence on Rock and Roll, so it seemed a bit odd to have what is advertised as probably the finest collection of memorabilia in the USA. Apparently the phrase “Rock and Roll” was first used here by the DJ Alan Freed… well that’s just grrrreat pop-pickers!
Given our past experiences with cities we were a bit hesitant about going, but for once the signs were good and there was parking pretty much right outside, so things were looking good. The Museum is a bit pricey at $20 per head… and you are not allowed to take cameras in… something to do with rock stars not wanting people to copy their instrument designs. It wasn’t too bad a place, (in fact I can think of several people reading this that would have had to take advantage of the 2 day pass, there was some fascinating stuff, like Madonna is actually tiny (judging by her outfits and Mick Jagger is really tall! – Jen) but the recurring theme is that rock stars get famous, have a drink or drug problem, then either die or come to some amazing realization that they are not invincible and go on to write politically influencd music and get in trouble with various African governments! Ok… maybe it’s not quite that simple!

So we then left Cleveland, a city that seems to be basking in the delights of economic development, unlike Buffalo that we drove through a few days ago which was a bit of a hole.
We arrived at Cedar Point State Park at about 6pm to find that it was chockablock... Shame as it looked like a really nice place, so off we went to find the nearest KOA (aka Butlins) some 20 miles up the road. We checked in and immediately went for a swim in the outdoor pool as it was a bloomin warm evening. The pool was small, but much cleaner than the scanky swamp at the Holiday Inn in Baltimore. Of all the unlikely places, we also found a Series I landy… It’s a beauty and Jen being Jen, she had to buy it.

Downside to this campsite… it was right next door to a railroad crossing and, I reckon American trains only have 2 controls, one to make the train move, the other to blow the horns… which they did consistently through the night (Jen reckons it was worse than my snoring!).
It’s 300 miles to Chicago, we have no cigarettes, the sun is shining and we’re wearing sunglasses!! (for the uneducated amongst you, thats a take off from a classic Blues Brothers saying ;-) ) … so we need to get a move on. We hoped to get a hotel and spend the night there, maybe check out a Jazz/Blues bar, but everything is very expensive unless you stay at one of the hotels at O’Hare airport. But we can’t find any information about how easy it is to get Downtown, so we’re just gonna drive though and have a look before heading out the other side to the next campsite.