Day 2 - Only Rock and Roll at DennyGibson.com

Day 2: October 26, 2018
Long Live Rock
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It's always a red letter day at the House of Rock.

Many Rock and Roll Hall of Fame displays pertain to the inductees but others offer views of various genres, periods, and regions. The worn suitcase in the center of the first picture is the one that held Howlin' Wolf's cash and was parked under his chair when he was on stage. The sound board in the third picture was used in some early Jimi Hendrix recordings.

One of the regions featured is the midwest and Cleveland naturally gets some extra attention.

This is the actual Hall of Fame part of the operation. Panels line the walls with all current inductees shown by year. Of the 323 inductees, 220 are performers, and of those 220 performers, I've seen 45. I've missed quite a few but I don't think that count is too shabby.

There are stations nearby where fans can vote on this year's nominees and those votes count... a little bit... I think. It's my understanding that the combined fan vote counts as one ballot of the 800 or so cast by industry insiders. Despite that having minimal impact on the results, it's kind of cool. Unfortunately, it is one of those "vote once a day" affairs. Those don't measure popularity or much of anything beyond I've-got-more-relatives-with-more-free-time-than-you-do. Even so, I was on site and in a voting mood so I gave a miniscule boost to Devo, John Prine, MC5, The Zombies, and Todd Rundgren. If you would like to vote, once or every day, you can do so here.

The top floor is used for temporary exhibits. The current occupant is "Rock on TV". Displays honor the dance shows, the variety shows, the made-for-TV bands, and the videos that found a home on TV before Youtube was invented. Pictured are the Jackson 5 suits from 1969 and the iconic hats that Tom and Bob wore.

This was my third visit to the Hall of Fame but I'd not visited the adjacent Great Lakes Science Center. I fixed that today. Among the cooler things in the center are an Apollo module that was used to return astronauts from Skylab 3 in 1973 and the Ohio tested landing gear for the Sojourner Mars Rover.

Most of the center targets folks considerably younger than me with lots of interactive hands-on stuff. There are some organized activities and a huge amount of DIY education aids.

A temporary exhibit called "The Impolite Science of the Human Body" is on the bottom floor. Fun things to do include climbing a zit covered wall, crawling through oversized intestines, and playing a life sized "Operation" game.

A waterside view of the Hall of Fame can be had by stepping outside the Center's lowest level.

There are several breweries within a mile of the lakefront and I originally planned to visit one or more of them. However, after walking through the Hall of Fame and the Science Center even that sounded like too far to walk for a beer. I decided to drive to the oldest micro brewery in the state, Great Lakes Brewing. I had to search a bit for parking but found something just a couple of blocks away. As I walked toward the address I had, I saw this door and figured that's where I wanted to be. I soon learned that this led to an event space in the the production brewery building and that a wedding was about to happen in that space. It was not, after all, where I wanted to be.

I followed some instructions to the brewpub and entered through a side door. The main room was full so I followed a group of three downstairs to a bar with three open stools. The trio I followed filled the stools but I grabbed a beer and found a seat at a table. I finally found the main entrance and exited through it.

The brewery density in Ohio City is phenomenal. I visited three more and none was more than a block away from another. First up was a nano brewery named Nano Brew where I took a picture of the entire brewing operation in case anyone doubts its nanoness. Then I stepped across the street to the Ohio City outpost of Cincinnati based Bad Tom Smith Brewing. My last beer was at Market Garden Brewery where it was accompanied by a really good apple and pecan salad. Market Garden's secret production brewery is shown in the last photo.

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