(Editor's Note: As the major participants in this story have a somewhat non-standard idea of what a 'day' is, I'm including the hours of our days for the curious. Basically, a day is what happens after you wake up, until you go to sleep again. For us, it bears little relation to the commonly-accepted '24 hour' definition.)
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
Right, it's been done before...
"It was a time."
As any seasoned traveler will tell you, the Real Trick to a successful road trip is getting started. Ever. Many a trip as turned into a complete disaster because it failed to adhere to this basic tenet. I've been involved in several such non-events, though I never could've done so without Mr. Hagan's help!
Anyway, the bulk of Day 1 was spent trying to get Mr. Hagan (and his stuff) into my car, and pointed in a westerly direction. The original plan, instantly shot down, was to leave his house around 1pm, and get to Cleveland by 8pm.
Unfortunately, due to a number of complications and last-minute Things That Need To Be Done Before We Can Leave, this didn't happen. One such triviality - his Tux. While I wasn't there for this, apparently some sort of Genetic Miscreant working at the Tux place accused John of looking like Famous TV Geek 'Urkel'. Thankfully, no one was injured. However, it's clear that this individual was deranged, as everyone knows John (in a suit) winds up looking like Pee-Wee Herman.
Whatever - the details of how we finally got my other car stored in John's garage (I hope to get it back someday!), got some last-minute laundry done so he could pack, etc., etc. aren't really all that important. Or entertaining. Suffice it to say that we did eventually get out the door and on the road by 11:56PM, Friday night. This is what passes for an Early Start in our book.
Next step: a quick 400 mile hop to Cleveland, during which nothing of any consequence happened.
At this point you might be wondering "Why on earth would anyone want to go to Cleveland? Isn't that the place where the lake caught on fire? And What's that Smell?" Good questions all. The answers, in order are:
Got to the Greater (hah!) Cleveland Metropolitan Area around 7am on Saturday. Proceeded to the Days Inn that I had carefully chosen en-route. I figured that a crappy motel 15 miles from downtown Cleveland (and the race site) would not present a problem. The place was empty, except for a couple of busloads of Korean Christian church-ladies, but apparently we weren't Christian-looking enough to enter the promised (assumed?) land, and were shown the door. Nice door, but not the big fluffy beds we were hoping for. Back to the car.
We continued to drive north along I-77, which would eventually take us smack dab to the center of Cleveland, and the Burke Lakefront Airport (where the race was being held). Now Ohio is one of those Accursed States with some sort of Highway Beautification laws. No billboards. Now while this might seem like a good idea to the casual driver, it's a form of torture for your Serious Driver, out for the Long Haul. Nothing to read = boredom = sleep = death. Of course, if you're already tired, and trying to skip the 'death' part of the equation, what you need is a conveniently placed motel... which you can't find because there's no frickin' billboards. Oh, I'm sure they were out there, hundreds of them, laughing at us as we unwittingly drove by.
At which point John suggests "let's just drive right down to where this race is being held - I'm sure we can find a room". Given that some 90,000 people would be in town this weekend to see the race, it was a completely ludicrous idea.
"What the hell, let's do it!", I agreed - largely because I didn't have any better ideas, even though this one was patently absurd. We drove right up to the nicest hotel in town, two blocks from the airport, and in a testament to John's uncanny knack for this sort of thing, they had a room. Oh, not a suitable room (too pricey, and only one bed), but a room nonetheless.
"Thank you very much, we might be back", we said. Grabbed a list of local hotels from their front desk, and started racking up some Roaming charges. The third place on the list (a Mariott) produced the desired result: a room with two beds. The only hitch was their address, something like "127 Famous-Dead-Guy Square", although it didn't seem like a problem at that moment...
We quickly locate this so-called square, and start driving around it. There's 87 Dead-Guy-Square. There's 53... there's 22, there's 12, and there's 87 again. Damnedest thing. Can't believe it - after 30 minutes driving around this stupid little park, looking for the Mariott (hindered, of course, by the obligatory one-way streets, closed roads, construction vehicles, detours, and Big Buildings With No External Markings), we do the unmanly, nearly unthinkable thing - we stop and ask for directions.
"F*#kin' Cleveland!" is all I can say.
This square, (which is made up of streets that continue on and have Other Names once they get away from the square) uses Polar Coordinates, of a sort. Buildings located directly adjacent to the square are numbered 01-99, with 01 being due east, and the numbers increasing as you drive counter-clockwise around the square. Buildings one block away from the square are numbered 101-199, and so on... Nobody is prepared to run into that sort of thing after they've been driving all night!
Anyway, armed with this new key bit of knowledge, we instantly found the hotel, and settled down for a good nights sleep1. At 10am.
1. A trick for you beginning travelers - John and Ed discovered this one when they traveled across the country a couple of years ago, and it still works. If you time it right, you can sleep for two 'days' in a motel for the price of one! The trick is to check in as early as possible, generally around 8am, and immediately go to sleep. Wake up in the afternoon, do some stuff, come back and sleep again at the 'normal' time (i.e., night), and check out the next day at noon.
