Thus when we said we were "going to Cleveland" it didn't mean we were actually going to Cleveland; it meant that we were going to visit relatives who lived near, but not in, Cleveland.
In truth, in all the years I'd been "going to Cleveland" the most I'd ever seen of the city ― other than one brief, ill-advised foray I vaguely recall one night around Christmas time several decades ago to take our kids ― at the time one toddler and one baby ― to see a Care Bear lights display, or something ― anyway, other than that the most I'd ever seen of downtown Cleveland,
Though I believe the particular bee that flew into mine and buzzed into my brain the desire to learn what wonders there might be just below that Cleveland skyline,
Time passed, summer came and went and we sort of forgot about the "Go To Cleveland" plan until I revisited it a few weeks ago and came up with the idea of going in October and calling it a birthday trip - for me - so that in case anybody asked, "Why are you going to Cleveland and staying in a hotel when you have so many relatives there?" I could just say, "It's for my birthday."
So we left Columbus this past Thursday morning and stopped along the way in the Cleveland exurb (a little farther out than a suburb) of Lorain to visit Tom's 98-year-old father, Charlie,
For dinner we drove back to Lorain to a cute little family diner located on the lake called Chris' that we've been to several times before,
To be continued...