We arrived in Cleveland, the place of my birth, at 0530 the crack of dawn at the AMTRAK Lakefront Station. This was a bit of a disappointment because I was used to using the Terminal Tower train station. The Terminal Tower was built during the skyscraper boom of the 1920s and 1930s, it was the second tallest building in the world when it was completed and was. The TT was a pride of Cleveland when I lived there.
We Ubered to Hopkins Airport to rent a car and proceeded to stay at my sister's house in Seven Hills. I try to visit my sister back in Ohio at least every other year and stay with her for about a week. I also visited with Art my childhood friend and we did our usual beer drinking thing.
Jamie and I went out to The Schnitzel HOUSE and I had a Wienerschnitzel with spatzle. Ethnic food, German Polish Italian etc., seems to taste a bit better back East. I also wanted to have a fish fry on Friday like I used to have with my mom and dad on Fridays. My mouth ached for fresh water Perch but it wasn't to be. I also had a corned beef sammich at Slaymen's. Good corned beef is a real rarity in Cali. Lord knows that I've tried at Canter's and Langer's Delicatessions but it isn't like I remembered. I also had City Chicken at my cousin Nancy's. That was as good as I remembered. Bravo Zulu Nancy.
The train station in Cleveland is open from 10:30 PM to 6:30 AM because of the only two trains that still stop in Cleveland are at 2 AM and 5:30 AM.
We took the train to Buffalo and my old Waddell shipmate Guy Ward met us at the station. Guy showed us a hell of a good time while there. We went to Niagara Falls on both the USA and Canada sides. We lunched in a picture postcard little town called Niagara on the Lake in Ontario Canada The place is as cute a small town that you will ever see. At lunched there, I finally tasted poutine, the so called national dish of Canada. Poutine is a plate of french fries with gravy and cheese curds on top. We also went to Wayne Gretzky's distillery for a whiskey flight and then to the other side of the building for a tasting of his, Wayne's, wines. The next day we went to the Buffalo Naval Park and toured a 2150 ton Fletcher class destroyer which is a tad bit smaller than my 4500 ton DDG but still very representative of what life in a tin can is like. FYI, DDG is a guided missile destroyer and a tin can is any destroyer in navy talk. USS Little Rock was also on display along side of USS Sullivans. Little Rock is a CLG or "light" guided missile cruiser and displasses about 12,000 tons or about three times as large. I was a Guidedmissileman and then a Missile Technician for uver eight years in the Terrior/Tartar program. The third T in the Three T program is the Talos missile and is quite a bit larger then Terriers and tartars but I had never been up close to a Talos. Like the CLG it was about three times as my birds and was very ungainly to be ship launched.
After two days in Buffalo we boarded the train to New York City, The Big Apple. We stayed at The Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC. The Pensylvania Hotel is huge with something like 1800 rooms. We checked into a smallish one bedroom but it had mold on the wall. In all fairness the hotel is over one hundred years old and is in a renovation project. Jamie called the front desk and complained and the desk said come on down, just like Let's Make a Deal. When she arrived, they handed her the keys to a two room suite which is where we stayed.
While in NYC, we took a Hop On/Hop Off bus around downtown and then another uptown to get the lay of the land. After getting our bearings, we did some touristy stuff like going to Times Square and the Empire State Building. We went to a New York deli and I tried the NYC corned beef which was good but not exceptional. We took a ferry to The Statue of Liberty and Ellis island. I ate Sabrett's hot dogs and had Ney York pizza.
We Ubered to Hopkins Airport to rent a car and proceeded to stay at my sister's house in Seven Hills. I try to visit my sister back in Ohio at least every other year and stay with her for about a week. I also visited with Art my childhood friend and we did our usual beer drinking thing.
Jamie and I went out to The Schnitzel HOUSE and I had a Wienerschnitzel with spatzle. Ethnic food, German Polish Italian etc., seems to taste a bit better back East. I also wanted to have a fish fry on Friday like I used to have with my mom and dad on Fridays. My mouth ached for fresh water Perch but it wasn't to be. I also had a corned beef sammich at Slaymen's. Good corned beef is a real rarity in Cali. Lord knows that I've tried at Canter's and Langer's Delicatessions but it isn't like I remembered. I also had City Chicken at my cousin Nancy's. That was as good as I remembered. Bravo Zulu Nancy.
The train station in Cleveland is open from 10:30 PM to 6:30 AM because of the only two trains that still stop in Cleveland are at 2 AM and 5:30 AM.
We took the train to Buffalo and my old Waddell shipmate Guy Ward met us at the station. Guy showed us a hell of a good time while there. We went to Niagara Falls on both the USA and Canada sides. We lunched in a picture postcard little town called Niagara on the Lake in Ontario Canada The place is as cute a small town that you will ever see. At lunched there, I finally tasted poutine, the so called national dish of Canada. Poutine is a plate of french fries with gravy and cheese curds on top. We also went to Wayne Gretzky's distillery for a whiskey flight and then to the other side of the building for a tasting of his, Wayne's, wines. The next day we went to the Buffalo Naval Park and toured a 2150 ton Fletcher class destroyer which is a tad bit smaller than my 4500 ton DDG but still very representative of what life in a tin can is like. FYI, DDG is a guided missile destroyer and a tin can is any destroyer in navy talk. USS Little Rock was also on display along side of USS Sullivans. Little Rock is a CLG or "light" guided missile cruiser and displasses about 12,000 tons or about three times as large. I was a Guidedmissileman and then a Missile Technician for uver eight years in the Terrior/Tartar program. The third T in the Three T program is the Talos missile and is quite a bit larger then Terriers and tartars but I had never been up close to a Talos. Like the CLG it was about three times as my birds and was very ungainly to be ship launched.
After two days in Buffalo we boarded the train to New York City, The Big Apple. We stayed at The Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC. The Pensylvania Hotel is huge with something like 1800 rooms. We checked into a smallish one bedroom but it had mold on the wall. In all fairness the hotel is over one hundred years old and is in a renovation project. Jamie called the front desk and complained and the desk said come on down, just like Let's Make a Deal. When she arrived, they handed her the keys to a two room suite which is where we stayed.
While in NYC, we took a Hop On/Hop Off bus around downtown and then another uptown to get the lay of the land. After getting our bearings, we did some touristy stuff like going to Times Square and the Empire State Building. We went to a New York deli and I tried the NYC corned beef which was good but not exceptional. We took a ferry to The Statue of Liberty and Ellis island. I ate Sabrett's hot dogs and had Ney York pizza.
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