Road Trip: The Hip in Cleveland

North America is uniquely qualified by the presence of a network of super highways; road side amenities; a paucity of brigands and police road blocks; lack of civil unrest and potholes, to make a road trip the kind of journey which can be anticipated devoid of anxiety. In fact, I look forward to road trips as leaps into open-sky-freedom with my moods and whims and bodily functions as my only guides to reaching the destination.

The idea of the journey as destination also has it's place here: As, if I may quote myself, "The trip starts the minute I step out the front door." Or, "Anything that happens from now is part of the journey." I usually utter something like this in order to help my travelling companions take the vagaries of travel in stride. To put it another way: delays in take off, confusion at the ticket counter, forgetting to pack some necessary item, bumper-to-bumper traffic, must all be viewed as part of the adventure of travelling. In fact, to some extent, I am happier if some bit of adversity challenges me in reaching my destination. The idea that I will have to improvise, finagle, do an end run on some challenge makes the trip all the more memorable for me.

As an aside, and there seem to be a lot of those in this post, I have come upon a list which recalls many of the most famous literary road trips undertaken in America. You can find this list (which includes Kerouac, Twain and Steinbeck) on the Smithsonian Magazine's website.

My last trip to the Bahamas (find a second post here) and to Florida (find posts here, here and here)threw up just the kind of curve balls that cause these trips to stick to the otherwise teflon coated slopes of my memory.

My road trip this year consists of a five-and-a-half hour drive to Cleveland, Ohio. A city which was once tagged by media outlets as the "mistake on the lake." In recent years, C-Town has seen a re-invigoration of it's downtown core with the establishment of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Cleveland Browns Stadium, the Great Lakes Science Centre, improvement of the school system, general economic revitalization of the inner city neighbourhoods and the emergence of the Cleveland Art Museum as a leading centre for the arts in the United States among others. In fact, Cleveland, once a part of the rust belt, was hailed in 2005 by The Economist as one of the most livable cities in America. In 1999, Cleveland was recognized as an emerging global city.

The chief reason for my trip to the home of the Cleveland Browns is to see The Tragically Hip. Seeing the The Hip in Canada can usually set you back about a $100 bucks and you have to share them with 50,000 of your closest friends. But when you attend a Hip concert in the States, you have the opportunity of seeing Gord and friends up close AND for virtually a quarter of the the price. My wife and I went to Cleveland one year, before the kids came along, and saw them at a club which had room for about 500 people. It was an exhilarating and memorable experience.

And so, on November 2nd, I plan on pointing the car westward and enjoying a short ride on the open road, arriving in Cleveland in the afternoon and then making my way to the House of Blues in the evening to dance for a few hours with fellow Canadians and some Americans to the beat of some classic Hip songs and some new ones from their recently released Album. And that must be the longest sentence I have ever written!

For the second day, the plan is to go back downtown, take in the flavour of the city with a walking tour and visit the Cleveland Art Museum. And, as a seredipitous bonus, the museum will be opening it's doors for the first time for an exhibit of the works of William Johnson. I have always admired Johnson's work for it's vibrant colours, simplicity of presentation and the sometimes sweet and sometimes saddening subject of his paintings. In fact, the art work shown with this post (Little Sweet) is one I have up on a wall in my house.

Johnson (1901 - 1970) has been described as a "pivotal figure in modern American art. A virtuoso skilled in various media and techniques, (who) produced thousands of works over a career that spanned decades, continents, and genres."

The third day of the trip, November 4th, consists of a ride back towards Toronto, with a stop over at the outlet mall in Niagara Falls, NY, to visit the JCrew, Gap and Burberry stores. I will post along the road, so stay tuned and....thanks for reading.

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