Side Attractions, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio, 2016

The gift shop at the Rock Hall is huge, and hugely busy. In addition to the t-shirts for sale, there are Christmas ornaments, records, and coffee mugs. This image was taken on Black Friday--the day after Thanksgiving--November 25th, 2016. The gift shop is not a wristband area.

The t-shirts for sale here are of the usual "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" variety, but with a lot more attitude than you might get from, say, Put-in-Bay. The shirt on the left says, "Listen to the Old Sh*t."

The Rock Hall has a good number of half-note sized visitors, so naturally there is a t-shirt section just for them. Some of the displays at the Rock Hall are for mature audiences, and the rest are for people who never really grew up.

Since this is a museum, there are vinyl records here. (The editor of this blog hasn't seen a vinyl record in years.) These are, like, $179.00; whoa.

The check-out line for all of the items in the gift shop--on Black Friday no less--was pretty long. The clerks kept things moving right along, though.

After going through the long line at check-out, maybe this is the place to cool your jets for a minute while your significant other makes up his/her mind about the t-shirts they want. This Fender amplifier is a phone-charging station! Later, I'm going outside . . . to the area seen just outside this window . . . but first we're going to get a bite to eat at the Cafe upstairs.

The Cafe is on the third floor of the Rock Hall. This image was taken shortly before noon, when lines were non-existent. They were already out of a few side dishes at that point, though. There were cold sandwiches and wraps, hot soup and chili, pizza, fruit cups, and cheese cubes.

A roast beef-and-cheddar cheese wrap ($7.50), plus vegetable beef soup ($3.50), was $11.88. That includes the 88 cents sales tax. A pop, not included here, was $2.50 plus tax.

The ham-and-brie sandwich on a hoagy roll was $7.50 and the slice of cheese pizza was $4.00 plus eight percent sales tax. The cheese pizza, as well as the pepperoni pizza, was gone by 2:30 pm. So was the beef chili. There were also small turkey sandwiches.

This image was taken at quarter after one on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. This shows the cafe eating area near the Pink Floyd exhibit of The Wall (on the left). Most of the tables were full, and there were a lot of tables. The red stripe on the floor signifies the red carpet leading to the Hall of Fame Induction exhibit. This editor, however, is headed outside to the lakefront park behind the Rock Hall.

Welcome to the Voinovich Park North Coast Harbor. This fun area is right behind the Rock Hall, and would most likely be a fun place to while away an afternoon if the temperatures were a little higher and the sun were out.

This is the view of the harbor from right outside the Rock Hall. This is the home of the Cleveland Browns, a.k.a. First Energy Stadium. The recharging station at the Rock Hall gift shop looks out over this area.

This obelisk denotes the George V. Voinovich Bicentennial Park, which was built in 1996. George Voinovich (1936-2016) was the mayor of Cleveland from 1980-1989, was the governor of Ohio from 1990-1998, and was a senator from 2000-2011. He lobbied for the Rock Hall to be built in Cleveland.

Facing east at Voinovich Park, the wind is really coming in off Lake Erie and temperatures are dropping.

It's quarter after three, and because the weather is becoming increasingly unpleasant, it's time to head back. This self pay parking lot in back of the Rock Hall costs $15 to park all day. There is a Mexican restaurant off to the left.

This parking lot is $12 to park all day. It was almost full upon arrival at 10 am and was full up at our 3:30 departure time. This lot is on East 9th Street. The self-pay mechanism was tetchy that morning. For some reason, there are two clean, tourist conveniences in this lot on the right. The footpath, also shown at right, leads almost directly to the steps of the Rock Hall.