First stop was to visit the house that played the role of the Parker Family's home in one of my favorite movies, A Christmas Story. Now, seeing as it is played 24 hours a day around Christmas time, I imagine most of you are familiar with the story of young Ralphie Parker, who's only 2 wishes in the world are to receive a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas, (No, Ralphie you'll shoot your eye out!) and to finally get his little Orphan Annie secret decoder pin, in the mail.
A small talk is given outside of the house, and once inside you are basically given free range of the home and encouraged to act out your favorite scenes! An added bonus to our visit was that Ian Petrella, the actor who played Ralphie's little brother Randy, was visiting his old home as well! All grown up now, he was gracious enough to pose for a picture with me, (second row middle). The whole thing was a complete blast!
Now, no trip to Cleveland would be complete without a visit to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
What a fabulous piece of architecture! In fact the whole surrounding area was gorgeous! I had no idea that the city of Cleveland was so beautiful. Lots to see in the museum, but picture taking was only allowed in the lobby. Also, if you ever are looking for obscure and generally hard to find music, the gift shop is a super resource. Lots of great finds!
We also did lots of exploring of various small towns and beaches. My favorite town was the beautiful Chagrin Falls. If I had the money, I could see retiring here, it was that enchanting...
(First picture top row, is of a restaurant we ate at, with a view overlooking the falls.)
On the way back home to Pennsylvania we visited one of my favorite places, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. This was a joy to see again. No photo's are allowed to be taken inside the home, but outside it's free range... the only stipulation is that you don't share any of the images of the house publicly, (which is too bad as I got some beauties!). I am however, (just to validate that we were there!) going to share this one photo of hubby and me, with just a wee little bit of the home in the background... I think that would be okay...
(don't tell!)
Thanks for indulging me. Next blog post will be about sewing. Promise!
