"It's frickin' cold!!!" Ok, so we can't count the number of times this phrase was repeated during the day, but only because it was so very true. It was in the low 20s with some fun wind whipping off Lake Erie. But looking at the white-out conditions that exist today, a day later, it's a damn good thing we beat the storm, despite the cold. :) Val, Jeni, Chris, and Jason left from Mentor, with a brief stop to catch a picture with "the Whaler", and headed to downtown Cleveland. The streets of the city were virtually empty, making it easy to get some great shots of the Rock Hall. We "borrowed" the lobby of the Rock Hall for warmth (since /some/ of us *cough, cough* didn't feel it necessary to dress for a Cleveland winter!), with the security guards suspiciously eyeing us the entire time... we escaped before being questioned, which was the case most of the rest of the day as well. Bob, Jim and Genevieve arrived and we headed next door to the Great Lakes Science Center, where we were granted free admission, thanks to Jim. We headed downtstairs to the Tesla coil and photographed the record with some lightning, then headed up a couple flights to interrupt a visiting class collectively torturing themselves with static electricity to take a picture of Jim and his psychotic hair. Bob spotted the blue screen exhibit, and posed as "Toad weather man" for a few great shots of the record floating in front of a US map. Again, despite our conspicuous behavior, no questions were asked.. :) From there we were off to the new Cleveland Browns Stadium. Then, on our way to Jacobs Field, home of the Cleveland Indians, we took a last minute turn down Lakeside to catch a shot with the famous eyesore of downtown Cleveland, the "FREE" stamp. "No parking" and "No stopping" signs were luckily not relevant, as we sprinted out of our cars, took a few shots, and quickly ran back. Parking was even worse at Jacobs Field, where only Val, Jeni and Chris escaped to take pictures, while the others babysat the cars on a side street. Chris posed with the statue of baseball great Bob Feller, and the Record also visited the Jacobs Field sign at E. 9th and Carnegie. (Luckily the snow falling today is covering up the footprints we left in the flower bed in front of the sign!) Our last stop was Tower City, where we fought swarms of last-minute Christmas shoppers. After finding the last two parking spaces in the area code, we proceeded to Hard Rock Cafe Cleveland. The giant rotating guitar made a great backdrop for photos, but our opportunity windows for photographs were fleeting instants in time... "Ok! 1... 2... 3... smile! Smile dammit! It's gonna rotate around again! argh! Too late!!" Finally, lunch! Our last order of business at Tower City was a visit to Santa Claus in the Christmas Shop upstairs. We chatted with the security guard and picture-taking "Santa's helpers", and found out that we were /allowed/ to get our picture taken with Santa and the gold record, but that in no way predicted how eager our Santa would be! Not only did he have a /real/ Santa beard, but he was more than excited to pose with the group of us, holding the record. In fact, he didn't want to give it back! But, we rescued it safe from Santa's clutches... :) All told, it was a fun-filled afternoon. We eventually thawed, and the Gold Record appeared happy with its tour of Cleveland's famous landmarks. It was tucked away in Val's car for its ride to Maumee.... -Jeni Barovian, Val Brown, Jason Dieterle, Bob Forsythe, Jim Kilmer, Genevieve Mathieson, and Chris Spiek