I showed up well after dark since my exploration of Clarion went so well and I really did not want to leave. I have to remember to make the harvest festival at some point in the future. I had put the address for the Rock Hall of Fame into the GPS prior to leaving my hotel and had been using this as my guidance for the trip. My first flag should have been when the signs on the road say to stay left on a highway and my GPS says to take the next left. I rode down 14th St. on a Friday night about 2100. I located the place that the GPS said should be the Hall of Fame, fortunately it was my bank, I guess? Then I hear recalculating route. I have to jog over to 9th street and follow that all the way down to the lake. Having found tomorrow's ultimate destination, I begin entertainment plans.
Plan A: Local music venues. I saw at least a dozen cops making stops as people left the warehouse district. I was looking forward to some live local music around town for cheap ($13 cover showed me getting to see three bands in two venues), but seeing the number of cops needed to keep control of the near proximity to where I was planning on hanging out. I decided to pass.
Plan B: Hang out at Walmart and restock until the drunks are off the road, then hit up a diner. I went to the store located in The Ironyards shopping center. I am not sure if they are closing this store, or all the powers of earth combined to ransack the place or if it was just the worst managed store of any kind I have ever been to. I am willing to count roadside shops and smoke shops in this mix. There were entire aisles completely empty, food sitting in carts abandoned at the customer service desk (easily thirty carts for returns, more on this in a minute), and zero sense of urgency by anyone. I wandered around for over an hour incresingly amazed by the horrific state of this store. I couldn't take it anymore and so I moved on to. . .
Plan C: Steak'n'Shake. I had promises to keep so I headed to one of the few chain places I know that will leave you alone for hours at a time as long as you interesting. I have written business plans, built linux distros, created trading card games all at the Steak'n'Shake (Steal'n'hak, from a humorous sign burnout and that many hackers in the area had meetups/after meetings at these). This is was the first time I have ever been carded going into a Steak'n'Shake, may be the first time I have ever been carded going into any restaraunt that did not have a show going on at the time. They are carding anyone that looks like they may be under eighteen. I am mildly amused, and am considering regrowing my beard. As I go in to begin writing out the timelines for my first few days I grab a coffee and some chilli. Most places around St. Louis on seeing this will ask if you want a pot, put a nominal charge on the bill (sometimes) and drop a pot with about four cups of coffee on the table. Keeps them from interrupting you and lets them tend more tables at once. Just pop the top on carafe if you run out and they will refill it. This wasn't offered tonight, but wasn't that big a deal. The place was not crowded but it did have a few tables already situated when I was led to a table. The most interesting of the current patronage was a very young (early twenties, would have guessed late teens if I had not been carded) chorale group from a major denomination. They were interspersing religious songs, secular songs, and more cursing and innuendo than I have heard in any non I.T. context. It was quite surreal. Listening to the discuss sermons and passages and following it up by joking about intimate conquests of the previous night. I initially thought this was the most peculiar thing I was destined to see, until, the second religious chorale group came in just as the first was leaving, with identical behavior. Additionally, the second group was mildly abusive to wait staff. Several groups came in while I was writing and editing photos that wore club attire. The most memorable one of these was a group of nine women one of whom thought underbritches and a sport coat was a fitting outfit on a Cleveland February night. Following this there was a group of about thirteen that were very drunk and spoke no English.
As they came in, I put the finishing touches on my stuff and figured I would see if there were any other late night / early morning places that could get a more local sense from. As it turns out, this has been the bane of Clevelanders going back at least five years. Many of these posts were entitled so where to get late dinner/early breakfast that isn't Steak'n'Shake. I left the waitress a healthy tip and headed back to Walmart to see if anything had improved in the four hours since I left.
If anything, it was worse. There may have been a half dozen non-employee people in the store and it was a wreck! Two people moved as though they had any purpose or method. Most were just plodding along working pallets. While I was there, the manager called for people to come to the front to work a return cart party! No one showed for at least ten minutes after the requested time. Finally, they started trickling in. These folks needed a good dose of end-in-sight or you guys are amazing or we can do this, something. These are the same carts which I noticed four hours ago that had meats sitting in more than a few of them. I could't take it any more so moved onto. . .
Plan C: Read in the truck until the museum opens. It is now 0530 and read for a little while in the truck, but noticed that my eyes were getting heavy so this was not going to work. . .
Plan D: Wander around the outer borroughs until the museum opens. Sleepy, driving, not my best idea, but found a McDonalds so. . .
Plan E: Quick breakfast w/McCoffee. I grabbed a cup of coffee and a sausage biscuit. Ate the biscuit quick and went back to the truck to read while I drank my coffee. This led to. . .
Plan F: Pass out in the parking lot of an abandoned K-Mart for four hours then go to the museum late.
After the museum there was still enough light to get back up to the government offices and parks for some quick pictures of:
1. THE STAMP!
2. The local governmental buildings at weird angles.
3. A nifty bus/rail interchange.
4. Some urban reclamation.
In my hurry back to the pier to grab sunset over the lake. I slid off a curb and did some sort of roll manuever that allowed me to end up sitting with only minimal scrapes on one knee. Then as I got to the pier, there were some missing cobblestones that I did not notice and I very nearly ruined a guy's daddy time with his three and five year olds. I made it to the end and got this as everything was pinking up.
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