Cleveland rocks!

I am never one to shy away from the chance for a completely random and pointless road trip, so when the idea of heading to Cleveland came up a week or so ago, I was in. See, my friend CK had been mulling over a job opening at the alternative weekly there, Scene, and had been emailing constantly with a former Mediller who is a staff writer there.

Apparently the interviewing process for the Scene is getting wasted with the editor, which I haven't decided is awesome or pathetic and slightly misguided. Jury's out. But to consider the job and whether she wanted to be at an alt weekly, CK thought it'd be fun to truck out there and hang out with the Sceners. And as usual, I am the willing partner in crime.

But as the debate between alt weekly and daily continues, CK wound up taking a job at a daily, the weekly position was filled internally and all that was open was an editorial assistant position, which they realistically call mail sorter. So perhaps our reasons for the trip were fizzling, but then you know, why not go to Cleveland? I've never been to Ohio or driven through Indiana, and I just did not feel complete.

Thursday morning, we get in the car for a day of endless driving, stopping only for what the rest stop restaurant called a panini - which was in fact, an open faced chicken sandwich with lettuce on a toasted bun - and an Us Weekly and People magazines, which I read outloud, assuming the requisite different voices to match the riveting storylines.

We roll into Cleveland and pick up a six-pack of Miller Lite for our gracious host. We worried for a minute if it was going to be weird, spending the evening with people we don't really know, certified only by the Medill seal of approval, but here we were, feeling a little crazy but ready for the adventure. And right away when we met the kids from the Scene, we realized it was going to be fun.

The editor was pretty much everything they described him as - a 45-year-old Irish Catholic father of five who can drink any weathered sailor under the table (but doesn't touch the stuff on the weekend - he is a family man after all, he explained). He drinks only Canadian beer and anything with whiskey in it. He slips in and out of an Irish accent tinged with hints of Minnesota intonation. He bossed his young reporters around ("Have some class, and get these ladies a beer!"). He struck me as a somewhat washed-up though likely talented writer, who his young staff wanted to revere as a wise Hunter S. Thompson type as he expounded the finer points of writing (more alt weekly v. daily) and living life to the fullest. I am not sure I quite saw him that way, but I won't discount the fun of meeting him.

The next morning, we headed to IHOP for an egg sandwich and a daytime glimpse of America's heartland, the salt of the Earth, the country's slight majority. It felt very Midwest, very American, through and through. Sure Cleveland's liberal, right?, but I couldn't help but look around and realize this was America. These were the people that elected our president and set the tone of the so-called values and priorities of our country. No judgment here, it was just new to me.

Then it was off to experience Cleveland, which took all of an hour. We drove through downtown (35 seconds), stopped for photos in a park overlooking Lake Eerie (12 minutes) and stopped by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, bypassing the $20 admission and hitting the gift shop for Cleveland magnets (26 minutes). The downtown area was beautiful and spanking clean, like it was built yesterday and sandblasted this morning for the tourists. We never really found the area of restaurants, bars, shops that we knew must exist somewhere for the 20- and 30-somethings, but I think our time there gave us a nice slice of a city in America's heartland.