Day 2: Cleveland to Pittsburgh

 

 

Day 2: Cleveland to Pittsburgh

QOTD: 2013 inductees to the RnR HOF: KISS, Nirvana and Chic, For those of you who forgot, THB reviewed Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny by Nile Rodgers, a charter member of Chic. Good read!

Weather: Overcast and in high 40s to low 50s while in CNP, intermittent rain on road to Pittsburgh

Pics: Bathroom wallpaper at Greenhouse Tavern, Hyundai, Inn at Brandywine Falls, Nosh Eatery, Legume Restaurant, Omni lobby

The shower/bath water at the inn smells of sulfur, so THB and DB settle for brushing our teeth (hmmmm…) and postpone bathing (acknowledging thus to the innkeepers is met with “yes, that happens sometimes”). Breakfast is at one large communal table where George kicks off the conversation for the 9 of us with a comment that 80% of the inn guests come from within 40 miles of the inn. Today: no one is closer than 500 miles. One party of three is there to attend the funeral of husband/father, putting an end to the normal morning conviviality (actually, they were pretty upbeat, considering, and way more convivial than THB is in the morning) and then went on to say that the departed was a descendant of a long-time family from the area that owned some of the buildings now run by the Park Service (and they seemed upset that they weren’t in the family anymore).

And, breakfast was pretty flat: small cold waffles in the shape of hearts, tasteless ham, lousy bread (home-made by George who clearly hasn’t found Jim Lahey yet) and a decent home-made granola and yogurt. Total for the stay: $275.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park is a bigger version of the Golden Gate Park, about 20 minutes from downtown Cleveland, and was made a National Park in 2000. There are major roads running through the Park that do not allow access, you have to get on local streets on the fringes. The Park doesn’t really have a static boundary, local suburbs are intermixed with the Park itself.

Since it is not really yet the wet season, we skip the short walk to the Brandywine Falls and head to “The Ledges” where we manage to find and stay on the loop trail (not easy, given that the trail is totally covered with a very pretty leaf fall) and get great views of the rock formations left behind from glacial action oh those many years ago. Even by NP standards, this is pretty special. From there, we find a mini-visitor center at the mid-Park train depot and get THB’s passport book stamped. The train runs the length of the park and takes 2.5 hours if you stay on the entire way (you can park at the mid-point depot and just do half the park, the train runs from Akron to Independence, and back again, with 7 stops in the Park). And, the Ohio and Erie Canal towpath looks like a great bike ride through the Park. Since it is the high 40s (fortunately with no wind), there aren’t many bikers today, even on a Saturday.

Lunch at the Nosh Eatery in Hudson where THB gets the Winter Brisket sandwich: Smoked beer braised beef brisket, Dijon onions, artichoke spread, havarti cheese, farm eggs, arugula, sweet pickles, fresh cut fries, all on “Great Lakes” sourdough. Yes, even fries are in the sandwich. Massive, even THB can’t finish. DB gets the mini-version (i.e., missing 2/3 of the ingredients and fries on the outside). With ice tea, $24.

From there, we head to Pittsburgh airport, where we return the rental car, $72. Why do we go to the airport, you ask? Because on weekends not a single rental car office is open in downtown Pittsburgh. Believe me, THB researches this thoroughly because the cab ride from the airport to the Omni Hotel is another $50.  

The room is lovely, with one very strange quirk: there are two bathrooms! One is the usual bath/shower combo (with a bizarre faucet: old fashioned turn except you have to pull it out to get water to flow), a toilet and a sink, unfortunately crammed into about 8 square feet. The other is a toilet with a huge sink/ledge combo (which THB really likes) on the other side of the room. So, THB showers in one bathroom, and trundles around to the other side and shaves, etc. in the other.

This is arrival day for the Oakland Art Museum group; most of the tour is coming from the Bay Area and not due in til later (much later as it turns out, since they are delayed in O’hare for a few hours).

Dinner for two at Legume (where, interestingly enough, the chef from Greenhouse Tavern had dined a few days ago): beef and kimchi soup with sour cream and cilantro (really? Cilantro was not identifiable next to the kimchi) for THB and mixed greens with beets and goat cheese for DB, shared striped bass with fresh lima beans and bacon (hmmmm…THB often wonders about places that insist on including meat in their fish and even sometimes “veggie” dishes) and ricotta ravioli with a heavy arugula pesto sauce, toasted gingerbread with poached quince for dessert, bottle of tempranillo, $140. Soup and bass both very good, as was the dessert, overall not as good as Greenhouse Tavern, menu more constrained and strangely not as refined as GHT.