Cleveland Rocks! Part 6

If you didn't see Part 5, you missed our entire reason for visiting Cleveland!

Sunday morning dawned pretty slow for most of our crew, which was understandable, as many of them had been up late, drinking and carrying on, the night before.  I woke up at a reasonable hour with a sore throat (which later bloomed into a head cold - hooray!), but I figured this was mainly due to yelling across tables and dance floors for several of our previous nights.  By the time I got moving, Leigh was already awake and studying for her upcoming GRE (she's looking at working on her PhD soon), so I joined her to read while we waited for everyone else to start stirring.  Eventually, they did, and as we all got moving, we enjoyed a fantastic meal of our traditional holiday breakfast casserole, as well as fruit and odds and ends we had left over from previous mornings.

Since we knew we'd be tired from the wedding festivities on Saturday, and there was a home Browns game at 1pm, we left Sunday pretty wide open, although I did look into a few nearby attractions, so we had some pre-researched options.  Due to its proximity to the VRBO (15 minutes away by car), relative distance from downtown, and cost (FREE!  TOTALLY FREE!), we decided we were in for some culture, and we headed to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  The museum is located in a beautiful, large park with the Museum of Natural History and the Botanical Garden, and it's absolutely fantastic.  In addition to being fee (although you do have to pay for special exhibits), the collection is outstanding and wider ranging than almost any art museum I've ever seen (I assume the Louvre has more scope, but it's probably 4 times bigger than the Cleveland entry, so points for range per square foot, to be sure).

Upon walking up to the museum, one of the first things you see is their outdoor sculpture garden, which has this super fun piece of curved, polished metal.  We had some fun taking shots with it, then running around to the other side and grabbing a few more:

Reflecting the museum

What a bunch of goofballs.

Aah!  Now we're upside down!

The inside of the museum as lovely as its natural surroundings; it has a high atrium in the middle of the space, anchored by the gift shop and the cafe, and the galleries ring the entire middle section.

The cafe is at the far end

One of the exhibit halls lies behind this wall

When I mentioned above that the museum has crazy range, I wasn't kidding - everything from ancient Egyptian murals to suits of armor to Warhol - so it really had something for everyone in our party.  We'd wander in pairs or small groups, then cross paths and be like, "did you see the Faberge eggs?!?!?!", and then we'd all start off again.  In addition to a special exhibit on the Jazz Age (which Chris and I ponied up to see - $15 each - not bad, when everything else was totally free), to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Rodin's death, the museum had a light-filled section devoted to his work.

This guy's had better days.

As it turns out, the museum has always possessed one of the three full-scale casts for Rodin's famous Thinker statue, and it's traditionally displayed at the south entrance to the museum.  Back in the 1970s, right when all of the Kent State madness was going on nearby, someone tried to blow up the Thinker as an act of defiance (and lunacy, in my opinion - do you know anything about Rodin, genius?).  After rebuilding the area, the museum plopped it right back out there with the damaged side still showing the effects of the attack.

"Hmmm..." he seems to be thinking...

..."who the shit would blow me up?"

Outside the south entrance.

Fancy doors, these.

After a few hours of wandering, we all reconvened at the museum's cafe to eat lunch.  It was a good spot - a cafeteria style line but with different stations, some featuring cooked to order options, so everyone found something to suit their tastes.  We had a few more hours to wander and chill, so we all took off again, although most of us landed in the armor/weaponry hall at the same time.

The most intricate suit of armor - 

it belonged to an archduke or some other sort of thing.

Armor selfie!

Per my normal, I loved the modern art section of the museum.  I always say that I really enjoy modern art, even if I don't totally understand it.  Behold:

We know this one, right?

This is actually the largest Warhol ever made.

Yup, that's a leg.

Not a real one.

But it looks real.

It even has tiny leg hairs.

As I mentioned above, Chris and I finished up our museum time with a trip to the Jazz Age, during which we ooh'd and aah'd over all the lovely things on display.  What made this really cool for me was recognizing so many of the creators of these beautiful pieces, as most of them are still working today:

A Longines timepiece

Look at this!

Gorgeous dresses

Look at the detail!

A Zeppelin shaped martini shaker

Most of the iron work in the exhibit was

done by Rose Iron Works,

which is based in Cleveland.

Eventually, our time in the museum ran out, and we all congregated near the front entrance.  Aunt Kim and Uncle Jim were flying back this afternoon, so after giving hugs all around, they hopped into the car with Jim and Ethan, who drove them to the airport.  For our part, it was back to the VRBO for Leigh, Mom, Chris, and I to get ready for dinner.  Up next, we eat a fantastic meal at the restaurant of Cleveland's most famous local son.

Later!

Amy