Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 11 years and 10 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

After spending Independence Day at home with friends from out-of-town (your typical cookout, pool party, then picnic and fireworks shindig), we flew up to Cleveland for a long weekend with more family and friends.

It was a little strange flying direct to Cleveland from Tampa on United now that their assimilation of Continental is complete. We were on a brand new Boeing 737-900 with power outlets and DirectTV at each seat (we charged my wife’s iPhone on the flight but unfortunately, the DirectTV isn’t free once you leave the ground).

After retrieving our baggage and picking up the rental car (a nice Toyota RAV4) we drove directly downtown. We were going to grab lunch at the West Side Market but it was closed for the holiday so we ended up parking across the river at Tower City Center and just getting a snack at the food court. I was looking forward to showing my daughter the inside of Dillard’s (Higbee’s, back when I was a kid) in the Terminal Tower, site of the famous Santa Claus scene from “A Christmas Story” by apparently that is now part of the Horseshoe Casino. 🙁 It was cool walking across Public Square and visualizing those Cleveland-filmed scenes from “The Avengers” though.

Later that evening we met up with the family at Progressive Field to see the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Cleveland Indians. This was a new experience for my daughter, being in the minority wearing her Rays’ Zobrist t-shirt, surrounded by Cleveland fans. It was dollar dog night so I had quite a few hot dogs for dinner. 😉 It was a good game (for me) as the Tribe beat the Rays 3-1 (although they went on to split the series 2-2).

On Friday we met my parents for lunch at Michael Symon‘s B-Spot Burgers in Westlake. I had the Kojak burger (with gyro meat, tzatziki sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion, feta cheese) and a vanilla apple pie bacon shake. It wasn’t the healthiest lunch, but it was damn tasty! In the afternoon, we hung out with some college friends and went out on Lake Erie on my friend’s boat. It’s hard to believe I grew up in Cleveland and never went out on the lake in a boat except for the GoodTime. After the excursion it was back to the house for a cookout and visiting.

Saturday was almost the same schedule, substituting breakfast for lunch and high school friends for college friends. As “luck” would have it, Saturday was the hottest day of the heatwave that was gripping the area, with highs near 95! Our afternoon cookout at another friend’s house included a pool, so all of the kids kept cool while the adults watched from the shade.

We had an early flight home to (cooler) Florida on Sunday morning (again on a shiny new United plane).  After four days in a row of summer cookout food I probably need to de-tox and start eating normally again. It was a fun trip though, and always great to see friends and family up in Ohio.