The Events of Thursday, September 23, 2010 

          This morning, the wake up schedule didn’t go as quickly as usual. It started with a casual pillow fight. Casual, well, because it was hot and stuffy inside the RV, where it sat in the Walmart parking lot. We were all tired and slow, but soon got going with the promise of a pretty parking spot and maybe even yogurt for breakfast! A real treat, because we don’t have that much space in the fridge. So, we started out for the Canal Visitor Center in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. In the parking lot, we parked so we got a pretty view of a meadow and some trees with fall colors on the edges of the green leaves. We ate our blueberry yogurt and cereal, talked, and laughed. Abby had talked in her sleep again, screaming, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY‼ Ben threw up on me‼  Ben don’t touch me‼”Breakfasts with us Taylors are usually pretty interesting as we recap the events from the night before. The weather was already beating down our laughter though. We had the AC blasting and the windows shut; it was already 83 degrees and humid at nine in the morning.  We are on our second day without a shower and were starting to feel crummy, so we washed our faces and bodies with our washcloths and then stepped out of our RV to conquer the day!

          Our first stop was a short walk from our vehicle. Outside of the Canal Visitor Center stood Lock 38, which was used to get canal boats up or down the 395 foot elevation change between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. We opened and shut the heavy wooden gates, by pushing huge heavy wooden planks. Ben was able to close one side of the lock himself, but it took both Abby and I pushing with all our might to close the other side. These were usually pulled by mules and were opened to let the boat in the lock. We played with the locks and then went inside. In the Canal Visitor Center, we met Ranger Janice who gave us a cool demo on how they got the boats up the hills using the locks that we played with earlier. There was a small model that she filled with water. She let the boat through the gates and then locked the gate behind it. Janice said that they would tie the boat to the banks and then open a slot in the lock gate. In this case, the boat needed to go uphill. So, she let in water from the upper canal, through the slot, which made the water level in the lock rise until the water level was even with the upper canal waters. The boat went through and then went on its way. As Ranger Janice drained the model of water, she told us that the canal boats frequently housed one family per canal worker. So, in other words, if Daddy worked on a canal boat, we would be on that canal boat year round, living below in a 9 by 12 foot cabin area. That is smaller than our RV and since they had more children back then, we’d probably have 4-6 more siblings to fit in that tiny space. Janice also told some other tourists that the people emptied their chamber pots on one side of the boat and drank canal water from the other. In fact, the Ohio and Erie Canal became so polluted that it caught on fire 13 times. We walked about the center, read some more exhibits, and watched a movie on the history of the Cuyahoga Valley. When we were all finished, Ranger Janice wished us the best on our trip and we headed on to Cleveland, Ohio.

          We stopped for lunch in a little neighborhood that was near our next stop. When we were finished, we hopped out and started walking towards the “A Christmas Story” house, museum, and gift shop. First we went to the gift shops where T-shirts, leg lamps, movies, books, and bobble heads all stood with ridiculous over-priced tags on them. We purchased some tour tickets and then looked around the gift shop some more. The favorite items were a leg lamp stocking, ‘Oh Fudge’ fudge, leg lamp nightlight, wrapping paper with some favorite scenes from the movie, and an adult sized pink fluffy bunny suit. When the time for our tour came, we went to the house where our tour guide welcomed us in. The first thing you see is the ‘Fragile’ box containing the leg lamp and the coat rack where hats and scarves hang. The tour guide told some stories about the making of the movie, but I’m not going to tell any to you, so you have to go yourself. Then, he let us wander throughout the house. It was all there. The turkey, the kitchen, the radio, the famous leg lamp, the bathroom, the bar of soap, the decoder, the bedroom, the theme paper, and the Christmas tree were all there, exactly how it was in the movie. There were pictures of Ralphie, Randy, ‘The Old Man’, and the mom on the walls.

          Once we were finished we went on to the museum where we were greeted by Jim Moralevitz, the extra who had delivered the leg lamp in the movie and is the Mayor of the street that the Christmas house is on. He was responsible for finding parking for all the stars’ trailers and in exchange, one person per family could be an extra in the film. He showed us around the museum and talked about his experiences and how they made snow and all the bloopers. When we had finished viewing the exhibits, we went back to the gift shop where Mom then purchased the DVD of “A Christmas Story.” We drove a little way to a nearby park. When we pulled up on the side of the road we saw a class of young looking students crowded around their teacher who was playing a guitar. Soon, most of the students were whispering and pointing at us. We waved at them and they all waved back. But, because of the mission that we were on at that particular moment, we had to close all of the blinds. Soon, the aroma of popcorn filled the air and we all sat around our teeny tiny TV screen and watched “A Christmas Story”. We thoroughly enjoyed watching it after learning all of the details about the making of the movie and its numerous bloopers that were throughout the film. When we finished the movie, we cooked up another dinner of rotisserie chicken and salad. After our meal, while Mom and Caitlin cleaned up, Daddy, Ben, Abby, and I (Lindsey) started to get dressed for a special occasion planned for that particular evening. Soon, there were 4 transformed people standing outside of Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, waving to the RV as it bounced away, carrying Caitlin and Mommy to the Walmart parking lot where they had planned a fun night. In our dresses and slacks and ties, we were looking pretty sharp as we walked around Severance Hall. We toured the halls and admired the architecture until it was almost time for the orchestra concert to begin. So, we went up to the very top floor and viewed the stage, where the orchestra was warming up, from the balcony. Then we walked all the way down the stairs to our seats on the first floor in the second and third rows. After the orchestra tuned, conductor Franz Welser-Most walked out and entertained us with his orchestra until exactly 10 pm. We listened to “Dream/Window” by Toru Takemitsu, “Mass in F Major” by Johann Sebastian Bach (with a choir and three opera soloists), “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” by Claude Debussy, and finally “The Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky. We thoroughly enjoyed the performance and literally clapped for three minutes straight. We called Mom and Caitlin, who by the way had fun shopping at Walmart, eating chocolate, editing photos, catching up on e-mails, and sleeping, but couldn’t get through to them. So for a while, we walked around the hall, through the gift shop, and outside into the very warm night. Mom called us back and said she’d be by in about five minutes. We sat on the steps of a nearby church until they came driving up. Then it was off to another night of boondocking at Walmart. Thankfully, we were almost asleep by the time we arrived.