2 posts in 2 days! I am spoiling you! We had a absolutely brilliant day yesterday for Amanda's Birthday! The Crawford Auto Museum was fantastic! It contains a lot more that just old cars (and of those it has plenty), the first thing to greet you as you enter the museum is a huge Chief Wahoo (the Cleveland Indians mascot) who used to stand at the top of the old municipal stadium before they pulled it down. just check out the size of it in these pictures! A lot of people think it is time for the Indians to retire chief Wahoo, it is seen as a very offensive mascot to many native American Indians and I have to say I agree, I just wish they could find a better replacement logo than the block 'C' which I think is to put it bluntly quite boring. A good idea I have heard is to possibly switch back to the teams original name from way back when - the Cleveland spiders, there would be some seriously cool logos to be had with a nickname like the Spiders!
 |
| Me by Chief Wahoo. |
 |
| The new Indians logo |
After you have been introduced to Chied Wahoo you'll embark on a incredible journey of Americana and nostalgia, including one of the most incredible collections of cars. Amanda had told me there was a lot of cars there (she said a basement full) but I was not at all prepared for the scale of his collection, There must have been over 100 cars in the place dating back to the early 1900s, When many of the cars were made in Cleveland before Henry Ford and Fordism monopolised the market with the first mass produced car and caused the Cleveland car market to collapse overnight. My absolute favourite of the cars was the monstrous Lincoln Continental, This thing is painted in a beautiful chrome and is absolutely massive, as can be sen from the following pictures. I cannot think of anything better to drive around in, especially with the roof down in the summer, a lack of space certainly wouldn't be an issue, you could probably fit Amanda's little 2 door Toyota Yaris in the boot as a spare car in case the Lincoln brakes down!
 |
| The Lincoln Convertible |
 |
| As you can see it is extremely Looooooooooong! |
Amanda loved this green Cadillac!! Other highlights of the collection in my opinion included the Ferrari California simply because I seem to remember Chris Evans getting a lot of press for buying one for an insane amount of money, apparently there are only 8 of them in North America and 14 overall so it is an exceedingly rare and beautiful car. I also loved this old wreck from 1910 which incredibly drove around the world! considering the conditions of the roads and difficulties of the terrain and just thee sheer distance involved this is an incredible achievement for the little car!!
 |
| Ferrari California |
 |
| The car that went around the world in 1910 |
 |
| Amanda's Cadillac from 1931 |
 |
| Just look at all those cars!!! |
After seeing the cars we went on a little guided tour of the mansion where the collection is housed, the mansion is in fact 2 mansions joined together and is one of the very few surviving houses down the old Euclid Avenue or 'Millionaires row'. This used to be regarded as one of the most beautiful and extravagant streets in the world, stretching from downtown to University circle (several miles), you can just imagine the style and opulence on show down this tree lined boulevard. Unfortunately imagine is all you can do, as progress for progress' sake has to be made and Millionaires row now consists of burger kings, Mcdonalds, a couple of brutal 60's shopping centres and several decaying factories. It is such a shame as I for one would love to see how this street once looked.
After our little history lesson it was off to the fair and to the Euclid Beach carousel, the museum contains a fully restored carousel from the old Euclid Beach amusement park which was by all accounts the place to be seen when Cleveland was the place to be seen back in the 20's and 30's. With your entrance to the museum you get 2 free rides on the beautifully restored carousel and it was a lot of fun :)
 |
| Amanda on the Carousel |
 |
| The sun is in our eyes! |
The museum was full of interesting exhibits on Cleveland's history including it's time hosting the Great Lakes Exposition in 1936 when a young son decided to write this nice little note to his parents. Cleveland also used to host the national air races, and the picture below shows a model of one of the winning planes and if you look closely you can see the actual aircraft hanging in the background! One of the pictures below also show a A Tiffany stained glass window which used to stand proud in a church on Euclid Avenue (Millionaires row). The window was saved from the wrecking ball and donated to the museum by some eagle eyed residents before the church got turned into either a Burger King or more likely a part of the ever more greedy Cleveland Clinic.
 |
|
That pretty much concluded our trip to the museum which as you can see I thoroughly enjoyed! Not half as much as I enjoyed my dinner in Little Italy afterwards however! Amanda only managed to eat half of her pasta so I am hopeful I may be able to get my sticky little fingers into it for my lunch today :)
There is supposed to be over 20 cm of snow today, so I am going to stay in the warm and possibly head out to a superbowl party this evening. Personally I think that the Seattle Patriots shall win the game. Goodbye!
 |
The worlds first traffic light that used to stand guard at the roundabout by the art gallery.
|
