A couple weeks ago, Javier and I made a day trip to Cleveland. It did not go as dreamy as I had hoped. We got a late start; the Google maps I printed led us astray; I forgot to get gas so there was a tense 25 minutes on a small freeway as we willed a gas station into existence. When we finally found one of our destinations, it was somewhat of a letdown. A cool idea in theory, the Ingenuity Fest was held under a bridge that leads to downtown Cleveland. The Fest hosted government, nonprofit, and merch tables; some technology/art projects like home-made video games, kid-made remote-controlled cars and chairs built from scrap metal; fair food; and lots of deafening bands plugged in to the corners of the bridge's tunnels. Perhaps scrappy because it was Sunday afternoon, my favorite part was not the content but the location, and Paco loved eating all the pizza crusts, hot dog buns, and whatever other food was dropped and ground in to the concrete.
The day was beautiful and we perked up when we ate some grub (Jamaican jerk chicken and a beer sampling from a local pub), but then it turned super sour.
We walked back to our car parked in a neighborhood that earlier in the afternoon had people strolling about, but at sunset it had tuned a bit sketchy. I buckled Paco in to the backseat, not noticing that the front passenger window had been smashed. Shattered. Busted. The window lay in slivers and shards on the floor and as a glittering, caved-in hunk of glass on the seat. Javier kicked a fence. I called my dad and then the police. Javier chauffeured us the 2 hours home, Paco and I in the backseat.
It turned out my insurance payed for the window. The window-fixers in Toledo came to me. Nothing was stolen (our cds were rifled through but I guess the ruffians didn't like Tori Amos or Nigerian rock music). It was a pleasant 70 degrees, not ten below with icy wind blowing in our faces.
Here are some photos to illustrate the day that wasn't quite ours:
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| Oh yeah, and a dumpster caught on fire. |
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| Cleveland had its charms, like this little park by the water. |
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| I think Tim Burton would be proud, or inspired. |
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| Car sans window |
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