Welcome to the daily recaps I’ll be posting about our recent trip to Cleveland! And before you ask, “Oh, why Cleveland?” like every single person I’ve told, just wait and you’ll see that we actually did some pretty cool things.

Flight 1

My parents, yet again, were on airport drop-off and pick-up duty. Unfortunately, drop-off was early this year at 7:30 a.m. since we wanted to be at the airport by 8:00 a.m. The airport wasn’t super busy on Saturday morning around that time, so drop-off was easy and we breezed through TSA.

Josh and I grabbed breakfast at McDonald’s and then walked around the terminals to kill some time. When we were sitting at our gate, there was a guy on our flight who was traveling with with cat in a carrier. He was talking with other people around him and I heard him say the cat’s name was Sophie and this was her first flight. On the plane, the guy with the cat was about eight rows behind us, and she didn’t make any noise; I don’t know where his final destination was that day but I hope he and Miss Sophie are doing well.

Boarding started around 10:00 a.m., and since we learned from last year, we checked our carry-on bags because they weren’t going to fit in the overhead bins. Josh and I each brought bigger bags as our personal items—Josh had a drawstring backpack and I had a tote bag—so we had the important stuff with us and didn’t need to worry about our carry-ons. Those would end up in Cleveland with our checked bags. And, just like last year, I took my quarter of a Xanax pill prior to boarding.

Our flights to Cleveland were on United, so we downloaded the app on our phones and could track the flight times and even our bags. So that meant I quickly became obsessed with seeing where our bags were the entire time—it doesn’t take much.

Take-off didn’t seem as bad as last time, but it was still scary for me. We were first landing in DC at Dulles before flying to Cleveland; the DC flight was around 50 minutes, so by the time we were up in the air, we were already getting ready to descend. I brought a book with me and only read about four pages, and I had my complimentary snacks of Sprite and pretzels.

Flight 2

We landed in DC, and once we got off the plane, we were off to our next gate. Since Dulles is a bigger airport, we ended up taking an underground train to the other terminal, which was actually pretty cool. Thankfully we made it with plenty of time left before boarding around 12:20ish for our flight to Cleveland.

This flight was a little longer but on an even smaller plane; the left side was just one seat and the right side was two seats per row. I joked with Josh that our next plane would just be a four-seater—we were always taking “tiny” planes. I was able to read more of my book on this flight and got seltzer and pretzels.

We landed on time in Cleveland around 2:00 p.m. and headed off to baggage claim to get all four of our bags. In the United app, you can see when your bags are scanned, and I was relieved that all four were on their way to baggage claim. 

Then off to the rental car shuttle to bring us to the airport’s rental car area; renting a car was mostly necessary for our drive to Canton, but we’d also be able to drive within the city. The rental car place was very efficient, and we were in and out in like five minutes. There were a ton of cars to choose from, and we got a RAV4 for the week.

First Night in Cleveland

For our trip, we chose to stay in an Airbnb for a few reasons: 1. It would be cheaper than staying in a hotel, 2. We wanted something with a kitchen so we’d be able to make a few meals, and 3. It’d give us some more space to spread out than in a hotel room. 

Our Airbnb was about 15 minutes away from the rental car place, and we were successfully able to get inside. After unpacking some of our suitcases, we headed down a few blocks to West 25 Street, which is where there were a lot of restaurants and bars. It was about a 10-minute walk, which was great because we ended up going down there a few times during our vacation.

Dinner was at Great Lakes Brewing, and this is when Josh and I realized our last “real” meal was back in Connecticut at the airport McDonald’s. We each got flights and split a pretzel; for our meals, Josh got mac and cheese and I got fish and chips. At a few tables behind us, there was a guy with his dog, and the dog kept getting so many pets from everyone.

Then we went to 16-Bit Bar + Arcade, which is as cool as the name sounds. It had a ton of vintage arcade games you can play for free, plus they have alcohol. We tried our best at most of the games and got beers; on the other side of the arcade area is Pins Mechanical Company that had a duckpin bowling alley downstairs and hookie (the ring toss game) upstairs. We each won a game of hookie, but I won first so that made Josh upset.

Our final stop of the night was Mitchell’s Ice Cream, right across the street from the arcade. There was bit of a line but it moved quickly. I got bing cherry chocolate chunk, and Josh got black raspberry chocolate chunk.