Baccus Family Five City Tour, Part 3...Whew!

Thanks for sticking with me through this looong recap of our exciting fall break road trip! Y'all made it to our last two cities! You'll have to excuse me for the overload of pictures, but we went to the coolest place ever in one of our cities!

We left Detroit late in the afternoon and drove a couple hours south. If you don't know what state is south of Michigan (don't worry, Daniel sure doesn't) here's hint...

Ohio! I was proud of myself for getting this picture. See that white truck in front of me? That's Daniel. His cousin got his truck fixed in Michigan and we were super nice and picked it up for him.

One of my all-time favorite shows is Parenthood. If you haven't seen it, you are missing out on amazingness. Monica Potter is on the show, and she is also from Cleveland. She owns a store, Monica Potter Home, and that's pretty much why I wanted to go to Cleveland. Little did I know that the coolest place on earth is also in Cleveland...

Ahhhh!! That's right! It's the Christmas Story house! And I got to go there and tour it! This is the actual house that they filmed in. I learned a lot of cool facts about it (now I'm a Christmas Story AND Jack Daniels expert). I was acting like I was actually meeting the actors. It was so cool. And so begins my litany (yes, I looked that word up to make sure it fit) of pictures of the Christmas Story house and museum. 

This was in the gift shop before the tour. Can't you just see her shaking that bell and yelling at Ralphie to hurry up?!

Everything was set up for Christmas morning just like in the movie.

Ralphie and Randy's room

Yuck! They even sold Lifebuoy soap in the gift shop. It smells horrible; can't imagine what it tastes like. The guide said it is gross. Wonder if you have to taste it to be able to work there.

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine

Found this in the corner...

Where they listened to Little Orphan Annie

Couldn't believe I was in the same room as the leg lamp!

Just about the best picture of the week. Too bad he didn't understand he was feeling the glow of electric sex.

Fragile...I think that's Italian

Thanks a lot! We weren't allowed to record video. We could have spent hours reenacting scenes.

In the kitchen. The old man's not sitting in the right seat, though.

Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie!

When the house was sold on Ebay, the mailbox was one of two things they used to authenticate the house. I don't remember what the other thing was.

The idea for the leg lamp came from this Nehi ad.

Randy's bib. When the movie came out, it was a complete flop, so they didn't think to keep the stuff from set. Peter Billingsly has the pink bunny costume.

They recently acquired the BB gun though.

The old man's car. This was one of the originals.

The fire engine from the flag pole scene. February 1983 had no snow in Cleveland. They had to film some of the scenes, including the school scenes, in Canada. 

That completely made my trip. After that we found this cute little family diner and had a delicious lunch. Halfway through the waitress asked Daniel if he wanted more pop. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

We drove downtown after lunch. It was very pretty with the clouds.

They have a Soldiers and Sailors Monument just like in Indy.

This is a shopping mall that was built in 1888. We went in a immediately saw Monica Potter Home. I had fun shopping, and found myself a candle and t-shirt. Avery also got a cute headband. And I'm pretty sure Monica's older sister Jessica checked me out. Daniel was mad I didn't ask. Colt was acting three again, so I didn't get to walk through this gorgeous mall.

Isn't it pretty?!

Such cute stuff!! I was bummed Monica wasn't there.

This is the original Higbee's from A Christmas Story. It's now a casino.

Colorful snails and the Cleveland Public Library.

After we had gotten our fill of Cleveland (would have loved to see Lake Erie, though!), we headed south a couple hours to Columbus, Ohio, home of the...

Ohio State Buckeyes! We pulled up to the stadium and we saw people walking through to a man at a window. We followed and he let us go into the stadium!

It was so cool!! 

We walked around a bit before lunch. I had this book full of a thousand places to eat in Columbus. I picked one. We found it, and the wait was 45 minutes. Good pick, Claire. There was a diner next door and we had a good burger. We had planned to stop at the new Noah's Ark in Kentucky on the way home. I happened to look at the website during lunch and saw how much it costs, and we quickly had to regroup. Shame on you, Noah's Ark!! It's a little too commercial than I think Noah would prefer.

We found a park while we decided what to do. Columbus is a very cute town, and I want to go back and explore more. We decided to rest and watch football on Saturday and head home on Sunday. 

I found this "retro" version of my favorite childhood game at Target and bought it for Avery. She and Colt love it!! Colt especially is really good at it. Am I old enough to be retro?!

Ohio State cookies from Panera.

A cute little part of Columbus Avery and I got to explore.

We got on the road super early Sunday morning and were home by lunch! We had such a fun week, and I am so thankful for the time we got to spend together and all the fun places we got to see. I'm glad I have this blog to remind me...we did so much I have forgotten things!!

New adventures ahead!!

Baccus Family Five City Tour, Part 2

Our next location was only an hour or so away from South Bend. I was shocked when, after only being on the road a few minutes, we saw the sign, Welcome to Michigan! I have been wanting to go to Michigan for a while, and I was so excited to see another college campus. We checked into our hotel late in the afternoon, then went to the biggest college stadium in the country...

The University of Michigan! A nice runner asked if we wanted our picture made. I realized later his finger photo bombed our picture. Still really cool! We were bummed it was an away game that week.

As I was looking through my pictures I realized I didn't take very many in Ann Arbor. That stinks because it's a super cute college town! There's a main street that runs through the downtown with cute shops, and it's right there by campus. 

We ate lunch at this little delicatessen, and I realized people in the north eat different kinds of foods than we do in the south. Colt was devastated every time we went out to eat because there is no sweet tea up there!

After lunch we went for a walk and saw the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, and decided to take the kids. 

It was a lot of boring science stuff but they also had some cool things, too.

Daniel was cracking me up running back and forth in front of this screen. 

We got some campus information, and walked around a bit. We would have to win the lottery to even think about sending our kids to UM, but it's a beautiful campus.

One afternoon in Ann Arbor I went to a laundromat. It was called Mr. Stadium. As I was waiting on my laundry I saw this article on the wall. Apparently Kevin Costner wore a Mr. Stadium shirt in the movie What Dreams May Come. I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.

After we had spent enough time (with kids, at least) in Ann Arbor, we headed east again to another Michigan destination.

Detroit! 

This is the first place we went. It was so much scarier than you even think it is. While we were driving down it I looked up the house where Eminem grew up and it had an address. We risked our lives to find out the house has been torn down. I was glad I saw it, but even more glad to be out.

This is right in the heart of 8 mile, and we were so looking forward to browsing through this store. We pulled up and the gate was closed. There was a sign that said it would be closed that day only. We were devastated! Daniel still says that ruined the whole trip. It was a big reason we went to Detroit, and we were so disappointed.

We wiped our tears, and headed downtown. I wanted to look across the water and see Canada. 

It was so pretty, and when I saw that bridge I was wishing so bad we had passports. It was so close, yet so far away!! Avery didn't quite understand the coolness of looking across to another country.

I didn't want to leave!

I was wishing there was a way to sneak in.

We didn't stay in Detroit that night. We decided to drive to our next location, and start fresh the next morning.

I asked Avery what her favorite part of the trip was so far, and she said staying in the hotels. They sure slept and ate well!!

Two more cities left!!