Driving down to Pittsburgh……

So i went back out to Cedar point and rode all the rides again at night, the lines were a lot shorter and i rioe everything that id ridden during the day in about half the time! i was back at the hotel for 11pm

Woke around 8, showered and i was on the road leaving the bates motel around 9. Jens, Maria, Thomas and Lars had left Chicago in a rental car the day before and i had no idea where they were, only that we would meet up around Pittsburgh. I thought I'd give them till 10:30 this morning and give them a call and see where they were.

The drive was pretty uneventful, its was Sunday morning and all the roads were quiet. I flicked around the AM band on the radio looking for some good talk radio but couldn't find anything worth listening to so stuck with the hair metal station.

At 10:30 i called Maria to see where they were. They had driven till 11pm the night before and got a Motel 6 somewhere around Cleveland, She gave me the address, i entered it into my Tom-tom and i was only 5 miles away from them! what are the chances ?

10 minutes later i was at their motel waiting for them to get showered and ready for breakfast. They had all crashed straight to sleep when they arrived last night and everyone got a great nights sleep. Next to their car was a car door left on its own in the parking lot, Maria moved their rental car  around the corner and we all tried to explain to Jens that there was only a door in the parking space when they got up to get in the car! didn't work but was worth a try.

We drove across the street to go get breakfast at a Bob Evans. This is a chain restaurant that does breakfasts, lunches and dinners. It’s better than the fast food that some of us had been eating while on the road for the last couple of days.

Upon ordering it was question after question. Id like Sausages please, Patties or Links ? Id like toast please, Wheat, rye, or sourdough. Id like eggs please….etc etc it must have taken us a good 5 minutes for all five of us to actually place our order! What was it Roger says ? “we got choice” !

We hit the road around 12:30, Thomas and Maria in one car and myself, Jens and Lars in my car. We had a few laughs on the way, listened to some Floyd and then listened to some On An Island!! WTF was this music playing in my car!! it was music to fall asleep to! or as Jens put it ,it was music for old people! (is that why you like it Karen ?) i agreed and we changed back to some Floyd.

The beer came out just as fast as the guys drank it!!

   

We then realised the building that we had stopped next to to“water the flowers” was some sort of private club! Jens caught me coming back out but i couldn't tell anyone what was going on in there, or i'd have had to kill them!

   

We set off back towards Pittsburgh and i couldn't help thinking when i was driving that i had this route to do two more times! Due to there been no cheap flights to Boston after the Cleveland show i had to book one  out of Pittsburgh so id be driving to Pittsburgh, then to Cleveland and then back to Pittsburgh! this drive is about 2 1/2 hours each way!

We were meeting Michael, Suzanne, Joe, and Michaels business partner Jack and his wife for dinner in Pittsburgh at 5pm. Jack had booked a nice restaurant that looked over the whole of the city and again it would be a chance to eat some “real” food instead of the road food we had been eating.

As we arrived at the hotel we could see it across the street but i took a wrong turn,a s Maria was following behind she took the same wrong turn too! the roads were pretty quiet and i did a u turn at a junction and pulled up at the lights ready to drive straight across to the hotel. It was only when the guy in a car coming towards us pulled a strange face that i realised i was on the wrong side of the road!!! its the first and only time I've EVER done this! i quickly reversed and pulled in behind Marias car. Will still missed the turning and had to drive round the block again!

The hotel we wanted to get to!                Lars grateful we got there safely with my driving!

We checked in, freshened up and hit the bar, just one Long Island for me before dinner and even that was too much, it went straight to my head and gave me an instant buzz! We called the hotel shuttle and he gave us a ride to the place we were going to eat, Coal Hill Steakhouse.

He dropped us at the bottom of a hill and we had to take an incline ride to the top, this was kinda cool and gave us a view of the city as we went up.

   

Deer we passed as going up the hill!!

The view from the restaurant was amazing, we had a table right next to the window and you could see the whole of Pittsburgh, the football and baseball stadiums and all the bridges over the rivers. As you've probably guessed this was an ideal time for me to do one of my multi picture panorama shots, see below:

The food was nice, mine was a touch cold to be honest but the steak and the waffle cut sweet potato fries were excellent! as were the Vodka and strawberry lemonades! Joe managed to find his way to the restaurant after being stuck in traffic for a while and we made him a plate of food up from our leftovers!

After dinner,  Michael, Suzanne, Jack and his wife all headed to the show in their car , Joe did the same and we called the hotel shuttle to pick us up again.

Going back down the incline from the restaurant.

 

Shuttle bus dropped us back at the hotel, we grabbed our things for the show and then headed up to the will cal window to pick up tickets.

More pictures here from the day:

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A day at Cedar Point

Didn't do much at all last night, after checking in i watched a couple of things on TV and had an early night. Woke around 8am, Jet lag seems to have gone more or less now, showered and headed down to the local post office to put a package in the post. Drove past a couple of strange places and even saw a car at the lights pumping his hydraulics up and down on the car, made me smile.

No idea what goes on in here!                  Weird  animal centre                          Pimpin car!

                           

Caught up with my emails and stuff, the “No-Tell” Motel (thanks for that Franz!) I'm staying at has Wi-Fi but it only works if you go sit round the pool area!! I sat next to the pool and realised the humidity had dropped a lot from how it was yesterday and the temperature was a lower than it was, it said 65 in the car.

I then headed out for Cedar Point, its about 3 miles down the road from my “no-tell”  arrived around 11:30 and parked up in the lot, There were still a lot of people there even though it was out of season! They park didn't open till 12 so i stood around and waited for the gates to open. As soon as they did i headed for the Top Thrill Dragster ride, probably the bets one in the park! Everyone had the same idea and by the time i got there the wait was about 90 minutes! no where near the 4 hours I'd once lined up one summer though!!

     

Top Thrill Dragster ride

After that i lined up for 5 of the other coasters and the wait time was about 30 minutes for each one! i then went back and lined up another hour for the Dragster ride again! Its 7pm here and I'm back at the hotel for an hour then driving back to the park to go on the same rides but in the dark!

Magnum XL Coaster                                   Millennium Force coaster        Gemini racing wooden coaster

   

My favourite one in the park (Meanstreak)  was closed for the reason, looked like they were replacing some wood beams on it.

The whole place was all done out for Halloween,i forgot how much its celebrated in the USA, in the UK its a very small affair and virtually no kids go out and dress up, we didn't have a single trick or treater last year!

Me and my friends at the end of the wall tour!  Dave K and the band at the end of the tour!

      

More pics from today here:

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Next stop Cleveland….

As most people who have been reading my blog or have met up with me so far along the tour know, i missed the 4th Chicago show. I had already booked my travel plans that included a non refundable flight and hotel just outside of Cleveland before Roger had announced an extra 4th show in Chicago. It was too expensive to loose the money for my flight and hotel just to see  this show and then have to book another flight and hotel.

I took a shower, packed the rest of my case and headed out on the blue line train for O’Hare airport. This was the view in the bathroom the morning i left the hotel, not only do the Danish guys drink beer they also appear to wash in it too!

 

My flight was at noon and i arrived at the airport around 10. I had already checked in online so it was just a case of dropping my bag. Had some breakfast in the United lounge although after last nights dinner i was only able to eat a couple of slices of toast! Headed for the flight around 11:30 and took my exit row seat on the plane. Wasn't a huge plane, two seats one side and one seat the other side, mind you it was only a 45 minute flight!

Leaving Chicago, the 3rd airport of my tour so far!

    

We landed in Cleveland around 2pm due to the one hour time difference. I took the shuttle to the Budget car rental and picked up my Chevy Malibu that would be getting me round for the next 6 days.

I cant believe they have vending machines in the airport where you can buy IPod's and digital cameras!!

I was heading out to Sandusky, Ohio for 2 nights. About an hours drive west of Cleveland where I'd booked a motel about 3 miles from a place called Cedar Point. This is one of if not THE largest rollercoaster park in the world!! I've been 3 or 4 times before, the last time about 5 years ago. I had bought a cheap day ticket on eBay a few weeks before i left the UK and had it delivered to my friend Gail in Phoenix, she gave me the ticket when her and Joe came up to Toronto last week.

I had my Tom-tom sat nav with me which i had brought from home, i had already programmed all my hotels, venues and stops for my travels into the sat nav before i left the UK so it was just a case of fixing it to the windscreen and hitting the hotel in Sandusky and following the instructions!

I saw the sign for the motel, i was excited they had COLOUR TV’s! it was nice to know the hotel was heated as well, not that i needed it in this humidity,lol I wish the car below that was in the parking lot of the hotel was my rental car! After walking up to the house /office for the motel that’s off to the side of the rooms i was convinced the motel should be rename to The Bates Motel! Chris, the people wandering around here are worse than your Walmart people pictures!!

   

One thing i didn't realise when i booked the motel was the train tracks run about 50 feet away from the highway, the freight trains run all night long and even though i was tired enough not to hear them most of the night, the room door rattling as they sped past woke me a couple of times!

The Rollercoaster park doesn't open till noon but doesn't close till midnight, i was a bit worried yesterday, when i arrived it was blustery high winds, not good for being on a rollercoaster! This morning it seems to have died down a bit and the humidity isn't as bad and it feels a lot cooler. Hopefully all the rides will be open today!

Pic below was taken round the back of the motel, looks like a shot from the movie Children Of The Corn!!

 

It’s now 9am Saturday morning as I'm writing this, just gonna shower and head out for a bite to eat (not much as i don't want to be riding the coasters and covering people in my breakfast!) have something i want to send at the post office and then gonna drive up to the theme park.

With my back to the wall….

Just sat on the plane for the 49 minute flight from Chicago to Cleveland while writing the following: Didn't do much at all yesterday, weather was hot and humid and we were all feeling the last few late nights catching u with us. I walked around Chicago for a couple of hours, went and had a look round the farmers market and managed t eventually convince a vendor to sell me just one single apple rather than a $5 bucket full! Walked back to the hotel and walked past the large eyeball that's in a small park just around the corner form the hotel. Looks just like something you would have seen on the PULSE tour!

Jen’s, Maria, Thomas and Lars were all in the room just looking on YouTube at videos of the show and playing a recording of the first nights show. It was only 1pm but the beer was already flowing and everyone was looking forward to seeing the show again after a day off. before i left from the USA i set a Justin TV account up, for those that don't know about it it’s free to set up and enables you to broadcast on the net from your laptops webcam Live! you get a link to send/post to people and anyone can click on the link and see what your laptop sees! I put the laptop on the top of the TV and logged into Justin TV, i posted the link on my facebook page and we had  6 or 7 viewers watching us hang out in the room within 5 minutes! Jens did a little dance for everyone and from what Lauren said she thinks his dance  was the cause of her internet going down at home! (there's now a link on the right of this page to my Justin TV channel )

Lars wasn't going to the show tonight as his sister was in town with her daughter and they were going to hang out and have dinner before Jens, Maria, Thomas and  i went to the show. Thomas and Maria decided to go have a snack as Thomas was not originally going to the show on Friday but thought he would save his money on a meal tonight and put it towards a cheap ticket so he was able to go to the show.

Jens and Lars outside Joe’s with Sarah

The restaurant was nice, i mean REALY nice, all the waiters were dressed in black tie, all the tables had white table clothes and you could sense just from the general atmosphere that the food was going to be good! It was that good that Jens, Lars, Katherine, Sarah and Thomas had all been the night before and were more than happy to come back tonight!

I ordered the Fillet Mignon with a baked sweet potato. Kathrine ordered the sweet potato fries as well so i had some of those. The steak was done to perfection, exactly as i like it just pink in the middle but nice and crisp on the outside

I didn't have an appetizer as i wanted a dessert,  Kathrine did the same as well. Lars and Jens weren't going to have dessert but changed their mind, however when it arrived they had room for very little of it, i on the the other hand was not letting the best looking apple pie a la mode go to waste!  I have to say its one of THE best meals I've had.

   

Lars, Katherine and Sarah left Jens and i outside the restaurant and Jens and i started to walk off the food by heading to the venue. After 1/2 mile Jens couldn't take it any more! we were both so full and flagged down a taxi to the Venue!

Chicago, 3rd show

We met up with Mark & Rusty who were outside will call, then Maria and Thomas arrived about 20 minutes later. We all headed in and hung around our seats chatting and taking in the atmosphere. We met up with a couple of people who we’d seen at the pre show meet ups and took our seats around 8:15. I was 10th row centre, and Jens and Thomas were about 8th row to the left, Maria was in one of the side rear blocks.

The first half just seemed so much tighter! the band seemed a lot more “gelled” together and i think its probably just that they are refining it all the time. I chatted with Dave K earlier in the day and he did say they were going in early for a sound check to straighten a couple of things out. You really do have to keep your eyes open the whole show when your sat within the first 15 or so rows. I totally missed the plane crashing into the wall tonight!!! my eyes must have been on the band or the other side as i cant remember seeing it at all!

Roger seems to be settling into his routine now, the first 2 or 3 shows he was all over the place, things were changing and he had no set thing as such but that seems to be coming together as all his little nuances have been the same for the last couple of nights. The first half of the show seems to fly by, i watched around me as invited guests and VIP’s did nothing but stood there on their iphones and Blackberry's texting whomever about whatever!! What a waste!!

Thomas, myself and mark before the show:               Myself with Gary on the left and Bob on the right!

               

I’d been talking to Joe the other night about wanting to see the show from behind the wall so i decided tonight I'd do just that. The whole stage is an amazing setup and the area underneath the stage can be pretty much walked under!! this is to allow the amps and instruments that come up on the front of the stage to be set up. There's a huge black net that the crew pull over all the instruments and the band at the intermission this is to stop all the bricks falling on the band when the wall comes down, see first and second pics below:

 

I was interested to see id the band were doing anything different during “Hey You”, they weren't! they pretty much stand as they do during the show when you can see them through the wall. There were a lot more crew on the stage whilst the wall is fully built plus Rogers official photographer was walking around onstage getting some shots as they were singing and playing. Dave and G E Smith come about half way up the wall and play acoustic guitars for Is There Anybody Out There, again see pics below:

It was interesting to see that Roger does indeed actually sing Vera!! i was as sceptical as a lot of people as that when he moves from the hotel room that comes out of the wall almost instantly Vera starts, i made sure to look round the back as Roger came through the secret door in the side of the “hotel room” holding a mic and actually singing as he went down the stairs to the lower level of the stage before appearing around the front!

What i was really surprised at when i went up to the top of the wall at the side was just how uneven and not straight the wall was! As you can see from the pics, the bricks are looking a bit “used” now after a few shows.

     

I was also surprised at how quick the moving platforms behind the wall moved up and down, these moved a lot faster than i expected and i was surprised to see Dave K going up the wall that quick for his solo for Comfy Numb. I did like looking at the back of the hall while the spotlight was behind Dave K and seeing his giant shadow on the crowd. along with seeing the spotlights over the crowd during several parts of the show.

   

Playing on top of the wall:

The second half seemed to go faster than ever from behind the stage, i guess this was due to me watching totally different things than i normally do at the shows and having lots of new things to watch. The highlight was obviously the wall coming down at the end of the show, this looked great from behind it and to see the crew shaking the wall to make it sway before the automated rods that go through the middle of the bricks retract down and push the bricks either forward or backwards.

The wall coming down:

After the wall had come down and the band had performed in front of it they all make there way offstage and congregate at the rear of the stage while still playing their instruments, they all gather around, finish the track and then leave the venue.

 

It was a great experience to see the show from the perspective of a lot of the crew and one that most people wont have the chance to see! i made the following panorama shot which is made up of three pictures stitched together with a cool bit of software, i was pretty pleased with how it cam out!

Click this link to see all the pictures from behind the wall Pictures from behind the wall

After the show, Jens, Maria, Thomas and i made our way to Buddy Guys legends club and guess who was there ? yup, Buddy himself!! he wasn't performing onstage and to be honest the band that was i didn't think were very good, i stayed for an hour before heading back to the hotel and packing my case ready for my flight tomorrow to Cleveland