Cleveland inspired me.  Talk about a town reinventing itself. This city on Lake Erie overflows with families in neighborhoods, enjoying their own restaurants and shops and sharing the results with visitors.

    Don’t go if you like to be anonymous on a holiday. Do go to Cleveland to be part of happy circles of friends.

    Icons here, all worth many afternoons, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and University Circle with museums, gardens, parks, concert halls and gracious sidewalks, and of course the Lake.

Playhouse Square too, which is America’s largest performing arts complex after New York City.

    Charm added to the obvious destinations happened for me on Coventry Road and the world’s biggest pair of underpants was part of it.

    Big Fun is the store to buy them, or Rube Goldberg puzzles, vintage Barbie dolls, whoopee cushions, Three Stooges puzzles or anything at all you might have liked as a kid.

    Steve Presser’s mom and dad started this store and he carries on the 20-years of laughter. Need a fake mustache? Big Fun has a wall full.

    Giggles heard all over the store, and not just mine.  Everybody here blurts out, “I used to have that.” Get it again for a dollar, or in some cases a lot more.

    Steve pointed me out the front door to the right to find his good friend Tommy Fello. I was slow getting to dinner because the independently owned bookstore is next door and who could resist?

    That’s the kind of road Coventry is: personal family businesses. The hardware store family has been running their shop for 100 years, the dry cleaner for 52.  Seventy-five years of family generations keep the flower shop going and the clothing store claims 33 years of family operations.

    That sets a subtle mood for family vacations. I like finding fun in places with tradition, substance and proven products.

    Tommy’s place is newer than his neighbors; he opened the restaurant in 1972 and raised five daughters cooking food to keep you well.

    That’s actually a fact because the world-famous Cleveland Clinic is here, and patients with strict diets can find what they need at Tommy’s.

    I chose French onion soup with a shitake mushroom base, not beef. Outstanding.  Tamari, not salt, Kombu seaweed, not MSG.

    “We found our niche early on,” says Tommy, “and 75 percent of our orders a vegetarian.”

    Says he hasn’t used trans fats for 20 years; in fact, the oil he prefers for his much-touted French fries is such high quality that Mercedes and other diesel owners pull up in back and fill their engines.

    I stayed inside for Lebanese-style eggplant, and for a black cherry shake made with whole milk from the Wooster, Ohio dairy farm, Tommy’s choice for milk since 1972.

    Coventry’s a quarter mile long, pretty benches, fences and planters pull the view from one end to the other and I’d recommend strolling and chatting.

    Strolling with elephants is a

Cleveland possibility too, thanks to the new Elephant Crossing at Metroparks Zoo.

    Elephants aren’t new to this zoo, but their habitat opened May 5 is. 1907, one year before the Model T, is when the first elephant moved in.

    Today, Willy and his three female companions live in five acres and, even though the visitor can be as close as 15 feet from them, the exciting feature for me was the care and concern for the animals.

    “We’re on track to be the first LEED certified large animal exhibit in the country,” curator Geoff Hall told me. “We want to walk the talk.”

Solidly in Silver LEED ratings right now he said.

    That means burying a big salt block underground since elephants in nature naturally mine for salt and other minerals. And developing a night range with 600 tons of sand so “they can let their hair down after work,” Hall laughed. Water conservation measures too.

    This is a respectful zoo, seems to me, telling a story of people and animals sharing resources, and Hall hopes the rest of us will get excited about the conservation of all African animals.

    I found out I weigh just six pounds less than a male elephant’s trunk and 30 pounds less than his liver. Interesting exhibits throughout the new Elephant Crossing.

    Interesting interactions too, and that’s the way Zoo Director Steve Taylor likes it. “Few zoo animals have the capacity to connect with humans the way elephants do,” he says.

    An African drumming performance happened the day I was there and I’m certain I saw 13,000-pound Willy dance a two-step or at least skip, and for sure his ears perked up.

    Contrast that with a look at the mammoth elephant skeleton in the Museum of Natural History at University Circle.  Pleistocene Era this one.  Bones were found in old lakeside beaches in Cleveland, and so were human tools.

    Intrigued me that maybe mammoths and humans learned how to share space eons ago, just like Metroparks Zoo is encouraging today.

    Cleveland turned out to be thought provoking as well as entertaining. Even the Botanical Garden, also in University Circle, offered ideas in the midst of lovely.

    A Restorative Garden presents healing plants, and the Scavenger Garden demonstrates using found objects with flowers and vegetables. Walk on a sundial in the children’s garden and put your head in the clouds in the glass house.

    Learning’s fine but I like laughing. Ralphie in his snowsuit, licking the pole in the playground always sets me off, and Cleveland is home to the house where “A Christmas Story” was filmed.

    In the front window, you guessed it, is a leg lamp just like in the movie. There’s also a leg lamp in the exhibit of icons in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, along with Michael Jackson’s glove worn in the 1992 world tour performing “Billie Jean.”

    Watch the people watching the videos and listening to the tunes for another layer of fun.

    Calvin Taylor from Indiana and Karen Treadway from Michigan were holding hands and wearing matching madras caps when I eavesdropped.

    “We have that album,” he beamed in front of a display of Memphis music. Guessing they’re somewhere in their seventies, definitely loving life and the music of their youth.

    Nice bonus for me in addition to hours of music and video from all the Hall of Fame inductees in performance and loads of artifacts celebrating rock and roll.

    Surely would be a grand girlfriend getaway this summer because the Rock and Roll is featuring “Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power” with stories and music of more than 60 female artists.  Continues to Feb. 26, 2012.

    Lake Erie is a bonus too in the Rock and Roll neighborhood as is the Great Lakes Science Center next door.

    Exhibits to get your hands on, and big views out to the water. Grand way to learn about living in the Great Lakes region.

    The Science Center is also a classroom and I saw high school freshmen in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math High School with their teachers in all the exhibit spaces.  Some kind of special public school setting.

Since I care about schools at home, finding a great one in my traveling mode adds value to the visit.

     Food does too, always and West Side Market has provided foodies a big indoor and outdoor space to sell, eat and admire great food since 1912. I suspect big celebrations for the centennial next year.

    Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are the days to drool and dine here. Hard to handle groceries as a hotel dweller, but there’s a diner and plenty of walk-about food among the 180 vendor booths.

    Lunch or dinner at the House of Blues suits me fine too, especially because of the folk art.  Largest privately owned collection of folk art on the walls of all 14 House of Blues and here’s an insider tip:

    Ask your server for a tour because staff is trained about the art.  Also, have a meal or buy something in the store and you can be first in line for that night’s performance.

    And that too is all about the relationships and caring I felt all around Cleveland.

 

When  you go:

 

www.positivelycleveland.com

800-321-1001