Chicago to Cleveland

I woke up at 6.30am and left at exactly 8am. There was some confusion about where I was supposed to pick up Kasim’s suit as the person I was trying to ring on the way couldn’t accept an international call on her cell and then they were waiting at a different entrance at the hotel! Eventually it was all sorted and it only delayed me for about 20 minutes.

The traffic through Chicago was quite light (it is Saturday!) but heavy due to construction on the Indiana Toll Road and up until the South Bends exit. It was supposed to be about a six and a half hour journey but for some reason it seemed to pass quite quickly for me, although hearing my SatNav say “stay on the I80 for 338 miles” wasn’t good!

I stopped once for the loo, petrol and to moisturise(!) and managed to keep around 75 for most of the journey. Rebecca had kindly given me a lovely goodie bag last night which included some flaked pastry scone things so, rather than stopping for lunch, I ate a couple of those on the way.

I reached Cleveland at about 3.30pm (I’m back on Eastern time now so I lost an hour) and checked in quickly. Our hotel is out by the airport (as that’s easier for Kathy) and is a nice Days Inn but, once again, I can’t send e-mail from my KI account from here (like I couldn’t at the Hilton in Chicago). I could probably play around with the settings but I’m only here for one night. I thought my room smelt of cats but Kathy reckoned that it was bug-spray – lovely!

Kathy arrived at about 4pm as she had a flat tyre on the way so we chatted for about an hour and then separated to get changed. We left at 6.50pm but the junction we wanted to come off the freeway was closed so we took the next one. I then missed one turning and then my SatNav tried to take us some weird route into Cleveland via some steel mills! It wanted us then to go down a road that was closed for repairs so we turned back and got to Kasim’s hotel about 15 minutes late but handed over his jacket okay.

We picked up Raquel and got to Wilbert’s by 7.45pm. Unfortunately the table I had reserved was right at the back which I was not too happy about as I had been one of the first to book. Thankfully Raquel had reserved a table too so we sat there but my camera still struggled to take many decent photos. The dinner was adequate rather than wonderful and the waitress got two items wrong on my order but at least she attempted to correct it.

The opening act was dreadful! He was so bad that I chose that time to wander off to the loo and found Kasim standing near there as that was where his dressing room (otherwise known as the office!) was. I chatted to him for probably 10 or 15 minutes and during that time he probably knew by name 80% of the people who walked by to use the loos!

The Kasim Sulton Band’s set was great but unfortunately the reaction wasn’t that great, probably due to the table arrangement and the fact that people had just eaten. It was still good to see them though and I really wish that tomorrow night’s gig was another KSB gig rather than a Todd Rundgren one!

Unfortunately one of our party wanted to leave soon after their set so I didn’t get a chance to talk to Kasim there about his gig, although I did speak to both Mike and Mark (and Tad earlier).

I dropped off Raquel at her hotel and then drove Kathy back to ours, had a cup of tea and got to bed at 1am as it’s another long day tomorrow.