Horseshoe casino

So we were driving to chicago and got about 45 minutes away when we decided that "hey why do a little gambling?" We found the address for the horseshoe in hammond, indiana just south of chicago and stopped for a quick visit. No big winners this time but no big losers either. We had some good fun though for about an hour and a half. Its was matts 1st time gambling and he definitely enjoyed it. But anyways now its time to finish the drive to the lovely drake hotel in chicago.

cleveland

Matt drove this leg of the trip from Buffalo to Cleveland. Not too bad of a drive, was really windy for awhile and ran into a little bit of snow but only for about 20 minutes or so. Pulled into Cleveland around 6:15 and went straight to the hotel. The hotel was really nice with a great location and view of Public Square. We went up to the room to chill for a few and then decided to head over to “the Q” where the Cleveland Cavaliers play to see if we could get some fairly cheap tickets for the Cavs vs. Bulls game. Cleveland has something pretty cool that I haven’t really seen before, most of the downtown city is connected through a walkway tunnel system so right from our hotel we could walk through this to the arena without even needing a coat to go outside, maybe a 10 minute walk. 

So we got there and then went outside to look for some scalpers. Immediately the scalpers saw us from across the street and started yelling at us to see if we needed two tickets. We went over and the first tickets offered to us were floor seats for $400, we both kinda laughed and asked for something way cheaper. After a little bit of silence I said we were looking to spend no more than $80 for a ticket, which is still highway robbery but we wanted to see the game so whatever. All the scalpers that were around to hear me say this looked disgusted, “oh man c’mon, no way your spending less than at least a buck for this game.” So it didn’t look to good but then almost seconds later these two kids approached us and asked if we just needed two tickets and if we just really wanted to go to the game, we said yes, and he handed us two tickets and said that he only wanted the face value on the ticket which was $35 and that we would be sitting with him and his buddy. The scalpers weren’t too happy as we all walked away but screw those scumbags, I’m pretty sure they were yelling stuff at our new friend as we walked away but I couldn’t make much of it out, something about being “a goofy looking bitch” maybe? Anyways, Matt and I were stoked to land such a good deal and were really quite surprised by it all. We paid them for the tickets and headed to our seats. They were great, 1^st row in the 200 level right where the corner of the arena started. The kids who saved us with the tickets sat next to us and ended up being some pretty cool dudes. Their names were Dave and Matt, both friends from the area and recent graduates of Bowling Green and Ohio St. respectively. They let us know that they were really just hoping to find two hot girls to give the tickets too, but they saw us pretty close to game time about to get ripped off so they figured we would do. Matt was looking pretty good, not sure if that helped or not. But we talked a lot about the trip, Seattle, and Cleveland. Dave again was very adamant on how awesome Seattle was so that was cool to hear. 

The game was fun, got to see some good players like D. Rose, Joaquim Noah or however you spell it, Lindsey Hunter, Dan Gibson, Delonte West, Anderson Varaejao and of course the king himself, Lebron James. Varaejao had a career high points this game and Lebron had a triple double, his 18^th of his career, and when he got it the entire arena went nuts. Oh and yea the Cavs won, can’t remember the exact score right now. 

Our original plan for after the game was to keep it low key and just go grab some dinner but we both got nachos and halftime and really weren’t hungry anymore so we just went back to the hotel. We checked out the hotel a little more, hung out, and then threw a movie on, Burn After Reading. I fell asleep about half way through and Matt didn’t quite make it to the end either. We’ll finish it later. 

We ended up sleeping in til about 11:30 but we felt it was necessary after our fun in Toronto. As you can see from below we went to the Great Lakes Brewery for some food and afternoon beers. It was a real cool place but unfortunately they weren't giving tours right now due to renovations. We had an awesome meal there though and they had great beer, we would highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Cleveland. And then went to see the USS Cod which was an old World War 2 Submarine but again unfortunately that was closed. We took a few pictures and now we are on our way to Chicago. Later.

And its official....

..... The great lakes brewery is awesome. Matt and I agree that we just had some of the best food ever.

Great lakes brewery

Right now we are at the great lakes brewery having a sampler of their many fine beers. Its a cool place, sort of like dungeon looking but they've got great beer and we are about to order some food. After this were heading to the USS Cod which is an old WW2 submarine and then its time to see Chicago.

toronto pics

a few pics from the 1st leg

matt and i at the very start

view from the toronto hotel

sabres leafs game @ air canada centre

the gang at the bar

jill and i at the game

happy

new friends

lukas and i

matts hands in the morning

toronto

Well its official, this trip started out with a bang. Making guest appearances for this leg of the trip was two friends, Jill and Lukas. Since my car was packed with stuff and I won’t be making it back to Rochester, they drove separately to Buffalo where we stopped and left her car. Then it was duty free time, we picked up 24 blue lights and a bottle of Soco which of course was a great decision, still have about 18 of the blue lights left but that bottle never saw it coming. We got back in the car, talked to the friendly canuck at the border, and finished the ride to Toronto with the speed limit of 100, unfortunately 100 kilometers though, which we’re not sure but we think may be comparable to a couple yards. 

Pulled into the hotel around 6, valet-ed the car cause we’re high rollers and Microsoft is awesome, and went up to the room to get some drinks in before the game. After a few shots and some beers, we filled up two special soco pepsis for the game and hailed a cab to the arena.  Pretty much the moment we got out cab the Lets Go Buffalo chants started. Oh and don’t you worry, the soco sodas in the pants made it into the game no problem.  We had two pairs of tickets separated by one section so we had to settle with yelling across to each other for cheering. This was both Matt’s and Jill’s 1^st NHL game and needless to say they both had what I think can be said was a pretty good time. Can’t ask for much more from your 1^st game, sabres in Toronto, good seats, and a great 4-1 win, once again proving America’s dominance over America Junior. Jill and I had some very friendly canadiens behind us whom we talked to, they were maple leaf fans but were also actually bills fans. I’m not sure but they may have liked Jill and bit more than me, not sure why? Couldn’t of had anything to do with my obnoxious antics. Matt and Lukas on the other hand did not make too many friends with their surrounding neighbors. The people behind them were two yamukah wearing jewish guys who turned out to know everything about Rochester and wouldn’t stop heckling them about how shitty the Roc truly is. They had money thrown at them, Canadian coins of course, US coins are far too valuable to do such a thing with, some Canadians actually thought we were rich when they saw one of our US dollar bills. They received many invitations and/or threats about meetings outside in the parking lot to which Matt replied “I have no fucking clue where the parking lot is cause I used Valet.” I also looked over numerous times to see Lukas in shouting matches with leaf fans up to 20 rows away, which I found quite impressive. I can honestly say that I don’t know if I have ever had that much fun at a sabres game before, it was incredible. 

After the game we inquired with a few people whom all told us that the most happening place to go after the game was Jack Astors, which I felt was pretty ridiculous and actually quite embarrassing. But we started to head that way anyways while of course cheering and yelling at as many people as possible and for some reason also found it necessary to start some argyles cheers to mock their CFL team. Who cares about the CFL? I mean really, cmon Canada. When we got to the area by Jack Astors we found another bar around the corner called The Loose Moose which we decided to try our luck at. And they are lucky that we showed up because we got that place going, although it again may not have been appreciated by everyone as we did it through lots of drinks and buffalo cheering. We met two Irish dudes whom we talked to for awhile, one of which tried to steal my santa hat which I of course didn’t let happen.  But they were pretty cool although the one guy only wanted to talk about rugby which got old pretty quick as he bragged about how “tough” he was. Matt assured him that he could kick his ass if he wanted too. I met another guy who after trying to welcome me to the neighborhood while I was in the bathroom by very politely asking me “What are you doing up here? Actually I don’t care, just go the fuck back to Buffalo.” To which I replied “No, I’m not going back to Buffalo because I just started a road trip to Seattle.” He then all of a sudden thought I was cool and wanted to talk, he actually turned out to not be a total doucher. And it also turned out that one of the guys he was with was a former Buffalo Sabre player’s brother, I believe the name was Eric Sanford or something sounding like that? Yea sure. I’ll look it up later.  But yea so after a few hours of debauchery it was pretty clear that we had worn out our welcome and a fight was looking inevitable so we decided it was a good idea to leave, we said our goodbyes and headed for the next bar. 

We figured we might as well find out what all the Jack Astors hype was really about so we stopped in there. Only to be told that the Loose Moose had just called them and had told them that a group of 4 sabres fans might be stopping by and that it would be a very good idea not to let them in. We went back outside to make a new plan of attack. Jill and Matt wanted to test out the theory that if they just took off their jerseys then the canuck checking IDs at Jack might be dumb enough to not recognize them and would let them in. He was. The got in, walked around the bar for a minute, Jill took her jersey out of her purse, put it on and they then both began sabres cheers in the middle of the bar and then came back out to Lukas and myself. A perfect sneak attack. Lukas was pretty worried about that we might try to go back in though, “Aw guys I got some bad news, under my sabres jersey is a sabres sweatshirt and under that is a sabres shirt.” What a great fan. But anyways, as Jill and Matt came out of Jack, so did a few maple leafs fans to smoke a cigarette and well they weren’t too happy with us. We exchanged complements for awhile and then decided to walk away. A guy off the street mentioned another place called “Gabbys.” We hopped in a cab and told him to head for Gabbys……. He had no idea what the hell we were talking about. Then Jill remembered another place she had been before called Philthy McNastys so we just headed there instead. 

We got there to find a place pretty empty except for some people around the bar. We ordered some food and a pitcher. The pitcher was enormous, it had something like 7 or 8 beers in it. It was pretty sweet. After awhile we left and headed back to the hotel. I was pretty sure that this was at about 4 am but I have been assured by my counterparts that it was actually only at most maybe 1 am. I went upstairs and passed out, Jill went to find Lukas and Matt as they didn’t make it up to the room. She found them in the lobby and while Lukas decided to come up, Matt had some sightseeing plans in mind. Jill, being the motherly type, wrote down the hotel information and room number on his hands so that he wouldn’t get lost. He did anyways. But luckily his girlfriend Jacklyn was nice enough to google earth him home over the phone.  Thank you Jacklyn. We all appreciate the help. I woke up around 6:30 am only to be sucked into an almost 3 hour conversation with Lukas and Jill and then just as I finally fell back asleep around 8:58, at 9 Jill decided she really wanted breakfast so she woke me up, awesome, and we went down to have the most ridiculously priced breakfast ever. Went back to the room, woke the guys up, and got ready for the road. As we were leaving, a lady saw our jerseys and asked us if we were on the team, before I could lie fast enough, Matt said no. Oh well, still a complement just to be asked it. 

We drove back to Buffalo, repacked the car with stuff we had left in Jill’s car, and stopped at the famous Duff’s for some wings. We also stopped by Meg’s house to grab my Bills jersey which she had previously tried her best to ruin by rolling around in the mud with it at the last Bills game. It is pretty clean though now. Good job Meg. And now we’re driving the Cleveland. It was real real Toronto. An amazing start to the trip and more fun than I can express on here but hopefully the rest of the trip will be just as amazing.  Til later, peace.

Quote of the day – “What is the only thing worst than seeing a little bit of Canada?....................................... Seeing a lot a bit of Canada.” – Matt Huntington

On our way

Trip has started and only 25 min late.