A Christmas Story House and Museum

 Do you love A Christmas Story? I really do. If you haven't seen it but are a fan of vintage stop what you are doing and watch it. The story takes place in the 1940's and is full of the most amazing sets and costumes (not to mention it is hilarious!) I can't wait to watch it! I might not make it all the way to December.
The film takes places in Indiana, but a lot of it was filmed in Cleveland. A man who owns a company who now produces the famous leg lamps bought the house used in exterior (and some interior) film shots and renovated it to get it as close to the movie house as possible. And you can tour it!

 There is a little museum across the street full of great photos and costumes and props.

Apparently there was a deleted scene with Ralphie and Flash Gordon. And there is the famous snow suit. That chenille robe! When the movie was made they didn't know it would become such a beloved classic so lots of the costumes got absorbed back into the Warner Brothers costume department.

 I was always so jealous of Flick's cool aviator hat! They actually sell reproductions of all the kids hats in the gift shop, but it didn't look as cool on me as I always imagined. Ha!

 The gift shop was really great. There were tons of leg lamp themed souvenirs.

 The hats! They had the hilarious elf hats from the movie too! And Randy's bib!

 There was also a section dedicated to Christmas Vacation, which is Travis' all time favorite movie. He was in hog heaven! He got this apron: Save the neck for me Clark!

 Cousin Eddie hat.

 Then it was time for our tour! The guide makes it seem like they tried to make all the furnishings match the movie exactly. Not true, but they have lots of period stuff and they let you touch everything and take photos! We loved it!

They have all kinds of props. Like a bowling ball and a bee bee gun under the tree. You get about 30 minutes to take all the photos you want. Most people clear out quick so we were able to take as many as we wanted!

 "Fra-gee-lay, must be Italian!" That scene makes me laugh every single time. And there is Travis posing just like Ralphie when he had his bunny pjs on. He is always a good sport when I want to take photos, but he was just as happy I was while we were here.

 He even put the soap in his mouth! Ha! Real soap! I love that they had a hamper by the toilet with a decoder ring, Little Orphan Annie comic and that "Drink more Ovaltine" message.

I especially loved the kitchen. There was a group of ladies in the doorway watching us take pictures. They were laughing and encouraging us and one lady said "I want YOUR pictures!" Ha!

 "Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie."

 Can you believe they let you touch everything and sit in the chairs and jump on the beds? I loved it!

 "Meatloaf, feet loaf, double beetloaf."

The Christmas story house and museum is definitely worth a visit! We had such a wonderful time!

Cleveland! Land of Dreams!

I didn't know what to expect from our visit to Cleveland, but it ended up being maybe our favorite stop of the trip! I actually have two more posts about it, because I couldn't fit the house from A Christmas Story and the BEST vintage store I've ever been to into one post! I can't wait to share it all with you! But first things first, we stayed on the top floor of this great house. Air Bnb again, of course. It was so cheap and it seemed bigger than our house! We stayed in the Lakewood area of Cleveland.

Big Fun is such a good store! We were able to make it to two out of three locations on our trip. I found it when I was looking for photo booths. The one here wasn't in use, bummer! But it was still amazing! That dog house is front is lockable and you can leave you dog in there while you shop! How convenient.

The whole place is full of old toys and games. Look at all those Care Bears in the window!

And My Little Ponies! The old ones (the good ones!) I had so many when I was a little girl. I didn't see a Pegasus with jewel eyes, which was my favorite one.

Oh man, now I'm seeing what looks like a Bookshelf game! That Mr. President one! I didn't notice that when we were there, we could have added it to our collection.

They had old game boards in the floor. What a great idea! I would love to use this idea in some future house in my future rec room.

There was also this card catalog full of tiny toys! Some vintage, some new, all cheap! I found some tiny vintage cake decorations and other weird little treasures. And pogs! We keep saying we're going to have a pog tournament! We needed slammers, thank goodness for big fun.

We ate lunch at Johnny Mango World cafe.

We pretty much got everything on the menu, which was kind of a weird hodge podge, but it was good. The fried plantains were my favorite! I really need to learn to cook those. So yummy.

You know we had to stop by a monument to "Dogs of All Wars." This is the final resting place of Smokey, or Yorkie Doodle Dandy (how much do I love that nickname???). There is a great Huffington Post article about her here (including a photo of her parachuting!). She was found in a foxhole and become the mascot of a unit in World War Two. Her most famous exploit was helping to run some communication lines through a tunnel, saving days of man power and probably some lives. She is also adorable. Maybe my favorite war dog? We actually first found out about her when we went to the AKC Museum in St. Louis.

What a great monument!

We made it over to Sweet Moses on the recommendation of the guy working at the awesome vintage store I mentioned. It is a restored soda fountain and it has a whole vegan menu! Yay!

Travis had a vegan banana split! It was amazing! I had a chocolate and strawberry sundae that was also good, but not very photogenic. Mmmm. I wish there was a good shop to get vegan ice cream around here.

We ended our day in Cleveland at the movies seeing Fury. It is tradition for us to see a movie on vacation, and Travis couldn't wait any longer to see the one WW2 movie he hasn't seen. That might be an exaggeration, maybe not. It was good though. And I loved Brad Pitt's haircut (I know you were wondering.)

These three silos are outside of a chocolate factory to the south of Cleveland. What a great town. We'll be back for sure.

Niagara Falls!

When planning the route for our road trip I saw that visiting Niagara Falls would only add about an hour to the day's driving. That is not much when it comes to seeing such an iconic place! I mean, look at this...

at first I was a little disappointed. When you walk up it becomes clear that the better view is on the Canadian side. You can really only get a side view from the railing. Of course, they make you pay for a better view! Only a dollar, and it's worth it.

Also, what the heck is up with smashed pennies being a dollar at national parks! Of course I got one, but I complained about it! That is such a rip off!

Here is a shot from the 1 dollar viewing platform! I mean...it really is so spectacular!

When doing my research I kept saying we weren't going to ride the Maid of the Mist because it seemed expensive, but once we got there it seemed a little anti-climactic to not take a ride down to the falls.

So of course we bought tickets.

It's pretty cute. There is a boat ride on the Canadian side too, but you get red ponchos.

As part of your admission you get these stunning souviner ponchos. I almost kept mine, but Travis convinced me I would probably never use it.

They much for a pretty cute selfie though.

I really think the boat ride is worth it. Even though it is FREEZING. Look!

Once you get to Horsehoe Falls they sit the boat there for a few minutes and let you take it in. It was too misty to get my camera out, so here is an iphone shot. I couldn't see ANYTHING because of the spray on my glasses, so I took them off and got freezing cold spray in my eyes! Haha, it was pretty thrilling being down there with your poncho whipping around! Beautiful.

On the way back to the dock you feel a little like you've been through the ringer. That big tower has the viewing platform on it. You take elevators up from the boats and they are super heated. It feels so good! Someone needs to have a hair dryer/straightener stand for when you get off the boat. My bangs looked crazy!

You can walk up these steps to get close to the falls. I was too cold, but Travis ran up there. See him waving?

My favorite thing in the gift shop were these socks! Too bad they only had them in kid sizes.

And what could be more spectacular than Niagara Falls? Why this beautiful ice cream stand, just minutes from the park entrance! Breathtaking!

We had a hard time finding a place to eat, and ended up at Merge in Buffalo.

The food was ok, but it was SO EXPENSIVE! I got vegan potato skins, and this was them. Those potatoes were a little bigger than a quarter and it was ten dollars! We were cracking up about how little food we got for $50. We ended up stopping for fries later because we were still starving! Boo Merge!

We drove a few more hours to our final stop. Cleveland!