So my dad and I decided to go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame for a weekend trip. I booked us flights on Air Tran from LGA to CAK (Akron/Canton, OH). The plan was to rent a car, stay in Cuyahoga Falls (suburb of Akron) and drive to the HOF and any other "sights" in the immediate area.
July 13, 2007
AirTran Flight 213
N604AT-Boeing 717
Seat 18A
Scheduled Departure: 3:41pm
Actual Departure: 5:15pm
I checked in the night before hoping to get exit seats but they were unavailable. Maybe you can only get these at the airport or pay the extra $$ to get them but I'm not sure. Anyone here know? Anyways I went to work for a half day and left the office at 12:45 to meet my dad uptown. We drove out to LGA via the Midtown Tunnel and made pretty good time. We parked in the Central Terminal parking garage and went to the security checkpoint. It was pretty crowded but the line was moving pretty well. Unfortunately there was a pretty bad funk smell when I reached the machines. I have no idea what the heck it could be--my feet don't smell that bad!!! :lol:
Once through security we made our way to gate B8 way at the end. I've seem more places to sit down on the 4 train at rush hour than here! This area's way too small. There were a decent amount of stands like Dunkin Donuts and a pretzel place which was pretty good.
The flight to Atlanta was delayed so by 3:15 our plane was not at the gate yet. Finally the ATL flight pulled away and my inbound flight from CAK arrived. (3:25) An announcement was made that there was a problem with the B8 jetway and it would take a few minutes for it to be fixed. I could see the pax on the airplane from the terminal, I'm sure that wasn't fun. I muttered to my dad that they should just pull back the 717 and angle it in such a way that air stairs can be used without blocking the alley between A and B. Well finally at 4:45 this was done! It took them that long to figure it out! So the plane was unloaded and we boarded via the jetway and then went down the stairs along the side of the jetway to access the air stairs. We finally got underway at 5:15.
The XM radio was nice to have, and they gave you free headsets. Legroom was quite cramped! If the person reclines in front of you it's even more unpleasant. I just had some water and pretzels on the 1 hr 15 minute flight.
CAK is small but somewhat modern. We got our rental car--a Chrysler Sebring. Our hotel was in Cuyahoga Falls, a suburb north of Akron. This small town has all the things you'd find in your basic railroad set, lol. There was an Italian American festival in the town square. People PACKED in to go to this thing! There was lots of "authentic" Italian food and music, lol.
On Saturday we went to Canton and spent the whole day at the HOF. I forgot my camera at the hotel!!!! :( Oh well. There was a coupon for a free admission with the purchase of another adult so that worked well for us. There were some neat exhibits and they did a good job of having something from every team even if they were new (Texans for example). The busts of the inductees was the coolest. They really do a good job making them look realistic. I didn't care for the old-era football exhibits but the modern era stuff was cool. My favorite was the collection of Super Bowl Rings. Some of the newer ones are huge and really gaudy. Did you know that Jostens designed more rings than any other company? I'm going to enjoy my college ring more now. There was a Pittsburgh Steelers exhibit which I skipped, and there was a decent amount of memorabilia on display. There's a lot to see and do, and you can easily spend a whole day there watching NFL films and such. I made sure to find everything on display for my Dallas Cowboys! (let the bashing begin).
We visited the University of Akron afterwards. Nice campus but nothing unique about it. The same can be said for the city of Akron itself.
Saturday night I just hung around Cuyahoga Falls. There was a neat model store that had an HO model of the Cleveland Yards and some surrounding town. Beautiful!
On Sunday we ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel and headed back to CAK.
Sunday July 15
AirTran Flt 207
N967AT
Scheduled Departure: 1:30pm
Actual Departure: 1:35pm
Not much to report here, a boring flight leaving a boring airport. At CAK there was a 747SP parked but I could not make out the tail number. it was there on Friday as well. The bad thing about CAK is that there's no decent newsstand past security. I was hoping to buy a Ohio State t-shirt or somethingbut alas no luck.
We arrived at gate B3 and had to be towed in. It was a good trip but I was disappointed in Akron itself. Not much to see, and the people were not all that nice. HOF is a great visit though!!
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Originally Posted by hiss srq
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