🍁 40th Anniversary • Maine Bound 🍁

There are landmarks you read about for years before you finally stand before them — and then there are the ones that stop you cold the moment they come into view. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, rising from the southern shore of Lake Erie like a sculptor’s dream in glass and steel, is firmly the latter. I had been anticipating this stop on our 40th anniversary road trip for weeks, but nothing quite prepared me for the sight of that bold red lettering blazing against the shimmering blue of the lake behind it.

Located at 1 Key Plaza in the heart of downtown Cleveland, Ohio, the museum was designed by the legendary architect I. M. Pei — the same visionary mind behind the glass pyramid at the Louvre — and opened its doors to the world on September 2, 1995. The building is nothing short of architectural theater: a soaring 162-foot tower anchoring a sweeping glass pyramid that catches the light differently with every passing hour. From the lakefront plaza, the structure feels almost alive, as though the energy of sixty years of rock and roll history is humming just beneath its surface.

Inside, the numbers are staggering and the experience even more so. The museum spans roughly 150,000 square feet in total, with approximately 55,000 square feet dedicated to exhibition space — and every square foot earns its keep. The permanent collection traces the full arc of rock and roll’s remarkable story. In the Ahmet M. Ertegun Exhibition Hall, you walk through the roots of the music: the blues, gospel, and rhythm and blues that quietly laid the groundwork for a revolution. The Cities & Sounds gallery illuminates how geography shaped sound — from the soulful streets of Motown Detroit to the flannel-and-feedback fury of Seattle grunge, from the punk energy of New York’s Lower East Side to the swagger of Los Angeles and London. Each room feels like stepping inside a song.

The Hall of Fame Gallery is the emotional centerpiece. The Foster Theater’s immersive footage of induction ceremonies — watching legends receive their due surrounded by peers and admirers — had me lingering far longer than I had planned. The ‘Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll’ installation is equally absorbing, a testament to the music that has formed the soundtrack of so many lives, including our own. Standing there, my husband and I found ourselves smiling at songs that had followed us through forty years of adventure together.

The museum is also in the midst of an exciting evolution: a major expansion of approximately 50,000 additional square feet was actively underway during our September 2025 visit. If you are planning your own pilgrimage, set aside a generous three and a half to five hours — this is not a museum you want to rush. And do not leave without pausing at the front of the building for a photograph with those legendary red letters. It is, without question, one of the great photo moments in American cultural tourism.

The Class of 2025 inductees — among them Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, Soundgarden, The White Stripes, Bad Company, Chubby Checker, and Joe Cocker — were celebrated throughout the museum in special displays that made the visit feel particularly timely. Rock and roll, this place reminds you at every turn, is not a moment frozen in amber. It is a living, breathing, ever-expanding story, and the Hall of Fame is its most devoted keeper.

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To walk through these halls is to remember why music matters — why it always has. Rock and roll did not just give us a beat to dance to; it gave a generation a voice, and it has never stopped speaking.

— Nancy, cambriatravels.com

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Our stop for the night was MidAmerican Outdoor Store, also known as Mossy, a place that felt like a small discovery along our autumn route. Their website, https://www.buymossonline.com/, had given us a hint of what to expect, but arriving at this Harvest Hosts location brought it to life in a way no description could. As a haven for self-contained RV travelers, it offered a quiet overnight stay on gravel parking spaces with 30A electric hookups, framed by the soft sounds of nearby farm animals and the inviting promise of local homesteading gear just steps away in the store.

Until the next mile of open road calls us forward…

Nancy