Saturday, June 29, 2013

Day 1.2: You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

After a reasonable five-hour drive (just a little rain), we made it to Cleveland -- our first time here. Oddly enough, we started on I-77 in NC and took it the entire way here. As soon as we got into town, we went straight to the Christmas Story House!


The house is amazing, restored to just the way it looked in the movie! All of the house and street exteriors were shot here, and some of the interiors. It's "fully-interactive" -- they have everything inside the house from Ralphie's BB gun to the Old Man's bowling ball. You can pick them up and pose for photos. 



And, of course, "the soft glow of electric sex" -- the leg lamp shines proudly in the front window. It's a major award!


Across the street are a nice gift shop (currently undergoing an impressive expansion) and a little museum, which has a number of costumes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more.


We also rode downtown to see the former Higbee's department store (now a casino), which was where Ralphie and Randy went to visit Santa. Ho, ho, ho-o-o! It's also, according to our House tour guide, the reason the movie wound up in Cleveland to start with. It was the only department store that would let them shoot there.

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