When we left Niagara, we travelled south and, for a change, while the left-hand side remained a forest, the right-hand side comprised Lake Erie. It is the second-smallest of the five Great Lakes and we travelled by the side of it, driving down the Interstate for three hours eating up over 200 miles, before reaching Cleveland. By then, we had covered two thirds of the journey from the northern to southern-most tip of the lake.

The Great Lakes, incidentally, have tides, waves, currents etc and provide an attractive backdrop to the city of Cleveland. Erie is over 57 miles wide so you cannot see the other coast.

Cleveland, known for its industries, has somewhat unfairly been dubbed “The Mistake on the Lake” but we found the centre quite airy, open and certainly we have been in far worse cities. Our choice of Cleveland as a destination had an element of compromise. Ellie has always wanted to visit the Amish communities, which are just south of Cleveland, while I saw the opportunity to combine her wishes with my own hankering to visit the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. However, we were to stay in Cleveland an extra night for both of us had succumbed to a cold-type virus, which went straight to my chest and had me swiftly reaching for the antibiotics.

I had a similar problem in Prague last year and, as I suffer from mild emphysema, it can develop into a really serious cough. Last year it cost us 175 euros in Prague to obtain a prescription for antibiotics: an experience that was not assuaged by the fact I was treated and attended by a stunningly curvaceous nurse as if I had walked onto a Carry On set. So, knowing a few chemists in Spain where you can obtain such things over the counter, we travelled prepared for the eventuality.

Ellie jumped at my suggestion to spend an extra day in Cleveland and rested up while I travelled to the Hall of Fame the next morning.

It is at times such as these, you really appreciate the sat-nav. I was extremely impressed with our Garmin, which we hired with the car. Hillary, as she was dubbed, took us precisely were we wanted to go in each city and environment we visited. I wished we had invested in one on our earlier trips, for it would have spared the odd frosty moment as Ellie battled with maps and road signs and the fact she cannot quickly identify what is left or right.

Hillary took me to the Hall and then back to the hotel a few hours later, after I had indulged my love of rock and went on a nostalgic binge.

The concept was launched in 1986 with Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis being the founder inductees. As a result, these individuals are given scant coverage in the inductee film compared to subsequent inductees such as Public Enemy and Joan Jett. You hear Presley and Chuck Berry but specifically the founders of rock’n’roll are sold short in the film.

I watched the two-hour parade of stars, with vignettes of their acts and was struck by the succession of fine music I had experienced over the years, and, while some, if not many, artists left me relatively cold, I was impressed with the variety of music I have enjoyed down the decades and was reminded of acts half-forgotten from Heart to Huey Lewis. There are some lamentable omissions but then more, older names are added each year and one trusts the likes of the Moody Blues, The Cars, Dire Straits and ELO will take a bow, sooner rather than later. When you see that some acts, you have never been aware of, have been inducted, you wonder why the Monkees and their like have been overlooked.

It was an interesting experience but the 35-minute film featuring Dick Clark, I found totally absorbing. Again these included vignettes of many acts down the years. Dick, as Diana Ross observed, was up there along with Presley, as one of the principal pioneers of rock back in the 1950s when people “tuned into Bandstand every day, to watch the kids a dancing across the USA,” as Bobby Darin once sung in Queen of the Hop.

A few days later we met up with our friends Peter (a former St Albans schoolboy) and his Indianapolis-born wife Marilyn, who recalls the latter days of the rock revolution, such as: “The time they kept playing Dion’s The Wanderer on the radio and my father was going nuts.”

Ellie admitted the only insight into US teenage life in the late 1950s and 60s came via such films as American Graffitti and Happy Days. Was that really what it was like, she asked? “Exactly. It was so much fun and with all that music as well,” said Marilyn.

The one point that came over strongly at the Hall of Fame is America’s reverence for The Beatles. “I was at High School and working on the record counter on Saturdays when the The Beatles hit. It was just wonderful and a special time. Everyone was buying their records. It was great to be a part of it. So much excitement."

Her memories had been stirred up by her recent attendance at her 50th school reunion in Indianapolis, where she attended school with fellow student David Letterman, who did not turn up for the reunion.

"One of the first people I bumped into was Jeff Escowsky and I just had to ask him if an old school legend or rumour was true. Did Neil Sedaka really stay at his house for a week all those years ago?” Marilyn told us she had asked. “He confirmed he did. Their parents knew each other and because there were no flights, Sedaka stayed in the other twin bed in Jeff’s bedroom. I told Jeff I was about to meet up with an old English friend who knows all about those stars, their records, the composers etc.” she added. having explained to her old school contact, I was a rock anorak for those days.

Looking back on the Hall of Fame, I walked round the shop later and was tempted by some of the items on offer. I saw a compilation for 1959, which included Edd Kookie Byrnes and the record Kookie, Kookie Lend Me Your Comb. Ellie recalled the record and the show it referred to: Seventy-seven Sunset Strip along with Efrem Zimbalist Junior and Roger Smith. Another title on the disc caught my eye: Dodie Stevens and Sand Shoes And Pink Shoelaces - not to be confused with Connie Stevens who did the Kookie Comb number. Terrible records really, but part of the youth cult at the time.

But it was Dick Clark who really impressed me. “We had to get home to watch Bandstand every day, to catch up with the music, the dances and the dress styles. It came out of Philly, and they should have the Bandstand, Dick Clark Museum here,” said Marilyn. “My daughter Melissa watched Dick Clark and grew up with that show, just as I did.”

Dubbed the world’s oldest teenager, Dick Clark broke hundreds of new acts on his shows and while he was and is virtually unknown in the UK, he was one of the true and key pioneers of rock. Variety magazine said rock'n'roll would be over within the year: Dick Clark, with his daily exposure, enabled Variety to look stupid.

On the way out of the last display-room in the Hall of Fame, I was saddened to note the passing of another influential factor on my life: Joe B Maudlin, who succumbed to cancer earlier this year.

The name might not mean much, if anything, nowadays, but he was one of The Crickets - Buddy Holly’s group who toured the UK in the early spring of 1958 and influenced a generation of aspiring British groups, with their line up of drums, bass with Joe B using a stand-up; lead and rhythm guitar. It became the definitive line-up for all groups, and Holly’s ability to write his own material, sing, play lead and later arrange the recording sessions, proved highly influential.

Perhaps someone else put it better for at the bottom of the plaque acknowledging Joe B Maudlin was a reproduced quote from the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards. “Without The Crickets, there would have been no Beatles or Rolling Stones."

That perhaps puts in context my sadness at seeing Joe B Maudlin had died earlier this year. He was part of the most influential moments of my pop cultural youth and was part of a key influence on a generation of British musicians.