Welcome to the escarpment.

We left Chicago July 26 and came up and around Lake Michigan through the state of Michigan. I have to say I was surprised how pretty Michigan is.We travelled along the West side of the lake finally crossing into 'The Soo' (Sault St. Marie), on the 27th.

We saw some interesting things but mostly it was just really pretty countryside and lakes/rivers. We did get the opportunity to go into Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. VERY COOL. At first we were thinking emm.. its ok but then we came across a very cool Dune. Straight down all the way to the water. It was so steep it was actually a bit daunting until you go over the lip. 

Lake Michigan at the bottom and the water was warm. 

This man was growing out of the sand. 

You sweat on the way down. I hate to imagine the number of coronaries that happen here. 

It was nice to come back into Canada. It was not so nice to fill the tank. The drive along the north side of Huron was amazing. We blasted through Sault St. Marie as there is really nothing to see in 'The Soo'. That was taught to me via my good friend Mike that only tourists call the it Soo Saint Marie. The drive was super pretty. As night fell where to sleep came into play though . We ended up pulling off onto some side road that showed a lake. It ended up that the lake was all private owned. A nice lady though let us sleep in her driveway. We have however discovered the extremely unpleasant mosquitoes.

Manitoulin Island

We crossed onto Manitoulin Island the morning of the 28 under pleasant skies. Manitoulin has got to be one of the prettiest islands I have ever visited. Those who know me know that I am usually pretty tough to please. This place is great. Go here if you ever have the chance. 

The view from the port where you catch to ferry to Bruce penninsula. 

 We scored a fresh whole lake trout on the island by some folks who decided the four salmon he caught was sufficient so he gave us his lake trout.

The next day we took the ferry to Tobermey and the Bruce Penninsula. Still stunning topography. We are confused about something with this area of the continent though. Does the Mid-West have a problem with fudge dependancy? Every town we have landed in has no less than at least one fudge house. Not candy... fudge. Its always fudge. Its weird.

Once we arrived back into the Bruce we decided to check out some of the trails on the mtbthebruce.com website. lol.. the trails were nothing to write home about. but the signage is awesome.

Note that the trails are essentially that one lone line. Although there are checkpoints. 

Today we tried riding again in a different area outside the town of Walkerton. You might remember Walkerton because of this. They rallied. The town is really nice.
Final stop for the next couple days is none other than Mike's parent's cottage on Wasaga Beach. Its so nice to get a couple days to recharge the batteries for the next whirlwind up and across Toronto, Montreal and Quebec city.

chicago

I arrived into Chicago on the 22 of July to try and get a feel for the place before meeting Weezie the next day. This was a good idea. After getting thoroughly lost in the downtown core, (like Vancouver everything is one way streets), I was finally able to find our hotel and get an idea of how the city is laid out. Maya was going berserk so we headed out to the beach. The beaches along the lake are really pretty but too many rules. The city is not designed for driving... or parking! Parking rates are ridiculous. Like 6.00 for 30 mins ridiculous.

After getting lost and confused in the downtown area, it was time to find somewhere to sleep that night so we headed out of town to what I would consider suburbs. I ended up at some park a ways out of town. I looked around and thought.. ok this place looks a bit rough but there are people around. How bad can it be. Within an hour there were no less than 6 cops and a ton of shouting and arguing going on down at one end of the park. I thought, ok, the cops are going to take care of this. No arrests. Very angry young men however. The cops leave. I meet a guy walking his dog and ask him, "is this neighborhood ok to stay in?" "NO! You do NOT want to be here after dark. Go to Bucktown. Lots of cops down there." I replied my thanks and went back to my book for a bit. No more than 20 mins later I am witness to a full on fight with a bunch of guys and your token screaming girls, (gotta have a screaming girl). I tossed the dog and my crap in the van and got out of there.

Bucktown is a funky area of Chicago. Very lively and vivacious. Tons of things going on the sidewalk. Tons of little eateries with 3 or 4 sidewalk tables. So Bucktown was cool. The temps in Chicago were breaking 100 again though so sleep was tough.

Day 1 - Chicago

The next morning was a chore day. Since the boss was arriving, I needed to hang one of those little green  trees on the rearview mirror and clean up a bit. Oh yeah... I still don't have a rearview mirror. This is actually proving to be a bit of a pain backing up the 20 foot van. I need to do that.

Maya and I managed to pull it together and make it to the hotel around 12:30 that day. Once again so hot so might as well do some work while waiting for the room. Where was my luggage... oh yeah, I don't have luggage. I have a milk crate. Picture a guy walking down the street with his dog and a milk crate with clothes, a bag of dog food, books etc. Funny thing, at first they didn't open the door for me at the hotel. The shelter is down the road sir. Checking in was a bit uncomfortable.. "We don't have your room ready but we would be happy to watch.. your crate." "Nope that's ok, we can hang out in the bar." "Oh... great." They got my room ready really fast.
Lisa finally got into town around 7 that night and we hit the town for a bit of a walk and some food. Went with traditional deep dish at Giordano's. Deep dish pizza is essentially pizza made inside out and thick. It was good but I could not eat it very often.

Day 2

Day 2 started with us going out to Andersonville and doing some knick knack shopping. It was a bit of a ways out on the 'L' train but fun. A kitschy little unique place. Arriving back at the hotel to walk the dog, we chilled for a bit and then headed out. We went to the beach with Maya and took one of the architectural river boat tours. They really are a great way to see the city from a different vantage point. Arriving back into port we took off for Millennium park to see 'The Bean'. For those not aware, Cloud Gate, as it is formally known is a giant polished bean that is a real focal point for locals and visitors.

The way it reflects the sky is super cool. 

It was great that I was able to cross that off the list as I really wanted to see it. One of the guys who helped Anish build Cloud Gate, also built this. Back to the hotel for a quick change and then back on the L for supper in Bucktown as I knew Lisa would like it. They have public entertainment areas in the subway systems. 
We came across they guys. For some reason Bieber is famous, and these guys play in subways. WTF. Sorry about the sideways thing... I really need to remember that my phone only records video in panorama. Yeah I am sure the iphone does it both ways. whatever. Use your imagination. 

 This is very fun neighborhood. I could never live there but it was fun to visit. People like to eat in Chicago. 

Day 3

Day 3 was spent visiting one of Lisa's favorite architects work, Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park. The temps were breaking 42 Celsius so moving was pretty slow.

The evening passed fairly uneventfully with a nice dinner.
We are out of here today so really hoping my parking that I pre-purchased works out and that our bikes are still in the hotel where we left them.

Bayview represents.

So while I was hanging out in the park working a few days back, I met this guy named John. He was one of the people asking about the van. He was a pretty fun guy. I was lamenting to him my hardship of finding dog fun things in the city and things to do other than eat. He let me know that I was in luck as Fido Fest was on the next day at the park on the lake. Fido fest was really fun. Tons of vendors and every person there had at least one dog. Fido fest is a fundraiser to shoot the people that abuse dogs. At least it should be. There is a pretty sad problem in Wisconsin with illegal dog fighting. It really broke my heart with the number of tents set up to try and get the word out about the problem.

Fido Fest! 

This guy actually had five beagles. All rescues. 

Moving on from Fido fest we checked out the 'Brady Street Experience'. Just like every other town, it is a street filled with hippy crap at yuppy prices. Wrapped that one up fairly quickly.
I actually ran into John at the dog festival again and he let me know that there was a bike race in town later that afternoon so I headed out of the hippy area to go check that out.
The racing was pretty lackluster however as the majority of racers had blacklisted the event due to the organizer not paying out as promised over the years. Funny thing though I ran into John and his family again at the race!

John is trying out for the cutters next year.

At this point John let me know that it was pretty much a rule in Wisconsin that we needed to break bread and drink a bunch of booze together. So we did. His family invited me back to stay at their place and sleep in their camper. IT WAS AWESOME.
It was a great night of chinese food, beer and laughs. Both John and Stephanie are born and raised Wisconsinites so listening to their stories was pretty fun. Their entire lineage/family tree lives within a 2 miles radius it seemed.
After waking up this morning and attempting to put some life back into myself after drinking way too much, John pulled out his photo album showing the surfing he does on Lake Michigan. I have to say I was skeptical at first but they actually do surf on waves at times over 6 feet. It looked pretty damn cold though. 

The Petersen's. 

Home of the mega slice.

I arrived in Chicago to meet the sugar momma!  Chicago is a big big city. Its pretty overwhelming. That is all I have to report at this moment however.  

Sclemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated.

RAIN!!!

I forgot my banana on the dash for an hour in Omaha. This is what cooked banana looks like in the skin.

Finally got rain. Maya and I decided after Davenport to start heading North for a bit. We stopped for carry out fried chicken in Oregon, Illinois and proceeded to head North. Not 40 minutes after that the radio started reporting "if you are hearing this announcement be aware of severe thunderstorms." Within the next hour the sky went completely black and the wind just started whipping. And then it rained. The rain was awesome. The lightning storm must have gone on for at least 4 or 5 hours. Nothing like we ever experience in Vancouver. You could feel the electricity in the air from all that dry heat. 

We awoke the next morning to a nice cool earth.  We enjoyed the leftover chicken by reheating it on the engine manifold. 

Onto the breweries

Its Miller time. 

Thanking our good luck we continued our travels North to Milwaukee! Upon landing in Milwaukee that day we immediately hit the Miller brewery for the tour. Now I am not a huge fan of Miller although the clear bottle is pretty awesome, but Miller town is impressive just due to its size. 72 acres of beer storage that gets moved daily for the East and Mid-West. 72 acres. 5 football fields of 18 foot tall storage. It was impressive. 

After the tour, I hit FestaItalliana. Unfortunately by this time it was actually pouring rain. It was mediocre. So we went looking for somewhere to sleep. I can recommend that you not try and sleep in the town of Grafton, Wisconsin. I got rustled out not one but actually twice in one night. Apparently they have something against people sleeping in vans. Well... lets be honest, something against people who don't 'belong'. I asked the cop "Am I breaking any laws by sleeping in my vehicle?" "No, we just had a report of a suspicious vehicle." "Well its no longer suspicious is it?" "Move along sir. " 

Today I spent working on the behalf of 'the man' doing my work in a county park back in Milwaukee. It seems VW vans are not a common item in Milwaukee. I had people asking me if I was selling fruit, ice cream and what exactly is it with the roof up. Funny.

By the time the afternoon hit the belly was grumbling so I hit the Lakefront Brewery for the tour and fish fry. The tour was pretty fun. I mean once you do one brewery tour, the only difference is the beer and delivery. Both of these were excellent. Refills midway! 

So apparently the two things that Milwaukee and the whole of Wisconsin are famous for are the Friday fish fry and beer. So I got my fill. Everyone I met told me I need to do the fish fry. Now I know what you are thinking... Fish Fry, that sounds so romantic and mysterious. Never had a fish fry. Oh they are amazing. Yeah well it turns out a fish fry is yup you guessed it... fish and chips. Or fish and potato pancakes (deep fried). So all this build up.. for fish and chips. FUN FACT - they have it with applesauce! 

Wisconsin is a strange state. The disparity between races is obvious. I have feeling that when the cop asked me to move along he was expecting someone a different person to open the van door. You can really see the differences in pockets around the town. I don't know if I like the city or not at this point. There are some really nice areas of town that are super funky and full of life. But then to get to them you have to drive through areas you don't want to stop for a red light. Its different. 

Rush... through the midwest.

Mt. Rushmore. Done.
The incredibly tacky town of Keystone at the entrance to Rushmore. Done. 


















We didn't stay very long in Rapid City or Spearfish, South Dakota. Both places were OK to visit but really not very interesting. The trails were really boring. Maybe I was just in a funk but compared to Wyoming and Idaho, they really had nothing to offer. I did get the chance to stop in Sturgis, which was between Spearfish and Rapid City. This is a town that runs the annual biker rally (not responsible for any images on that guy's site). That place is a ghost town the other 50 weeks out of the year. Seriously. Every other store along main street was closed. I asked a local what was going on and it turns out the stores are owned by out of town folk who just open during the festival and then shut down for the rest of the year. This is what runs the town .

We left West South Dakota to break out for the Badlands which were only about 2 hours away. This place is freaky.

The drive in from the South. Creepy... you don't see anything for miles. 

Suddenly you come around a bend and boom there they are.

The badlands feel like just super crumbly mud. That is what they looked like up close

A rest area in the park. The covered picnic tabes were actually nice. 

The area is enormous when you go to certain lookouts. 

 It seems once you make a National Park, there is a requirement to have some cheesy town attached to it to suck as much cash as possible out of you that you weren't able to spend in the park. Voila the town Wall.  This was so cheesy it was impressive. For miles and miles you are attacked by billboards claiming you haven't been to the Badlands until you go to Wall Drug. The entire town is built around this place. Parking was crazy. I have to say Wall was impressive in the degree they went in attention to detail. We didn't stay.

After Wall and these towns the last couple days have been a blur moving through South Dakota and Iowa. It was ridiculously hot. The van was getting hammered with wind so we pulled over for a bit. Opening the car door was like stepping into a blast furnace. It was just hot dry air blowing at 50 km/h. I soaked the dog and she was dry in ten minutes. We slept that night in Kennebec. I don't recommend it.

The next destination was Yankton SD. It was taking forever to get through this state. Nothing to report other than they seem to have a hate on for people who take their dogs into laundromats. Its not like I am preparing supper for seven. Fuck its still hot. Hot like 39 Celsius hot. Too hot to walk. Too hot to sleep. Too damn hot.
Decision is made to get out of this inferno. Might as well drive since it is just too hot to do anything else.

I finally broke down and paid for a haircut today. It killed me. The 'Scalpin Post' however did have some character.  Bit of a western theme.

Welcome to Omaha, Nebraska.

Nice covered walkways.

Since the decision is made to keep moving, onward to Omaha, Nebraska. Finally out of South Dakota. Omaha is nice but the depression and heat made it pretty tough to appreciate. No one is on the streets, even though the tourist district is covered. Once again we didn't stay. Why hang out somewhere that you really can't do much.

Corn!

Onward out of Nebraska and into Iowa.

Hay!

And that is Iowa.
We are in Davenport today to hang out. Nice town. It is on the Mississippi River. The river boats are huge. I had no idea they were as big as they are.

Hello Wyoming/South Dakota

July 13
Wow.. its almost been an entire week since I posted. It must be the heat. "How hot is it Mac?" I am glad you asked... it is so hot that so far, the rearview mirror melted off the windshield, the fire extinguisher screws melted out of the plastic and the sun shades melted off the glass. So yeah... its hot.
In my last post I talked about the antler arches. It turns out that people collect the antlers in the hills around town. I thought as part of their community spirit days they shot them. Turns out that wasn't the case. The lady who explained it to me understood my confusion. She also did attest to owning a gun.

Chase Game trail. On top of the mountain. Such a pretty experience.

The van is actually in the center of the image on the brown road. The white dot. 

Now with .... Cable? I think they just store the As there.

So what have I been doing the last few days, other than melting. Well I must say that both the scenery and scene in this little neck of the woods is very cool. After doing the chase/game creek trail, we were told to go ride in the big holes. Yeah I had no idea what they meant either. The Idaho mountains. Why do they call them holes? The holes are a reference to the valleys between the hills. Hence, Jackson Hole.
So I headed over the Teton Pass to Victor Idaho. Victor Idaho has a population of about 1000 BUT it has two breweries. I got very drunk with some mtn bikers upon arrival there.

The Red Creek tail. Jay had never ridden it either. It was super lush in the 'hole'.

Just another awesome mountain range to look at while driving

The next day, after having my beans weighed, cup heated, and water brought the correct boiling point at Fitzgeralds, I went riding with one of the guys I met yesterday in Red Creek. Super fun trail with about 8 creek crossings. Perfect for a hot day. After that I parked my ass in a library for the rest of the day and did work. It was too hot to do anything else. End of the day though was trail day so I pitched in. It got me a free BBQ. That evening I was introduced to the main trail builder in the area, Wendell, who amazingly enough not only builds trails, he still rides them. He volunteered to take me on one of the 'pass' trails.
The next morning was nice and bright again as usual. Pass trails are up on Teton Pass around 8000 feet to start and uphill from there. I was sucking wind. The bonus was that once the first 5 miles or so of climbing were taken care of it was nothing but descending for about 1.5 hours back down to the valley floor. Absolutely awesome.
So where next. Someone mentioned that Lander Wyoming was an interesting spot to visit. Four or five hours later I arrived in Lander to a Native ceremonial dance. This is deep in native country.

The fancy feather dance. That was the actual name. It was fancy

 The drive to Lander was pretty neat just due to the topography. Tons of red rock striations and outcroppings. Upon arrival I found out that it was also the International Climbers Festival so that brought out some interesting characters at the campsite.

The topography was rapidly changing on the way to Lander. 

The next morning was a total write off. I got given bad information on where to go and by the time I had figured it out, it was 10 in the morning and getting smoking hot. After getting the right information, Maya and I made our way out to arrive around 11:30. For the first time ever, Maya stood her ground at the van in the shade. I finally was able to convince here to join me since the trail was only about 8kms total. Poor girl ran from cactus to cactus for shade. Lander was fun but not worth the 400 kms.

Johny Behind the Rocks trail...that is the actual name. BOO!

After riding, not wanting to wast another day in Lander, we headed straight out towards Rapid City South Dakata. I know that sound close but actually it isn't. We made it as far as Douglas Wyoming last night after doing some work in Casper. This was a painful drive. Very boring. 

Maya and I got up early this morning to visit Wind Cave and Mt Rushmore. We saw more buffalo in Wind Cave national park than we did in the entire Yellowstone. The drive to Rushmore from Hot Springs Idaho is horrible. I can't say I have ever been on a more arduous drive. Just never ending curves.
Rushmore is not worth the pain. Luckily Rapid City is only about 30 mins from Rushmore so getting into town was fairly painless.
Going to spend a few days around Rapid City checking it out. It looks promising so far.

Goodbye Montana

July 7

I got in a couple of fun rides early this morning. Both of them were very pretty. The photo below was on one called South Cottonwood trail. At then end you arrive in a very serene meadow filled with alpine flowers. Don't forget you start most rides at about 5500 feet. By the end of the rides I was fairly trashed due to heat and elevation. I can't seem to drink enough water. 

South Cottonwood traill. 

To remedy my water issue... I made bacon. A lot of bacon.  It was delicious. I am still eating it today. 

I departed Bozeman to make my way to Jackson Wyoming around 8pm. I have to say this state get purtier n purtier as I travel through it. Not wanting to miss out on the scenery I slept in Big Sky, Montana.

awesome red sunset on the way to Yellowstone.

July 8 

Today I woke up and was on the road by 7. Still stunning scenery. My phone photos just don't do justice but here are a couple. 

One of the highlights of Yellowstone was that I actually saw up close (50 feet) a full grown bull Bison. The thing was enormous. I have a feeling this sighting was actually pretty rare because people were stopping traffic later for a view of a moose about 1km away in a lake.

 I took a bunch of photos of the geysers in Yellowstone but really my pics are not fantastic. If you ever get the chance to visit this place you should. It really is a beautiful park. 

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Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Pulling into Jackson Hole is like pulling into a movie set. Craziest thing I  saw right away is that they have antler displays. I don't really know how else to explain an antler display  other than to say 'take 500 dead elks horns and wire them all up to make it look like an arch'. The weirder thing... there are about 5 of them from the number I have counted so far in town. 

The ski hill ends at the street.