trees of the day

honorary trees of today and every day:

Hemlock, the most outgoing of the three-- not sure if being the bravest means the smartest or dumbest, but he's super cute and super friendly.

Tulip Poplar, or Tulip for short. This sweet girl loves to cuddle and play, and is also a RUTHLESS STINKBUG KILLER.

Red Oak, or just simply Red. She's the littlest one and is kind of shy and awkward, but loves to chase her tail and curl up under the blankets with me.

If I say it's ridiculous...

...you know it's pretty ridiculous. So: It was ridiculous.

Day 10: Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Morgantown. 320 miles.

Woke up in the Toledo area. Headed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

I enjoy the Rock Hall. I think it meant more to me than my travel companions because I knew more of the inductees, being mostly American singers and bands. There was an exhibit on the women of rock, which I kind of enjoyed from a weird, confident woman kind of perspective. It was cool to see all of their dresses and stage outfits and realize that many of them ate food on a regular basis. Another amusing observation for the day: Ringo Starr is the only Beatle not inducted into the Rock Hall for his solo work. I'm not saying I'm surprised, I'm just saying that I noticed it.

From Cleveland to Pittsburgh. We were chasing a really awful storm front the entire day. It had hit us in Toledo the night before and left things a chilly 44 degrees when we left in the morning. We caught up to the clouds in Cleveland, and again on the way to Pittsburgh, but fortunately caught a break and had some cool sunshine to walk around a little bit with another mutual camp friend, Kate (or Lifeguard Kate as she was often called this summer, even though she was the only Kate on staff).

Pittsburgh observations:
1. Parking is a nightmare. Oh my goodness.
2. Not as hilly as I remember, though perhaps it was in a part of town that I refused to venture because I didn't want to have to park again.
3. Definitely remember it having so many bridges though. Lovely views.

We walked over to the Cathedral of Learning and the Heinz Chapel, both of which were very beautiful. At the Cathedral, we checked out a few of the international rooms-- rooms that were designed and decorated by different nationalities when the funding for the building ran out. The Heinz Chapel was very beautiful, with stained glass so detailed it kind of blew my mind. We got pizza from a place on Kate's street and ate it on her roof, a very peaceful picnic. It was great to see our sweet friend again!

From Pittsburgh to Morgantown. This was my bright idea mostly because I wanted to see my friend from undergrad, Jessica, but also because I was hoping we'd be more ahead of schedule and actually get to see some things. Not the case. We drove in after dark, partied with Jessica and her cool boyfriend Josh till the wee morning hours, crashed for a little while, then got up and drove out of West Virginia again before sunrise.

Morgantown to Johnsonburg: ~360 miles. It was ridiculous.

Well, dawn was breaking as we headed into Western Maryland, which I learned is quite a lovely place! The drive was really beautiful, but I had to hand over the keys and take a nap for a while. We missed an exit in that time, so whatever, we looked at the atlas and chose a different route to head home. We ended up driving through Harrisburg and then the Lancaster area before making a beeline for Johnsonburg, as Jakub had a flight that evening from JFK. In fact, we hit some traffic and took a slower route than we should have, so we didn't leave a very big window for Jakub to make it to the city and up to the airport.

And so we all piled back into Arlo the Van for one last journey, in which we basically circumnavigated New York City because I thought driving for 2 hours was better than sitting in 2 hours of traffic going back the normal way across the George Washington Bridge. While the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and Jamaica Bay are lovely and scenic, I do not recommend doing this, as we got to pay the $8 toll over the GW into the city and the $13 toll out of the city via the Verrazano. Didn't really think about it, just didn't want to sit in the intense outbound traffic we saw as we crossed the George Washington earlier.

We arrived back to camp safe, alive and well, but missing Jakub. Michael left with his girlfriend that night; Timi the next morning, Jozsef that Sunday and Maciej on Monday. The last of our staff is gone and summer is really over.

Doesn't mean I'm not brainstorming my next adventure...

Me in OH (or MI, IN, OH)

Day 9 was certainly full of random stops and interesting sites. The final destination of the trip was originally Niagara Falls, which I talked my international friends out of because their visas would not allow them to visit the Canadian side and I just didn't think the US side was worth it alone. Plan B for that end of the trip was, "We trust Colleen!" Too bad I didn't have much time to plan, since I only knew I was going on this trip a week before we left, and we didn't have power or internet pretty much till then...

So, with Michael back with the group, we departed the Chicago area in the morning and made the following stops:

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. This park used to be a steel mill's acid pit. It was actually a lovely little beach on Lake Michigan with a steel mill in the background. It was pretty cool and windy but nice to be by the water (at least, everyone but Timi thought so). I was amazing at how big Lake Michigan was. I mean, I get the concept of a Great Lake, but still, it's been a while since I was near one. The water was much bluer and prettier than I'd recalled. I think we missed the bigger park of the national park nearby, but it was a nice stop.

Warren Dunes State Park in Michigan. For comparison's sake, and for the sake of adding another state to our list, I thought it would be interesting to stop at another dunes-related park on Lake Michigan. This was about 45 minutes north of our first park, but definitely different. This is probably more because of the lack of acid pit than the slight change in latitude. Lots of lovely trees and HUGE dunes that Jozef, Jakub, Michael and I decided to hike up while Maciej and Timi stayed warm in the van.

Hiking uphill on sand is hard.

This park was very beautiful though and is probably a very nice place to go in the summer. I have a feeling that I'd prefer it empty like it was on this very windy, kinda rainy day. The view from the top of the dunes was pretty cool, amidst a bit of brush and some long dead trees. Again, we were amazed with how immense the lake is. Running back down the dunes was kind of fun, too. I'd take a giant jump-step, enjoying gravity's favor and not feeling like my lungs were exploding, and just kind of sink into the sand a little before launching myself again. Very weirdly low impact.

To get back to the main route for the day, we drove through a really rural, agricultural area in Michigan called Chikaming, which was a really pleasant drive. I don't get sick of cornfields very easily.

Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. We stopped here because Michael was curious and because Maciej is Catholic. We wandered around campus a little bit, but it was cold and rainy so we were quickly getting sick of wandering places. We stopped by the Basilica which was a space that was extremely beautiful, but struck some of us as a bit over the top as far as a worship space is concerned. Gold leaf everywhere. Remarkable works of art. Relics?! It was certainly impressive, but kind of bordering on intimidating for me personally.

After the last walk in the chilly rain, we decided just to forge ahead to our destination for the night, a hotel just outside Toledo, Ohio, where we decided to eat at a Waffle House for the third and final time on the trip. The guys were happy watching Sons of Guns on TV and I was happy working on plans for the next day and getting a reasonable night of sleep before the final haul of marathon driving.

Windy City

Day 8: Chicago!

Michael decided to take advantage of his relative proximity to a friend from home who was currently attending University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and caught a train up there. None of the rest of us had expressed any particular sites they wanted to see in Chicago, so I basically mapped out the city based on my favorite movies and TV show: Blues Brothers, Ferris Buehler and ER. It turns out this is a really good way to walk all over the place and see some pretty buildings without trying really hard. Jozef is also a fan of The Blues Brothers, so he was very amused by my ideas, and no one else seemed to mind.

Since we were staying in the suburbs, we took the Metra train in from Joliet to LaSalle Street. From that station, we walked down Van Buren looking for Elwood's apartment, which I was pretty disappointed not to find. From there we walked up State Street for quite a while, veering off to walk through the Honorable Richard J. Daly Plaza, which was definitely an important scene in Blues Brothers. They have a Picasso there! We continued up State Street until we found a visitors center on Pearson by the old Water Works building (quite pretty). This was probably the farthest away visitors center in the city, but one negative thing I have to say about Chicago is that finding a visitors center online was way more difficult than it should have been. Oh well. We saw a lot on our walk, and we got a map. From there:

Michigan Street Bridge, where Drs. Greene and Ross apparently had a late night chat in an early episode of ER. Didn't look familiar to me, but had a lot of lovely bridges and buildings around it and seemed as good a route as any to walk back down.

River Walk Park, not from any movie or TV show in particular but seemed like a good idea. It was a pleasant walk by the river and down to the harbor.

Lower Wacker Drive, which Jake and Elwood Blues sped down in a quickly dying old police car to get the tax money to the aforementioned Honorable Richard J. Daley Plaza. It was actually closed for construction, and not because hundreds of police cars had piled up.

Jozef wanted to see the Opera House, but it was also under construction so we couldn't go in.

We wandered down to the Sears Tower, which is apparently no longer called that, which I didn't know until we got to Chicago. It's now the Willis Tower, but I didn't really care enough to call it that. It's tall. I realized in looking at it that I probably have no concept of buildings that are over 50 stories, or maybe less. Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, the World Trade Center as it once was, other tall things... no clue. This didn't strike me as any taller than those buildings that I grew up looking at. But I saw it, and it was tall.

We spent some time in Millennium Park checking out the Cloud Gate, which was way cool.

Across the street was the Art Institute, which was pretty expensive to go in, but free to take pictures of the steps that Ferris, Cameron and Sloane ran up whilst cutting class.

We rested our feet for a little while at the edge of Grant Park before going to get a drink at a pub called Miller's. I had two pale ales (for comparison!) that were brewed in Chicago, one by Green Line and one by Half Acre called Daisy Cutter. I think I preferred the latter.

So much walking. Lots of great sites, but tired feet. Definitely fell asleep on the train ride back to Joliet and still slept like a champion that night.

getting our kicks

Monday 12 September. Day Seven.

We woke up slowly and took our time getting on the road, although the road du jour was a special one: Historic Route 66 (now mostly Interstate 55). A few of us had different ideas of what was important to stop and see in Illinois--

First, Springfield. Jakub really wanted a picture of a Springfield sign (Simpsons reference) but also to see Lincoln's tomb. We stopped in the state capital to pay our respects to Mr. Lincoln and his family.

Next, Pontiac. The guys were excited about the Route 66 Museum and this big mural of the Route 66 sign. We spent some time looking at old cars and Route 66 paraphernalia before...

Joliet! This was clearly my idea, although Jozef is a fellow fan of The Blues Brothers so was also pretty excited. We actually drove right through town--and right past the prison-- on our way to where we'd be staying outside of Chicago for two nights, with the aunt of a friend of Maciej's. After meeting her and her husband, we wandered around Joliet for a while, getting lots of pictures of the jail and figuring out the best way to get to Chicago the following day.

what we saw after Tennessee

After our awesome night out in Memphis, we had a pretty awful time trying to find our hotel in West Memphis, Arkansas. It had recently changed names but not really signage and was off a very confusing interchange... oh, Arkansas. My older brother had told me that would be the crappiest part of my drive, as he had recently driven through it and not enjoyed it, but I held out hope.

Before continuing on through Arkansas the next day, though, a few of us made a short return to Memphis to attend various churches. I dropped Maciej off at mass and Jakub and I went to a Presbyterian church a little further outside of downtown. Then, I had the great fortune to cross paths with my friend Dan-- we were campers together for five summers in a row, but now we only hang out once every few years when he's floated back north of the Mason-Dixon line. He went to college in Memphis and is still in the area, which I figured out after our adventures on Beale Street. We met up for breakfast at a historic restaurant called The Arcade, which had some awesome sweet potato pancakes. Good to catch up with Dan.

On our way. We checked out of the hotel and continued up the eastern side of Arkansas. I already summer up that drive, which brought us to St. Louis. I didn't expect the city to suck, but I certainly didn't expect it to be as pretty or cool as it was. We obviously started at the Arch (Jefferson Gateway Expansion National Park), where the Air Force Mid-America band was performing. We tried to go through the museum of expansion, but it had a really confusing layout so we kind of gave up.

We did a big loop around the city in hopes of finding a few particular landmarks after trying Imo's pizza, a local staple. I wasn't crazy about the cheese (it's some weird St. Louis cheese) but the thin crust was pretty good. So, wandering. The city hall was a really beautiful building. We walked past Union Station. We sought out the City Museum, which looked AWESOME but was closed. I guess I'll have to go back sometime, which wouldn't be terrible-- my good friend Emily is from the area, in fact, we stayed with her father that night (she lives in DC now). It was kind of funny to sleep in her bed, but definitely some good rest before our sojourn across Illinois...

beer of the day: Morgan Street Brewery's Red Lager

Music City and another rather musical city

I guess I left off here, at which point we were heading back into Nashville to enjoy the evening music scene. Did we enjoy it? Oh yes we did!

Most of the music is located on Broadway. We had checked out some country music in the afternoon at a bar called The Stage. I'm not a huge fan of pop country but it was fun to be in the presence of live music and enjoy a decent beer (Yazoo Pale Ale) with my friends. We checked into the hotel to rest a while before heading back out for the evening, which was where I left off.

The biggest challenge was finding a place that would let us all in, as we did have one roadtrip team member who was under 21 (but of legal drinking age in his home country!). He knew better than to ignore that law, but the doormen still needed to follow it. We found a ribs place that didn't really seem to care who wandered in and enjoyed a pair of guitars while a few of us tried Yazoo Dos Perros Ale, a malty local brew.

After a while of cowboy music, we wandered around town in search of something different. As we walked past the BB King Blues Club, we slowed down to hear what was playing inside when the guy at the door said all ages. They even knocked the cover charge in half for us. We were sold. The music was phenomenal! I realize that there is more than one BB King Blues Club and that it's kinda touristy, but I didn't care. The music was so good. The house band, the BB King All Stars, were playing some mighty blues with a little bit of funk mixed in. We had an absolute blast, staying out quite a bit later than planned but not regretting it at all.

The next day we traveled to Memphis. Heading eastbound, there was an overturned tractor trailer, and the interstate was shut down in two entirely different places besides that. We certainly had some traveling mercies. We had lunch at a Waffle House in Horn Lake, Mississippi, mostly for the sake of crossing the border into MS, but also because we are all huge fans of Waffle House (this was our second one). Then, on to our afternoon plans-- I left Jozef, Timi and Michael at Graceland while Jakub, Maciej and I explored a few music shops and other places on our own. We went to a drum shop that Maciej, a percussionist, had been talking about nonstop, and quickly understood why. Never have I seen such a collection of percussion. There was a cymbal vault. There was also a collection of famous sets, most notably to me was Ringo Starr's from the Ed Sullivan show.

We later wandered around Sun Records and the Victorian district until our friends were done touring Elvis's estate. Together we parked at a visitors center on the Mississippi River closer to the downtown area and wandered around for a while, deciding where to spend our evening. The answer became clear: Beale Street. Late in the afternoon, police were already blocking off the avenue and awesome blues were coming out of every shop, restaurant and bar. We listened for a while before wandering down Main Street and eventually having a peanut butter and jelly picnic in Confederate Park, overlooking the sunset on the Mississippi.

Then we returned to Beale Street. Holy blues. So so good. I tried Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan beer (brewed in Memphis), which I expected to taste like pie but it was actually quite plain. Who cares. The music was anything but, and we could sit on a curb outside of a club and listen for free. We spent some time in this little plaza with a statue of W.C. Handy enjoying a great blues band there. I really enjoyed the tons of amazing live music.

Like I said, not so crazy about whiny cowboy music, so I think I liked Memphis more because I LOVE the blues. However, I really enjoyed both cities just for the fact that music was omnipresent. You could walk twenty feet and hear something totally different. So good.

a brief summary

Ok, I didn't do a good job of updating this during my trip. But, 3225 miles, a decent night of sleep and another huuuuge nap later, here I am, after a really awesome roadtrip with a group of wonderful people.

With Michael from England, Maciej from Poland, Jakub from Czech Republic, Jozef from Slovakia (but he's Hungarian!) and Timi from Hungary, we accomplished NJ, PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, TN, MS, AR, MO, IL, IN, MI, OH and WV as follows--

Tuesday 6 September: Washington, DC
Wednesday 7 September: Washington, DC, Skyline Drive, JMU in Harrisonburg
Thursday 8 September: Blue Ridge Parkway, Roanoke College, Knoxville
Friday 9 September: Nashville
Saturday 10 September: Memphis
Sunday 11 September: St. Louis
Monday 12 September: Illinois (Springfield, Pontiac, Joliet)
Tuesday 13 September: Chicago
Wednesday 14 September: state parks in Indiana and Michigan, spent the night in Toledo
Thursday 15 September: Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Morgantown
Friday 16 September: drove home via western MD, Lancaster County and JFK International Airport

A series of real updates will come soon. It was an awesome adventure.

quick update

Tennessee: conquered lengthwise, thanks to some awesome music and a special appearance by a friend I haven't seen in a few years
Arkansas: flatter than I expected
Missouri: hillier than I expected
St. Louis: really pretty!

Up next: Chicago, with stops in Springfield, Pontiac and Joliet. In the meantime, gotta hit the road!

Right, so my last post was abrupt and lacking details...

After Hurricane Irene, I was at camp without power, phones and occasionally water for a week. During that time I spent a great deal of time with the international staff who hadn't yet gone home. They talked me into a roadtrip they'd been planning. My bosses gave me the time off, so here I am, now 1000 miles into a 2600 sojourn around Kentucky. Seriously, that's about the only state we're not going to pass through in the next week and a half. Maciej (Poland), Jozef (Slovakia), Jakub (Czech Republic), Michael (England), Timi (Hungary) and I are on a pretty excellent adventure.

Day one, Tuesday 6 September: Arlington, VA/Washington, DC. Due to torrential downpour and a late start, we didn't arrive to the area till mid afternoon, at which point the rain held off long enough to wander the National Mall and all of the good monuments and memorials around it. We saw the White House and the Capitol. I love DC and it was a joy to show my friends around. We stayed with my friend Becky and her sweet baby boy Arlo.

Day two, Wednesday 7 September: After a walk through Arlington National Cemetery and spending some time in a few of the Smithsonian Museums, we drove to Harrisonburg via Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. It was a pretty overcast day so we spend a lot of time driving through clouds and wondering what the views looked like. Late in the drive we broke through and enjoyed some lovely vistas and an incredible sunset. We arrived in Harrisonburg in time to have dinner with our friend, Gordo, who was hosting us for the night, and really just spent the night hanging out in his apartment with his roommates and Brendan, another camp friend.

The tree of the day would have been this incredible Post Oak found near the Eternal Flame in Arlington Cemetery, but it was taken out by Hurricane Irene. Thankfully Becky and I visited it earlier in the summer.

Day three, Thursday 8 September: Long drive from Harrisonburg to Knoxville, Tennessee, via the Blue Ridge Parkway and Roanoke. We were hesitant to take the Blue Ridge Parkway because it was once again overcast, but we took the chance and were thrilled by the views. It was a very peaceful, winding drive. We stopped in Salem, VA at Roanoke College and had a lovely peanut butter and jelly picnic lunch with our friend Sarah Gillette. Beautiful little campus and a very pleasant stop before several more hours of driving.

Tree of the day: the American Basswood we ate lunch under.

We arrived in Knoxville and promptly enjoyed some Waffle House for dinner. It was really awesome trying to explain a southern drawl to my friends and then having some really great examples for them to hear. It was a really great dinner, and our waitress had some ideas as to what to do in downtown Knoxville. We ended up walking all over down, finding it to be pretty empty but nice. It was a beautiful evening.

Day four, Friday 9 September (in progress): This morning we drove to Nashville and walked all over the place. We started at a Visitors Center and walked up 5th Avenue past some beautiful churches and historic buildings. We spent some time in the Tennessee State Museum, which was mostly interesting to me because the Civil War was explained with a slightly different perspective than I was raised learning in the northeast. We walked up to the Capitol Building and then adventured along Broadway, which is dotted with music shops and restaurants and pubs with music being played. The music changed every 20 feet. We came to our hotel to rest for a while and are now heading back out to enjoy the music scene here in Music City...

I'm just over 800 miles into this:


View Larger Map

It's a pretty excellent adventure with some friends from Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and England. Checking out of Knoxville now and heading to Nashville... don't worry, I'll write more soon!