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.