Day 12 September 7: Stow, OH to Wilkes-Barre, PA.

 

I talked Michele into skipping the gym this morning so we could get an earlier start. After breakfast we made it to Cuyahoga National Park and got in an early hike to Brandywine Falls. What amazed us most is that this National Park is right between Cleveland and Akron, you can hear the interstate highways, but yet you are in the middle of all this natural beauty. Credit to those that had the foresight to set aside this land. The walk to the falls was impressive in the wood decking they installed to get you to the falls. I can’t imagine the amount of work to build and keep this path well maintained. After the falls we found another area with a hike called the Ledges trail, which looped us around to an impressive overlook.

After our hikes, we rented bikes. Michele has a big bike ride next week, and she needed some saddle time. We followed the trial which was the towpath trail from the Ohio & Erie canal that ran alongside the Cuyahoga River. The trail was nicely maintained and flat as it ran alongside the now overgrown canal, but with the locks still visible.

We had a 5-hour drive to our last nightly stop – the weather was bad with thunderstorms and downpours for the last ½ of the drive. We followed behind trucks to get us through the blinding rain and got stuck in traffic behind an accident, but it could have been worse.

 

We have nothing planned for tomorrow except for getting home – so that’s the last of the blog. Thanks for coming along on our National Park tour. I’ll end with a Jimmy Buffett quote from Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes. “Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure makes me want to go back again.”

 Day 11 September 6: Evanston, IL to Stow, OH

 

This morning we walked around Evanston in the rain. Goal was to see Northwestern and we were able to walk through the Quad, see a lot of the class room buildings and get to Lake Michigan for a view of downtown Chicago in the fog. After breakfast we took Lake Shore drive, which is one of the most iconic drives in the US with views of the lake and the city as we headed south. 

Our National Park of the day was Indiana Dunes National Park. I stopped here on my 48 days trip and then, as today, it’s just amazing to see a National Park in the middle of Urban Sprawl. We drove through Gary Indiana where steel plants and huge power lines dot the landscape. In this midst of all that is the National Park with beaches and sand dunes, as if you were on the ocean shore. The reason to stop here is to see beach in the middle of industrial America. I had a hard time finding out exactly where I came 3 years ago on my 48 days trip, but I was able to show Michele the beach in the middle of industrial US.

Our stop for the night is Stow, Ohio. Cuyahoga National Park will be our last National Park of the trip and it’s another surprise because we are very close to Cleveland and Akron Ohio which makes you think of factories and not natural beauty.

 Day 10 September 5 Minneapolis to Evanston, IL

 

No National Parks today, our goal was to get outside of Chicago for our push home. We left the hotel in Minneapolis and headed to a breakfast spot. Michele and I were in Minneapolis two years ago and remembered this great place for breakfast. We made “The Hen House” our first stop. This was actually our third trip to Minneapolis in two years, most recently we were here in June with Amanda to see the Red Sox play – and on our way to Alaska. We really like Minneapolis, it’s a very manageable city but with sports teams and nice people. We have not been here in the winter, so we don’t really know what it’s like at a cold time of year. The hotel we stayed at is also the only hotel on this trip that we have stayed at before, and it’s a favorite. 

With no national Parks on the agenda, we planned our stop at Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. I had stopped here on my 48-day trip and knew Michele would love it. After the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, many wealthy people moved out of Chicago while the city was being rebuilt and moved here to this lake in Southern Wisconsin. Huge homes surround the lake, but the town, in its wisdom, made sure that access around the lake in front of these mansions was to be preserved. I’m sure the owners hate it, but there is a path that the public can walk around the lake in front of these huge homes and enjoy the sights.

After Geneva we headed to Evanston, IL for the night. Evanston is home to Northwestern University and Michele wanted to see it. We used it as an excuse to spend the night and get deep dish pizza – the two of us could not even finish a small.

 

 Day 9 September 4: International Falls, MN to Minneapolis, MN.

 

Day started right with coffee at Dunkin. 1^st Dunkin in over a week. Our boat tour was scheduled for noon, so we took our Dunkin to the small town of Ranier and sat by the lake and enjoyed what looked like a beautiful day. After Rainer we headed to the Thunderbird Lodge and went for a walk while we waited for our boat tour. 30 minutes before our tour we noticed some dark clouds on the horizon. A check of the Weather Channel showed a huge storm heading our way. Sure, enough the captain showed up and said unless the weather improved it was a no go for us. We waited around for about 45 minutes and the weather just didn’t let up so we had to head out without doing the boat tour. On a positive note, talking to the captain who is recently retired and was just back from a stint training with America Corp. He said he felt he was a little old to fit in with the Ameri Corps group so I gave him the Team Rubicon pitch and my card, so who knows, maybe I recruited a new Team Rubicon Volunteer. We met a Vet in Fargo at dinner the other night, he served tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq and told Michele he was still looking for his sense or purpose. I missed the chance to give him the Team Rubicon pitch and I feel bad about that, glad I didn’t miss the chance today.

 

The drive to Minneapolis was about 5 hours and even with it being Labor Day, traffic was not bad. The hotel we are staying at tonight is the same place we stayed when we came here in June to watch the Red Sox and 2 years ago, Michele and I stayed here when she flew out for a short road trip.  This will be the only hotel on this trip that we stayed at before, but we really like it here in downtown Minneapolis, so despite the setback with the boat tour, it’s all good.

 Day 8 September 3, Fargo, ND to International Falls MN

We almost did the most Minnesotan thing today - hit a deer! We were bouncing around between 3 different visitor centers at Voyagers National Park. As we were leaving visitor center #2 on our way to #3 a deer popped out of a ditch and ran in front of the car for a little while. I let out a yell, hit the brakes and the deer darted off to the left and off the highway. I missed it by about a foot – and it was a big deer, it would have caused some damage for sure. We feel very lucky!

Our coffee today ended up being at a Starbucks inside a target store in Fargo. With our coffee, we headed North and East, an endless number of lefts and rights in a stairstep fashion as we worked our way from Fargo to International Falls. Even though the park is remote, we learned you can’t just walk up and hope to join a boat tour. With it being the Labor Day weekend, all tours are sold out, at least the ones run by the National Park Service. The advice is that you need to travel by boat if you want to see this park, so we were able to book one for tomorrow. Today, after visiting all the visitor centers, we managed to get in a 2-mile hike to a spot overlooking the lake. It is very remote up here and it’s a reminder that I am very close to where I drove last year as I did my trip across Canada. We can see Canada from downtown International Falls.

At our hotel tonight, a large motorcycle gang checked in just after us – I told Michele that I wasn’t too worried about them being rowdy, as they were all driving 3-wheel motorcycles and one of them had a walker.

 Day 7 September 2: Dickinson to Fargo, North Dakota.

Woke up to the sad news that Jimmy Buffett passed away. Since 1980, Buffett’s music has been the soundtrack to my road trips. In the summer of 1980, I was living in a trailer in Durango, Colorado. My roommates Jeff and Sam listened to Buffett almost nonstop.

For coffee this morning we took a suggestion from our waitress from last night, and headed back west to the town of Medora.  Medora is the start of the South Unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park. We had not intended to visit, but after the waitress raved about the small town, we decided to make the 30-minute drive in the wrong direction. We grabbed coffee and strolled around the town that has preserved the old west feel as a tourist attraction. While we were there, we ducked in the National Forest for a short drive to see some of the vista’s before heading back out and East. 

Our next stop was the Capital of North Dakota, Bismarck. I stopped here on my 48 days trip and really liked the city. Michele was also surprised by the greenspace and the tree lined streets. We stopped at the State Capital, which is also the tallest building in North Dakota at 20 stories high. From the Capital we drove downtown and got lunch at a little bakery before heading east to Fargo for the night. We listened to Margaritaville Radio on XM for much of the day, in tribute.

 Day 6 September, 1: Havre Montana to Dickinson, North Dakota

Today’s coffee story, we walked next door to the hotel to a little local coffee shop. The women behind the counter was busy with drive up business when we walked in. After the person left the drive through, she said she would be with us in just a minute and then spent time looking for a fly swatter to get a wasp that was buzzing around her. We decided we did not want bee carcass in our coffee, so we walked out and hit the road. About an hour east of Havre we found a cute little roadside coffee place that was bee free and got our cup for the road.

Traveling east from Havre along route 2, paralleling the Northern Route for the railroad and within 20 miles of Canada, we passed through the Blackfoot Indian reservation and later Sioux country. When we hit North Dakota, the landscape turned into oil fields. I read a book last year about the boom times that came to this area as the oil fields opened up because of fracking. The book was a cautionary tale of people moving to the oil fields for good paying jobs, but a lack of housing led to most people moving here to spend all their money on housing and drinking, and going back home with no more money saved.

We entered Theodore Roosevelt National Park – at the North Entry, called the North Unit. When I did my 48 days trip, I went through the South Unit. The units are not connected by road, so this was a whole different park for me. We found the North Unit to be a really nice park, with views of the little Missouri river and the badlands of North Dakota. We went on a 1.5-mile hike which was nice, but hot, as it was 90 degrees even at 4:00pm. We were also surprised to see large herds of buffalo, more than we saw in Yellowstone, and walking on the road at some points.

We are spending the night in Dickinson, North Dakota which is a cute University town, right on I 94 and close to the southern unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.