we're not dead

friends and followers,

i (it's still ashley) know that this blog has been severely neglected lately, but I wanted to assure you that we are alive and well and missing all of you so so much.

I am sitting in Nashville, TN across from Matt who is SO CLOSE to submitting his first, second, and third application to grad schools. He will soon, officially, be on his way to figuring out what happens in our brains. We've been working on his applications quite a bit for the last few days.

last night we did make it out to the Grand Ole Opry! We we're the youngest people in the audience by AT LEAST 120 years - actually, you can include the performers in that as well. It was a fun show though, lots of old country music. The Christmas parade in Nashville was at the same time which was a little sad. We've been in the Homestead Studio Suites - long term hotel rooms with kitchens and work spaces - it's been great for productivity!

Before we got to Nashville we went on quite a Civil Rights tour - from Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel before a Sanitation workers strike, to Little Rock and central High school, to Jackson, MS, to Selma, Al where we drove the 50 mile Voting Rights March to Montgomery, where we saw where Rosa Parks was arrested, the home of Martin Luther King Jr, and the Civil Rights monument to Birmingham and 16th st. baptist church where the Birmingham marches took place and thousands of young black marchers were attacked with water hoses and police dogs.

I couldn't blog during those visits and days. I hope that the next few days I will write more - we met wonderful people and have great stories and learned SO much - it was just an awful lot to take in at once. Yea. So - more about that to come.

We're headed now to KY to visit Matt's cousin and his wife and two little boys. After that we're headed to Asheville to visit my cousin and then to Hillsboro, WV to visit a college friend. We'll in Philly/NY on the 10th!

some logistics

#1. We need to name a dog Cornelius. It's a Regier family name, as we found out at the cemetery in Henderson, NE (and not suitable for humans in this century).

#2. We're nearing the end of the road trip potion of our adventure year and are thinking about the following itinerary: Memphis, Little Rock, Jackson, Montgomery, Birmingham, and Nashville before we visit family and friends in Kentucky, North Carolina, and West Virginia. Any thoughts or advice on those places?

NEWS!!!

Before we tell you about New Mexico and Oklahoma and Thanksgiving (we're safely and happily in St. Louis now) we must update you all on some VERY EXCITING news!

We have just bought plane tickets for January 1st to St. Johns island in the caribbean where we will be moving to work and play from then until the end of April. We've not gotten luxurious or high powered jobs, but they are ones that will allow us to live for cheap in a ridiculously beautiful and warm place for a few months. Our travels plan will continue when we return.

We'll be in the NY area from the middle of December until Christmas and would love to see you to say "see ya later, we're going to the beach!"

Arizona

We're in a Holiday Inn at the base of Canyon De Chelly. It is the second largest Canyon in the United States in Eastern Arizona. We spent the day driving through the Navajo and Hoppi reservations sad that we did not have a way to spend time there are talk to people. We stopped briefly at the Hoppi Cultural Center and Museum. The Hoppi reservation is on the original land of the tribe. They make the most beautiful silver jewelry, woven baskets, and have really unique farming practices that are successful in this arid climate. It's really hard being here - thinking about reservations in general and what they mean for our national history and the native americans living on them now and what their lives are like - thinking about Arizona in general and the immigration law. I'm not quite sure what the thought is exactly but it's been extremely upsetting listening to country music on the radio that glorifies parts of Mexico (women, the beaches etc) while at the same time knowing that those musicians represent, or are idolized, by a community of people who support such a discriminatory law. I know it is more complicated than that but there is something not right about how many somethings exists in Arizona - places of ingrained racial or economic or cultural prejudice maybe.

South West part 1

Looking for the latest in Matt and Ashley's Great Adventure...

Look no further than Ribbon of Highway. Currently posting from Holbrook, AZ home of America's Best Value Inn (where we're staying, the Wigwam motel, where I stayed last year, and a Dinosaur Museum).

Since we last posted in Los Angeles (where, by the way we saw the movie Fair Game - which you should see) we have been in Joshua Tree National Park, Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon.

Joshua Tree was very cool. It is a national park that hosts two different ecosystems - the Mojave Desert and the Colorado Desert. The Mojave is home to the Joshua Tree which is actually a kind of Yuca plant and the most ginormous rocks you have every seen. The Colorado Desert is home to small rocks and bushes. So we had a preference. We went for a really nice, short hike by Cottonwood oasis under the bluest sky you've could ever see and Matt practiced some freestyle rock climbing. It was very dry all around.

After Joshua Tree we were headed to Lake Mead National Recreation center to camp before the Hoover Dam. En Route I texted my aunt who had recently been to Las Vegas and asked if there was a not-to-miss restaurant. She pointed us, very enthusiastically, to a place called Locust of Siam. I wish I took a picture. It was in a pretty dark strip mall a few blocks off the main strip where most restaurants looked closed or at the very least were in need of new neon bulbs. As soon as we walked in though, the entrance walls were covered with rave restaurant reviews, and for good reason. It was the best Thai food we've had for sure.

We left the restaurant with the intention of throwing a few pennies in a slot machine and would like to tell you about it but we heard that What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas so ... sometime the following afternoon we drove to the Hoover Dam.

The Hoover Dam is an "engineering wonder." It was completed in three years, two years ahead of schedule! It is almost as wide on the bottom as it is tall (roughly 700 ft). And my favorite fact, throughout the concrete blocks that make up the dam are pipes that pumped cold water around to cool the blocks in place to speed up construction. Also, they just finished building a bridge over the Colorado River above the Dam.

From the Hoover Dam we drove to the Grand Canyon. When we were about 30 minutes away from the campsite I checked the weather for fun and saw that the low was 22 degrees. That was unfortunate, but we survived. Were pretty sluggish the following morning sat in the cold sun, had some hot chocolate and yogurt and granola and stretched a lot.

Also noteworthy - in the half marathon my pinky toe nail which was apparently pretty sharp dug a hole into the side of the toe next to it. I neglected that for the first few days until Vegas when it seemed to get a little infected. We had to stop to get some supplies and so the last few days have been sprinkled with cleaning and wrapping my toe.

What else? The Grand Canyon is very big - walked along the south rim for a while then watched the sunset while making some pasta at a view point and then drove to Holbrook.

California!!! (and we're caught up)

Friends! We're in Los Angeles. It is 73 degrees and sunny every day. Trigger is camped out working on applying to graduate schools and I have been struggling to tan evenly while napping and reading. We are staying with close friends of Matt's mom - they have a sweet unattached garage that they turned into a little "love nest" so w

e've unloaded almost all of our stuff and have set up camp. We're supposed to leave tomorrow. Not sure if it's going to happen. If you're with other people's parents it's not really like you've just moved back home, right? :) Really though it is so wonderful being in a place for more than one or two nights, especially somewhere warm, with home cooked meals and nice company. Highlights so far: fresh lemons and limes from trees in

the backyard, being painfully sandblasted at the beach in Santa Monica during a awfully windy day, finishing the first season of Mad Men, and the key lime pie! YUM! Also - trigger is making good progress on his personal statements/essays for the applications.

We got to LA on Tuesday after camping in Big Sur right on the coast. We stopped twice along the drive - once to see a haven for Elephant Seals which are wonderful creatures. The consist of mostly blubber and have incredibly expressive faces and human like hands. We spent almost an hour there, mostly in awe of 1) how they scratched themselves like we do and 2) how similar I am to elephant seals. If I had to be an animal right now, it would not be that hard of an adjustment to add some pounds, hop onto the beach and rest in the sun for months.

We also stopped in San Louis Obispo for lunch. All I have to say is that California does vegetarian california cuisine as if they invented it.

Camping at Big Sur was breathtaking. We decided to light a fire because while we made it through Wyoming and Montana, camping in California was too cold! Unfortunately Trigger decided to buy a lighter without fuel in it which sparks well and can light the propane stove but can't light paper. We were struck, while basking in the overwhelming odor of campfire smoke, by how loud it was at our campsite. And before either one of us said something out loud we were both slightly confused by how well we could hear what sounded like the interstate. Route 1 in the dark however had maybe 2 cars an hour on it and the continuous rushing sounds was the crashing of waves. It is much more beautiful when you know it's water and not cars.

Getting to Big Sur was wonderful, we dropped Wanda, trigger's mom, off at the airport put on some alternative music and our sunglasses, opened the windows and at some beach town on the coast bought a Jamba Juice. You can tell we are both uncomfortable with the CA lifestyle. (notreally).

San Francisco (before Big Sur) is a crazy city. We drove into the city over the Golden Gate Bridge which was pretty exciting as we were going to run there for the half marathon. We first stayed with one of my mom's friends in a beautiful apartment just south of Golden Gate Park. Spent the next day walking around Golden Gate Park, went to the Conservatory of Flowers where we learned that Vanilla is an orchid which is why Vanilla yogurt always has that orchid on the front. We also learned that it was brought to Madagascar from South America but without the bees that pollinate it and so now all Madagascar vanilla is pollinated by hand (in a 24 hour window) making it as expensive as it is! We also walked through Haight-Ashbury where "the 60's took place." The next day we headed to Berkeley to get some Pizza at the Cheese Board Collective (YUM!) and moved into a hotel - the official "Race Hotel" with Wanda.

The half marathon was awesome. Matt ran in 2:02 and I finished in 2:56. It was pouring rain, not too cold, but very foggy. Important note - the five days before the run and five days after the run we’re in the 70s and sunny in SF. We both felt really, really good! A combination of training well, training at high altitudes, and taking it slow and steady during the run.

After the run we met two more of my friends from Haverford at Greens Restaurant at Fort Mason where a third friend is a cook. It was all vegetarian, mostly local, a lot of veggies from the restaurants own farm, and overall incredibly delicious. Matt and I hung out with them after lunch for a while and then met Wanda back at the hotel where we ordered pizza and spaghetti into the room and fell asleep blissfully early.

We walked/hobbled around Fisherman’s Warf the next morning before heading south.

Seattle - South

We arrived in Seattle after one night in Spokane, at the Apple Tree Inn. We took US 2 the whole way instead of the interstate and it was a really awesome drive. The best part was getting into Orondo, WA where apple orchards lined the road on either side. All the trees were changing colors and there were a lot of fresh fruit stands. It turns out that Wenatchee County is the apple capital of the world. Other noteworthy fact, Washington has expensive gas (as does California).

We liked Seattle right away (expect for the rain) mostly because Ella lives there. Ella and I were co-captains of the Ultimate team and Haverford and I cannot express in words my fondness of her. We met Ella and her housemates, grabbed some vegetarian thai food and went to a funny little Halloween party. Being as awesome as she is, Ella took off work on Monday so we could all play and we had a nice adventure to Pikes Place market where we ate some killer mac and cheese and found a huge loaf of cinnamon bread, freshly baked, for only $1 (it was a Monday special!).

We had big plans in the seattle area of going to Olympic National Park and the puget sound and exploring the city and, and, and, but couldn’t manage it all - especially because of the rain. The next day we did stop at Mt. Rainer and Mt. St Helens on our way to Portland, both o

f which were very cool! Driving down Mt. Rainer was really exciting (LOOK!)

We wanted to get into Portland kind of early to watch mid-term elections result - mostly got angry - both at the results and the grossness of the Howard Johnsons and so were really exited the next day to head to the PACIFIC.

Portland Coast - AMAZING, then foggy for 7 more hours.

California border - we got stopped at what looked like a toll booth and asked if we had " and fruit or small trees" - very weird.

We ate in Cresent City, CA where there were many wonderful vegetarian options, because, well, California is cool like that.

Camped in the Northern Red Woods - “that tree is so big!” We also went for a short run in the Red Woods, our last before the half marathon and felt very very small.

Glaicer

We arrived at Glacier National Park last night after a three hour drive from Missoula. There are still a few campsites open in the park throughout the winter. We set up at Apgar Village which is right on Lake McDonald - it’s great, at this time of year winter camping is at the picnic site which is right on the lake. Lake McDonald is huge and surrounded by snow covered mountains. Unfortunately, just as we were ready to set up our tent it started raining. More unfortunately - it hasn't stopped. In fact, I’m writing this entry in the car because it’s too cold to be in the tent (it’s only 39 degrees outside but I’ve been in there all night) and too wet to be outside. I hope it clears up and we can hike today - we have to do something other than be in the car! The Going to the Sun Road which is the road that drives through the park, East - West, and apparently the mot beautiful thing to do in the park, is partially closed for accelerated construction so we can only drive 16 miles of it. We were also planning on hiking into a Glacier. We’re out of This American Life’s until we can get more internet so I think it will just be reading in the car if it keeps raining...

By 5:00pm we couldn’t stand sitting in a still car any longer and decided to take a drive into town. Reading the bulletin board in the post office took about 4 minutes. In the next town over we found the Huckleberry Cafe where we shared a piece of pie and checked out the gift shop before heading about 30 miles away to the movies. We saw Life As You Know It - the one where they get the baby - and it did the job of distracting us. We thought about seeing Red after we got out at like 9:30 because then we would be so tired that we would sleep really well but got pretty tired without it so headed back to the damp tent.

We woke up and it was not at all sunny or clear but it was not raining and that was nice. It was Saturday too so the park had a little more life in it. We headed out on a 3.6 mile hike to the Apgar Lookout where depending on fog there would be great views of the lake we were staying on and much of Glacier. Every few minutes Matt would call out “Hey Bear, comin through” like we learned to do on the Ranger movie at Yellowstone. It got snowy up top and the fog rolled in and out - but after sitting in the car for about 12 hours and sleeping in a tent my body was pretty unhappy and I wound up hurting my hip flexer - especially when we got to the top of the mountain and we had to talk uphill in the snow with no grip. All in all, we should hit up Glacier in the summer sometime and no one should go there in the fall. We finished the hike and headed west to Washington. Pretty excited to go to Olive Garden for endless salad and breadsticks (which also turned out to be a really big bust).

To Missoula

HI! Sorry it has been so long - we've been planning our trip back, applying to grad schools, and chillin out. Since we left off we went to Yellowstone and had a blast, the campsite our second night was snowed in so we headed to jackson, WY and stayed in a swanky hotel. We'll write more about that later, but wanted to get more recent stuff posted. Here is from leaving Jackson...

Okay. Well. We’re starting to get to the point where we don’t have much to talk about. Not on the blog, to each other. Trigger drove from Jackson, WY to Missoula and much of the ride was quiet. Thankfully we had watched sooo many episodes of Say Yes to the Dress the night before so inspired by the topic we had an interestingly vague and hypothetical conversation about each of our own independent weddings and what we would want. Our hotel room in Jackson had a TV in the bedroom and one in the sitting room and twice I tried to watch separate TV. Trigger didn’t like that idea and it came back to bite him in the butt because we could have at least talked about what we each watched on television the day before.

Anyway. We on 26 west because the other road out of Jackson required tire chains, passed idaho falls, made some PB&Js in the car for lunch and pretty much boogied through Idaho and into Montana. The landscape all around us on the drive was pretty much the same as we had been seeing cow covered plains - but getting into Montana there were amazing foothills of (we’re pretty sure) the Rockies.

About cows - we’ve seen a lot of them - grazing, munching, seemingly pretty happy. We’ve only seen two small scale feed lots. At first we thought some of the cows we saw were simply grass-fed and when slaughtered could be sold as such however after reading part of The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan and the section he has on corn I think that we are seeing cows graze before they are brought to feedlots and then to slaughter houses. There are a lot of small cows, so it could be that they go to feedlots and the mother cows stay to have more babies. The only cows I think are or should be grass-fed til the day they get slaughtered are the ones on 85 south driving through SD - there was just so much freaking grassland. Anyone know more about how this works? We need to ask someone here.

We pulled into Missoula - following directions to downtown! (not to the exit with all the hotels, but the real downtown) We got a room in the Holiday Inn Downtown at the Park for $35 on priceline a few days before and we’re pretty skied! The room was giant, no separate sitting room, but a king size bed and two couches and a chair. We pretty much dropped our stuff off and headed quickly out. I was Grump/hungr/y. Luckily we had service on the drive so I was able to tripadvisor research restaurants in Missoula. The 2nd best restaurant was called Biga Pizza (Biga like the dough starter). At first I didn’t even look at it because being disappointed by bad pizza is really sad and I figured in Montana there was a good chance that would happen. I looked through other restaurant reviews though and was surprised when a number of reviews commented that so and so restaurant was good but they like really liked Biga Pizza. I finally checked out the reviews and then their website and couldn’t help but laugh. Biga Pizza is as close to Paolina’s Way as I’ve ever seen. Thin crust brick oven pizza, not organic but “all natural, all homemade”, bluesky sodas, panzanella salad. It looked really good.

We had to wait about ten minutes for a table - it was PACKED and the food looked good. We got a panzanella salad and a caesar salad (which were not as good as PW’s) and a white pizza with roasted red peppers, artichoke hears, and kalamata olives. It was DELICIOUS! Here’s what we talked about: if you could only work with three ingredients (not including spices or water) for the rest of your life what three would they be? We’re settled on flour, milk/cream/, and tomato. After eating the salads we couldn’t finish the pizza so got to take it for lunch the next day! (oh, also, I might be kind of lactose and tolerant - need to look this up, I keep getting crazy gassy when I have too much dairy. It was unfortunate following the post-bison burger experience).

Thursday was a running day but while Matt layered up to run outside I took the opportunity to hop on the treadmill in the fitness center and watched more Say Yes to the Dress. They had a pool and hot tub but after Jackson it didn’t seem worth the chlorine.

California!

Lot's to update you with -- yellowstone, glacier, Missoula, Spokane, Seattle and Ella, portland -- but wanted to tell you we made it to California!

We are 6746 miles into our trip and have just entered our 23rd state.

South Dakota (part 2)

It started getting really cold when we were watching Legends in Light at Crazy Horse and we got nervous when the bus driver/guide said that there was a chance of Rain/Snow. We headed down the mountain, with the heat on in the car, to find an RV park/campground that Matt found online for $10. One thing to note about Rapid City, SD and the Black Hills area is that there is no less than 4 possible routes to get from one place to another. Even though we drove around for a day and a half we constantly found new roads. This is relevant because on the way to the campsite - instead of going the way we came, we drove through Custer State Park which is an incredibly windy road down a mountain. (It was dark). At one point we headed around a bend and I saw a buffalo on the side of the road. This, as you now know, is not an uncommon sight for us, however it was pretty much pitch dark and in a forest as opposed to the plains - I was startled to say the least. Matt, concentrating on the road, asked me what happened and I told him there was a buffalo on the side of the road. While he too and seen his fair share of buffalo we decided to turn the car around so we could see it again (make sure it was there and that I was not crazy). OH MY GOD. Upon turning around not only did we see the buffalo that was on the side of the road (there were two by the way) but we say no less than 30 more buffalo on the other side of the road. Some sitting, some eating in front of the state park buildings, on the triangle patch of grass that separates the incoming and outgoing park traffic and in front of the large ceramic statue of Buffalo at the entrance to the park. Our pictures didn’t come out well - and honestly, we didn’t want to stick around too long to get more.

We made it to the campground, set up the tent and boiled water for pasta in record time and were asleep pretty quickly - neither of us wanting to acknowledge that we had to run a whole lot the next day.

Ashley started looking at maps for running possibilities when we sat in the car with WiFi in Medora and found something called the George S. Mickelson trail. It is a 109 mile trail that runs the entire North-South of the Black Hills National Forest. The trail is on a revitalized railway (rails to trails) and so is fairly flat. We were pretty psyched to find a trail to run on because it was a good way to see more of the area. Running was pretty hard. We ran 6.5 miles there and back, the town we started from was in a valley, so we were running up hill the whole first half. It wasn’t steep (being an old rail way line), but it was consistent. We also started the run at about a mile above sea level and reached almost 6000 feet at the highest point. Running at that altitude was hard for both of us, but the worst part was the sore feeling after the run as much as the run itself. We think a combination of low oxygen during the run and sitting in the car for hours afterwards was a bad combination for minimizing lactic acid.

We weren’t sure the time, having passed between the central and mountain time zone and back as we went down to South Dakota. But at that time we left Hill City and went to Mt. Rushmore.

Mt. Rushmore was disappointing after Crazy Horse. It was clearly much smaller, and only heads. We like the selection of Presidents that they had, but liked the back story -- of what it was supposed to be -- more. The original plan was to have a statue of three presidents: Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, in full body poses. Teddy was added at the last minute because the sculpture was a personal friend of his. He decided to add him because he had done a lot to preserve the natural west -- starting the national park service, etc.

The sculpture died just before he finished the faces, the sun finished them and said it was done as it ever would be. When the sculpture of Crazy Horse died, his wife and 8 kids decided to finish the whole sculpture. The exhibits at Mount Rushmore completely gloss over that it is unfinished or how Roosevelt was added, but a park ranger at the information station seemed to know.

We left Mount Rushmore at about 5 with at least 6 hours of driving to go. The speedlimit was 75 so we couldn’t afford to get there faster by speeding (each mile per hour over 75 is about a half mile per gallon less in gas mileage).

On the way to Sheridan, WY for dinner, where there was promise of large mediocre chains as apposed to large fast-food chains, we called Ashley’s Dad to ask him to look up Olive Garden branches in Wyoming or Montana. Finding none on the way, we decided to stop at Applebee’s in Sheridan. There was about 100 mile from the Wyoming border to Sheridan. The first 50 miles we drove and didn’t pass anybody going the same on the highway. Matt had his brights on on the interstate, which was a first for both of us. The last 50 miles was much more eventful with getting passed once and passing 2 other cars. Wyoming’s license plate of Big Spaces Great Places, was very apropos.

We pulled into Extended Stay America Billings (another Priceline find), and had a much nicer stay. The internet was faster and everything.

South Dakota (part 1)

George, Matt's uncle, suggested that we visit the Crazy Horse memorial in the Black Hills. My mom just kept suggesting that we say ‘hi’ to Rocky Raccoon.

We hadn’t heard about the memorial, and didn't know any specifics about Crazy Horse but it became our first stop in South Dakota. It was AMAZING.

Driving into the state we kept seeing signs for the monument, and decided to check it out at night instead of the next morning so we could also see if there were campsites open in the National Forest. I was also really interested in driving with a purpose - about 3 hours into driving on 85 south I went brain dead. We got into Crazy Horse around 5:30, just before dark not knowing what to expect at all. We pulled in, a little put-off by the $10 per person entrance fee, and saw a profile of a face in the side of a mountain, a extended protrusion with a hole in it, and some large painted lines at the end of it. We caught the last bus to the base of the mountain (its an active blasting zone, so no private cars are allowed), and this is what we learned:

Crazy Horse was a chief and warrior of the Lakota. His men fought Custer after Andrew Jackson opened up the black hills to Europeans because of gold, breaking a treaty that stated “as long as water runs and the sun shines” or something to that effect, the black hills will be the Lakota’s.

Crazy Horse is considered a hero because he never signed a treaty, and refused to live on a reservation. He was killed by a dagger to the back while in a U.S. Fort negotiating some sort of truth. They never fully explained his death, but I heard it described as an accident and as a traitorous act.

Standing Bear, another Native American chief invited Korczak, a polish sculptor who was helping with Mt. Rushmore to build a memorial in the black hills as a tribute to North American Indians to “remind the white men that they had heros also.” The Black Hills were one of the most sacred places for Native Americans. “Crazy Horse Memorial” is going to consist of not only the sculpture of Crazy Horse on the side of the mountain but also of a the Native American Educational and Cultural Center as well as a University.

The memorial is not yet finished, and probably won’t be in any of our lifetimes. It is vastly larger than Mt. Rushmore. The head of Crazy horse is 4 times as tall as the heads at Mt. Rushmore (roughly), and it will have Crazy Horse’s upper body sitting on a horse, pointing east, as well as the whole horse. A full 3D sculpture. Honestly, it puts Mt. Rushmore to shame.

We looked around the museum, mostly about the memorial itself, and waited until it got dark and the laser light show - Legends in Light. Luckily we caught the last day of this show!

North Dakota

Up early in Bismarck to get to Theodore Roosevelt National Park as early as possible. We drove past the Budget Inn Express, and confirmed we had made the right decisions when we saw them throwing out their beds and furniture. Who knows what stories we would have from there. Also, the Radisson where we needed up staying had a sleep number bed... Not as good as temperpedic but a close second.
The four hour drive to the park was really exciting. For the first time since leaving the east coast, the side of the road actually looked different than what we were used to. The plains are incredible in their own right. They go on forever. A lot of people might find it boring, but we both found them to be very interesting. The hills got higher and higher, and buttes started appearing on the horizon. There was a lot of giggling. (Buttes are the mounds of earth)
Thinking that it was time for a late breakfast, we followed signs for the Schnell Recreation site, after getting off the highway at Richardton, ND the sign said it was another 10 miles but we decided to follow it - it was nice to be off the highway. It turns out that the Schnell Recreation site was a small area miles down a dirt road that had some history plaques, camp sites, and a picnic area. The view down the road, in between golden hills was spectacular. Right next to the site there were some real live cowboys processing cattle. One of the plaques said that the large butte in front of us was called Young Man’s Butte. It was named that because of a battle between the Sioux and another tribe. The Sioux won in a route, and the only remaining warrior from the other tribe was a young man, and he declared that he would never be captured or killed by the Sioux and took his own life atop the Butte. The Sioux were impressed by his courage and decided to give him a good burial and named the butte after him. Hopefully, maybe, at the time they didn’t call butts butts cause if they did - someone we setting up North Dakota to be made fun of. After some yogurt and granola we headed back on the interstate.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park Southern Unit (we didn’t go to the Northern unit) is in a canyon carved by the Missouri River and its tributaries. After being born and raised on “the island of Manhattan” (as the plaque said) Teddy first made it to ND when he was 24/25 (just like me!) on a Buffalo hunting trip. He decided to stay and became a rancher there. His original ranch is a few miles away from where we camped, and his ranch house was recreated at the park entrance. Our first view of the park came from the Painted Valley Visitor’s Center, we were blown away. The valley/canyon is incredibly expansive, with buttes, river beds, and flat plains areas. There we found out the park had Buffalo, Prairie Dogs, Elk, White-tailed Deer, Mule Deer, Mountain Goats (rams), and Feral Horses. In the park, we ended up seeing 6 out of 7 mammals, lots of birds, crickets, squirrels, and some spiders.

Driving into the park, we were on the lookout for Buffalo, they were definitely what we were most excited about, and were really worried we wouldn’t see any. Boy were we wrong. In the visitor’s center, I read that they like to hang around prairie dog cities because the liked to roll around in the loose dirt to clean off. Pulling up to the first prairie dog city, even before we arrived at the campsite, we saw a bunch of Buffalo on a ridge about 100 yards away mostly covered by tall grass. I stop the car and Ashley craned out of the window trying to get the best angle. She took a lot of pictures and we waited for the best shot we can take there, the Buffalo’s head sorta turning towards us. Just about when we are about to leave, someone driving the other way suggests we go down the road, because a large male is on the side of the road. About a mile down the road, sure enough, a Buffalo was munching on grass right on the side of the road. We stopped to take pictures, eventually the Buffalo walked across the road about 20 yards in front of the car. They are really big, but didn’t seem to care about cars anywhere close. Especially Jack Danger because she’s tan (blends in with the plains) and very quiet.
We found the campsite, paid the $5 camping fee, set up camp, and took the 36 mile loop around the park. Over the 36 mile drive, we saw no less than 100 Buffalo, many of them right along the side of the road, a few white-tailed deer, about a dozen mule deer (they run by bounding like a rabbit or kangaroo), 10 feral horses, and a whole lot of prairie dogs.

After the drive we decided to go check out the town right on the outskirts of the park. Medora ND, was part low class rancher town part Wild West Tourist town. The only totable thing actually was that for some reason they had free public wifi. It was awesome. We sat in the car for a while making plans for the next few days. It got dark and late, and we were an hour behind ND time so we headed back to the campsite, grateful that we had set everything up and could eat and go to bed!

When we left the visitor’s center earlier in the day, the park ranger said that he thought we might be sleeping with some buffalo tonight (because of where they were moving throughout the day). We had seen buffalo a few hundred yards from the campsite when we went on the tour, and we found our site to have a few-day-old pile of buffalo dung as well as some trampled grass. Pulling into out campsite, I was definitely afraid of seeing a buffalo sleeping between us and the tent. Although we were hyper-vigilant throughout our dinner by moon light and last bathroom trip, we didn’t hear any signs of buffalo. Waking up the next morning, we saw buffalo at the same place they had been the night before, about 300 yards from the camp. That was close enough for us.

We woke up, crawled out of the tent, and took a minute to look at the mountain ridge to our left. A mixture of evergreens, plains grasses, and exposed rock. I saw something at a peak, but couldn’t quite make it out, thought it must be a tree. When I looked back half an hour later it was gone. We heard some birds chirping at breakfast, but mostly it was just the sound of us chomping on granola and wind in the cottonwood trees.

We decided to go hiking on the Jones Creek Trail, a 1.8 mile down and back that took you into the center of the loop we drove around the day before. The park is split down the middle by the missouri river -- a much smaller but still formidable river. The entrance is to the east of the missouri, and there are no bridges over it. They say that people often ford the river, especially with horses, but at 18” deep neither of us had a desire to try. That limited us to the eastern half of the southern unit, but for a stay of just about 24 hours, that was plenty.

The trail follows a creek that was dried up except for some patches of mud or really shallow water. The badlands get rain infrequently, but when it comes, its torrential. I could see that creek as a 2 feet of rushing water after a rain fall or in the spring as the snow is melting.
The creek curves around the buttes, with relatively flat plains in the ‘valleys’ between them. As we went around each butte there was a little bit of a blind turn. Whomever happened to be in front when we got there noticeably slowed down and craned their neck towards the upcoming valley hoping that we weren’t sneaking on a buffalo, or a whole herd. The stampede from The Lion King is the visual that stayed in my mind.

We had to cross the creek twice, not a problem except for exceedingly steep banks. At the second crossing there was half of a buffalo carcass, probably about a year old. We could see the whole back half -- including skin. A tail, hoof, etc. Your not supposed to take any bones from the park, but I’m guessing thats where the front half went.

On the way back we decided to walk in the creek instead of the trail. Unlike a lot of other national parks I’ve been to, off trail hiking wasn’t regulated at all. Plains grasses are hearty enough to stand up to some human trampling. I’m sure the relatively low admissions to the park because its in North Dakota, helps them allow the whole park to be accessible.

There creek bed was covered in rocks of four distinct colors, and many various hues within each color. We could see the erosion caused by the stream that has caused it to, and continues to cause it to wind back and forth. We could see many bends that would soon (in geologic time) create oxbow lakes, or maybe just oxbow ditches.

We climbed out of the creek bed (about 10 feet below the trail) and met some people hiking in. They were from South Dakota and suggested some things for us to do while around Mt. Rushmore. They also suggested climbing to the top of a butte to see an amazing view. On our way back, I kept looking for a good butte to climb, and decided, inadvertently, on the tallest one. Ashley agreed to followed me up willingly, but I think she thought I was a little crazy. We saw an incredible 360 degree view with nothing above us for miles, and then followed an animal trail down.

We made it back to the car, and Ashley drove us to US-85 South. Going down 85, she had large chunks of time -- we are talking 30-45 minutes -- where she didn’t turn at all. NOT AT ALL! The road was completely straight. Cow and sheep pastures on either side. Some horses and one buffalo pasture also. We passed through some towns with populations of 308, 625, etc. Not a lot there. The upper plains are incredible though, the landscape is magnificent. Its so nice to see grass land, instead of cornfields or suburban developments.

Somewhere on the drive we drove through butte county, and saw Bear Butte.

We will not extend our stay

On the drive, Ashley remembered that her friend from college, Inez, grew up in Minneapolis and might have some suggestions for things to do. Shortly after sending an email, Ashley got a very thorough and well-organized email from her which had sections for food, art, activities etc. There were so many useful hyperlinks! If we had known that before we planned our trip, we may have decided to spend more time in the twin cities. Unfortunately, we only had about 18 hours to spend there, and needed to sleep for much of that.

We pulled in to St. Paul around 8:30 Wednesday night and found the closest Punch Pizza, a Napolitano pizza local chain, something suggested by Inez. This food experience was much better than lunch. They make their own dough, roll each pizza out by hand - top them (lightly) with fresh, high quality ingredients - san marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella etc. They bake the individual pies in a wood burning oven that is 800 degrees for 90 seconds and poof. Though similar in spirit, Punch Pizzas are very different from those at Paolina’s Way. We both would rather eat at PW but this got the job done well. Heading to the hotel with lots of left overs, we were happy and tired.

We had Pricelined a two start hotel in Minneapolis for $30. We got an Extended Stay America. I have had some really good experiences at Extended Stay Americas when staying there for ultimate tournaments, but this one kinda sucked. It was in a industrial park in the North-West corner of Minneapolis. You can’t hold that against it, but it meant another half hour drive. It advertised WiFi, but cost $4.99. We bought it so we could blog, and watch some Hulu. We checked in, and went to our room, but the key didn’t work. Ashley went back down and told person at the front desk. She changed our room after trying the key herself. Again, none of this is that bad, and it could happen anywhere, but after a long day it was frustrating. The real problems happened when we crawled into bed. First we tried to watch Parenthood on Hulu. It was impossible. The connection was so slow that we had to wait 5 minutes to watch two or three minutes of the show. 45 minutes later, after watching about 15 minutes of the show, we quit. I rolled over and felt one of those single-use plastic floss/toothpic things on the bed under the sheet. To tired to make a fuss, I just pushed it off the side of the mattress and went to sleep.

We did our 30 minute run the next morning, through the industrial park. It was cold, but we both ran pretty fast, which lifted our spirits.

I mentioned the slow internet to the woman at the front desk as we checked out, and she offered to refund it. I didn’t mention the flosser. Next stop was the Mall of America. It was very nice, for a mall. There is a theme park in the middle (roller coasters, log flume, etc.). There was a lot of natural light -- much of the roof was translucent glass. The couches were very upscale, and looked very comfortable. All the stores were the same you see everywhere else except that there was a Columbia Brand store, apparently one of seven or so in the country, where we went searching for warm clothes for the upcoming national parks. We found a really friendly ‘technician’ who helped me pick out snow/ski pants.

After looking around a little more, we went to REI and got a stove, running gloves, and running Gu. We also became REI members (they are America’s largest Consumer Co-op, we now get about 10% back for any purchase we make at REI!) The people there we so awkward. It seemed like we were the first people they had spoken to since being alone in the woods for years. They knew a lot about outdoor wear, so we might have been.

Next was off to the Minneapolis farm market, open seven days a week, but no hours on the website. No one was there. We found another farm market, but it had very little from local farms, lots of oranges, bananas, grapes, etc. that they just happened to sell there. Again, we left empty handed, and decided to go to a vietnamese area that Inez suggested. Ashley found a vietnamese restaurant at the end of Nicolette street on the south side of the city (I think). We were glad about the suggestion because without it we never would have gone to the end of this street or gone into the building but it was worth it!

It was incredible. We got vegetarian spring rolls and two orders of number 46, a rice noodle dish with lots of vegetables, tofu, fake duck (we think made out of seitan), and fish sauce. It was a nice change of pace from what we had been having, and it was delicious. I wish we could eat like that more often on the trip. Possibly the best part is that it only cost us $20.

On the way out of town we saw a natural food Co-op called The Wedge and took the opportunity to stock up on yogurt, peanut butter, carrots, apples, bananas, dry pasta, tortilla chips and some canned beans. It was a bunch of money to spend at once, but I don’t think we will have to buy food for a few days.

We finally left Minneapolis at 4 and started our 7 hour drive to Bismarck. I entertained Ashley while she was driving by having a 45 minute conversation with the priceline call center in The Philippines about their website not working. Both people that I spoke with on the phone had obviously never used the website, and were just reading scripts about what the problem must be. Unfortunately, the problem I was describing was different than the problem they were explaining how to fix. I tried every way I could to speak with a supervisor, anyone, that could help me solve the problem, but I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone above her. We were left with a bunch of bad (or expensive) options on hotwire, so Ashley tried priceline again -- The problem had been solved. I’m sure that its only a coincidence, but Ashley thinks that someone told a tech guy to fix the site. We ended up staying in a nice hotel for more money than we wanted to, but were willing to do that instead of the budget inn express.

A few hours before pulling into Bismarck, we stopped at a rest-area and ate the left over vietnamese food in the car. We had a great time doing it.

Kettle Moraine

After we left Chicago, we drove up to Wisconsin hoping for cows, and cheese. We found corn. We were both very disappointed. There were some fields with cows in it, but we didn’t see many milking facilities over the hundreds of local and interstate miles we drove.

Tuesday night (10/20), we camped at Kettle Moraine State park. We got there just before dark, and were treated with a wonderful sunset over a lake from our campsite. After setting up our tent, we explored the camp a little and found a RV that was completely decked out in Halloween decorations. They had christmas-tree-like lights, pumpkins, scarecrows, etc. I really hope they were planning to stay awhile, and didn’t just set that up everywhere. Dinner was cheese, and bread (from Zingerman’s) with some salsa and pickles.

The next morning we woke up and drove to Madison for lunch. Ashley found a place -- The Weary Traveler -- that looked great. A country tavern in the city, that promised local, organic foods. I ordered an organic Wisconsin burger with cheese, caramelized onion, tomato, and maybe some lettuce. It was pretty good, but too done. Ashley ordered a meat and cheese platter that promised local Venison sausage, local beef, turkey, (for me) and organic wisconsin cheddar, pepper jack, mozzarella and blue cheese (for her). It was horrible. As you can see, it looked like the deli counter tray with rolls of meat and thin cheese triangles - it also tasted wholly uninteresting. We were both expecting something from a small farm but got a big commercial product. Unfortunately given the quality of the restaurant and the other menu offerings we got the impression that this was Wisconsin’s best. On a deli sandwich the Wisconsin meat and cheese would have been good, but they were very much not what we were expecting. Ashley hardly ate any of it, but I decided to take it to go for some lunch meat while we are camping.

After lunch, we toured Madison. Obviously a college town, a lot like Ann Arbor, but with more hippies, especially old hippies. Downtown, and where the University is, is on a tract of land only about half a mile wide between two lakes. Atop a hill between the lakes is the Capitol building. It looks a lot like other capital buildings, but seemed significantly more beautiful to both of us.

A few days earlier we had noticed that Jack Danger’s right headlight was out. We avoided driving at night, and kept looking for service stations that could help us. Ashley found a express Toyota service station on the way out of town. You just pull up to a service bay, leave your key in the car, tell them what you want, and wait. Free wifi and CNN in the waiting room. They fixed the headlight, changed the oil, and reminded us we had Nitrogen, not regular air in the tires. Oops! Also, they gave us a free car wash. After cleaning up Jack we headed to Minneapolis.

Chai Town to Wisconsin

After leaving Gary we headed towards the Windy City. In an attempt to bypass rush hour and spend more time with Annie (my college roommate) we drove straight north up to Lake Forest, Il. Despite being bombarded with "Kirk for Senate (R)" posters it was a nice drive and well worth it. Annie's house is so beautiful. It's a few blocks off of Lake Michigan and sits atop a small cliff overlooking a ravine. After the tour, I grabbed the Road Atlas, our highlighter, and mementos from our last stops and started updating the map book with our route and stops. Matt started blogging and then checking out grad schools. After a while of chatting and "working" we headed out to Gino's East to pick up some traditional Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. We had a great dinner with Annie and her parents and afterwards headed out for some ice cream. This was not your typical ice cream experience - we can't remember the name but they served Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream from Wisconsin and it was very very good. The man serving us, however, was pretty awful; we'll call him"Grumpy Pants" or GP for short. GP was the owner of the Ice Cream Shop, a middle aged man with a little pot belly and kind of thin long brown hair on the back of his head, the top was balding. I don't think I can aptly communicate all of his sarcasm and sour attitude here but as an example - after asking to taste a few flavors, Annie commented that one in particular was delicious. His first sarcastic response: "I find the ice cream sells better when it tastes good." Needless to say, we took the ice cream to go.

We had a great night in - being introduced to this years season of Dancing with the Stars, Weeds, and The Big C (Stringer Bell is in it!!!). Then we headed happily to bed. Their guest room was CRAZY nice mostly because the bed had a temperpedic top on it. :)

The next morning we did a short run out to the Lake Forest Beach on Lake Michigan had some bagels for breakfast - checked out the clip of Bill O'Reily on the View (scary) - showered, packed up and headed to Chicago.

In Chicago - our first stop was a tour around Pilsen, where Dennis (Matt's dad grew up). Then we walked around Grant and Millennium Park - saw the Modern Wing in the Art Museum and the Bean! and then walked over to the Museum of Contemporary Photography which I don't think many people know about but is a worthwhile stop. They had a wonderful exhibit up about the Arizona/Mexico border. It was a short but great visit in the city - we like Chicago a lot.

It was only about 2 and half hours from Chicago to Kettle Moraine State Forest where we set up camp for the night.

Edits

We are sitting at the Express Service center in Madison, WI because our right headlight went out and we (already) need an oil change. The waiting room has free wi-fi and I just got the chance to catch up on the last few bog entries Matt has been writing. Before I begin our next entry about Chicago and Wisconsin I need to record some things that Matthew forgot.

The Zingerman's cheeses that we bought:

#1 Piave aged cow's milk cheese like a younger cousin on parmesan - a little bit softer and not as grainy but very delicious

#2 Rennecker (we're not sure about the spelling) it was a pale orange color - like an aged gouda, semi-hard cheese and very grainy.

We choose these two because they didn't really need to be refrigerated. We're still eating them!

The Crane's stop in Michigan:

"Crane's" is really "Crane's Pie Pantry Restaurant" and in addition to the corn maze they had a full restaurant (which looked really good, all american/farm food made with a lot of local stuff), a full bakery, and then a to-go shack which sold pies (whole and by the slice) with whip cream or a la mode, fresh doughnuts, apple dumplings and cider. We got apple crisp a la mode and doughnuts (still warm!) but they were unfortunately out of pumpkin pie.

Pictures coming soon!

Gary, Indiana

Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, not New york, Paris, France, or Rome.

Had lunch at an Indian Buffett with George, my Uncle. I always love talking to him, but can never figure out how to do it except when we are in the same place, which happens infrequently.

Indiana is the 12th state on the road trip. 25% of the way to our goal.

Also, you can follow us visually on the map. We will try to keep it pretty up to date. The route might not be exactly right, but you'll be able to see what we've been up to. Just click on the 'The Map' link under pages on the right.

Roughin' It.

After leaving Ann Arbor, we drove west to Holland, MI.

On the road we stopped at Crane's. They have a restaurant, pick your own apples, 20 acre corn maze (maize maze?), and pie stand. As we did the maze, making steady progress toward the end, Ashley decided to make a detour through a row of corn onto another path. As we were walking around, it seemed that we were now in a section that wasn't actually a part of the maze, but a bunch of paths that weren't connected to anything, but were used to make the image from above look better. We cut through another row, and entered maze number two. Luckily, some people were making their way through that maze just in front of us, and we followed them to the exit.

We set up the tent at Holland State Park while it was still light, and decided it would be more fun to hang out at the picnic table than walk around Holland; Its not tulip season after all.

For dinner at the camp site we had Zingerman's farm bread and cheese with apple, the first of our pickles, and some chips and salsa. The cheese was really good, and so was the bread, but the two together didn't add to each other as much as I would have liked. The pickles are incredible. We didn't write down the recipe when we made them, and tried to remember what we was in them, so we could replicate it, as we scarfed them down. This was our first sample of the first batch of salsa. It is definitely more tasty than the second batch, but not as acidic. While eating it, I was worried that it wasn't acidic enough, and got Ashley and I scared of Botulism.

Being alone, even though it was just for 14 hours or so, made us a little nuts. Sometime over breakfast (granola, yogurt, and donuts from Crane's), Ashley mentioned that we were still alive. I confirmed. She asked if Botulism would have killed us by then, I said it would have. She said maybe we didn't actually survive it, but actually moved into an alternate universe while our former universe was going on without us. Since we hadn't spoken to anyone in the outside world, and hadn't actually seen anyone (we heard passing cars), it was hard to figure out if what she said was actually possible. We kept trying to prove it couldn't be happening, but just ended up getting more distraught over the possibility (or at least I did). The saving grace, was that each of us claimed to have thoughts independent of the other, and agreed that that wouldn't be possible if we were progressing in some sort of after life.

While driving to Gary to meet my uncle, we talked a little more about alternate universes. We decided that it is actually possible for us to have entered an alternate universe last night, or rather that we died in an alternate universe, but it really doesn't matter either way.

As we entered Indiana, our 12th state and the trip odometer read something around 2200 miles.

Ann Arbor

After leaving D'troit we arrived after a nice, short, drive in Ann Arbor. The only stop, semi-noteworthy, along the way was Belleville, Michigan where my dad thinks he lived for a little bit back in the day. We went to the Village Green Apartment Complex and looked around. Definitely looked like an apartment complex and it was definitely in Belleville. Yup.

Ann Arbor was fantastic - three nights of sleeping in the same place, with wonderful wonderful people, and delicious food. We stayed with Tali - a friend of ours from high school who is in a 5th years masters program at University of Michigan. She and her roommates have a fantastic house right in Kerrytown where we hit up the farmer's market and Zingerman's. Zingerman's is a super famous and super busy jewish/gourmet deli which prides itself of giving away samples of EVERYTHING. We took advantage of this as "lunch" on Thursday.

We watched Blue Crush (better than we thought it would be a second time around) and did a lot of studying vocabulary words - which payed off because TRIGGER ROCKED THE GREs!!! After a few leisurely walks, nice dinners, and good conversation by the time sunday came we were not looking forward to packing up to leave - but we did - sadly and said a few goodbyes to Tali hoping very much to see each other soon.

After a quick stop at the Briarwood mall (where we tried to stop at the apple store to check on trigger's computer but forgot you needed to make genuis bar appointments) we we're excited once again to head west to 20 acre corn maze!!!

Detroit

Staying with Kathy and Steve was thoroughly enjoyable. Their conversation was lively and suggestions for sightseeing was spot-on. We both can't wait until we have another excuse to come to Michigan.

Grandma Joyce's suggestion to see the Henry Ford museum was echoed by Kathy and Steve. We decided to make that the activity for our only full day: Wednesday. I woke up early and took a practice GRE test, while Ashley updated you with everything we had done so far. We then went for our run, we're training for a half-marathon in San Francisco on November 7th. We got out later than we had hoped, but ended spending about four hours at the museum and accompanying Greenfield Village.

Greenfield Village is part historical building collection, part living museum. So I was very familiar. We saw Thomas Edison's workshop, and house; Noah Webster's house; the Firestone family house; glass blowers; tin smiths; printers; etc. There was a plaque that said that Henry Ford thought the important part of history is the technology that shaped people's lives, not the politics and wars that are so often covered. That is what he tried to preserve with the village.

I found the museum to be incredible. It was mostly about cars, but had significant exhibits on airplanes, electricity generation, farm equipment and even furniture. The museum tells the story of the American Automobile, not as badly as I would have expected, but not as well as I had hoped. For instance, they have a Honda that was among the first foreign cars to be made in the US, but they also say that part of the reason for sagging sales of the big 3 was something like 'consumer displeasure with bad quality.' The implication seemed to be that there was a problem with the consumer's demand, not the car's quality.

Electric cars or hybrid cars were totally missing, but there was a model and exhibit of a Hydrogen-powered car. Its the car of the future, and always will be.

Other highlights include sitting in an original model-T (that museum guests put together every morning), sitting in the bus where Rosa Parks refused to stand, touring a Dymaxion house, and making paper airplanes.

After the museum, we went to east Dearborn, an area with a high Muslim population, and delicious food. We went to Al Ameer, and would highly recommend it. We asked our waiter what vegetarian things we should order. We ended up with falafel and two large rice and vegetable dishes. The Moujadara was especially good. Its fried rice with lentils, topped with crispy-caramelized onions. Although I've had onions, rice, and lentils innumerable times, this dish seemed especially unique.

More important than the food itself was seeing a thriving community of people that are so often vilified in the media, and feared by the public. While sitting in the restaurant, one could only laugh at those balking at the ground zero mosque, while pitying their narrow world-view.

We wrapped up the day by visiting the house my grandma was living in when she met my grandfather. It reminded a lot of the house I lived in on east 18th st. in Brooklyn until I was 7.

From Detroit it was on to Ann Arbor (much closer that Ashley or I thought, even looking at the map several times), for Tali and the GREs.

NY-OHIO-MICHIGAN

For some reason even though we have been in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Hershey, PA, Syracuse, and Niagra Falls in the last week, yesterday made us both feel like we had started on a road trip. We woke up in Buffalo to the sight of not so crowded rush hour traffic, munched on day old, cold “pizza” (not the delicious kind), packed up our stuff - including for the first time our Pur Water Filter and headed west.

One of the reasons we stayed at a hotel was to charge the plethora of electronics. Unfortunately we can’t seem to find the charger for the big camera (could it be in Maine or New York?). While this isn’t the end of the world, it means we only have the iPhone and flip cam the trip. It’s probably going to be worth buying a new charger or at least a digital camera with a zoom from Target.

Driving west from Buffalo was interesting for a few reasons. The first - both Matt and I felt like we were very far away from New York City, which we were. This feeling however, and our general new-york-city-centric-state-of-being caused us to be regularly surprised when we were surrounded by New York license plates or when we saw signs for the New York Turnpike. In addition to the New York license plates, I was caught a little off guard when the drive on 90W into northern Pennsylvania was lined with grapes. Vineyards along Rt. 90 - go figure.

The drive was relatively uneventful through NY and PA and we pulled into Youngstown right on schedule, that is to say, three hours after we decided to leave Buffalo. Though we only stayed about an hour and besides a stop of Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream drove around the city it was well worth the trip. We decided to drive to Youngstown because when I was a sophomore in college I took a class called Urban Politics. In it, we read an article called “Smart Decline.” It described how Youngstown, like many similar rust-belt cities, faced a declining population when the steel industry collapsed. 170,002 people lived in Youngstown in 1930. Today the city’s population is 80,000. Youngstown, unlike other similar cities, developed a unique strategy to cope with their declining population. As opposed to attracting new business and building spaces that would be attractive to potential industry Youngstown began knocking down abandoned buildings and tending to the empty spaces. In our short drive around the city we were delighted to see that the master plan was being enacted. In addition to small parks throughout the city and Mill Creek Park which stretches for miles on the west side and is filled with playgrounds, fields, and walking trails, the green spaces that made Youngstown unique were located on street corners, in between office buildings downtown, and on busy and stranded intersections alike. The nonprofit Youngstown Community Corrections Association, CCA, has taken on Youngstown’s South Side and created 24 manicured parks. We drove through a few different neighborhoods which all seemed to be racially and economically diverse and well i’d be okay if Youngstown had a neuroscience program. Caught up conversation (and trying to find the ice cream) we forgot to take pictures of these spaces... We’ve learned our lesson.

Also noteworthy - the Ohio Tree is the buckeye tree - buckeyes are similar to acorns without the cap. A hard brown shell on the outside with tan fibers on the inside, they have been honored with buckeye candies - chocolate outside with peanut butter insides. If you make it to Youngstown, which you should - have buckeye ice cream and Handel’s. It was delicious.

We left Youngstown for Akron to find Mustard Seed Market and Cafe in Akron, OH. Mustard Seed is the largest locally owned organic market it Northern Ohio and after the disappointing dinner at Anchor Bar I thought it would be worth the trip. Nothing really exciting happened except we got some yogurt for breakfast, chips for salsa, and lentil and sweet potato soup as a snack. It tasted good.

Leaving Akron we decided to take local roads to Toledo since we’d been on the interstate all day. Rt 18 to Rt 20 if you’re following at home. The road essentially paralleled I-90 so we figured if it got too slow we could always jut north though one of the towns. I have to admit some of the towns along the way seemed awesome - very similar to the coast of Maine with a small park in the town center and local shops on the perimeter. In between the towns though was corn and soy. We were expecting to drive between corn and soy but didn’t think it would be so close to NY. Funny enough there wild juxtapositions along the road - we saw a lot of John Deer tractors harvesting corn in the fields, run-down farm houses, and quite a few newly modeled faux-stone mini-mansions. Not sure if they’re the modern day plantation houses or what.

About 45 minutes after driving on Rt 20 while Matt was napping I decided to wanted to drive faster than 50 miles an hour and decided not follow directions but rather head north on a road that intersected with Rt 90. While it didn’t work out as planned - I did get to drive a lot faster. County Roads apparently have no speed limit. Even if they did there is absolutely no reason, short of the sherif living on one, for police to drive on them. Despite almost hitting a bird and a dog driving fast through corn fields on very narrow streets was awesome. We we’re making up some time too and were excited to see the interstate in front of us until we saw the white and orange sign reflective sign that said “Road Closed - Bridge Out.” It was about this time that we learned another lesson. Toll Roads in Ohio don’t have many on/off ramps and even though a county road intersections with the interstate it doesn’t mean you can get on. More corn and soy later we made it to the interstate and (I) counted down the miles until the Michigan border where the speed limit reflected the true mid-western spirit.

We pulled into Detroit (actually Birmingham, MI) around 8:15 where Kathy and Steve (friend’s on my side) had fresh fruit and vegetable pies and a comfy bed and washer and dryer and so many beautiful things to look at waiting for us. We chatted for a long while and then headed to bed to get ready for a big day of running. GRE-prep, Dearborn, and THE HENRY FORD!!!