Chicago to Madison

We arrived in Chicago on Sunday, July 24. Stayed with the Minshells—my father’s cousin Rich and his wife Marcie, along with their three children Olivia (Ollie, 12), and Jack and Dave (twins, 3)—in a suburb called La Grange Park. Friday afternoon drank beer on the deck in sweltering 100-degree heat and watched the boys fight for each other’s lives on a picnic table pirate ship against an evil squid that lived in the ocean below the deck. On Saturday, we picked up a guide to the USA while waiting out a rainstorm at the train station, then headed into downtown just as it cleared. Union Station lets off just west of the Sears Tower, and the Chicago Board of Trade, which lives in serious-whimsical Art Deco building that you are no longer able to tour (much to our chagrin, as we had planned to watch the commodities trading floor, where over 50% of the world’s grain stock is bought and sold). We sauntered past these landmarks on our way to the meeting site for a walking tour of the “historical skyscrapers” in Chicago, led by the city’s Architectural Foundation. “Historical” turns out to mean “built between 1871 and 1934”. In 1871, “the great fire” wiped out 17,000 buildings downtown and left it a tabla raza for the new architects—who had discovered the wonders of the steel frame building bridges during the Civil War. By the early 30s, the depression had halted new building completely, and it didn’t resume until after WWII, by which time architecture had presumably changed quite a bit. In any case, it was a typically long (and at times long-winded) walk, but we learned all of the above and got to see some real monuments to human industry along the way. Chicago had also just opened a new public space called Millennium Park, which features beautiful gardens (and a strange-ish sort of woodland area), an outdoor pavilion that nestles under the skyline and was designed by Frank Gehry, and an outdoor exhibit of aerial photos of the city. There’s also an incredibly fountain. It’s composed of two facing 20-feet towers made of glass brick. Water flows overtop the brick to the ground below, and while simultaneously giant images of human faces are projected on a screen under the brick (they smile, blink, and sometimes making a kissing face that somehow inspires water to shoot out of their lips). There’s no fountain basin—the water just tumbles onto the marble slabs below, and the children rush to the base of the towers to feel the waterfall over their heads or splash on the ground in the two inches of water that is allowed to collect before it flows over an miniature edifice to be recycled back into the waterfall. The whole public space had an inclusive feel to it.

We loved Chicago. It felt livable. Bustling, but quite and clean, not buckling at the knees from so much worry and strife.

On Tuesday we left and headed out of town via the University of Chicago, taking “back roads” through South Chicago. It’s a strange thing to be driving under the L tracks with projects on either side, buttressed only by large and empty (but for some reason fenced-in) lots and then to emerge into the campus—tree-lined streets, orderly bustle, and lots of white people. In any case, we where slightly underwhelmed by the campus and the severe gothic buildings, which looked like something out of a children’s horror story. It was a brief stop, and after finding that there is no central graduate studies office or student affairs center, we left. Passing through about four hours worth of suburbs, we began to realize that the uncontrollable shaking that the car was doing might be a problem. We found a Firestone and $500 and three hours later, we had new front tires, alignment, et al. Getting late in the day now, we thought we could get as far as Madison, camp for the night, and do a little tour of the area the following day.

We camped at Lake Kegonda – a beautiful state park, with spacious set-back camp sites and a 360-acre lake, sitting in the middle of a vast expanse of lush green farmland. Only 200 years of human industry have transformed the landscape into a different beast altogether. All that corn, which seems immovable, were trees that we just peeled back like sunburned skin.

Scheduled today: the University of Wisconsin at Madison campus, Devil’s Lake State Park, and Baraboo—home of Circus World.

[Note: We’ve skipped describing Cleveland, where we saw an amazing exhibition of a new mummification technique called plastination. The exhibit is (unfortunately) called BodyWorlds 2. In case we don't get to writing about it, everyone should check out the website. It's madness.

Niagara

After leaving Toronto last Friday we headed straight to the most American place in Canada—Niagara Falls. Despite the fact that there is an American side to Niagara Falls, the best view is on the Canadian side, so this is where the casinos, the Planet Hollywoods, and the behemoth resort hotels have set up shop, climbing all over each other to get the best view and the most vertical acreage. It looks like they might end up craning themselves right into the vortex of the falls. In spite of the spectacle, the falls managed to be impressive in their own right, most especially if you stood just over the water shooting through the rapids toward the edge where you could really sense how massive and iron-fisted the force of water is. The tourists were a surprising accessory to the afternoon—we expected the Japanese, but the mess of Europeans and the Amish family buying Coke from a vending machine (they use money?) were the sugar on top.

We stopped in at the IMAX theatre, whose sole purpose was to show a movie about the Falls that I saw when I was eight (timeless classic, though) 12 times a day. They advertised a “Daredevil Gallery” as well, which sounded free so we went it. Best spectacle in Niagara Falls, without a doubt. It was an exhibit of the various cobbled-together seacraft that lunatics have used over the years to plummet themselves over the falls. Included was a replica of the first: a modest wooden barrel, lined with a mattress. It was piloted by a destitute 63-year-old woman named Annie Taylor, who was trying to make a buck. Everyone is quick to point out that she failed and died poor anyway, but that didn’t happen until years after she survived the 155-foot fall in what looked like a slightly oversized potato bucket.

We left Niagara after using our $37 tax rebate to buy a bottle of so-so scotch at the Duty Free, and headed toward Lake Erie State Park on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie in New York. The wind off the lake proved not to be mythic, and helped ensure that cooking dinner on the propane stove would be as inefficient as possible. But sausage and green beans (with a healthy dose of Vermont maple syrup) are sturdy foods, and we’re pretty efficient eaters. A storm that morning had turned the shore waters into a grayish sludge, but some trick of science recycled the mess into the most perfectly pastel sunset either of us had ever seen.

(More to come)

Back in the USSSA

We’re just shy of our departure from Toronto, after three very hot days spent mostly at the mercy of the humidity. I think the conclusion we’re coming to after similar experiences in DC, New York, and Montreal is that big cities are furnaces and we need to find richer friends who can afford air conditioning. That said, our friends are dolls for allowing us to add the heat of two bodies to their homely infernos.

Ian and Liz have regaled us with lots of talk about the apocalypse (food for thought: wouldn’t it be hilarious—in a oh crap kind of way—if we all ended up as refugees in the countries we’d originally migrated from and had to change our names back to the –Evsky and –Osky endings we dropped like hot potatoes when we came through Ellis Island?) and cooked us some incredible meals. Part of the credit there goes to the illustrious Jesse Brown (see the link in our links menu) for making some salt-encrusted, mustard-coated, syrupy-good ribs. As far as activities go, we went out to a funny little island right off the harbour here and sort of biked around and panted for a while. It turns out the island was hotter than the mainland, kind of cooking like corn in the hot lake. We went to the Bata Shoe Museum, which was peopled by the little-girls-love-ponies and Asian sets, but we learned a lot about shoes. They had an exhibit about the First Peoples of the North (Alaska, etc.), which included lots of coats (and surprisingly few shoes) made from fish skin, seal intestine, and birds. Seal intestine! And they looked a lot like the puffy marshmallow man jackets that the cool kids wore a few years back. Inuit-chic!

Before this we spent four extremely relaxing days at our friend Will’s cottage north of Toronto on the best little lake in the world. There were lots of morning swims, an abundance of water skiing (repeated engine failures with the boat made it even more of an adventure—and John made it up on a slalom ski!), and epic games of dominoes.

Pampered, rested, and a little sweaty, we’re ready to get back on the road. We’re heading to Niagara Falls now, and will camp on Lake Erie tonight. Tomorrow we’ll explore (in the best possible drive-by fashion) Cleveland and Detroit—again camping somewhere on the Lakes—and will arrive in Chicago on Sunday afternoon to stay with one of my dad’s cousins.

East is east

Gone from Montreal since Saturday and we have some catching up to do from our time on the road; apologies for the length of the post, but we do what we can do…

On Saturday we packed up Brinkman Rose and got on the rainy road headed back east hoping to make it somewhere in Maine. We took as many back roads as we could find on the map (and some that weren’t on the map at all) and gave a surprise to the tragically underworked border guard at a crossing in Vermont. When we explained where we were coming from and our destination and raised his eyebrows and his smile exclaiming, “Well how did you ever get here?” I found it somehow affirming that such an official would ask us such a question. We must be doing something right if we are the last people he expects to see crossing at his station.

Once back in the USA, I was struck again by my urge to consume local goods as we spotted signs almost immediately for “Vermont Maple Syrup.” We weren’t on route to stop at some souvenir stand, nor were we drawn to anything thing that would charge us for the package so we continued meandering through small towns in Vermont. As we came into one of the more populated (and well paved) parts of the day’s journey, we found a sign for our desire hanging in the driveway of somebody’s house. It was an elderly couple with whom we ended up spending the better part of a half hour chatting and exchanging addresses with and we walked away with a quart of Vermont’s finest “Fancy Grade” maple syrup and a couple of new friends somewhere in Vermont.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving over the northern ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, through New Hampshire and into Maine, ending at the friendly Rangley Lake State Park. I pitched our first tent in the rain while Hanna made a delectable dinner for us to share. We slept well as the rain continued through the night, dampening our tent but not slowing our momentum. Up at 6:30 the next morning we walked down to the lake, skipped some stones, and watched the fog lift off the mountains on the other side. Affirmed again by the sun showing through, we were on the road again, headed for Acadia.

[Hanna’s turn…]

We spent the next two nights in Acadia, doing battle with more rain. It was mostly a losing battle—our penance for inattentiveness to proper camping etiquette was a 10pm trip to the Laundromat to dry our soaked comforter and the lambskin rug we sleep on because we’d left the rain fly off during an afternoon thunderstorm. I raced back to camp in Brinky from the other side of Mount Desert Island where we had just started a 10 mile bike ride around a lake. Thinking I’d gotten there just in time to avert a total disaster (the steam was still rising off the road—it had to have only just begun raining, I thought), it turns out the whole storm had already passed over our tip of the island and, specifically, over our tent. Wet lamb smells much like wet dog (a fact that a rowdy 8-year-old “Princess of the Laundromat” was quick to confirm for us once we got into town) and dries about three times slower since it’s no longer alive, so we threw it in the dryer along with the comforter and pillows. Lessons learned: never leave the flap off; no matter what the labels say, you can definitely put pillows, down, and leather in a dryer with few consequences other than the desired warmth and dryness; rain flap or no, we need a new tent.

After sundry other Acadian adventures (frigid ocean swim, playing in the estuary, watching the sun rise over the ocean), we headed up the coast of Maine to New Brunswick, Canada. I had thought Maine was a pretty unique place in the panoply of American states, but New Brunswick really stole our hearts. The air was perfectly clear, perfectly blue (even bluer than Maine’s, which we had thought was pretty clean—cleaner by at least two degrees from grungy Vermont and New Hampshire). Their “scenic routes” on Canadian byways are visibly more scenic. Tourism seems not to exist, except in a very polite way, ensconced in information bureaus located conveniently off beautiful highways where they offer you free internet access, clean bathrooms, and free maps and books and guides to things. I’m used to thinking of the east coast as having charm, wit, and a few good cities, while the west has a monopoly on traumatically beautiful largess. But New Brunswick proved me wrong – it’s both expansive and gorgeous.

St. John, a bizarre town on the St. John river, hosted us for an afternoon walk after closing time (and really, after 5pm, everything was closed), and then we headed to our campsite about 20 miles north on a fork of the river. We had to cross a little provincial ferry across the river to the Kennebacassis Peninsula to get there (free!), and camped right next to the ferry landing on a little inlet that served as a duck marsh, croaking ground for the noisy frogs, and trading post for the beavers (who provided us with our best, driest firewood so far). We ate Kraft Dinner (mac and cheese) and Bush’s Best baked beans, which was probably our favorite meal so far as well (the fresh clams we steamed in Acadia notwithstanding).

It wa s a beautiful, friendly little campground. It’s only problem is one shared by every other place we’ve crossed that advertises “Camping”—they’re basically parking lots. This one was at least spacious and scenic, quiet and friendly. But I’m becoming quickly disillusioned that the word “camping” has any of the meaning I thought it had. The dictionary proves, of course, that the RV parks have just as much right to the word as I do (“A place where tents, huts, or other temporary shelters are set up, as by soldiers, nomads, or travelers”), but it doesn’t make me any happier about it. Both because these places are weird and because it makes it pretty difficult at the end of a long, wearying drive (especially in our bumpy truck) to reliably find a place to pitch our tent that won’t be somewhat deadening. It’s really no fun at all to be the one tent in the midst of the rapacious beasts, hooked up to sewage pumps and electricity – if only because it reminds us that we have no such luxuries.

This was exactly the kind of place we stayed our final night in the Maritimes, in a spot on a little lake in the spit of New Brunswick that peeks between Quebec and Northern Maine. The place’s spirit was revived by the wonderful little lake, which provided excellent swimming and a floating dock on which to read. It’s main detractor (besides the fact that the well had run dry and the conspiratorial atmosphere that this set off in the parks summer residents) were the black flies, which nearly ate us alive. We were rained out for the last time this week at about 5am and decided there was nothing to do but move again. We aimed ourselves for Quebec City, and arrived just in time for a proper breakfast (about 9:30).

[Switch to John again…]

We wandered around this city of age for an hour or so, lay for a nap on the grassy fortifications of the city, and watched the beginnings of an amateur skateboarding competition. It felt odd and comfortable to be in civility again but from here we decided that in order to make the best of our situation, revived by a served breakfast, we would keep moving down the St. Lawrence River to our old friend, Montreal. We stayed one more night with the ever hospitable Mike and Julia and are now on our way—clean, rested and restore—to a lake house north of Toronto. It is a beautiful blue-skied day and we are looking forward to the drive through Algonquin Park and the comforts of the lake house and the friendship of an old pal for the weekend.

Adios sweet city.

We're leaving Montreal in a few minutes, heading for the woods of Maine. Tomorrow we should reach Acadia National Park, and then we'll travel to the Bay of Fundy. We hope to return through the Alagash region on our way to Toronto and on from there we move west toward Alaska. Montreal has been amazing, and although we don't have time for a full run down of the trip (more later, we hope), we'd like to thank Mike and Julia for making it feel like we were at home here. It was beyond wonderful to see old friends and this old city.



Sitting on the steps at the top of Montreal's Mount Royal. See my no hair?



We're a postcard! This is the view of the city from the top of the mountain.



It's the 21st century, and we it's citizens; from the left, our friend Dave (he and Suzie came up from DC to visit Montreal over the 4th of July weekend), Kat, Mike (who put us up), and Hanna.

From there to here

It's Canada Day here, much to the chagrin of the Quebecois but much to our enjoyment. We arrived yesterday at about noon after a two-day journey from New York. The lack of air conditioning was sufficiently inspiring to get us to abandon Brooklyn and head for the Adirondacks. We drove out of the city on route 9 (the Henry Hudson Parkway), which takes you through the Bronx as high as 232 Street and through Yonkers. It’s spectacular and amazing—a sort of raised highway that passes over and through monstrous trees and New York bedrock and high rises. We more or less stayed on the same road all the way to the border, driving through Adirondack Park along Lake George and Lake Champlain. A good portion of the region seems to be made up of 1950s resort hotels with names like "The Tiki" and "The Lake Breeze." The accent sounds like a muffled Boston accent with a slight lisp and occasional resort to Brooklynese. The valley area between Lake George and Lake Champlain, centered around a farmy little town called Ticonderoga, was full of green, pillowy farmland that smelled, alternately, like green, pillowy farmland (that is to say, fresh and good) and like a paper mill (that is to say, like slowly rotting chemical decay). It was by far the most enjoyable route between the two metropoli that I’ve traveled.

We pulled off the road just north of Saratoga Springs at a little privately owned campground at about nine o’clock. No one was in the office, so we just found ourselves a spot and set up the back of the truck for slumber. It was our first night camping in the truck, which turns out to be luxuriously comfortable with the sheepskin rug spread out on top of the boxes John built. We opened the tailgate, patted down our pillows and listened to the rain fall on our tin-can roof. Were it not for my cold, I think it might have been the epitome of a perfect way to begin the ranging, roving, unmapped portion of our trip. As it were, I woke up in the damp at four in the morning coughing and sneezing and aching. I wandered down to the river (what river?) and sat sort of uncomfortably, watching the mist creep over the opposite bank. Another fusillade of coughs and I went back to the car to wake John and get moving. We were driving by six, and arrived—exhausted and dirty and sickly—by noon. The city was a welcome sight, populated by the welcome sounds of chirping, summery Quebecois and soft, lovely Canadian English. After my favorite sandwich on the terrase at Santropol, and a game of bocce on McGill’s lawn, we made our way to Mike and Julia’s feeling soulful and calm again