From Buffalo the van and I traveled east toward the Finger Lakes, but along the way made a stop along the way to visit the cemetery where Susan B. Anthony and Frederic Douglass are buried and some related sights in Rochester, then continued on to spend an afternoon in the beautiful (and super crowded on …
Tag Archives: state park
Pennsylvania and New York: Lake Erie Coastline
So it’s been a long time since I took the time to actually recap these adventures (now three months ago) but finally catching up and reliving the warmth, beauty, and fun. I miss it so much now that it’s full on winter. Exiting Ohio brought me into the teeny chunk of Pennsylvania bordering the Great …
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Michigan: Mackinac Island
After crossing the bridge from the UP into Mackinac City, I spent the rest of the afternoon trying some super sweet and… interesting local wine in town, and chatting with folks at a local brewery in the drizzly evening. In a small boost to my self confidence I got hit on by a range of …
Michigan: UP north to the bridge
The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore has been on my radar for a while after seeing gorgeous photos of the sandstone cliffs, tunnels and caves in amazing blue water. Unfortunately for me, it was far too windy over pretty much the entirety of my time on the UP to explore by water on a boat tour …
Michigan: the western Upper Peninsula
Having started out my day with some pretty spectacular roadside attractions leaving Wisconsin, Michigan was not about to be outdone and provided a few roght off the bat. First up: the world’s largest corkscrew! It’s part of a sign for a liquor store/gas station situation, and had it been open I would have bought some …
Minnesota: Boundary Waters and the Superior coastline
The drizzly, windy weather followed me east into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, but after a grey and stormy evening the morning turned blue and mild. After a hunt for a place to rent a canoe and explore (I mean, it’s in the name) I was sadly unsuccessful- all the local places I could …
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Minnesota: the Paul Bunyan trail to Voyageurs National Park
North of the twin cities quickly turns into the land of Paul Bunyan and his woodland entourage. Outside Brainerd I spotted Paul’s giant footprints in the scenic Kohl’s parking lot (my sandals for scale), Babe the blue ox in Elvis style, a corn cob man named Colonel Cobber (story here), a giant statue of Paul’s …
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Montana: all the rest
The road to Glacier Park from Idaho took me through Missoula, where I spent a day caching up on things like laundry and grocery shopping, and decided to stay over for a night in an actual motel since there were many cheap ones and I could shower (and dye my hair which was in dire …
Colorado: Ouray
While we were in Telluride I overheard a man on his phone saying something like “well it’s not supposed to start coming down until around 6″, put two and two together to check the weather, and sure enough it was going to snow. 3-9” in the mountains above 10,000 ft (where we’d been the night …
Texas: Austin
I’d been planning to visit my friend Kevin’s sister and her family in Austin before all the crazy came about, and they very kindly still offered to take me into their home as part of their social distancing group. I hung out for a few days with Darla, Jeff and their kids in a suburb …
The Van is Go 