Slow, wet news day

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' with you again tonight and again tonight from Little Bennett Regional Park Campground in Clarksburg, Maryland.

I really don't have much to report tonight and took no pictures today. We are here in Maryland visiting our oldest daughter and her three children. That entails helping around the house... I walked our 7 year old granddaughter (the only girl of the five grands... so naturally she's nicknamed "Princess") to school in a cool drizzle. Mrs. C' and our daughter had "girl things" to do, so I offered to stay home and get started on the to do list. That allowed time for two naps (I've been behind quota this trip) and considerable time on ancestry.com.

I have not written about ancestry since our stop in southern Indiana two years ago to search out Mrs. C's parents home turf. Since then I've dug deeper and deeper. Mrs. C' and I have both done the Ancestry DNA test and we know a lot more about where we came from. It turns out that sheds very little light on where we are going, except it allows us to know when we are in places where our ancestors have been. For example we camped two years ago in Russell County, Kentucky within miles of the place where two branches of Mrs.C's family emerged from the colonial woodlands. Over this coming weekend we'll pass Staunton, Virginia where another group of her ancestors including a Presbyterian minister named Samuel Black lived. I think and write a lot about American history and geography as we travel. Genealogy adds another interesting dimension to these trips.

Many of my ancestors came from Germany and Wales. While we'll never visit their home towns with the Airstream, I can learn about them from here. Today I was working on a particular ancestor who was born in Glamorgan, Wales in 1885 (+/- a year). His name was John John. No, that wasn't his cute nickname like JFK's kid. That was his actual, full, name. Creativity may not run deep in the Welch culture. We know that the Johns (the family name, not the man's  given name) lived in Glamorgan which is the state (they call them "shires" like in "Lord of the Rings"... no, that's,not to be cute either... Tolkien stole,the,idea from the Welch) in the southeast of Wales. The action in our family plays out in an area centered on the town of Pontypridd. If you have never been exposed to Welch place names you need to brace yourself. A map of Wales looks like the aftermath of an explosion at a consonant factory. The Welch prefer not to use the word "explosion" since the south of Wales is dotted with coal mines and in the days of my ancestors living there the things were going up on a daily basis and taking coal miners with them. The life of a Welch coal miner at the turn of the last century was so cheap that they sent a miner down with every canary to try and get the bird out alive if the place blew up. It seems it was hard to find birds willing to work the mines. Anyway, besides Pontypridd, local place names include: Senghenydd, Eglwyslian, Llwyncelyn, Pwllypant and Merthyr Tydfil. Oh... and Pen-y-coedcae. And Ystrad Mynach, Cwmfelinfach and finally Ynysybwl. They tried to create a Welch version of "Wheel of Fortune" but on every spin the players would say "I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat". It didn't work. If you want a mind twisting experience, Google "spoken Welch" and pick a YouTube video or two from the list. It sounds like a blend of Italian, Russian and Klingon to me. Anyway... back to 1885 in just the shire where the Cliche' family comes from there were about 25 lads named John John born in 1885. I told you creativity didn't run deep. By the time they were 11 they were working carrying picks and shovels below ground... or maybe a canary. I think I finally found my man JJ. He was on a ship headed for New York. I knew we came from smart folk.

So I think I'll take a couple more days off until we shove off for the final leg of this journey with a trip through the Blue Ridge Mountains, South Carolina, Georgia and home (where it may, or may not, be rainy but it won't be cold). That trip starts a Friday. I'll see you then!

Later...

SC'

More rain followed by showers then drizzle then pounding rain then mist

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again after a five day hiatus. I've enjoyed some time off and I hope you have too. Wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. I hoped you missed our reports from the road and are happy I'm back at the camera shutter and keyboard!

So, when I last wrote we were sitting near the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio and looking forward to visiting our oldest, dearest friends up the Lake in Buffalo. We awoke on Wednesday morning and it wasn't raining! It was just grey and cool. We headed east on I-90 for the easy 2 1/2 hour drive through the "Erie Triangle" of Pennsylvania and into the far southwestern corner of New York. If you are not familiar with the Erie Triangle, it's the piece of land that looks like a chimney rising from the north west corner of Pennsylvania. In the early days of our nation this 300 square miles which today includes Erie, Pennsylvania belonged to the Iroquois Confederacy. The nascent Federal Government considered all claimants from the states (including claims by New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania) and brokered a deal buying the land from the Iroquois and selling it to Pennsylvania. The Iroquois were paid $3,200 for the land. The government also paid the Seneca nation $800 (not the last time the Federal government would pay a bystander). Then Pennsylvania paid the Feds $152,000 for the same land. If only our current government knew how to make deals like that! Today that land is criss-crossed by pavement and large portions are covered in grape vineyards. It was a pleasant drive.

Anyway, I digress. Buffalo. We arrived in the very early afternoon, settled our rig in for a few days of urban camping and proceeded to get reacquainted with our old friends under a warm, blue sky with lunch outdoors. That was the last time we would see the sun in Buffalo for three days until we were hitching up to leave. In between those exposures to old Sol, we ate, shopped, ate more, went sightseeing, visited, ate again, watched "Naked and Afraid", ate again, shopped some more, watched "Iron Chef" and "The Great British Baking Show", drove past our old houses, ate some more and finally stayed in and ate. We finished with pancakes on the morning of our departure. I don't believe I have ever written about the importance of pancakes on a journey like this. One day I should go deep on that subject. 

Through all of that, the thing we most focused on was architecture. Buffalo grew up in the early decades of the last century. Its position at the end of the (then) navigable Great Lakes made it a transportation hub. Where transportation flourished, industry followed. Where industry took root, wealth followed. Buffalo was a very wealthy city and the remains of that era have been lovingly cared for in vast areas ever since. I think the core residential areas of the city look better now than they did when we moved away from Buffalo in 1984. I hope to look as good as the City does when I'm 110. At the same time Buffalo was reaching its high point of success, Frank Lloyd Wright was reaching his. It's not surprising that the two would come together. When we were last in Buffalo I wrote about the Darwin Martin house which is a Wright masterpiece and is finishing up a restoration costing tens of millions of dollars. On this trip we focused on other Wright works in the area including the Elizabeth Martin (Darwin's wife) summer house in Derby, New York about 30 minutes outside the city. This house is known as Graycliff. We first learned of Graycliff in about 1999 when it came up for sale. We went to see it knowing it was under a conditional contract with a group to be known as "The Conservancy". We told ourselves we were looking with the notion of trying to buy it since it was priced at only $500,000 and we thought that was a steal. In reality, it's not clear how we could have put a deal together, but it was fun to think about it. So, the Conservancy did complete the purchase and has spent almost 20 years and many millions bringing it back. The house sits on 8 acres of lakefront  bluff. Here are a couple of shots on a grey day:

First, the view approaching the entrance of the home. Lake Erie is in the background and about 80' below the ground level at the top of the cliff where the house stands:

 
 And two interior shots from a room on the back of the house that we might call the living room if it was in our house. As one approaches the space, it is quite dark with a stone floor, stone wall columns and limited wood work, but an enticing corner window with ferns for a window sill:

 When the magnitism of the window has completed its attraction, the view through the window includes the grounds and the Lake:

 That corner window became a Wright trademark and was widely used in homes that followed including Fallingwater outside of Pittsburgh.

Buffalo also includes Wright designs that were not built in his lifetime. One is a gas station in the Transportation Museum. The other is this open air mausoleum:

 Each of the "steps" is actually two final resting places. It was simple and peaceful. The setting beside a quiet pond was even more tranquil and prompted reflection.

To balance the splendor of so much Wright, our host (you remember "Buff" and "Mrs. Buff" from our last visit to the Nickle City... right?) took a detour after dinner one evening in East Aurora. We stopped in front of a national landmark... the home of Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States. In an effort to be kinder than history has been to "Old Mill", let me say that his home was as modest as his accomplishments in office. Later this trip we will probably tour Monticello, home of the third President, Thomas Jefferson. I see a theory emerging that the homes of Presidents may be an indicator of their success in office. More impressive home = more impressive accomplishments as President. To confirm or refute that theory, all I need is 3 1/2 more years. Check in with me then.

After a couple of days in Buffalo, we moved on to the Pocono Mountains in northeast Pennsylvania east of Scranton. The day was warm and partly sunny as we rolled across western New York, crossed the Southern Tier through Corning, Elmira and Binghamton and down the Susquehanna Valley to Scranton then east. We arrived at my folks house and had a wonderful visit, fantastic dinner prepared by my brother-in-law. We woke up to rain. So... we ate some more. With more than a little encouragement and supervision we managed to snake the truck and trailer down the steep, narrow driveway this morning and continue heading south.

A day that started in the low fifties and rainy peaked about the time we arrived in Frederick, Maryland in the low 80's and sunny. Such a nice day can only mean one thing for us... rain is on the way. However, we have our oldest daughter and three grand kids just up the road from where we are camping, so whatever the weather we'll be busy all week while we are here in Maryland.

So, that's what's been happening. Stay tuned...

 Later,

SC'

The 1,000 mile detour is almost over

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here. The states keep ticking by and tonight we've advance our silver game piece one more step along the path... that means we have moved on from Indiana and into Ohio. Specifically, tonight we came to rest at Geneva State Park in Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio near the northeast corner of the Buckeye State.

Finally we've reached a state where the nickname has a clear meaning. The buckeye is a tree that produces a fruit similar to a horse chestnut. That's pretty clear. What's less clear is why a state would accept a nickname like that. Oh well... at least it's not a Hoosier.

So, not much to report today. When we plan these trips there are clear points along the way that are the payoff for days of driving and weeks away from home. Whenever possible, we look for interesting places to connect the dots with a day or two drive between them. This trip already had some long, dreary stretches. This one has stretched out to be even longer than expected thanks to the rain and cold in Wisconsin and northern Michigan. So, for the past three days we've covered over 800 miles and have just 160 to go to our next intended destination.  Here's a summary of the detour thus far:

 And thanks to Google, here's a picture of the park including an arrow I put on to show our specific campsite. We are about 1/2 mile from Lake Erie at the top of the pic and when I booked this site I didn't realize there was a golf course through the woods behind us. I guess we should prepare to be awakened by the sound of cursing in the morning. Darn.

 So, today was all about Ohio. We entered the state shortly after pushing off from Pokagon State Park, Indiana and we almost reached the Pennsylvania border when we set down here in Ashtabula County. There was a steady evolution of the things that make Ohio... well... Ohio... as we moved east across the top of the state. We started in farm country. When we jumped off the interstate for gas we got a closer look. The pride and tradition of farming shows here. Small, white, simple farm houses are typically dwarfed by barns that were once painted red and are now a faded, chalky brick color. The size of the stand of trees that surrounds any given farm and its out buildings speaks to the power of the winter wind coming off the lakes and to the age of the specific farm. None are young. On a state road we even saw a warning sign with an Amish horse and carriage on it. Farming is old and deep here... and just reawakening for the season as evidenced by the numbers of tractors traversing the fields and the lack of green shoots in the fresh furrows that went on beside the interstate for an hour or more.

The first thing to displace farmland along the roadway was large agribusiness. I have no idea what the masses of silos and buildings with steam billowing from various openings did. Canning? Maybe. Whatever the purpose, these complexes were the next step up in the "food chain" from the farms we had seen. You and I are at the top of the chain thanks to a maze of transportation, warehousing and supermarkets. As we passed Toledo and Youngstown we saw industry. Not quite as old as the farming here... but close. Some modern factories, some a bit older (including one showing the passers-by on the interstate a shiny new pickup they had assembled recently) and some downright ancient from the era when manufacturing meant molten metal and flying sparks. The Great Lakes region was instrumental in the dawn of industrialization in the US and the pieces that remain from that time look like something Tolkein would have described as a place which a hero had to enter and later escape to save civilization. After that came a mishmash of orchards, vineyards light manufacturing and distribution businesses. It occurred to me that all along the route yesterday and today I watched an unusual vehicle moving in the opposite direction. Both the Ohio and Indiana Turnpikes allow triple trailer rigs to travel. These are a single tractor pulling three trailers. These beasts are more than triple our length. I've seen double trailer rigs for years... but never triples and the sheer numbers were impressive. These are reminiscent of the "road trains" that cross central Australia. Finally came the beacon of northern Ohio... Cleveland. We drove directly through downtown and I can tell you that the heart of rock and roll is still Cleveland and the heart was beating strong in mid afternoon on a Tuesday in May. From there it was 45 minutes following the Lake Erie shore to get to Geneva on the Lake.

So, 2 1/2 hours tomorrow and we set down for a few days at the home of our dear old friends for some "urban camping". You may remember when we last visited them over Labor Day 2015. From there we'll head to northeast Pennsylvania then to Maryland to visit family before starting the last leg home from Maryland to Florida via Virginia's Skyline Drive and North Carolina's Blue Ridge Parkway (a piece of which we covered last year making us anxious to see the whole thing).

I'm going to take a few nights off here. Hopefully I'll have opportunity and weather to capture some pics in those places so I can give you fewer words and more images. Or maybe the weather we've been running from will catch up with us and drown the photo ops. I'll let you know when I start writing again in a few days!

Later...

SC'

Hello Muddah, hello Faddah...

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' with you again tonight and (drum roll please...) from somewhere other than Wisconsin! Yep, tonight we've landed in beautiful Pokagon State Park near Angola, Indiana in the northeast corner of the Hoosier State. I say "beautiful" because after 4 nights in cold, wet Wisconsin I might have said "we are in beautiful Hell!" because I hear at least it's warm and dry there. After Wisconsin, anything qualifies as beautiful.

For the first time in over a week, the day broke for us with a brilliant, clear light shining from the sky. It brought illumination, warmth and, most welcome of all, hope. We saw some other campers out around breakfast time. From their mannerisms I would say they were locals. I say this because their cowered and trembled when they saw the light in the sky. It reminded me of the scene from "2001 A Space Odyssey" where the apes encountered the monolith. We explained to them that we come from a place where that light is seen often... and worshiped... we even nicknamed our state after it. They seemed somewhat calmed by that news and began grooming one another. We knew it was time to leave.

I was a bit disoriented by the sun. After taking advantage of the warmer morning to trim by hair and beard (there is a helpful trick to this process on a cool morning... when the sun rises perpendicular to the Airstream it is possible to stand on the sunny side of the trailer and get warmed both by the direct sun on one side of the body and by the reflected sun off the polished aluminum of the trailer on the other) and have breakfast, we hit the road. My last act was to take a pic out the front of the truck and another with the camera held up and pointing backward as we pulled away. Here they are...

 I think it was nice of Wisconsin to leave us those pastoral views as a remembrance. Like the song "Camp Granada" by Alan Sherman in the 1960's (the one that begins "Hello Muddah, hello Faddah; Here I am at Camp Granada")... as soon as it stopped hailing, the kids started sailing and forgot the rain... and so did we... as we sailed out of Wisconsin.

Our route took us southeast toward Chicago. Everyone knows that town as "the windy city" or "the city of big shoulders". (thanks to Walt Whitman for that one). I think we need to update those. Here in the social media age we are not so interested in descriptions as implications. I propose extending those worn out nicknames and calling Chicago "the city of lost hats" or "the city of XXL overcoats". Sorry... to many days locked in the tin can in the rain... it's like a prisoner whose been in "the hole" for too long... does things to the brain.

We did our very best to avoid Chicago proper and we succeeded. We did at one point see the skyline from about 10 miles to the southwest. Other than that it was toll booths. Lots and lots of toll booths. Fortunately, our EZ Pass worked in Illinois (we learned that at the first toll when I held out a $10 and the lady said "your I-Pass registered". Rather than saying "we don't have an I-Pass." I drove on with the commitment to not stop at another manned toll booth between there and the Indiana state line). It turns out that the last laugh was on the folks in Illinois. I just checked my EZ-Pass account. In the trip from the Wisconsin line to the Indiana line I went through seven... count 'em S-E-V-E-N... toll collection points. The smallest toll was $1.35. The largest $7.20. The grand total for the two hours we spent in Illinois was $27.50. As the old joke goes: "If that's what it costs to not go to Chicago you probably can't afford to actually go there".

If the insult of Illinois roadways wasn't enough, next we hit Indiana. Specifically, the Indiana Toll Road which is better known to travelers as I-80/90 since both of these major east/west highways share that pavement through the Hoosier State (I'm not sure if I'll get to the question of what's a Hoosier this time... whenever I see it all I can think is whether it was the inspiration for the phrase "Hoosier Daddy?"... probably not.). Is one of the strangest twists of rolls in recent memory, the State of Indiana sold the road to a private company about 10 years ago. Well, they didn't exactly sell the road itself... they leased the right to collect tolls on the road for a period of 75 years. An interesting approach. The company that leased the road went bankrupt after 8 years of operation (oops!) and what we saw was horrifying and promising all at the same time. The process of getting from Chicago was bizarre. First off, we were on I-80/90 and so was the campground. One might think that the best approach would be to stay on the same road... right? Wrong!... at least wrong in Indiana. Both Google and Waze told us to get off I-80/90 and onto I-94. We complied. After a bit of travel the instruction was to get off I-94 and onto US-20 then to some other road to get back onto I-80/90. Are you following this? Yes? Really? What, are you from Indiana??? Anyhow, getting off I-94 East and onto US-20 East should be easy, right? Well, the process is this: 1.) Exit I-94 onto US-20 West (that's right... head the wrong direction on the target road) 2.) Exit US-20 onto I-94 West (that's right, get back onto the Interstate you just exited but in the opposite direction). 3.) Exit I-94 West for US-20 East. What could be easier than that? How about reopening the frickin' exit that makes that three step process back into a single step? Here's what the Google Maps driving directions map for that maneuver looks like:

  
 With the force of a sharp stick in the eye, Google even shows the now closed exit ramp as a teaser. I've never had a simple 90 degree turn become three complete 360's until today... at least not since I quit drinking.

Anyhow, on to the bankrupt roadway. We hit no fewer than seven stretches of up to four miles each of single lane stretches of the road. Since your time is not their money, out of an excess of caution the Toll Road Company set the speed limit on those stretches as 45 MPH and the Indiana State Police put a car at every one of them. Covered wagons crossed Indiana in less time than we did. Just to cap off the pleasure of time spent on the road, two of the three rest areas we passed were closed. Romeo and I sure wished that wasn't the case. Somewhere near the end of all of that we saw an 18 wheeler on its side in a ditch off the right shoulder of the road (or what would have been the right shoulder if they had not already removed it as an "improvement"). There were two huge wreckers working to upright the rig and it appeared to have happened hours earlier, maybe even overnight. Hopefully the driver was OK. Mrs. C' asked "was that an accident we just passed?". I replied "I don't think so. It looked like another attempted suicide by an Indiana driver". 

We rolled past towns you may be familiar with including South Bend (home of Notre Dame) and Elkhart (the RV capital of the world! Literally 80% of the RVs and cargo trailers in America are made in the area around Elkhart, Indiana.) So, finally we landed at Pokagon (which is pronounced locally as po-KAY-gun State Park). The weather was low 70s and dry. I like Camp Granada much better now.

Tomorrow it's on to Ohio, then Wednesday to Buffalo.

Later...

SC'   

Rolling again

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again tonight. And I'm delighted to report our location is somewhere other than St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. Sadly, it's not St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, but we are at Lake Kegonsa State Park just outside of Madison, Wisconsin in the south central part of the state.

The morning broke today in St. Croix Falls right where it left off last night... 45 degrees and drizzling. We had made the commitment to leave this morning in part because we had moved all of the fresh water in the trailer into one or the other of the two "not so fresh" tanks (enough said) and we had to move the trailer to address that. As long as we were hitching up we figured we might as well get started on the next phase of our journey.

So we headed east then south rolling across Wisconsin. We passed by or through towns and cities you may actually have heard of (and a bunch I'd bet you have not). I'm thinking of places like Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, the Wisconsin Dells and ultimately the state capital, Madison. Today is our 4th day in Wisconsin. It has rained every day we have been here. Looking at the weather channel forecast for Mackinac Island, Michigan (which was a destination that is basically the reason we entered this hell hole of a state in the first place) it showed today was rainy and 47. Tomorrow is forecast to be rainy and 52, Tuesday will be rainy and 56 and Wednesday will be rainy and 57. I'm sensing that the way one tells its spring in Wisconsin and Michigan is that the rain you are feeling from head to foot becomes warmer.

If you've read about our adventures before you probably realize that wherever we visit I like to immerse myself in the local food, history, geography and customs. Being here in Wisconsin and experiencing spring as the locals do I got to thinking... I bet this dismal environment appears through the subconscious of denizens of "the Badger State" in ways even they don't understand or appreciate... maybe I can find some and enlighten them. I had this realization when three days of captivity in a small metal box with the constant sound of rain on the metal roof had started to take their toll. I began to feel deeper sympathy for Noah from the Old Testament. While the Bible highlighted the best of his accomplishments, I can't help but imagine when it was over he said to himself "There's 40 days of my life I'll never get back.".  It occurred to me that even the state nickname "the Badger State" might be one of those cultural expressions emerging from the effects of the climate. I always thought it referred to the fighting spirit of the member of the weasel family that the University adopted as it's mascot. Now I'm thinking it is a byproduct of confinement of groups of people indoors for long periods of time. Or, let's take the state song... "On Wisconsin". I'm thinking it was originally "On from Wisconsin" and was a wishful lament of an early pioneer. When I actually listened to it, I realized it's a more modern tune but it was clearly written to a beat formed by windshield wipers set to their high speed. When a place like this gets into your psyche it comes out in unexpected ways... but it comes out.

So we drove through the very heart of Wisconsin. Clearly this is an agricultural wonderland. It's evident that agriculture here is a different thing than where we have been in the earlier parts of this trip. For example, the fields are smaller than in Nebraska or Iowa. In many areas they are tucked into dales, wrapped around hills and set in tiers on gentle slopes. The tractors, plows and combines at the ever-present John Deere (the green equipment with the yellow trim) and Case/IH (the dark red with black) dealers are just a tad smaller here. I didn't see a Quad Trac tractor all day. It's also evident that the cattle we saw were less often for beef and more often for dairy. Remember, this is the state where people wear hats that look like wedges of cheese. Occasionally we saw industry that was unlike anything we've seen before. Here are a couple of pics of these facilities:

At first I thought these were ethanol production plants. The buildings were belching steam and the piles of bulk material outside looked like wheat or other grains. You know about the US ethanol business... right? That's where we take food that we used to sell cheaply to poor countries like Haiti and at the mandate of the US Federal Government we turn it into motor fuel and burn it. That process lets environmentalists feel good that we are growing motor fuel rather than burning dinosaur squeezings and it helps farm state Senators get reelected while causing food prices to go up for poor families in other countries that most American environmentalists and Senators don't give a crap about (unless rising sea levels threaten their hovels... in which case we make a documentary about them to show to rich people at Davos). Anyway... it wasn't that after all. Central Wisconsin is one of only a few places that mine, dry and distribute silica sand. What's silica sand used for, you ask? Fracking. Yep... far from being a source of carbon-neutral motor fuel, these businesses prepare and ship very specialized sand that is forced down wells all over the US to drive out natural gas. That natural gas is in turn used to make electricity that California environmentalists buy to charge their Teslas. The hypocrisy is evidently lost on everyone in California when they tell their friends over a glass of Pino Griggio "I drove a zero emission car to the party!" "Ooooooo... how responsible of you!" the friends reply. The people of Central Wisconsin clearly need and appreciate the work. They don't seem to mind the hypocrisy.

So we bounced along for most of the afternoon. I'm sure the highways were mostly built by students of the engineers who misaligned the slabs of I-20 in Louisiana. We rocked and rolled from Eau Claire to Madison. Mrs. C' was trying to type something and uttered several oaths at the Department of Transportation officials whose concrete caused her to mistype every third keystroke. As we got closer to the campground we shifted to state highways. Fortunately, they were asphalt, not concrete slabs. Unfortunately they had been repaired so many times that they looked like Dolly Parton's childhood coat (except we couldn't feel the love each road crew placed in every patch).

But we made it! Now one day's travel removed from St. Croix Falls. Two day's away from Buffalo with stops planned at state parks in Indiana tomorrow night and Ohio on Tuesday. It was 52 and cloudy here when we parked the rig. After several day's of low to mid 40s and rain, 52 and overcast looks and feels wonderful. 

I'm hoping one day to have both subject matter and lighting to take real pictures again. We seem a baby step closer today since we have now gone 6 hours without being rained on. Maybe tomorrow we can shoot for a full day.

Until then...

SC'

In praise of seat heaters!

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' with you again. Tonight's report comes to you from... wait for it... St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin... again...for the third night in a row.

So, the sun didn't exactly rise this morning... it mostly engaged in a failed attempt to shine through several miles of thick, grey, cloud cover. Those were presumably the same clouds that were spitting on us starting shortly after they defeated the sun's initial assault (who says you can't fight a war on two fronts at the same time?).

As I predicted, we waited until the initial jolt from the Starbucks hit us (thank God we carry that stuff by the pound... we had six bags on board when we left Florida. We replenish at every WalMart stop to make sure we have enough to carry us through the first two waves of a Zombie attack should we encounter one. Those red-eyed, drooling bastards won't stand a chance against us as long as Mr. Starbuck and Mr. Remington are both on board)... anyway we waited for the Starbucks then considered our options. The Weather Channel was the indispensable resource for the discussion. It said it was going to be crappy throughout Wisconsin and every surrounding state today, tonight and tomorrow morning; it was going to be crappier than average here in west central Wisconsin; and it was going to be crappiest of all and for the longest time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where we were to go next. Decision: Stay here today and leave tomorrow to try and follow a gap between this storm and the next one under the Great Lakes to our next stop... Buffalo, New York (where, as many of you know, Mrs. C' and I met and married and a place with people we hold in the highest regard).

It turned out the two days up to Mackinac Island and the two days back down was too much pain (of the wet, cold kind) for what looked like a single, cold, grey day to see the Island. The trip to the UP of MI was an option as we planned this trip. We decided to include that swing since neither of us have ever been there. What we might have determined with more research is that warm weather is forecast there for July 25th this year. It turns out we are missing the beautiful summer day by almost two months. Oh well... maybe next year. You may think we are disappointed. Well, maybe just a bit. You see, if we had not included the UP option in the itinerary we would have left Florida later and hit all of the stops to date later. That means we would probably have been in Rocky Mountain National Park the other day when it got 21" of late season snow. So... being in west central Wisconsin in the rain in a camp site with good Verizon Wireless internet, 30 Amp electric service and several small towns nearby beats being snowed in to a primitive camp site at Rocky Mountain National Park. We turn our plans over to higher authority and have faith that we will be guided safely. I think that worked this time (again).

Speaking of wet, cold, west/central Wisconsin, once we made the decision to stay put today and run like scalded dogs tomorrow, we were faced with the challenge of deciding how to avoid the feeling of being imprisoned in the Airstream cell of the Wisconsin penile system. We made a plan to head into the heart of the storm. Despite protests from Romeo who was left behind to guard our home, we ventured out. Let me say that the people of the north woods here are hearty folk. Although we had locked ourselves in the trailer for most of the morning and enjoyed the gas heat, many of our neighbors were actually tenting. The temperature was 45 degrees and the rain was coming down steadily and continuously. If you want to have the "Silver Cliche' Wisconsin Camping Experience" but on heavy clothes (fleece will do... it's not goose down weather) and read the rest of this blog post while standing in a cold shower. Optionally, you may point a window fan into the shower to create some horizontal rain and wind chill. Our neighbors literally were standing in the rain trying to keep a fire going while eating food from cans (beans, I assume... for the added warmth). I've seen homeless people with more effective sheltering.

So, we headed off to Osceola, Wisconsin about 10 miles south for some lunch. We ate at a little cafe that had good reviews online. The homemade soup was warming. The grilled sandwiches were too. The highlight may have been the homemade potato chips. From there were headed about 10 miles west, back into Minnesota, for a bit of shopping. Mrs. C' has been deprived for a long while (she is an avid but cautious shopper) so this seemed the perfect day for some retail therapy to take our minds off the chill. I might add that the trusty Tundra has seat heaters. When we bought the truck almost 4 years ago I told the dealer what color, trim level and features I wanted. Seat heaters were not on the list and are considered dangerous by most Floridians. The reason I say "dangerous" is because they may be turned on by accident on a day that is already hot and humid. The additional heat around one's... um.... ah.... posterior!(phew, I was struggling to not violate my "family friendly" commitment) can cause excessive sweating which can easily be misinterpreted by passers by as you walk into the grocery store in light colored, "Florida-friendly" fabrics. Let me ask you, the last time you saw someone wearing clothes that were obviously damp in the seat did you say to yourself "Oh... I bet that man didn't realize the seat heater in his car was turned on accidentally"? Of course you didn't. My point exactly. Seat heaters in Florida are dangerous to one's reputation and can easily become the subject of a significant misunderstanding. I didn't want them. The Toyota dealer said "Mr. Cliche', we've found the precise truck you asked us to find... and it even has seat heaters!". Obviously I took the truck with the heaters and never used them (unless by accident and unawares) until today. All I can say is: that feels nice on a damp 45 degree day!

The Scandinavian influence is obvious in Minnesota. The town we went to was "Lindstrom". About half of the street names contain an "o" with a slash through it. Both Lindstrom and the town next to it have signs on the main road declaring themselves sister cities with places in Sweden. Lindstrom had several shops that provided just the right amount of therapy. We wrapped up after a couple of hours and headed back across the St. Croix River to our home in the wet north woods. Romeo was delighted to see us. Our neighbors with the beans and tent had left (we didn't think less of them for having bailed out) and we settled back into the comfort of gas heat.

Tomorrow we'll plan to head south-east to a spot in Wisconsin near the Illinois border. We're expecting rain early but dryer, warmer conditions as we move along. On Monday we'll brave the trip through Chicago and shoot across the top of Indiana. On Tuesday we'll be in Ohio and hopefully on Wednesday (two days early) we'll reach Buffalo.

So, that's the story of our first trip to Wisconsin with the Airstream and our failed attempt to see the UP of MI. Oh well. We had warm coffee, a sampling of local life in the St, Croix valley and a place to park. Life can be a lot worse than that. We could have been eating beans out of a can while standing in the rain and watching our camp fire go out.

Later...

SC'

But maybe not 33...

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again tonight and for the second night in a row parked in site 36 at Wisconsin Interstate Park near St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.

Well, as I ended last night, I knew we had a decision to make. Out itinerary for the next several days was set long ago with the benefit of the almanac which said the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is generally pleasant at this time of year. I should have considered the full meaning of the word "generally" in that sentence. Here's what we had planned (with thanks to Google Maps for plotting our course):

Starting at our current location in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, we were to spend tonight and tomorrow night right on Lake Superior at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula. That;s the thing that sticks into Lake Superior like a wagging finger saying "you'll regret this!". On Sunday we were to travel a bit east and camp at Bay Furnace then Monday on to Straits State Park where Lakes Michigan and Huron meet for two nights including a day wandering around Mackinac Island (the Great Lakes answer to vacationing at Nantucket). 

The challenge is that the weather is not it's "generally pleasant" self. It's "specifically awful". Here, let me show you...

Here's what the Weather Channel is showing for the Saturday forecast...

The Sunday forecast...

The Monday forecast...
 

And the Tuesday forecast...
 

Do you notice an area that is expecting rain every day for the next four? That's right... precisely where we were planning to be. And if the rain wasn't enough of a deterrent, the temperatures are forecast to be in the 30's or low 40's over night and the low 50's during the day. I could have that kind of trip if I checked into a Holiday Inn and took a shower then went to the restaurant kitchen and asked if I could step into the walk in cooler to dry off. Those of you who were Rocky and Bullwinkle fans in the 1960's may be interested to learn that Houghton, Michigan -- the gem of the Keweenaw Peninsula -- was the model for "Frostbite Falls" on the old TV show... who knew?

So... after the coffee started to take effect this morning we convened a meeting of the Board of Directors to consider our options. The contenders were: a.) press ahead with a 4 1/2 hour drive today to reach the Keweenaw Peninsula b.) toss the idea of the UP of Michigan entirely and start heading south and east (note that campsite reservation windows close 2 or 3 days ahead of time... heading anywhere unplanned today meant putting ourselves at the mercy of finding a "walk up" site open or driving until we found one or gave up and camped at a WalMart or Cracker Barrel) or c.) staying in St. Croix Falls for another day and reconsidering our options tomorrow. You probably guessed already that we picked option "c". Luckily, nobody had this site reserved for tonight, so we were able to pay our $30 and sit it out hoping the weather man is wrong and the UP forecast clears and warms. So far, no luck. We'll reconvene the Board over coffee in the morning.

So what does one do on a grey, cold day in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin? Not much. We elected to feed ourselves breakfast and lunch in the trailer while generally being lazy. Somehow, this town of 2,000 and something souls manages to keep an 8-plex movie theater in business. We saw "Aliens Covenant" (save your $8 and watch the original Aliens on Netflix unless you are stuck in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin on a grey, cold day in which case you must get out and see it!). Dinner was a "one pot wonder" cooked on the galley stove (chicken breasts with brown rice and peas... it received better reviews than "Aliens Covenant") followed by strawberry shortcake cooked in the galley oven (two thumbs up!). We also refilled an empty propane tank, because with weather like this, one can never been over-prepared to deliver heat!

The propane place was in the next town south (Osceola, Wisconsin... also a town of 2,000-ish souls). It has a cute, old downtown mercantile district. The cleanliness and pride of place shows through even on a dreary day. I had a chance to chat with a few locals (not surprisingly, until I told them, they were not aware that they are free to leave and that there are places like Florida where an American can travel without a passport... I feel I did my duty to advance civics in America).

So, that's how you waste a day to buy time and hope for better news. Tomorrow we'll face the same three choices... press on, replan or hunker down. I'll let you know how that turns out tomorrow night!

Later...

SC'

31 and 32

Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' with you again. Writing to you tonight from Interstate State Park on the Wisconsin side of the Saint Croix River within a 3 wood shot of Minnesota. It's not often I post twice in a day, but today is one of those times. I was good and lazy last night, so I didn't get yesterday's story told until this morning. Today I'm back to my old self and writing as the sun sets.

The day started cold and wet. Our campsite in Marble Beach State Recreation Area was grass. All the sites there were. After 24 hours of intermittent heavy rain the sites were clearly more beach than marble. We were warm and cozy in our aluminum home. There was electricity, coffee, pancakes and internet. What more could we need? 

We hit the road about 11:00 and let Waze tell us how to get to our next destination... Interstate State Park, Wisconsin (there is another Interstate State Park just across the river... it's important to enter the proper state). Today's drive was showing about 4 hours. There were alternatives, but the fastest route was mostly on interstate highways. We headed east across I-90 for about 90 minutes then north on I-35 for another 90. The Interstate system serves as a crude measure of progress. The major east/west routes carry two digit designations ending in a zero. We started heading west on the southernmost of those -- I-10 -- and we are working our way east on the northernmost -- I-90. The most significant north/south routes are also two digits and end in a 5. We crossed I-95 on day 1 of the trip and got as far west as I-25 in Denver and Colorado Springs. The weather was cold and damp all day long... temps in the mid 50's. In Florida we call a day that doesn't reach 60 "record breaking cold". Here in the nations thorax it's called mid-May. 

You may have been watching the news and weather today wherever you are in the country. The intense storms that we were in, then drove under then got hit by yesterday evening have affected tens of millions of people. If you think back to the stories and pics from where we were in Colorado less than a week ago you'll be surprised to know that Estes Park received 21" of snow today. We had a plan in case we faced some snow while there (we didn't see any falling). The plan was "stay put until it melts". We had no plan for 21". Lucky we missed that!

Within 5 minutes of leaving the campsite we were in Minnesota. That's state # 31 for the Airstream. Our drive stayed in Minnesota until 5 minutes before we reached our campsite. Despite the overcast and occasional rain, most of what we saw in Minnesota was peaceful and showed signs awakening from winter. The ground in farm country was gorgeous. The soil here is the color of a chocolate bar. Not that medium brown of the milk chocolate favored for s'mores. The dark brown of the semi-sweet chocolate that you occasionally got in a Halloween bag and later felt cheated when you bit into it and realized that the thing you like best about chocolate is the sugar. Despite being farther north than any time in the trip so far, many of the farms here showed signs of crops emerging that were well ahead of farms in Iowa, Nebraska or Colorado.

Uncharacteristically, we didn't stop for lunch. We drove continuously with only a stop for gas. Given the inhospitable climate for Floridians, Mrs. C' and Romeo didn't even get out of the truck. After passing through St. Paul, Minnesota (the state capital and home until last year of Garrison Keillor's program "A Prairie Home Companion"). With absolutely no fanfare we crossed the Mississippi River. That waterway deserves its nickname "Old Man River" in the mid- and deep-South, it's a child up here so close to its source in Lake Itasca, Minnesota.

We crossed out of Minnesota and into Wisconsin (state # 32) about 3:15. It was 50 degrees, overcast and threatening rain. We were miserable, but got the trailer settled, hooked up the power and headed in to the heat and late lunch. Somewhere around 7:00 PM the clouds parted and I felt inspired to take a walk to the river for some pics. Arguably, the prime time for river pics had passed 30 minutes earlier when the sun left the water, but when you are a travel blogger you take what you get. Here are pics of the St. Croix River looking upstream/north (Minnesota on the left and Wisconsin on the right) then looking downstream/south (Wisconsin on the left and Minnesota on the right):

Our campsite is almost visible in the upper picture on the far right in the grove of trees above the river.

This was the first interstate park in the country (with two states operating contiguous parklands in a coordinated way) and it was Wisconsin's first state park. The primary features are visible in the pictures above... volcanic rock exposed and worn by water. Evidence of ice age erosion is also on display here with "the ice age trail" running through the park.

So, tomorrow we face a challenge. The "plan of record" says we head to the Porcupine Mountains near Houghton, Michigan (state #33). Houghton sits on the Keweenaw Peninsula which juts into Lake Superior near its western end. We have a campsite reserved directly on the Lake for two nights before moving east to another site on the Lake for Sunday night then camping tight at the Mackinac Straits for Monday and Tuesday. The problem with that plan is that we are now on the back side of that nasty cold front and the weather in the UP of Michigan is forecast to be lows in the 30's, highs in the 40's and rainy on an off for the next 4 or 5 days.. I'm considering alternatives, but good weather is far away.

Stay tuned to see where we land tomorrow night!

Later...

SC'

"Oh... that tornado warning is to the north" 'Huh? We're heading north"

Morning, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again. Today's report is coming to you from the Hawkeye State... no?... Iowa! Specifically, we are on the shores of Spirit Lake in north/central Iowa literally within a mile or so of the Minnesota border.

After spending two relaxing days "down on the farm" in Nebraska we decided to hit the road. It was great seeing old friends and they fed us like kings on Nebraska beef, Nebraska pork, Nebraska asparagus (picked fresh)... you get the idea. If you ever had pity on the people in the middle of the country because they don't often see the ocean, or go to to plays on Broadway, don't. The best kept secret of middle America may be that since our food comes from there, they keep the best of it for themselves. Shhhhhhhhh!

Anyway, we had a nice breakfast and chat yesterday morning then hit the road in the rain to press northeast. If you have been watching the news or weather the past couple of days you may know that there has been a massive cold front that formed a line from the northeast to the southwest. I looked at the national realtime lightning and rain map on Tuesday night and the storm literally ran from southern Ontario to the center of Texas. Almost border to border. There were multiple points along the storm where tornadoes broke out on Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday. Welcome to tornado alley. We headed into that on a trajectory that almost precisely followed the axis of the storm.

Through the drive on Wednesday we saw conditions from clear and sunny to rain so hard I was driving half the posted speed limit. We were not on an interstate highway all day... state roads, county roads, "city" streets in small towns with names that I never heard before and will not remember tomorrow. The big city of the day was Sioux City, Iowa. This is a place that will forever be in my mind as the city where United flight 232 crashed in 1989. That ill fated flight is (in my opinion) one of the most amazing feats of piloting ever recorded. A catastrophic engine failure in the tail-mounted, center engine on a DC-10 caused total loss of hydraulic capability. That is the power for all control surfaces. The pilots managed to use differential thrust of the two working wing-mounted engines to get the plane to Iowa and "land" ("crash" better describes it) at the Sioux City  airport. Tragically, there were 111 fatalities. However, 186 passengers and crew survived what any student of aviation would have predicted to be a loss of all souls aboard. I have no idea what else Sioux City has to commend it... and we didn't stop to learn.

We did, however stop for lunch in La Mars, Iowa about 30 miles down the road. Surprisingly, when I researched dining options I learned that La Mars is home to one of the top 10 steak houses in the country. Let's go! Sadly, they are open only for dinner (lazy bastards... what about those of us passing through for lunch?). We ate at the second best restaurant in town (this is a small town... the second best restaurant happened to also be the second worst). While dining on burgers and such we saw a tornado alert flash across the TV above our table. We asked the waitress about the location it mentioned. She said not to worry... that's an hour to our north. But... that's where we are going, I said to Mrs. C'.

So we stopped at Wal-Mart to round up supplies for the coming day and headed north into the warning zone and toward Spirit Lake. Through most of the day the weather was cold and wet... mid fifties to low sixties with intermittent rain, occasional downpours with raindrops that hit like small hailstones and sporadic small towns. One such small town represented what we saw all day, so I grabbed the iPhone from its holster, drew and fired! Ladies and gentlemen... Emerson, Nebraska on a rainy Wednesday noon:

Evidently, the cruise speed of the Silver Cliche' rig is faster than the forward progress of a late May cold front in Iowa because it became obvious that we were nearing the frontal boundary. How did we know, you ask? Well, today's Silver Cliche' Driving Experience set tells the story. We were heading east with the front forming a diagonal line in front of us. The view to the left is north, center is east and right is south:

 In the 20 minutes that followed that series of shots we watched the front pass above us and the temperature went from 57 degrees to 73. Mrs. C' caught the best pic of the shelf cloud as we neared it:

We got to Spirit Lake with the temperature still warm and the sky partly cloudy. Within 10 minutes of parking the rig we felt the temperature drop, the wind pick up and the rain begin again. It found us! Of the 262 campsites in Marble Beach State Recreation Area on the west side of the lake there were... ummmm... two occupied. The local reaction to camping on a night like last night was Hell no! Iowa campers are sissies. 

As for Spirit Lake, we can see it through the trees. I have no desire to explore it further. I'm sure there is local lore about it's naming... maybe there are creepy sounds emanating from the woods around it at midnight on Halloween that suggest it is inhabited  by spirits... I don't know. For me, one look at this place makes me wish for a bottle of spirits to kill the feeling of foreboding, isolation and despair. I think the people who live here deserve a medal for not leaving... or a psychological examination. 

So, that's how one finds themselves in Spirit Lake, Iowa. I think the sign on the way into town said "Welcome to Spirit Lake... enjoy yourself! You won't be back. Today we head northeast and will either pass directly through Minneapolis or St. Paul, Minnesota on the way to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin which sits on the Minnesota/Wisconsin state line. I'm hoping that people in Spirit Lake, Iowa don't elbow each other and say "Well... at least we don't live in St. Croix Falls, eh?"

Later...

SC'