stormy weather

Our little Mazda Protege5 has been perfect for trips like this. It's big enough to bring our camping gear, and just big enough for us to sleep in comfortably should we drive too late to set up the tent. After the "Trucker's Jamboree" outside Davenport, we drove another 60 miles before pulling off the highway to sleep. Some pretty severe thunderstorms woke us up the next morning, and kept coming at us as we continued to make our way toward Nebraska.

Truck stop love

The world's largest truckstop, Iowa 80, has parking for 800 trucks. This means there's room for fairs of the kind we happened upon, meaning we could check off another item on our Great Plains scavenger hunt. While local fairs are held everywhere across the country, I think their importance, and therefore dynamism, is magnified in the less populated areas like the plains, where there tend to be fewer large scale social events during the year.

Scavenger hunt, item four:

Fair: 1. an exhibition, usually competitive, of farm products, livestock, etc., often combined in the U.S. with entertainment and heldannually by a county or state.

2. a periodic gathering of buyers and sellers in an appointed place.

3. an exposition in which different exhibitors participate, sometimes with the purpose of buying or selling

Fans

Aaron Tippin fans

Aaron Tippin fans

We turned into Iowa 80 truck stop for a bite to eat and instead got to see a "Trucker's Jamboree". This meant, for us, a couple hours of wandering through a fair complete with hundreds of tractor-trailers, food tents, balloons, fireworks, games, and midwesterners of all sizes. A growing crowd in one corner of the fair drew us in, where we found out the country music star Aaron Tippin was signing autographs. We'd arrived in a new land.

Into tornado country

I grew up hearing tornado sirens periodically being tested and practicing tornado drills in school and summer camp. Our arrival in tornado country last summer announced itself by this familiar siren on our way across northern Illinois...

Great Plains scavenger hunt item number three: tornado siren

A civil defense siren (also referred to as an air raid siren, tornado siren, tsunami siren, or other outdoor warning siren) is a mechanical or electronic device for generating sound to provide warning of approaching danger and sometimes to indicate when the danger has passed. Initially designed to warn of air raids in World War II, they were adapted to warn of nuclear attack and of natural phenomena such as tornadoes. In the United States, sirens are usually used to warn of impending natural disasters, as well as threats of military attacks, which in the United States are rare. Throughout the Great Plains, Midwest, and South, they are used to notify the public of a tornado warning or flash flood.

Prairie pothole

Great Plains scavenger hunt item number two: prairie pothole

Prairie potholes are depressional wetlands (primarily freshwater marshes) found most often in the Upper Midwest, especially North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. This formerly glaciated landscape is pockmarked with an immense number of potholes, which fill with snowmelt and rain in the spring. Some prairie pothole marshes are temporary, while others may be essentially permanent. Here a pattern of rough concentric circles develops. Submerged and floating aquatic plants take over the deeper water in the middle of the pothole while bulrushes and cattails grow closer to shore. Wet, sedgy marshes lie next to the upland.

The Upper Midwest, because of its numerous shallow lakes and marshes, rich soils, and warm summers, is described as being one of the most important wetland regions in the world. The area is home to more than 50 percent of North American migratory waterfowl, with many species dependent on the potholes for breeding and feeding.

-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Firmly into a lower gear; time to travel on...

Empire Beach, Lake Michigan

Michigan's biting flies, buzzing lawn mowers, sand in toes, ice cream, fireworks, tourists, river-soaked shoes... this is how we knew our summer had begun. After down-shifting in Michigan for a week, it was time to get back on the highway again in order to see the Great Plains we'd set out to.

Our onward travel was delayed a day when Jenifer's knee buckled over the wrong way bringing us reluctantly to the emergency room. This meant we had find room in the car for crutches and adjust some of our later plans for hiking and backpacking, but with a couple couch pillows to elevate her leg on the long ride ahead, we drove down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan for Illinois and points west.

Michelle, Jenifer, Jeff (mother, daughter, father) looking out over Empire, the dunes, the lake and all that

Thanks Jeff, Michelle, Hayley and everybody up there for a great time!

Under the Milky Way

The skies in northern Michigan are so far from city lights that even staring into a backyard fire for a couple of hours does not erase the brilliant Milky Way over head. One of my favorite things about traveling up there is the way our galaxy reveals itself beyond the usual smudge across the sky. Looking sideways into our galaxy's disc, there appears to be wisps of cotton floating above and below the whirling plane. The night we built this fire was chilly, so to boost the fire's effectiveness we opened the bottle of whiskey we'd bought at the duty free shop on our way through Canada.

Slow paddle on the Crystal River

The Crystal River empties Glen Lake into Lake Michigan just over a mile away. But, because of the slow, meandering course the river takes, there are about 15 miles of paddling via canoe or kayak to get to the village of Glen Arbor on Lake Michigan. A map of the river looks like the chart a seismograph makes in an earthquake, but the land surrounding the river is mostly flat, sandy cedar swamp that occasionally opens up for lush reed fields -apparently good habitat for huge snappers and strange bitterns.

The stream itself is very shallow and clear with a sandy bottom. This apparently allows one's companions to feel brave about smacking water toward fellow paddlers, and getting faces full of water in return. Right, Jen?

What would it sound like...

paying for something convenient, Empire, Michigan

What would it sound like if all of the labels, words, images and colors used to get our attention were making noise instead?

Steeped in culture on the 4th of July

What better way to bury oneself in the smells and flavors of the United States on July 4th than at a classic car show in Michigan? In many ways the car show culture is as foreign to me as is being anywhere else in the world, so while I don't know anything about cars, the shapes, forms and colors of their fans were rich and fascinating! Especially fun to watch was the pride of the owners as they sat back taking in the appreciations of the wandering crowds. Oh yeah -the cars were interesting too.

Lake Michigan's bearish dunes

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Empire, Michigan

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Empire, Michigan

The prevailing winds off of Lake Michigan pile sand dunes up on top of already high glacial moraines making the dunes reach heights of over 400 feet straight out of the lake. This means many familiar beach functions like water gazing and sunbathing take place far removed from the lapping waves. It also means, for anyone running down to the water, a long, steep, very soft, thigh-burning, waterless hike back up. It's not unusual for the rangers to have to rescue people from below using jet skis.

Cottonwood stands of Michigan and points west

All the way across the Great Plains and into the high country of Wyoming and Colorado, stands of cottonwood trees stretch along thousands of miles of river bottomlands. Seeing them, often camping out in their shade, and hearing their always-rustling leaves became one of the more consistent details of our trip last summer, and it began in Michigan, on the sand dunes in the wind coming off the big lake. There are occasional cottonwoods in the east, including the large lightning-scarred one in Margaret's yard outside the kitchen window. But there is something sturdy and comforting about being among the large western patches of them and as we headed back east, it was one thing I knew I'd miss.

Empire beach, Lake Michigan

Empire beach, Lake Michigan

Empire beach, Lake Michigan

Just about everything anyone loves about beaches can be found in the upper Great Lakes: smooth soft sand, vast horizons, clear blue water, tiny strange sand bugs, gull footprints, the bubbling sand after a wave recedes. One thing not usually idolized however is the freezing-cold water of the lakes. It can make swimming something you have to "get over with" in order to lay out on the beach. For many locals however, the icy temperatures they grew up with translate to cleanliness. It means they get turned off by warmer southern waters since it feels "dirty". I think it's just a way to identify themselves with the land they're from...

Michigan, July 2009

I'll begin the photo-blog style flash-back to last summer's road trip where I left off previously -in Michigan, before we set out onto the midwestern prairies. Staying in northern Michigan for a week visiting Jenifer's family allowed us to shift gears and sink right into so many wonderful clichés of summer including beaches, classic car shows, local festivals, canoeing & kayaking, sun-baked sand dunes, cool starry nights with distant coyotes howling, and -not least- ice cream...

Left to right: summer job at an ice cream shop, black cherry ice cream

Eh hem...

Back in the muggy, leafy East... 

While I anticipated more wifi access on our trip, I suppose those moments we did have access (with photos) were either too fleeting, or too much of a break to muster any worthwhile blogging. Also, couple weeks of the trip were spent prepping for a big interview, which in the end, I think, went very well. 

But, whatever the excuse for the inactivity here, the best one for me for now is that it's Summertime. And thanks to absolutely everyone with whom we visited and who hosted us during our travels this July -this summer so far has exceeded any ideal.