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After our ride in Minnesota, it was time to bang out some miles. We (Dad) drove a lot and we ended up in Sturgis, SD. I did not ride or buy a Harley.

This is a ‘prediction’ of the future…the one where I am taller than dad :).

We camped at Bear Butte. It was very pretty but incredibly smelly.

Up next? Devil’s Tower in Wyoming

Some may not understand the next picture…if they don’t they should watch …Steven Spielberg’s 1977 ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’.

Wyoming and Montana are cowboy country. The cowboys drive big trucks – FAST.

We stopped near Billings, MT at Acton Recreation Center. The pit toilets were absolutely beautiful. The men’s pit toilet.

The ladies’ pit toilet.

The riding was awesome.

We drove through some ‘weather’…to get to Glacier National Park. We were supposed to go backpacking, but our backcountry trip was essentially cancelled due to ‘BEAR ACTIVITY’. So, we did some day hikes instead. DAY ONE: we hiked to Upper Two Medicine Lake.

It was gorgeous, but a little cold and rainy. Upside to rain? (1) I got to wear my awesome new raincoat from Uncle Chris and family and (2) RAINBOWS.

We had a lunch that was so bad, Dad was sure it could cure the obesity epidemic. When you hike 12 miles quickly, you don’t care how it tastes :).

We carried bear spray and were ready to see a grizzly. Instead, we saw this guy. We identified him as a hoary marmot. We did not spray him.

The next day, the weather was about the same. We hiked the Highline Trail.

It was beautiful, but I think the fog meant we missed some amazing views. Guess we will have to go back.

On our way out of the park, this guy was snacking by the side of the road. Not a grizzly. Sigh.

In the end, we drove 9287 miles over 75 days and saw an awful lot of our amazing country. Thanks to everyone who helped make it an awesome trip!

After a quick stop at Nana’s, we hit the road. I planned some sights to hit along the way – like the Bicentennial Tower in Erie, PA. Lake Erie is the shallowest and warmest Great Lake.

We stayed on Lake Erie that evening, camping at East Harbor State Park near Sandusky, OH. The beach in the morning.

Of course, I went for a swim. 5 Great Lakes for 5.

Dad got us safely through Chicago and we headed to Spring Green, WI. Up first, we visited the House on the Rock.

It was, at first, a house built upon a 60 ft tall rock.

It had a cool ‘infinity room’…

it extends 218 feet over the valley. Hope a good engineer figured out how to properly support it!

In addition to the house, there were ‘attractions’. Like this huge sea sculpture.

A carousel.

And much, much more. After House on the Rock, we headed to Frank Llyod Wright’s Taliesin. This is the visitor center…

which contains the world’s only remaining Frank Llyod Wright designed restaurant (we ate cheese sandwiches at a scenic overlook – not the restaurant – but we did walk around and enjoy the space!)

Then we headed to the house for a self-guided tour.

It was a beautiful home built into the surrounding hill.

I particularly liked the bird walk a balcony Wright added to the house so his wife could walk out in the morning and enjoy the birds.

Dad noticed that one of the towns we were set to drive through had Pannekoeken. When he wasn’t looking, Mom rerouted us from our campground destination to the restaurant! We had fried cheese curds (when in Wisconsin, you eat cheese curds)

and pannekoeken (dutch pancakes) stuffed with cheese, bacon, and sausage. Excellent!

After dinner we crossed the Mississippi into Minnesota.

The next day, we took a break from driving and road our bikes in the Driftless region (a geographic region that was completely bypassed by the last continental glaciers). We were on the Mississippi River Trail/Apple Blossom Scenic Drive. It was really nice.

I’m not sure if you can see it, but this farm had all its hay wrapped in red, white, and blue.

That’s the Mississippi behind us!

It was hot and humid. This is me after dinner. Sweaty.

Our last visit was to Nan and Pop’s house.

On my birthday, we went paddleboarding in the morning.

And, to the Washington County Fair in the afternoon. Rides are fun!

Nan made me a birthday feast and dad made not one but two birthday galettes, one blueberry and one blackberry raspberry.

We all did some bike riding.

We also did some golfing – mini (in the rain)

and ‘real’ at the driving range.

AND lots and lots of body surfing.

We also went (can you tell where?)

to Block Island!

We also had lots of family dinners and fun.

At the end of our stay in RI, we took the train to Boston! Uncle Jim had a super fun tour planned for Nora and me. We saw the Elephant Parade.

Visited Harvard and the Museum of Natural History.

This is where our traveling nugget got his start….

After Washington, DC, we spent some time at Yaya and Papa’s. While I was working hard helping Yaya run her store, The Bigs were relaxing and BEAR WATCHING. This big guy walked right through the backyard.

This guy is not a bear. I LOVE this dog.

We got to see Uncle Geoff and family.

Have I mentioned how much I like visiting my grandparents?!

While we were in CT, we took a day to drive to GG Marie’s to visit and have lunch. She still has me by about an inch, but I am getting close…

The lunch at the Brown Sugar Cafe was great, but the best part was seeing GG Marie and Micki!

After the Cape, we headed to Papa and Yaya’s in CT, and then caught a train to Washington DC, the following morning.

There was some rain. Luckily, we had umbrellas:

We got there in the afternoon and headed to the mall to see the sights:

The Capitol:

The Supreme Court:

They were building grandstands for the upcoming Indy Car race, so the mall was a bit of a mess:

The botanical gardens:

The next day, we started out at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was huge!

Washington Monument:

World War II memorial:

The reflecting pools were being drained, in order to make them great again:

Lincoln Memorial:

After dinner, we headed to an ice cream shop for a dish of ice cream:

Don’t buy gas in DC:

The next day, we went to the Spy Museum in the morning:

and Arlington National Cemetery in the afternoon:

After Arlington, we went to the National Portrait Gallery. In addition to lots of portraits, they had a beautiful building with nice floors:

Our last morning in DC, we headed to the Tidal Basin first thing:

We went to the MLK Memorial:

and the FDR Memorial:

and the Jefferson Memorial:

The best view of the White House was from the other side of the Tidal Basin:

Our last stop of the trip was the Postal Museum (which was super interesting!):

After the Postal Museum, we hopped on the Acela for the ride back to New Haven:

DC tired me out:

After leaving Aunt Cheryl’s in NH, we headed to Wellfleet on Cape Cod:

The view from our deck:

Our cottage was the one with the flat roof:

Breakfast:

We went sailing in Wellfleet Harbor one day:

We sailed over to Great Island:

One day, we rode along the Cape Cod Rail Trail:

I played in the waves a lot:

We had a few rainy days, but we made the most of it. Mini golf:

We also went for a walk on Great Island:

We had lots of good food. Smoked bluefish:

Oysters (not my favorite):

We had a couple days of great surfing on small, but perfect, waves:

The best part was that we didn’t see any sharks the whole time!

Dog heaven continued with a visit to New Hampshire to see Aunt Cheryl and Curtis.

We went on a lot of nice hikes.

Visited the extremely large Madison Boulder, a glacial erratic – can you even see me in front of it?

Picked a LOT of blueberries (…The Mother should have waited to make Dad’s blueberry pie!)

Hiked to more waterfalls – here we are at Arethusa Falls.

Visited the Mt Washington Hotel,

where I had poutine for lunch. It was good, but maybe not as good as the many delicious breakfasts, dinners, and desserts Aunt Cheryl made for us.

The Bigs forgot to take pictures of our amazing meals but at least got a shot of the TO DIE FOR breakfast cookies!

I took a dip in the lake near Cheryl’s house.

And spent all my free time with Curtis.

We also took a day to climb Mt Washington (the tallest mountain in the Northeast). We headed up the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail.

It got pretty chilly by the time we reached the Lake of the Clouds Hut. We stopped for a snack of breakfast cookies and to put on some layers. The Mother was very grateful Aunty Cheryl insisted she take a hat.

We reached the summit in just over 2 hours. The view was fog as far as the eye could see and the winds were on the order of 50+ mph.

On the way down the Jewell Trail, the sky cleared and we had amazing views.

After dinner that evening, we couldn’t resist walking to one more waterfall. We checked out Diana’s Baths.

Next stop: Cape Cod.

From the Adirondacks, we headed across Lake Champlain into Vermont. We went for a bike ride on the Colchester Causeway, north of Burlington. It is an old railway bed that crosses Lake Champlain to Grand Isle.

There is a short gap in the causeway to allow boats to go through. When it was a railway, there was a rotating bridge here.

Now, a bike ferry shuttles bikers back and forth across the gap:

From there, we headed to the Northeast Kingdom, where we did a two-day bike ride:

Covered stair bridge:

The weather started out nice, but, with about 10 miles to go to our destination of Morgan Center, the skies opened up and started to pour. We got soaked, and cold:

It soon cleared up, and we got to go swimming in Lake Seymour. This is a view from the porch of our inn:

There was one restaurant in town, right across the street from the inn, The Pho Farm. We got Beef Pho. It was delicious:

We had nice weather for our ride the next day. We stopped at Lake Willoughby for a swim along the way:

After our ride, we headed to JP’s place in East Burke, for a few days of mountain biking on the Kingdom Trails:

Burke Mountain in the background:

Black Bear was FUN!

My favorite part of the visit was probably JP’s and Stephanie’s dogs, Alta and Minerva. Here I am with Alta:

And, we had a bonfire, of course:

Maple creemee. Mmmmmm:

The Bigs got maple creemee coffee floats:

Biking and playing with dogs wiped me out. Resting up on the way to New Hampshire:

After driving through Canada we stopped at Niagara Falls it was cool.

From Niagara Falls, we headed to visit Nana in Cazenovia. We went on lots of great road bike rides.

One ride took us past Toggenburg, the now-closed ski area where Dad learned to ski.

We also went on a couple of mountain bike rides. Here we are at Highland Forest:

Wind turbines:

We visited the Cazenovia Library. This guy is not the mummy:

This guy is:

One of our bike rides took us to Chittenango Falls:

We also visited Delphi Falls with Nana:

The Mother made a blueberry pie for Dad’s birthday. Maybe she should have waited (see upcoming NH post):

We found great mountain biking at Morgan Hill State Forest, and only got a little bit lost:

From Nana’s, we headed into the Adirondacks to see the trolls at Tupper Lake:

After the Dakotas, we spent a night in Minnesota and then headed towards the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On the way, we stopped in Wisconsin for a nice bike ride along Lake Superior to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

After the ride, we dunked in Lake Superior.

The next day, we toured some waterfalls in the Michigan UP. First up: Kakabika Falls.

Next stop. Bond Falls

Then on to Peanut Butter Falls and…

O-Kun-De-Kun Falls.

We finished up the day with a hike along a trail at Canyon Falls.

We eat pretty well while on the road. You may be curious how we cook. Here is our set up. This particular evening we were having veggies and sausage on pasta. Yum.

On occasion, we had a fire at our campground…which means roasted marshmallows! We get to have fires so infrequently that our marshmallows had melted into a big old clump. No complaining here.

The next day we headed to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (on Lake Superior). Our first stop was Munising Falls.

Then we did a hike to Chapel Rock and Chapel Beach…

and then out towards the Grand Portal Point.

Afterwards, we stopped for pasties. What is a pasty? A traditional, handheld savory meat and root vegetable pie wrapped in a flaky pastry crust. The recipe was brought to the Upper Peninsula in the mid 1800s by immigrants working in the region’s iron and copper mines.

On our drive the next day, I took a dunk in Lake Michigan,

had lunch and a dunk on Lake Huron,

and stopped for a dunk in Lake Ontario (Canadian shore) too.

If you are counting, yes, that is all the Great Lakes except Lake Erie. We will have to swim in that one on the way home.