Month: July 2026

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.

From Montana, we headed to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, where we did some hiking:

We saw some fluffy cows (do not pet):

and some interesting geology:

Next, we headed a bit further south and camped along the Maah Daah Hey Trail, where we did some mountain biking:

The trail is unrideable when wet, and a storm was coming, so we turned around a bit earlier than planned. Just in time, too; it started to pour soon after we got back to the truck.

Next, we headed to South Dakota, where we visited Mt. Rushmore:

and Crazy Horse:

Progress on the Crazy Horse memorial is slow, though they have made a lot of progress since we saw it eleven years ago. Here’s what it will look like when finished:

Up next was Needles and Custer State Park. We drove though some very narrow tunnels. After folding our sideview mirrors in, we just fit through:

We went for a nice hike and saw lots of cool rock formations:

Custer State Park had plenty of fluffy cows:

Up next, Badlands National Park in South Dakota:

We camped here:

and enjoyed a nice sunset:

The next day, we rode through the park:

We followed up our ride with trip to the world-famous Wall Drug:

Wall, SD is also home to the world’s largest jackelope:

After a delicious lunch at Wakin’ Bacon, we were back on the road!

Stop 1: Hiawatha Trail – Lookout Pass, the border of Idaho and Montana

The trail follows an old railway line. We went through 10 tunnels (one tunnel was 1.6 miles long, wet, and DARK),

and over 7 trestles in 15 miles.

Up next, a visit with Jameson at Flathead Lake in Montana. But first, the world’s best huckleberry shake in St Regis.

It was cold and rainy, but that didn’t keep us from having fun fishing, swimming, and playing with fireworks.

Then, a drive through Glacier National Park. It was foggy.

We were pretty close to the border: