The Twin Cities & SNIT IV

Just an 8 hour drive from Marquette, MI and we arrived to St. Paul/Minneapolis.  Caleb and Holly were kind enough to host us for the week.  After settling in and unpacking, we headed over to Fran and Leslie's for dinner.  We were so excited to see Lyle (Caleb and Holly's son), and Freslie's kids, Emma and the twins Calvin and Josie!  Maybe it's the summer weather or the awesome neighborhoods that both Holly and Freslie live in, or just good memories from the past, but I always feel so stress-free and happy to be back in the twin cities during summer time spending time with awesome people.

Patsy and Hudson had a great reunion.  While Hud is a step slower these days, Patsy has not lost a bit of energy and immediately showed how pumped she was to get to spend time with her best pal Hud.

The next morning I hopped on a flight to Denver to meet up with Kiran and Johnny Walker to play at Grand Masters Nationals.  Kiran and I have been training this past spring to get back into Ultimate shape (relative to our age and opponents).  What a great weekend!  Kiran and I did our part to help our team achieve our goal of winning a national championship.  Along the way, we lost to Chuck's Burnside (Portland) in pool play, but eeked out an ultimate point win against Natalie's Shadows (Bay Area) in the quarterfinals.  Crazy to think, I wouldn't be at that tournament almost 25 years after I first started playing if it wasn't for Chuck.  Seeing old friends and opponents is a fun way to turn back the hands of time and give you a surreal feeling of timelessness.

Highlights: Dar and Mitch's hospitality all weekend long and staying with the other out-of-town players.

Running and having fun with new frisbee friends!

Time with Kiran

Seeing old friends

National Champs Johnny Walker after our win in the finals against Surly GM.

Cara and the girls picked me up from the airport the next morning with Queen's "We are the Champions!" blasting from CK's speakers, a handmade gold medal (see above), and a surprise confetti shower when I sat down.  I love these ladies.

From the airport, we went straight to the Como Zoo with Holly and Lyle and then to the nearby pool for the afternoon.

The next day, Fran hooked us up with some company tickets to the Twin's game.  We had great seats in foul ball territory and even some money to spend on hot dogs and snacks for the girls.  We lasted through the 7th inning stretch.  The girls can confidently say they are not fans of baseball, but they at least have had the cultural experience now.

To say thank you for my weekend ultimate coverage, Caleb and I offered to watch all the kids while the ladies had a night out to watch the US Women's world cup match.  The night went smoothly, and it was nice having time to get to know the kids better.

Let the SNIT begin!  This year marks the 4th time, we've gathered a group of friends to Leslie's family cabin on Long Lake, WI for a weekend of friendly competitions, Blime (Bud Light Lime) drinking, and overall merriment.  10 adults and 10 kids this year!

One of the highlights of this year's SNIT was how well all the kids got along and played with each other.

In between competitions, we mostly played on various water crafts (SUPs, kayaks, tubes, floaties, Lily Pad, Pontoon, ski boat) and just enjoyed the perfect weather and water.

Everyone boarded the pontoon boat for the traditional bog walk and dark lake swim.

Our final morning of the SNIT was Cara's 41st birthday!  She celebrated in the morning with an incredible display of athleticism by immediately popping up on water skis and taking a tour of the lake at 30 mph.  

I also took a turn with water skis and actually got up this time, but bailed out after ~7 seconds feeling like I was going WAY TOO FAST!  

Team Fran!  You know what they say, "history is written by the victors."  In this case, I'm hoping this picture will muddy everyone's collective memory about the outcome of this year's SNIT. 

Team Fran was trounced, only winning one event.  Here is Team Leslie taking their celebratory shotski of Blime.  The overall record now stands as a tie with 2 wins for Team Fran and 2 wins for Team Leslie.  Guess we'll have to come back again!

Road Warriors!  After lunch, we hit the road with the plan of getting as far as we could and possibly driving through the night and making it home in one final push.  With school looming on the horizon and feeling surprisingly good after a weekend of celebrating with friends we decided to push on.  

It was thankfully an uneventful night, except for a brief scare when Cara was looking for a gas station in the middle of the night after a huge thunderstorm had blown through in front of us.  With the warning light on in CK, the gas station we pulled up to was dark and had no electricity so we were forced to push on to the next station about 25 miles away in the middle of nowhere Kansas.  It was a tense few minutes there, but we made it before running out of gas and swapped drivers.  

The photo above is our crew the next morning having a breakfast at Starbucks just south of Dallas.  Just 2 more hours and we'd be home!  ~1,200 miles and 22 hours later and we arrived just before noon and started unpacking.  The girls slept through the whole night and made the most of our park stops along the way.  We can only hope they will continue to be this flexible and tough during future travels.

This was an incredible month exploring new places, living the camper trailer life, and escaping the heat.  Let another school year begin!

The Super Yooper

 

After a proper breakfast of Tim Horton's (WHY don't we have these in Austin? Who doesn't want a cup of chili with their donut and coffee?), we moved on from the Toronto area on a full day's drive around Lake Huron to drop back into the U.S. at the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A good chunk of the drive was pretty when it opened up into rock outcropped bogs of trees on the shore of Lake Huron, and the rest of the drive was socked in on both sides with trees.

Outside of Mackinaw City, MI we stayed in the world's greatest RV park, which was more like a resort than an RV park. It was right on Lake Huron and had some incredible beaches. S would wake up early with Mike and take Hudson on walks on the beach. 

Mackinac Island is a small island in Lake Huron that has banned cars since 1898, so it's a really neat example of what development and infrastructure can look like on a small scale when not designed around cars. Everything on the island is transported via bike or horse drawn carriage. The goods, the food, the garbage, construction materials, the tourist luggage...everything!  It's adorable, and almost entirely a state park, with a bike path highway (officially Michigan Highway 185) that circles the entire island in an 8.2 mile loop. We hopped on a ferry from Mackinaw City with our bikes and spent an absolutely lovely day biking around, through, and over the island. 

Look behind Mike and the girls and you can see the horse drawn carriages. There are thousands of bikes parked on the side of the road in the main street of town, but you can skip the crowd by pedaling just few minutes outside of town. 

Parker, once again doing her thing and just making up songs while she rides along the bike highway. 

There are frequent stops to short hikes to see interesting rock formations or historic sights.

A rare photo where P looks normal simply because I caught her by surprise. As soon as she realized I was taking a photo she did that. ^

Family rock cairns! 

We saw some epic sunsets in the UP, which unfortunately, for my sanity and the sleep of our children, didn't occur until around 10:00 pm. 

After a couple of nights around Mackinaw/Mackinac (same place, two spellings), we went to Tahquamenon Falls State Park. It's known for two series of waterfalls, the Upper (above) and Lower Falls and rusty colored water due to the decaying matter of the trees. In true state park fashion, the girls spent a lot of time riding their bikes around, Mike and I got a couple of trail runs in, and we took some nice hikes to see the falls together. We had a very scary incident with Sybil getting lost, but thanks to some helpful strangers she made it back to camp safely. 

Lower Falls, Tahquamenon Falls State Park

You can wade and walk along and below the Lower Falls. 

On the move again! My cousin Wendy has a beautiful piece of property on the southern bank of Lake Superior, about 12 miles west of Munising. She kindly offered to let us set up our trailer on it, so we lived off grid for a couple of days with this for a view.

And this.

It was covered in wildflowers and the water views were stellar. 

Sisters sittin' and swingin'

We found the perfect beach spot in Au Train, MI.  We had a little spit of sand surrounded on three sides by water which allowed Hud to be off-leash and perfect sand and water for us to play in.  After setting up, we quickly got to work burying the girls, Parker's favorite sand activity.  It is also amazing to be swimming in fresh water instead of salt water.  These are the beaches for "beach haters."  

We were just congratulating ourselves for our luck with the biting flies and mosquitos, which we had heard could be terrible in the UP when we had a night of horrors. We spent a long night killing over 100 mosquitos that had infiltrated three teensy tiny gaps in the velcro of our trailer cover. We couldn't figure out how they were getting in, but it felt like that battle scene in the Lord of the RIngs where the orcs breach the castle wall and there is an endless sea as far as the eye can see and no matter how many you kill they just keep coming. It was a literal bloodbath in the trailer, with mosquito guts smeared all over the walls, ceilings, and our skin. It looks us 3.5 hours to find the 3 tiny holes and plug them with socks, pajamas, and paper towels...and they still kept coming.  The girls slept through the whole battle, but they each woke up with at least 20 new bites the next morning.

Wendy had suggested that we skip the crowded and touristy boat tours of Pictured Rocks National Seashore and just rent a pontoon boat for a day to pilot to them ourselves. This would allow us to stop and anchor on one of the many beautiful beaches in the area, take our time, and really savor the experience. Then she casually mentioned that Lake Superior weather is notorious for quick weather changes which cause the lake within minutes to go from smooth as glass to very choppy waves, up to 15 feet!). So, naturally, we booked a half day pontoon boat to take out on Lake Superior. This is the before picture, when Hudson was the only creature freaking out on the boat. 

...30 minutes later and one very mild wind cell later and now there are 4 creatures freaking out on the boat (everyone but Mike). I'm smiling because we had finally turned the boat around and aborted our goal of Pictured Rocks due to the 3-5 ft waves. The waves look so mild in this picture, but we were soaking wet from the spray and were getting tossed around like crazy. 

20 minutes later the wind passed and we sought safe harbor on a beach on Grand Island, an island right off the shore of Munising. The water color was incredible, and we still got to see some really cool rock formations on the shores. 

Anchored and ready to play in the sand! 

...one hour later and another storm cell and this is the after picture. 

The mosquito onslaught was too much for us to handle, so we booked a night in the Munising RV Tourist Park, hoping that we could avoid the mosquitos and ticks (4 count so far). 

The view out the back of Chirp! 

A fun driftwood sculpture on the beach at the Tourist Park. 

Another beautiful UP sunset. 

One of the things I've appreciated the most about riding with the girls is how they are more aware of what is around them and willing to stop to take it in.  On the way to Presque Isle Park, the girls spotted these huge dandelions that were ripe for picking and making a wish before blowing and dispersing all the seeds.

We spent an afternoon at the Upper Peninsula Children's Museum.  It was an amazing space filled with hands on activities for the girls and tons of helpful and interesting information for parents.  We spent at least 2 hours here and could have spent more.

Now that we've explored the UP, Cara and I have road tripped to and explored at least a little piece of every state in the U.S.  While we missed out on Isle Royale NP and the Keweenah Peninsula, we leave feeling like we have a good idea of the area and why people love visiting in the summer, and the crazies that enjoy visiting in the winter.  

Now we push on to the Twin Cities to see Holly and Caleb and Fran and Leslie and all the kids!

Oh, Canada

 

The original plan was to drive from Columbus to Detroit to stay with my relatives that we saw at the Arkansas reunion, but it turned out they wouldn't be back home on time, so we pivoted and decided to go through Canada, from Niagara Falls to Toronto and around Lake Huron to drop back into the Upper Peninsula. 

First stop, Niagara Falls! I asked Mike to take more pictures of me and P together, since I have almost none of just us, and he is really coming through this trip.

It's doubly beneficial, because S never used to willingly take photos but is now jealous enough of me taking pictures with P that she's all of a sudden eager to take photos. Gotta take these accidental parenting wins when you can! 

Next stop, Toronto, Ontario! I hadn't been to Toronto since I took a solo backpacking trip across Canada in 2003 or 2004. It was just as cool as I remembered, with amazing parks, good public transportation, and delicious food. We stayed at a pretty HipCamp about 45 minutes out of town by train because the prices for staying anywhere near town were insane, and we had the issue of what to do with our trailer.

 The girls were very excited to ride the double decker train into Toronto. 

CN Tower baby!

We walked and took the Metro and trams all over downtown. First we went up to the Royal Ontario Museum, which was awesome. Then we went to explore the Kensington Market, a vibrant and happening neighborhood with lots of markets and restaurants, where we had the most delicious vegan Thai food at Saigon Lotus. 

Then we ate pie, lots of pie. Pinkies up! We walked back through downtown and stopped at another park on the way back before hitting up the Harborfront and then calling it a day after over 5 miles of walking. The girls were troopers. There's so much more to explore in Toronto (especially more parks) and I'm excited to go back someday for more than one day. 

Our HipCamp place had a creek running through it and there were strategically placed hammocks all over the property. Mike was doing what he does best, and I was lucky to catch these beautiful goofballs in action.