The Road To St. Paul and the Twin Cities After Lollapalooza, we made a quick stop at Pot Belly's (yum!) and got on the road to St. Paul to see Ken. While we drove through Wisconsin, we were faced with a very boring landscape (or so we thought then...wait til you hear about North Dakota!). The best part of the landscape are the occasional giant mouse statues that come in a variety of different hat types. Besides the mice, the Dairyland of America is actually very flat and full of basic crops and farming equipment. After missing the Cheese Castle, we [View Full Entry]

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It had been 7 years since I had been to the north woods of Minnesota with my old fishing buddies. [View Full Entry]

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Well, this is it. I leave tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. I have some last minute packing to do, a few friends to say goodbye to, and some naps to take before my 7 am flight tomorrow morning. Then, after 3 flights and approximately 21 hours of travel time, I will be: tired, most likely cranky, have swollen feet and flat hair, but otherwise safe and sound in Ghana. This is when a change of clothes may be required since it is most likely about 80-85 degrees there and is only bound to get hotter. Wooo so I make [View Full Entry]

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Set out today. Left Milwaukee at 11 a.m. and reached the Twin Cities around 5 p.m. Stopped at the local Gander Mountain and bought an overnight pack and everything I need to stay in the backcountry for a night or two, should be interesting. Went out with the brother and his g/f to Famous Daves. Finger-licking-good. But alas, I cannot wait to set out west. Tomorrow morning I will be shutting off my cell phone and only use it for emergencies from here on out. I will also only use my macbook to write blogs. No more email, crackbook, or the [View Full Entry]

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We got up early enough to be at the mall when it opened. Sam had saved lots of money over the past year just for this day. We also gave her money to shop for school clothes, although, I didn’t see a whole lot of school clothes being purchased. We stopped for lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. We had some garlic shrimp, some fried shrimp, some shrimp salad and a po’ boy shrimp sandwich. It was all good. After our lunch, we based our server’s tip on how well he knew Forest Gump trivia. He did extremely well and received [View Full Entry]

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Day one was for driving out as far west as we could go and as fast as we could go. Unfortunately, MDOT, WDOT and all the other DOTs had other things in mind. Between the repainting of the Mackinac Bridge and US-2 being under construction, we were slowed down quite frequently. On US-2 alone, the road was reduced to one lane only, three separate times, and detoured once, as the Cut River Bridge was being repaired. At least this time, there was no RV burning on the side of the road. As if driving briskly by all the dairy farms in [View Full Entry]

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's morgensvroeg onze wekker gezet, vermits ze voor deze namiddag onweer hadden voorspeld. Nog maar net wakker en de gordijnen geopend en we hadden een fantastisch uitzicht op het meer met daarop wel 20 pelikanen, die precies aan het wachten waren op ontbijt. Na een goed eieren met spek ontbijt huurden we een speedbootje om zo per boot het meer een beetje te verkennen. Ik kreeg eerst een beetje instructies over het bedienen van de boot, om daarna onder ons getweeën op het meer te trekken. Het meer is zo'n 5 op 25km groot, dus plaats genoeg om lekker te verdwalen. [View Full Entry]

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Deze ochtend konden we nog net op tijd voor de volgende opkomende regenbui ons gerief gepakt en gezakt in de auto steken. De camping waar we op verbleven, was goed uitgerust met allerlei faciliteiten, dus namen we onze tijd voor ons was te doen. Rond de middag was het dan eindelijk tijd om verder noordwaarts richting Canadese grens te trekken. Na een dikke 150 km verlieten we dan eindelijk de laatste interstate highway, om terug op een 2x1 baanvak de laatste 150 km af te leggen. Onderweg kregen we nog het gezelschap van twee onweders, maar bij aankomst aan het Voyageurs [View Full Entry]

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It is a little more than a week before a different adventure awaits. So much to do, a different camera to get, so many choices, a net book to purchase or there won't be a blog to write to. Then there is the matter that this will be done on a Harley; riding with up to eight other guys from northern Illinois. All of them being much younger than I. [View Full Entry]

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Na een zeer stormachtige nacht, was het al bij al redelijk droog wanneer ontwaakten. Een snel ontbijt en een fijn ochtendpraatje met onze buren maakten ons klaar om te vertrekken richting de stad Minneapolis. Aangekomen trokken we naar het Hard Rock Café (reeds het 4de van onze reis) om daar wat informatie te vragen over de reis. Een fijne wandeling in het centrum en een bezoekje aan de mississipi rivier (waar Minneapolis aan ontstaan is) gaven ons een goede indruk van hoe de stad er uit ziet. We waren echt onder de indruk hoe rustig en mooi alles er bij ligt. [View Full Entry]

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