Blogs from Orland Park, Illinois, United States, North America

My brother, Jim and I are doing a long adventure trip together. He lives in Fayetteville, AR and, of course I live in Orland Park, IL, a Chicago suburb. We plan on meeting in Paola, KS (near Kansas City) on July 2nd. Jim rides a Honda Goldwing Trike and I ride a Can Am Spyder, another three wheeler. We will ride to Colorado and ride for a couple days through the mountains there. After that part of the trip, we will part ways and Jim will make his way home and I will continue on to California. We are going to ride as much as possible on US 50 westbound. US 50 is one of our country's earliest coast to coast highways and in Nevada it is the "Loneliest Road in America." Once I get to ... read more

Today Michael is flying to Chicago from La Guardia in New York. This will be his third trip to snowmobile northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We drive from Chicago to Land O' Lakes, WI tomorrow and start snowmobiling on Monday. It's going to be the coldest week so far this winter up there with overnight lows in the 20-30 below zero range and highs in the low single digits during the day. The trails are reported to be in very good shape so the only thing to hold us back might be the cold, but we're tough old guys. Here's a picture of a high flying Michael back in the 80's.... read more

I'm heading out early tomorrow morning on another solo adventure. The weather is probably going to be the biggest challenge with rain tomorrow and pretty cold temps up in the north country. Three wheels makes it a lot more safe and doable, though. I'm going to ride as many two lane roads as I can and just use the interstates to get away from Chicago and bypass other large towns. Let's hope the color is at it's peak and I get some clear weather to get good photos.... read more

All I seem to be doing is complaining about the lousy weather, but 5 straight days so far is getting really depressing. We checked all the weather forecasts and radar for the ride home and there was no rain showing up. Of course when we saddled up at the motel, it started drizzling again. My wife, Jan, her sister Kim, my brother Jim and I all went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale back in the '70s. I've been back several times over the years because my daughter, Heather went to SIU also. I've also been down here on a couple motorcycle trips a bunch of years ago. So, I have a lot of fond memories of the university and the town. Since the weather prohibited us from going through town to see what a couple ... read more

After 11 years and 188,000 miles, good old Buck, my 2002 Suburban is gone, totalled. I named the Burban after Buck, the half German Shepherd half St. Bernard sled dog that is the hero of Jack London's "Call of the Wild," because of Buck's large size, loyalty and dependability. I know that men often refer to their vehicles as "she", and I do too. But when we made the Alaska trip together and I listened to many audio books, I got to calling her Buck. I bought her brand new in October of 2002. Most men have a dream car they would love to have, like Corvettes or Mustangs, but my dream car was always a Suburban. We had many, many adventures together. The 10,000 mile trip to Alaska and back being the biggest and most ... read more