Category Archives: Travel

Our 2006 Road Trip Photos, Part 17: the Season Finale and the Lost Outtakes

September 8, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Piggies!

Outtake #1 of 5: baby piggies napping at the Minnesota Zoo. When we arrived home late at the end of our drive, this is how peacefully we slept that night.

[The very special miniseries concludes! See Part One for the official intro and context to this MCC remastered edition.

Fun trivia: the original 2006 version of this entry was posted entirely without visuals because neither of us took a single photo on Day 7. As a special bonus to break up the monotony for today’s readers, especially for anyone who craves photos but couldn’t care less about my writing, this evening my wife and I delved into the deep end of our closet and disinterred the rest of her 35mm hard-copy photos from 2006. Previous entries used a combination of excerpts from her scrapbooks and saved files from my first year as a digital camera owner. The five unrelated photos seen here, each of which reference activities from previous chapters, have never been scanned or shared online until now. Nothing fancy or disappointing about them; we basically forgot they existed.]

Right this way for the extended epilogue!

Our Annual Family Reunion Adventure

September 8, 2014 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Turkey Run!

For fifty-seven years my wife’s family has held their annual reunions at Turkey Run State Park, a ninety-minute drive from our suburban HQ and well outside the range of my phone carrier’s disappointing 4G coverage. For the space of one Sunday afternoon it’s an opportunity to unplug from the internet and all its problems, experience fresh air, enjoy good weather live and in person (Lord willing), catch up with loved ones that we’ve been too preoccupied to visit, exchange pleasantries with distant relatives whose names we’ll never remember, test which family members will still commit to a long drive for any of these purposes, and remember how to mingle in large, awkward groups without access to Words with Friends as our consolation playmate.

Or, while everyone else is talking, you can escape the shindig for a while and go explore the best part of Turkey Run, the beautiful forests crisscrossed with several miles of nature-trail adventure.

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Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 16: Another Hick in the Mall

September 3, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context…]

Day 6: Thursday, July 27th

By the third day of our stay at the same Bloomington hotel, we were finding it difficult to make the same breakfast buffet seem novel and appetizing. We ate much less than usual, contenting ourselves with watching in amusement as a whole new line of hotel guests each found their own way to screw up the waffle-making process. The instructions were right there on the wall, but we were amazed at the damage to be done by forgetting to use cooking spray, by pouring in the wrong amounts of batter, by pouring the batter unevenly on one side, by neglecting to turn the waffle-maker to the ON position and thereby negating the timer, and so on. As former longtime restaurant employees, Anne and I are elitist like that.

Our objective was the one and only Mall of America. Our family and friends back home were more excited about this stop than we were. When Anne and I first traveled together in 1999, one of the first and unhappiest lessons we learned was that chain retail stores, with extremely few exceptions, carry the exact same merchandise from state to state. Walmarts in Kentucky have the same Star Wars figures as those in Indiana. Toys-R-Us-es in Missouri line their shelves with the same clearance worst-sellers as those back home. By logical extension, we assumed even the Mall of America would be subject to this guideline. We figured we had to try it anyway, on behalf of our friends and family demanding their vicarious thrills after the fact. Besides, when in Rome, and all that.

Mall of America!

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Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 15: Superior!

August 22, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Lake Superior!

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 5: Wednesday, July 26th (continued)

After the aquarium and our glimpses of the Aerial Lift Bridge, we walked a few blocks along the bay to the quaint mom-‘n’-pop business section of Duluth, on the isthmus between Superior Bay and Lake Superior.

Right this way for scenes from a Great Lake!

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 14: the Road to Superior

August 9, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 5: Wednesday, July 26th

A second round at the same breakfast buffet was a precursor to our long drive down I-35 North to the northern end of Minnesota. Along the way we zoomed past the official campaign tour bus of one Rod Grams. The Internet tells me in retrospect that he’s a former anchorman turned construction company president turned US Congressman who’s up for reelection this year, but at the time we didn’t know Rod Grams from Rod Flanders. Had I known, maybe we could’ve run him off the road and asked for an autograph. For want of a monster truck, a brush with greatness was lost.

Once again thanks to Roadside America, we didn’t stop till two hours down the road, a bit out of our way in the town of Cloquet, home of the only gas station ever designed by the one and only Frank Lloyd Wright.

Wright Gas!

Suggested motto: “Get the right gas for your car at Wright Gas!”

Right this way for stuff that’s not quite Lake Superior…

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 13: Like the Minnesota Zoo, But Stiffer

August 5, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Rhinos!

Painted elephants in 2-D; rhinos in 3-D!

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 4: Tuesday, July 25th (continued)

Before leaving Austin, I stopped at a gas station across the street, filled up on cheap gas, then sat for several minutes waiting for an old lady in her jalopy to sloooowly finish her business with the air pump so I could refill our leaky rear driver’s-side tire. After our interminable stakeout, we took care of the tire and retreated back in the direction of Minneapolis, stopping for supper on the way in the town of Owatonna at a chain joint called the Happy Chef. To be honest, I didn’t realize it was part of a chain until I saw others like it along the same stretch of freeway. With a name like “Happy Chef”, I’d hoped it was either a cornball buffet or an earnest Chinese restaurant. The reality was a standard diner, competent and low-priced but otherwise unremarkable.

While in town, on yet another recommendation from Roadside America (who likewise tipped us off to the Rock in the House and the Spam Museum), we stopped in Owatonna at a sporting goods store called Cabela’s. Like Happy Chef, it’s a chain we don’t have back in Indiana. Unlike Happy Chef, this franchise offers a special attraction: the largest collection of action-posed taxidermy you’re likely to see in a sporting goods store.

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Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 12: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!

July 31, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Spammy!

Spammy bids you welcome! Enter freely and of your own craving!

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 4: Tuesday, July 25th (continued)

After several hours of gawking and photographing the animals, then a few minutes of fairly priced zoo cafeteria lunch, two more hours of driving took us southeast to the town of Austin, home of Hormel Foods and the world-famous Spam Museum.

Does this really need an introduction?

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 11: Mandatory Zoo Visit

July 27, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 4: Tuesday, July 25th

Our hotel in Bloomington rewarded us with the largest breakfast buffet of the whole trip. The offerings weren’t all that different, with the notable exception of a positively luxurious three waffle-makers. Their buffet was much more spread out and streamlined, rather than crammed into a leftover nook like those of the previous hotels. Although they offered three times as many tables and chairs as we were used to, they were also just as crowded as the pool had been the previous night.

Once we were tanked up on too much sugar — I know I was, at least — we drove due south to Apple Valley, home of the Minnesota Zoo. This part was a concession on behalf of my son, the wildlife lover. We always schedule one vacation stop for his appeasement, though a zoo was a welcome change of pace from the ride-alike amusement parks of previous years. (Fun opinion I wish I didn’t hold: Six Flags parks are as interchangeable as McDonald’s franchises.)

Birdie on Lake!

Lakes and birdies, hand in hand: Minnesota’s nature scene in a nutshell.

Right this way to walk with the animals!

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 10: We’re Gonna Make It After All

July 23, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

MTM 2006!

Our nothing day suddenly seemed worthwhile!

Day 3: Monday, July 24th (continued)

After plowing through several more small towns and self-described villages on the Great River Byway, some of which had smaller populations than my son’s elementary school, we eventually passed through a downpour and over the border into Minnesota, where our hotel awaited us in Bloomington, a suburb/town/city/city-state on Minneapolis’ south side. Rather than soak ourselves even more thoroughly in a potentially vain search for local cuisine, we grabbed dinner at the Outback Steakhouse conveniently attached to our hotel. Their shared roadsign gives the Outback top billing over the hotel, suggesting that their symbiosis suffers from a peculiar imbalance. We had to dip into other monetary reserves to supplement the food budget that Crabby’s so thuggishly devastated the night before, but we appreciated the immediate faux-Aussie relief.

Once the rain abated, we made one last jaunt out to downtown Minneapolis, which I fully lapped twice (pausing only for an unfair giggle at the expense of St. Olaf Catholic Church — blame The Golden Girls) before I got the gist of the layout and parked in a garage that offered a cheap fare if we were in and out in less than thirty minutes. From our space we sprinted toward the eastern end of Nicollet Mall along 7th Avenue to photograph one of Anne’s must-see stops: the statue of Mary Tyler Moore. TV Land had it installed four years ago, one of several fictional historic landmarks they’ve commissioned across America.

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Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 9: a Pit Stop for Half-Pint

July 20, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 3: Monday, July 24th (continued)

Another few miles down the Great River Byway brought us through the town of Alma, home of a business calling itself the Beef Slough Store. I had a hard time imagining what they would sell or who would buy it. Several light-pole posters along the highway advertised an upcoming production of Urinetown: the Musical. I had to wonder if Alma was one of those Small Towns with a Deep, Dark Secret that ambush unsuspecting travelers in one too many movies or Twilight Zone episodes.

After a quick pause to refuel in the town of Nelson, our next scheduled sight a mere half-an-hour away from the Rock in the House was the Pepin Historical Society and Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. Both are located not far off the shores of Lake Pepin, which we never actually saw.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum!

You can guess which one of us was most excited about this stop. No, not my son.

Right this way for more photos of logs!

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 8: the Rock in the House

July 18, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 3: Monday, July 24th (continued)

Eventually, after the dashboard downshifted from Red Alert, and after one missed turnoff along the Minnesota side of the Mississippi River, we skipped back into Wisconsin and reached Highway 35, a.k.a. the Great River Byway, a stretch of road that follows along the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi through several small towns all the way to Minnesota. We were unaware until we reached it that the byway was an attraction unto itself, but it was a beautiful surprise. The river on your left is gorgeous, but the ridges and rock formations on your right are intimidating yet impressive.

Wisconsin scenery!

Yes, this photo again. But hours away from the Dells, we eventually remembered that we like nature.

Our first intentional stop on the Byway was in Fountain City, home of a roadside attraction called the Rock in the House. From the front, it’s just another home near a cliffside. As you approach from the modest parking area, it appears ordinary, even quaint.

Just a house.

Just a house….or IS IT?

From the rear, it looks like this:

The Rock in the House

You’re not helping, boy.

Right this way for exactly what it looks like!

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 7: Last Hurrah in Wisconsin Dells

July 17, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 3: Monday, July 24th

The morning was spent alternating between packing, indulging in the hotel breakfast buffet — nothing special, but less stale and more choices than what we’d had in Milwaukee — and admiring the hotel’s cable selection, which offered unusual channels that we can’t get here at home like MTV2 and G4. We watched an entire (rerun) episode of Cheat! just because my son and I were fascinated by the idea of a TV show devoted to video game tips and cheat codes, even if the episode featured games we’re unlikely to play anytime soon (among them Batman Begins and God of War).

We checked out and drove straight to Riverview Park & Waterworld, arriving just as they opened the doors at 10 a.m. We originally wanted to be on the road to Minnesota much, much sooner, but the free passes were an unexpected boon. Given how much money we blew the previous days for so much underwhelming enjoyment in return, we were bound and determined to get our money’s worth out of Wisconsin Dells in general, in some bizarre karmic way, even though we don’t believe in capital-K Karma.

I was kinda pooled-out after the previous day’s festivities both at Mt. Olympus and the hotel pool. Since Anne hadn’t had a shot at water rides yet, she and the boy suited up and rode every single water ride on the premises while I played the role of our official bagman.

Waterslide Races!

Water slide races! One of several aqueous pleasures that looked nifty from a distance, if you were in the mood and not BITTER about certain other things that were no fault of this particular water park’s.

Right this way as we bid farewell to this town-sized tourist trap…

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 6: The Worst Pirate-Themed Anything of All Time

July 16, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 2: Sunday, July 23rd (continued)

After a long, hard day of amusement and soaking came another long-preplanned stop, dinner at a restaurant named Crabby’s Seafood Buffet. Not just all-you-can-eat seafood: every ad we saw from the Internet to brochures to local posters pictured a pair of clean-cut geeks pretending to be surly pirates in satin, posing beneath a caption vowing “Free Pirate Battle!” This promise was in every single ad we saw, more of a mantra than a motto. To us, this sounded like Medieval Times with a different angle and more food. We expected to improvise our meals on the run all vacation long, but Crabby’s was the only restaurant specified on our itinerary because it just sounded that promising. They even give each patron their own paper pirate hat to wear all through the meal. As with the Jelly Belly Factory, my son protested his hat and refused to don it.

We, on the other hand…

Crabby's

Beyond these doors were sights that would’ve made Spongebob Squarepants shred himself with fury.

Regarding the meal that spelt DOOM for us landlubbers…

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 5: Scaling Down Mount Olympus

July 15, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 2: Sunday, July 23rd (continued)

Our next stop after Alligator Alley had been preplanned months in advance. Our only previous water-park encounter was the single time we remembered to bring swimsuits to Kings Island, but didn’t gidet around to putting them on till two hours before closing time. We’d enjoyed what little we could in such a short timespan, but we yearned to enjoy a water park without hurrying. Besides, we’d have to be complete fuddy-duddies not to visit the self-styled Water Park Capital of the World and not visit at least one lousy water park. Our choice was an ancient Greco-Roman theme park called Mt. Olympus. For my son, it seemed a winning combination. He likes pools. He likes amusement parks. He likes Greek mythology. (He and I were among the half-dozen people in America who got a kick out of Disney’s Hercules.) All three combined should’ve been a winning ticket.

Gates of Mount Olympus

Enter, and be one with the gods! Or just pay godlike prices.

Columns of Olympus

You half-expect Hercules to be hanging around and preparing to topple some of these. Or Samson, even.

Little did we know…

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 4: Appointment in Alligator Alley

July 14, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Albino Alligator!

Albino alligator! As not seen in the movie of the same name.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 2: Sunday, July 23rd

Every hotel on this vacation also included free breakfast. This hotel would prove to offer the weakest of the week, mostly muffins and stale cake donuts. Maybe pilots thrive on those, but we didn’t.

The drive out of Milwaukee brought us further into bona fide Wisconsin heartland, swathed in foliage and crops greener than ours back in Indiana, dotted with businesses sporting names like “Mousehouse Cheesehaus”, and permeated with the sounds of the John Tesh Radio Show, which alternated the usual hoary old EZ-listening standards with self-help bon mots from the Teshmeister himself. Within hours we left Tesh behind and arrived at our next city of choice, Wisconsin Dells.

Right this way for a rascally reptile roundup!

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 3: Milwaukee for Art’s Sake

July 13, 2014 By in Comics/Lit, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 1: Saturday, July 22nd (continued)

Fairly rejuvenated, we headed north from Pleasant Prairie along Lake Michigan to our next stop, the Milwaukee Art Museum. This stop was literally a last-minute addition to the itinerary. We’d decided months prior which nights would be spent in which cities. Night one would be in Milwaukee, only four hours away. Since we knew the Jelly Belly tour wouldn’t last all day, and since Milwaukee is less than five hours from Indianapolis in good traffic, we knew we had time to kill. Only problem was, we couldn’t find anything up our alley in Milwaukee for the longest time. Other than the same combination found in every major city of zoo, museum, kids’ museum, art museum, and historic sites involving personalities barely known to outsiders, the only tourist attractions of note seemed to be alcohol-based. None of us are drinkers, socially or otherwise, so their appeal to us was minimal.

On that Thursday, a mere thirty hours before we left Indianapolis, I Googled the name of a local advertising museum to clarify something before I added it to the reject pile. Google led me to the Milwaukee Art Museum’s home page, where I stopped short.

Milwaukee Art Museum!

Hey, movie fans! Recognize this?

You won’t believe what this comics fan discovered the night before leaving town!…

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 2: This is Our Hill and These Are Our Beans

July 12, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Day 1: Saturday, July 22nd

We packed quickly, then hit the open road after a quick stop to air up the tires — all four of which were low — and shut off that dashboard light at last. The first few hours from Indianapolis to Chicago were mostly uneventful, unless you count my hairbreadth near-miss of an interstate exit sign I’d been seeking in Chicago. To steer clear of the wrong turnoff and avoid the line of cars steamrolling past us in the proper lane, I had to drive up onto the raised median between the forks in the road. I could blame the rampant Chicago interstate construction, or I could blame my proclivity for occasional concentrated daydreaming at inopportune moments. Or I could take the easy, responsibility-free way out and blame society. Either way, no way could I have pulled that move in my own car, a ’96 Cavalier, without sailing right off both axles. For once, the day was saved, thanks to…the SUV!

Once we were well past the heavy reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Expressway, we stopped briefly in Lake Forest for gas, then motored out of Illinois, into Wisconsin, and on to the pretty, pretty town of Pleasant Prairie, where the local botanists worked overtime to make a good first impression on travelers. A few miles east of the exit was our first tourist attraction of the trip, the Jelly Belly Factory, proud makers of jellybeans and jellybean accessories.

Jelly Belly Beetle!

I hear this car’s engine ran on jellybeans instead of gas, but then GM bought it and dropped it into the Mariana Trench.

Beans, beans, the magical candy!…

Our 2006 Road Trip, Part 1: Our Milkman’s Chariot Awaits

July 12, 2014 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

[Welcome to the first installment of a very special miniseries, representing the original travelogue from our family’s 2006 vacation to scenic Wisconsin and Minnesota, home of much forestry, many lakes, and very odd things. Some hindsight editing and modern-day commentary will be included along the way as value-added bonus features for readers old and new alike.

All photos were taken with one of two cameras: one Kodak EasyShare that was obsolete when we bought it, and one 35mm camera whose film had to be dropped off for developing and whose pics were scanned using an equally obsolete, poor-res scanner. Very little about these entries will approach 1080p quality. Back in our day, this is what history looked like. When these travelogues were written, they were as much about the writing as they were about the pics. Consequently, some entries will have one photo, while others will have several.

I’m adding some present-day commentary in spots as value-added epilogues. I’ll also be inserting several photos that we’ve never shared publicly before. Even our internet friends who read the original entries will be seeing previously unreleased material for the first time.

Enjoy!]

2006 Jeep Commander. UGH/

Day 0: Friday, July 21st

As with last year’s vacation, rather than submit either of our own cars to hundreds of miles of wear and tear, we rented an SUV for the extra space, comfort, and intimidation factor — what better way to announce to the townsfolk of other locales, “Back off, man! We’re TOURISTS!” Granted, we had to prepare ourselves to spend extra money on gas, but that falls in line with my own little personal plan to help save America: the way I figure it, if every one of us works together to use up all the gas in the world as quickly as possible, down to the very last drop, then we’ll be forced to make the transition to alternative fuel sources that much sooner.

Right this way for a complete lack of sales pitch…

Real Maps Are Like Big Crispy Paper Blankets

July 8, 2014 By in Mundane, Travel Tags: , , , , , , 3 Comments

Map!

Remember the ancient times of the mid-to-late twentieth century, when long trips to unfamiliar places couldn’t be navigated by squinting at a computer the size of a deck of cards? If you needed to get from point A to point B, your first hope was that an elderly relative could give you directions that used no street names and depended on visual landmarks such as specific gas stations or funny-shaped trees. Plan B was to wander in the general direction until your wife got mad enough to make you stop the car and ask the locals for pointers. Plan C was to stay home and find something else to do.

Plan D was maps. Giant-sized maps that didn’t fit in your pocket unless you wadded them into a ball first, or wore overalls with enormous pockets. They unfolded into thirty or forty sections and covered your entire dining room table. If you were improvising on the run, they covered your dashboard, steering wheel, and most of your line of sight. Driving while mapping was, much like driving while texting, a fun way to terrorize your passengers and the drivers in the other lanes, adding new levels of stuntman risk to even the calmest Sunday outing.

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2014 Birthday Road Trip Photos, Part 4 of 4: the Rest of Muncie!

June 28, 2014 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For the last few years, my wife and I have spent our respective birthdays together finding some new place or attraction to visit as a one-day road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on this most frabjous day, partly to explore areas of Indiana we’ve never experienced before. My 2014 birthday destination of choice: the town of Muncie, some 75 miles northeast of here.

Sure, many people celebrate their birthday on or near the original date. Some might take photos. Some might share them in a timely manner. We keep our own schedule. And by “we” I mean “I” because my wife isn’t as prone to distractions, digressions, or long, awkward pauses between chapters in her online projects. But I couldn’t very well leave this four-part MCC miniseries incomplete. I never explicitly promised anyone four parts, but that final “To Be Continued” at the end of Part Three cried out to me for closure. Also, I could use a short break from headline news and general relevance.

Part four, then: other things we saw besides nifty stores, official works of art, or Garfield statues. The most bewildering sight of all would be the “nature area” that contained a relaxing walking path, gentle plains, breezy forest, and a sacrificial altar.

nature table?

Right this way for, uh, wait, what?