Launch from Jersey

• We’re on our way!
• A woman we asked to take our launch photo turns out to be a professional photographer
• A nice man paid for our parking sticker
• Almost ran out of gas on I90
• Were the only native English-speakers on the Maid of the Mist
• Saw multiple full arch rainbows in Horseshoe Falls

Jersey Junction

Sue with Jersey Salsa Dancers

Friends

We made our way to the home of the original Buffalo chicken wings, the Anchor Bar. We bellied up to the bar for some beers and a bucket of Buffalo’s best. Here we met our new BFFs, Canadians Terri and Jodi.

Our Canadian BFFs

We asked them for their thoughts about New Jersey. “We think it’s dirty but so is Buffalo.” You gotta love it!

Food

Buffalo Wings

Spiedies!

Car snacks consumed provided by friends: way too many chocolate covered nuts

Theme of the Day

Water

Signing off,
T and L – Jersey Strong

• Yoga with Rodney Yee in the room
• Strolled along Canadian side of Niagara Falls; water is surprisingly blue-green
• Visited Jamestown, NY, birthplace of America’s favorite redhead, Lucille Ball. Fun Facts: Lucille (as they refer to her in Jamestown) went to vaudeville shows with her grandfather in Jamestown which inspired her to pursue an acting career in NYC.
  

  Shopping for Lucy memorabilia

• 

  Outside the Desi and Lucy Museum in Jamestown, NY

• Jamestown is an impeccably maintained small city but we were asked by a toothless young woman for a quarter. A quarter? Really?
• Chautauqua and the Institute – utterly fascinating. Reminiscent of Ocean Grove, NJ and Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard. Utopian community from the late 1800’s. Seems to have stopped in time.

Food

• Concord grapes in Westfield, NY – home of juice king Dr. Welch
  

  Concord grapes for Welch’s!

• Dinner at Pufferbelly Restaurant in Erie, PA – an old fire house converted to a fascinating eatery. Refreshing Railbender Ale & Presque Isle Pilsner, both by the Erie Brewing Company

Jersey Junction

Glenda with our waitress and bullseye jumping tarp

Today’s Jersey Junction is brought to you by Melissa our waitress, born, bred and still living in Erie PA. Melissa has never been to New Jersey but when we asked her what was the first thing she thought of about Jersey, she said “old school Italians”. Not the answer we expected but a good one!

So tomorrow we will head to the Little Italy of Erie, PA.

Ciao!!!

• Breakfast with our fellow B&B residents followed by yoga with Rodney.
• Off to Sleeping Bear Dunes for the 3.0 mile Dunes Trail hike. Sand, dunes, vast open spaces, rolling hills, beach grasses waving, and glorious views of Lake Michigan. Wiggled our toes in Lake Michigan which was cold but not frigid.

• Next, off to old fishing town of Leland, MI. Walked around town and yes, did some shopping! Old fish town shacks now have some cute shops. Checked out Carlson’s fish house – sampled the fish sausage – surprise, we loved it!

• Headed further north to Northport and onto Sutton’s Bay, all towns on Lake Michigan. These towns remind us of a much lower key Nantucket or Hamptons area. Sutton’s Bay was hosting an antique car show with many parked on the street. Cool!

• Did you know Michigan produces wine? Similar to the Finger Lakes area of NY, the Michigan North Country is home to many a vineyard. We tried out Black Star Farms vineyard. Tasting and buying. Pretty good! Mario Batali is a local fan.
• Last stop was at Cherry Republic. Michigan is possibly the largest cherry producer in the world. In our little B&B town, there is the retail homage to all things cherry. More shopping. Yum!

Are the grapevines decorated for Halloween? No, it’s netting to protect the grapes from hungry starlings…

 

Next Up

Grand Rapids and Holland, Michigan

• Morning walk to lake’s edge in Glen Arbor; breakfast at Glen Arbor Bed & Breakfast
• Headed south towards Grand Rapids and passed a veritable parade of antique cars headed north. Lots of Model-Ts and tin lizzies.

• Drove to Lake Michigan to the home of Sue’s new BFF, Tinker. Sue’s son Mac and Tinker’s son Nick, became friends their first day at Tufts. Sue and Tinker met for 20 minutes at the matriculation event, discussed the upcoming cross-country travels and Tinker promptly invited us to stay with her in Michigan. Imagine her surprise when Sue texted her and said, “We’re here in Michigan! Can we come over?”. Tinker, recovering from her shock, graciously invited us to stay.

Tinker and Sue

• Annually, Grand Rapids hosts an art contest called ArtPrize. Artists from all over the world display their work and compete (based on public voting) for a $250,000 prize given by the heirs of Amway. We went to several of the venues, checked out their works, voted, and thoroughly enjoyed the public art display.

A portion of “Still Point by Gwendolyn Terry

• After dinner downtown, we managed to get our mugs on the 11:00 news (Today Show-style), went home, offered our decorating advice and rearranged all Tinker’s first floor furniture. She still let us stay.

• Off we go after a quick photo op at….Jersey Junction…in E. Grand Rapids.  En route to Madison, WI home of Glenda’s niece Laura and her roommate Cory.

A 4 state trek: MI, IN,IL, WI.

• Crazy gas stop on the border of IN and IL.  There must have been 24 pumps and 100 cars lined up every which way facing all directions, backing up, inching forward, turning around and then parking at the pumps for what seemed like hours .  Later we discovered that the gas there at our chosen Shell station was a full 30 cents per gallon cheaper than other area stations.  Frank, Value Man would be proud!!
• Stop for Teutonic fare in Rockford, IL: Der Rathskeller

Wurst!!

• Arrive in Madison–Badger Land!  Tour the campus and the local town.  A sea of red sweatshirts everywhere!  Badgers win over UTEP.  All good in the cheese state.
• Dinner at a local restaurant with Laura, her dad Dave and roommate Cory.  Sue tried her first cheese curds!!  Yummy!!

            

• Started with excellent bagels, just like home!
• We deflated the bed

unplanned matchy matchy…

• First stop, La Crosse, Wisconsin which took its name from the Indian game.

• Headed from there to view the World’s Largest 6-Pack, so big that the beer would provide one person a 6-pack a day for 3,351 years! (Steve – take note for potential icon for new Gansett RI brewery).  We were sorry it was Sunday and there were no brewery tours. Amazingly, we weren’t the only disappointed tour seekers (there were actually others traveling to the giant 6-pack, camera in hand).

Lots o’ beer from City Brewery

• Our final stop in La Crosse was Grandad’s Bluff for a great view of the 3 rivers, 2 of which we don’t know! But the big one was the Mississippi. Standing in La Crosse, WI we looked across the rivers at Iowa and Minnesota.

Mississippi and 2 unknown rivers (you can look it up)

• Onward via I90 West – cheese curds snacks cooled by our very “cool” Coleman car plug-in fridge. Corn, corn, soybeans, soybeans, flatness, more corn. Beautiful.

Sunset on I90 West

• Arrived at Blue Earth, Minnesota to take in the glory that was the 55 foot tall Jolly Green Giant. Enough said.

Sue as JGG

Jolly Green Giant

• Stop for the night in Fairmont, Minnesota Hampton Inn. We learn that 4 other guests are on cross-country trips. Wow.

• Left beautiful Badlands.  At checkout, Glenda was inspired to purchase 2 50-cent plastic bison for healing and courage…plus we were hoping to see a real one soon.  A crowd gathered at the desk for this photo shoot: complete with Badlands mouse pad as a back drop!

• Rapid City, SD and the streets are lined with bronze presidents. Can you guess who they are?

Ronald Reagan

Jimmy Carter

Jefferson

Andrew Johnson

Millard Filmore

William Henry Harrison

•  And more presidents – Mount Rushmore – what a sight! We learned its story and how the whole thing was carved (90% using dynamite), the funding, who worked on it, everything. We loved it! Natch, our visit included the ritual commemorative stamping of the passport.

Stamping

NJ – 3rd State Admitted to the Union – Yay!

Teddy

George’s nostrils

Abe

Tom’s nostrils

• On to Wind Cave. Much to Glenda’s chagrin, we were too late to get our stamps however all was not lost. The animal viewing and identification was fantastic. Pronghorn antelope, steers, turkeys, prairie dogs, and a herd of buffalo.

 Jersey Junction

To make up for our previous failures today we bring you two Jersey Junctions.  Up first our Badlands breakfast waitress-never been to New Jersey but what came to her mind first?  She said “the Jersey drawl” and she proceeded to give us a taste of the “Jersey drawl” including Joizee, cawfee. “even though i’m from Podunk, I know my accents!!”.  Her Jersey accent was spot on.  Further probed, she admitted to hearing about Jersey shore the show, not the beaches–is she Snooki or Snickers??

Jersey Junction 2: Dinner at the local bar/restaurant in Custer, SD.  We met a young couple from MN.  First things first, they drank bloody marys with pickles instead of celery and salt on the rim like margaritas.  Do we do that in Jersey?  Neither of them had ever been to NJ but they too mentioned Jersey Shore..the show…not the beaches..ugh!!  How can we counter that perception??  Glenda pulled a good one out of her facts hat – Jersey is the home of M&M’s (first made in Newark, NJ).  Our couple was impressed as they had been munching on them as they drove across South Dakota.  Yay red M&M’s!!

 

Theme of the Day: Presidents!!

Up next: Wyoming

 

• Morning: geyser trail. Saw Old Faithful erupt, then got our 5th park stamp. Woot, woot! Headed out on a boardwalk trail passing many different geysers,hot springs, pools and other thermal features. The earth is bubbling, burbling, boiling, belching, spitting, spouting, spritzing, and steaming. We learned that you have to stay on the boardwalk because you can fall into these thermal pits and boil to death! The geysers fill up, roar, bubble, spout and then drain. The pools are multi-colored with vibrant blues, oranges, greens and yellows. Some are mud pits with boiling mud baths and some are dry steam vents that vented like the NYC subway.

Old Faithful

Bacteria Mat (this is what it really said on the sign)

Mud Pots

• After a picnic lunch, we viewed the Yellowstone canyon and falls. The Lower Falls are apparently twice as high, but much narrower than, Niagara. The canyon was impressive, huge and yellow.

The Lower Falls

Yellow stone in Yellowstone (actually, it’s gray stone with mineral deposits on it)

Us with yellow stone

• Finally, on our way back to the lodge, we drove through the river valley part of Yellowstone. This meant more animal sightings. We saw the now mundane bison and a couple of new animals: wolf and fox. We looked desperately for a bear but no success yet – maybe tomorrow. Saw the elk and his harem again, too.

Wolf

Bull

Jersey Junction

So we saw a Jersey car parked next to us at breakfast this morning. It was packed to the gills with all kinds of stuff, in every seat, in every crevice of the car. Plus, there was a box on the top and one on the back bumper. We went over to investigate, thinking this might be our junction. But when we looked closer, we saw the top of a guy’s head peaking out from under stuff, still asleep. We screamed and ran away. Hmmm – maybe not the time to talk about Jersey.

Theme of the Day: The 5 Senses

We saw the vibrant colored pools, heard the gurgling geysers, felt the steam give us facials, smelled the rotten-egg smell of sulphur from the geysers, and tasted elk meat. All good.

Up Next: Jackson, WY

• By some miracle this morning we actually were up and in the car by 7am–shocking–we know.  But we were determined to have a moose sighting.  Armed with directions to moose territory given to us by our waitress, we aimed for sunrise moose viewing. At first no luck but we drove further into the B.T. Park and encountered a bear.  So adorable.  Then further on we hit the jackpot with a moose and her baby (just missed her husband, Bullwinkle).

• On our way back we looked for Mr. Beaver and couldn’t find him but we found his handiwork and his friend.

• Back into Jackson for a walk about Town Square and some shopping.

 

Sue and Glenda getting into the western theme!!

Sue’s mom and her friend getting into the western theme circa 1953!!

Jersey Junction

In our shopping, we met a store clerk who was born and raised in Clifton, NJ then Pompton Lakes, NJ.  She married and moved to Lynbrook, Long Island and then decided to bolt to the far west in 1970 with her 2 kids and a sawed off shotgun in tow.  She left her Harley dealer hubby to follow and set up their new life 15 miles outside of Jackson.  She now shows no signs of her former Jersey or LI life…not even an accent is left.

We also met a very friendly store clerk originally from Minnesota with a good friend here in Jackson, an artist, from Maplewood, NJ….a close enough junction.

 

Theme of the Day: Photo Safari

Up Next: Salt Lake City and Sue’s friend Nancy!!  wooo hooooo!!

• Started off the day with a visit to the Jackson Emerg-a-Care clinic to treat what turned out to be Glenda’s infected, black fly-bitten, index finger. Ick!
• Medical issue taken care of we hit the road south to the SLC home of Nancy and George Janes, Sue’s buds from Short Hills. We drove through 3 states and an ever-changing landscape; tiny towns with a whole lot of nothing in between. This ride made us really see so many different colors everywhere. Here they are:

red

blue and peach

black

straw

grey

blue

brown

white

yellow

green

rust

Jersey Junction

Yay! A self-evident Junction; we stayed with transplanted Jersey people. Had a great dinner, discussed Mormon Utah, and learned that the Mormon caffeine ban does not apply to Coca-Cola because it is a cold beverage and the ban seems to be on warm drinks only. Whatever. Nancy and George love it here and they are now confirmed Utahns (yes, that’s the term). Many thanks to them for a great stay.

Theme of the Day: Colors – all along the way, starting with a visit to Dr. Blue (really, that was his name :))

Up Next: Eureka, Nevada