Island Fest to Dunes - this is the midwest?

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana

Continuing our drive across Michigan we were going to stop at Battle Creek and investigate Dr. Kellogg, the health advocate, and his weird inventions. On further research we found this point of interest was more centered around the contributions of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. We opted for another activity. Voila! A billboard magically appeared touting wonderful biking in Kalamazoo. Okay, we'll bite.

The Kalamazoo River Trail does indeed follow along the river and also takes you into town, a fun college city hosting both Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College. Our ears perked up when we heard some great Reggae music so our bikes naturally veered off the path and followed the tunes. Turns out this weekend is the Island Festival, with a heavy emphasis on Bob Marley and all things Jamaican. The live band was awesome, there was lots of beer and rum drinks flowing, and too many Jamaican jerk stands to count. Ned and I opted for curry goat and jerk chicken over beans and rice. The music, people, food and community gathering was really fun. It reminded us a bit of being in Trinidad this past May, which seems like a lifetime ago.
At one point it started to lightly sprinkle so we thought it best to head back to the van rather than push our luck. Kalamazoo, good times.

Ned spotted another billboard, this one claiming to be the "Best Chocolate Shop in America", according to The Food Network. You think he would pass this up?! The country road took us past several wineries, some of which offered fudge along with their wine, obviously trying to capitalize on the tourists heading for the Chocolate Garden. We thought that was pretty amusing. For a small fee one can sample three small bites, i.e. a quarter of a truffle each. It was broken down by dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate. We opted for 3 of the darks. I inquired as to the chocolate the chocolatier uses, but they said it was a trade secret. We're pretty sure it was Callebaut, which is the largest chocolate maker in the world. They were okay, but we both definitely prefer good dark chocolate to truffles.

We left Michigan behind and crossed into Indiana. We were driving on backroads and hoping to be hugging Lake Michigan, or at least get a glimpse here and there. Turns out there's thick woods between the road and lake. We did enjoy driving through several arty communities and stopping at a local store. It definitely felt like a vacation spot on a Friday late afternoon. Everyone hustling to get their weekend supplies of ice, charcoal and brews.

Okay, this next question is for my Western friends and not my Mid-west family and friends. How many of you knew there was a National Park in Indiana? Yep, right on the shores of Lake Michigan, tucked in between the State Park, residential homes and several steel mills is the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. It wasn't declared a National Park until 1966. You can imagine the politics and fight between the steel mills and power plants that raged on from the late 1800's until the mid 20th century over whether to preserve the dunes. What makes these dunes so unique is they are one of the most bio-diverse areas in the U.S. One can see everything from prickly pear cacti to marshes, woods and dunes in a very concentrated area. Ned and I spent some time at the Visitors Center taking in a film and talking with one of the park rangers. I was ready to go exploring.

After securing a campsite at the National Park, we hopped on our bikes for the second ride of the day. Another local ranger suggested a route and we were off. We rode through marsh land and woods then out to Lake Michigan. Of course we had to get our feet wet and test the waters. Not too cold, but I didn't jump in. If you've never been on Lake Michigan it feels more like an ocean than a lake. As far as your eye can see, off into the horizon, is just water. When I looked to my right, there were people swimming and a couple of small boats for renting. When I looked to my left, in the far horizon you can see smoke billowing out of the stacks of the steel mills.

Riding further down the shore we came upon several really huge, and somewhat opulent but dated, homes. Our first reaction was why are these residential homes in the National Park. Turns out they were part of the National Park and are the "Century of Progress" homes. They were featured at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago and relocated here. One of the homes looked to me like a concrete octagon yurt. Turns out it was the "home of tomorrow", featuring pre-fabricated concrete and a airplane hangar for a garage. Apparently every family of the future would have their own airplane. (How's that working out for everybody?). Today private tenants lease these homes so they are not open for touring.

We're enjoying the laid back vibe of our campsite tonight. It's heavily wooded, the sites are spaced far apart and everyone seems to be on bikes. We're looking forward to testing out a local beer, Dragon's Milk, we picked up to go along with our chicken on the grill. My big challenge this evening is to try and get some sleep. I'm so excited to be visiting my family in Chicago. It's going to be a fun weekend!

Back in the US of A

Waterloo Recreation Area, Michigan

Ned again. After Debi posted the blog last night, we drove through the worst thunderstorm we've seen on the trip, and probably the worst storm I've ever driven in. However, by the time we got to our campground at Rondeau Provincial Park, the rain had stopped and the view across Lake Erie of the setting sun was beautiful.

We headed out this morning, excited to get back into the US, after 2 weeks in Canada. We waited in line for a bit at the border crossing between Windsor and Detroit, getting anxious as we watched the cars ahead of us get their trunks searched. However, when it was our turn, the border guard seemed quite envious that we had spent 2 weeks in Canada checking out several places that he had never been. Debi asked him if he knew any good history-related places in Michigan that we should check out. He thought for a second, and then called over to the guard that was working in the next booth. The guard came over and started discussing in great detail several Revolutionary War sites that he thought we should investigate. Eventually, we were sent happily on our way, without ever even having the door of our van opened. We have no idea what the poor people waiting in line behind us thought was going on!

On our way toward the border we had been listening to a radio talk show which discussed problems regarding the bankruptcy proceedings of Detroit, and how it was negatively impacting citizens. After hearing all this, I think we perhaps both expected to drive through a desolate ghost town. Instead, we found an extremely vibrant downtown, buzzing with activity, including a musical concert in a downtown square, and some awesome young guys drumming out intricate rhythms on 5 gallon plastic buckets on one street corner. As we left the downtown area, we saw more of the ghost town appearance that we expected, passing an entire shopping center that was completely boarded up. A few miles later, however, we drove through Grosse Pointe Village, which has gorgeous brick and stone homes, many with slate roofs, and perfectly manicured yards. Interesting contrasts, for sure.

After touring Ann Arbor, we eventually found our way to Waterloo Recreation Area to stay for the night. We were amused to tour the campground and see that summer vacation seemed to have been officially decreed for many of the families camping here. Once again, it is the "open" concept campground, with only a few trees, and lots of mowed grass between all the campsites. Our favorite sight, however, as we took a biking tour of the campground and surrounding area, was a bunch of kids gleefully splashing at the edge of the lake. We couldn't imagine that the water was warm enough to feel very good, since the air temperature was still pretty mild, but we figured these kids had suffered such a long and cold winter this year, that they were determined to celebrate the beginning of Summer, regardless of how cold the water was.

Meanwhile, Debi and I are feeling strangely relieved to be back in the US. Here we don't have to worry about figuring out signs written in French, worrying about getting enough "Loonies" to pay for a shower or washing machine, and, in general, not making fools of ourselves, because we're confused about bridge tolls, parking restrictions, or gas pumps.

Winging it in Toronto

TBD

Even though it poured all night we woke to blue skies. Yeah. Time to go take on Toronto. Ned wanted to visit SOMA, a bean to bar chocolate maker and I wanted to ride bikes and see the Old Distillery District. That was the goal for the day. We had no idea where any of these were. We headed for the beach district, parked the car, unloaded the bikes and started pedaling. Turns out Toronto has this awesome bike path that goes on for miles and miles taking you along the Ontario shore, through several parks and eventually dumps you into downtown.

We were a bit intimidated with all the traffic and construction downtown, so we pretended to be Westin guests and asked the concierge where SOMA was. Turns out we rode right by it several miles back. Sweet. By this time the sky begun to cloud over and we started feeling a few sprinkles. Every "Torontonian" seemed oblivious to the few drops and just kept on roller blading (which is big up here), riding bikes, walking, and even playing beach volleyball in their bikinis. Not wanting to look like a tourist, (could the camera around my neck and my long sleeves give me away?) we shrugged off the sprinkles and rode on.

Turns out SOMA was located in the Old Distillery! How's that for killing two birds with one stone? SOMA makes micro-batches of handcrafted chocolate from single origin sources. Who does that sound like?! Their shop is very small, but through a glass wall one can watch their chocolate making process. Ned loved the 80 year old melanger from Barcelona which SOMA recently acquired. It was really cool to see it in action. I enjoyed seeing the panning operation. It looks like a gigantic stainless steel cement mixer with a wide opening. Almonds were tumbling around and the operator was hand pouring in chocolate to coat them. Yum! Ned explained to me that the neat part about panning is that you can use untempered chocolate. The air that blows in from the duct tempers the chocolate as it cools and coats the almonds. The shop also had a cafe bar. I had a cafe latte and Ned tried a bicerin, which is a layered cream, espresso, and chocolate drink originating in Italy. Of course we bought several bars of chocolate, for research purposes. Their Peru bar was phenomenal! We are going to find out where they get their Peru beans. We'd love to try and roast some of those. The other bars were both good, I'd put them on par with ours.

The weather held and we made it back to Winnie in one piece. We rode 15 miles and hit the 200 mile marker on my bike odometer. (Thanks Neise!!!). The rest of the afternoon was spent checking out the beautiful University of Toronto and different neighborhoods. At one point when we drove past the ROM Museum, I clicked a picture of Winnie in the reflection off the windows. Pretty cool shot! The other "selfie" was taken in Toronto - humor me with my art shots:)

We are driving late tonight trying to get as close to the US border (Detroit) as we can. Not sure where we'll camp or when we'll pull in so thought I'd post this blog while we have wifi at the gas stop.

Upper Canada

Presqu'ile Provincial Park, Brighton, Ontario

We said good-bye to Quebec and rolled into the province of Ontario today. Our big adventure was visiting another heritage park, this one named "Upper Canada". It took me awhile to understand that Upper referred to the Province of Ontario, which was higher up the St. Lawrence River and the Quebec Province was "Lower Canada" or farther down the St. Lawrence River. (On a map it looks completely counter-intuitive as if North was lower).

This park was an 1860's working village mainly settled by "Loyalists". Most of the Loyalists came in the late 1700's after the Revolutionary War (or as they call it here the First Civil War). Interestingly enough, many of these Loyalists were fighting the Americans 30's years later during the War of 1812. This village is established on a famous battlefield during that war. There is a lot of local pride here that the Americans got their butts kicked in this battle and also lost the war, i.e. they weren't able to take any land.

Even though this village was completely reconstructed from original buildings that had been relocated from nearby locations, what makes it so fascinating was that it really is a functioning, working and thriving village. It was the best representation of how things were done during the 1860's. All of the machinery running the sawmill, flour mill and woolen factory was original from the 1700's!! Imagine. It was water driven equipment, with lots of pulleys and wide leather belts. Today the flour mill had just finished producing 900 lbs. of flour! They provide about 300 lbs. a day to the local bakery in the village and the rest is sold in the "outside" world. The saw mill makes all the lumber for the village farms, fences and buildings. I was most fascinated by seeing the carding and spinning equipment in the woolen mill. The machines were several stories high, the pulleys and belts being run by the water wheel on the first floor and the carding and spinning machines were on the upper floor. I've read a lot of literature books describing this in full operation, but it was incredible to see it first hand.

We spent several more hours watching a real tin smith, who was repairing a bucket for the dairy farmer, watching the cabinet maker, shoe maker and blacksmith. I also enjoyed seeing a quilt being created, all hand-stitched. However, the real hoot was talking with the bakers. They produce 30,000 loaves of bread just in the summer alone! There were 90 loaves in the oven when we arrived. Eric and Keis (who was Dutch) were so much fun. We spent quite a lot of time talking with them and comparing notes about making chocolate from bean to bar and making bread the way it was done hundreds of years ago. There were about 900 school children visiting the village today and the bakers wanted us to taste their bread, but not in front of the kids. So they had us meet them at the backdoor and tear off a big hunk from one of their loaves. It was still warm too. Delish!

The prairie grass was getting mowed with a horse drawn mechanical scythe (if you look at the background in the picture, that's the U.S. in the background. Hello, my fellow-countrymen!) There was also a tow-scow, which is a horse drawing a boat in a canal. I think the most enjoyable and impressive part of visiting this heritage park was due to the re-enactor participants. Everyone of them are skilled and knowledgeable in their trade and clearly take a lot of pride in their craftsmanship. Eric, the baker, has been working there 34 years! Queen Elizabeth visited here as well for the dedication of one of the buildings. If any of you are every traveling this way, we highly recommend you take a half day and visit "Upper Canada Village."

After this fun outing we kept tootling toward Toronto. We decided to pull off at Presqu'ile Provincial Park which is located on a peninsula on Lake Ontario. And just in time too! Despite a glorious, warm and bright sunshine day a storm is now brewing. The waves are slapping up against the campground, the rain is pelting Winnie and thunder and lightening are nearby. Instead of a bike ride looks like we're in for a cozy dramatic night.

Not everything is French in Montreal

Parc d'Oka, Quebec, Canada

Reluctantly we pulled up stakes and headed off one of our favorite little islands, Ile d'Orleans. It's definitely a different vibe on Monday mornings than on Sundays. Very few of the cider shops, wineries, patisseries that cater to the weekend crowd were open. It was nice driving by all the little farms and having the place almost to ourselves. The St. Lawrence River was very calm and the early morning light made for some great photography.

Driving around Quebec was a breeze and "voila" we were on our way to Montreal. As Ned mentioned last night, our last visit to this part of Canada was our fall tour of 2009. How different it is seeing these same places in the summer! Tourist season officially opened on Sunday and it was like someone just flipped a switch. Was it only a few days ago we were wearing layers, enjoying the cooler weather and had most places to ourselves?

Rather than just visit the historic part of Montreal I thought it would be fun to visit "Little Italy" and embrace my Italian culture. The largest ethnic group in the Montreal area are Italians. Many of them arrived after the end of the 19th Century and after World War II. I envisioned this area would look and feel like North Beach in San Francisco. We thought it would be fun to take a break from seafood and, of course, potatoes and splurge on an Italian meal. By the time we actually found the Little Italy section, no easy feat without google maps or trying to navigate this crazy busy city, we were a little disappointed. Yes, we saw a lot of Italian flags flying and an occasional shout from groups of people spilling out of bars and dressed in similar attire, but this seemed to be more about Italian solidarity around the World Cup than anything else. Nothing grabbed our attention, we didn't see any quaint little cafes dotting the streets, only clogged traffic and tons of construction. So without any disrespect to my Big Nana Ella Maria Ramassa, we decided to forego Little Italy.

I also read about this Jewish Deli, Schwartz, that has been serving "smoked meal", or what we would call corned beef, sandwiches since 1928. It's been written up in everything from the New York Times to travel blogs and seemed a Montreal institution. We decided instead to embrace our inner Jewishness. The traffic, congestion and noise of Montreal seems more aligned with New York City than Quebec. We were delighted to find a parking spot only a few blocks away from Schwartz. Unbelievable!

Schwartz isn't so much a restaurant as a crowded narrow room with picnic tables and chairs. People were lined up down the block and we were told the line never seems to go down. The entire width of the place couldn't be more than 20 feet, and that included the kitchen, bar stools and table. (If you look closely in the 4th photo Ned is wearing a green shirt). We were placed at a table with a very nice family from Vancouver. I think you can order 4 things on the menu, but just about everyone just orders the "smoked meat" sandwiches. The size of the sandwiches could rival any good Jewish Delicatessen in NYC! Wowza. After that artery clogging sandwich we walked back to our car and discovered our first ticket of the trip. Apparently that magical little parking spot wasn't so magical after all! Turned out to be the most expensive corned beef sandwich we ever had!

Next destination was heading for historic Montreal. Again, we couldn't believe the difference in energy, people, and commotion from visiting here in late fall and during tourist season. We walked along several cobblestone streets, had fun taking photos, visiting shops and a maple syrup museum. My favorite part was talking with a woman whose family makes the maple syrup. They do it all from tree to syrup, including packaging and selling direct. Boy, could we relate to that!! We were going to go for a bike ride along the waterfront, but in all honesty the crowds were so overwhelming we decided to just head on out for our campground of the night. It took us several hours to get off the island. We were missing Quebec, with its cool breezes on the promenade, great views and manageable traffic.

We finally arrived at Parc d'Oka, a Quebec National Park, and it felt so good to be back in nature. I think our Nevada City origins are coming through because we definitely enjoy the laid back vibe so much better than the big city. This park is huge! It is a lush, heavily wooded forest with 814 campsites. The upside is we can barely see any neighbors the sites are so heavily wooded.

Ned and I are exploring the park and took a ride down to the beach. We thought we were the only people here, but heard some commotion on the beach. Several good natured fellows are lighting off fireworks and sending up fire-lit floating balloons on the beach, in the sunset. Apparently, they are celebrating someone's birthday. Even better news, the beach cafe has wifi!