New England and Mid-Atlantic States Road Trip – Part 3

The New England portion of my New England and Mid-Atlantic States road trip had been completed, so when I woke up in my motel room in Vermont, I quickly loaded the rental car, stopped for a quick breakfast, then headed out onto the road for a day-long drive down to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where I had made my next hotel reservation online. The next three visits on the trip were to upgrade perspectives from mainly childhood trips and stops, and due to these visits being just about an hour from each other, I planned to handle them in one day, starting with Gettysburg NHP, then down to the national mall in Washington, DC, and ending up visiting Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland. My one advantage in visiting three cities in one day was that I was doing it on a Sunday.

When I reached Gettysburg after my long drive from Vermont and checked into my hotel by mid-afternoon, I realized that I had another advantage, a long summer’s day. I drove over to the nearby Visitor Center to check out the sites in the park. Since the civil war battle extended over a wide area around the city, there were many battle locations protected around the small city. After a conversation with a park guide, I accepted the recommendation to head over to the nearby location of East Cemetery Hill. Besides the various memorials and statues within the hilltop park, there was a representative cannon looking out on the small valley that confederate soldiers tried to climb up the hill against the union defense line. Across the street on the other side of the hill park was the Soldiers National Cemetery, a more personal memorial to the historical battle site. My history perspective had been upgraded.

Gettysburg NHP, PA

The next morning, I checked out of my hotel and headed for Washington, DC. The Maps app got me close to the National Mall, but I had to drive around to look for an appropriate parking location. I wound up finding a street side parking spot a couple of blocks from the west side of the National Mall and walked down to explore. I took distant photo shots of the Capitol building behind the Washington Monument on the east side of the National Mall, then began to explore the Vietnam War Memorial Wall near the Lincoln Memorial. I checked out a few more war memorial sites, then I went up to enter the Lincoln Memorial. Having upgraded my childhood memories of my earlier Washington visit, I walked back up to my rental car and drove up to Baltimore to experience Fort McHenry National Monument, the site that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the US national anthem. It was impressive to explore the fort, observe the flag with the number of stars at the time of Francis Scott Key flying over the fort, and check out the Chesapeake Bay view seen from the fort. It was a good day of perspective. I headed over to my nearby hotel reservation.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC – Fort McHenry, Baltimore MD

For the next day schedule, I had included a natural visit along the Maryland coast to Assateague Island, known for its herds of wild horses, but I noted a directional concern in the Maps app, so I decided to skip this stop and head directly to the First State National Historical Park in New Castle, Delaware. When I first found the site in my research for a location to represent Delaware in my road trip, I assumed that it would be some sort of memorial statue or structure honoring Delaware’s status in history. However, when I reached New Castle and found a street parking spot near to the site, I discovered that the park was a simple small grass park behind an historical courthouse. I took photos in the park and drove a couple of blocks down to the Delaware River, where I walked around the riverside paths. After a few more photos, I drove back up to the main street location to enjoy lunch where I learned that the historical courthouse had a tour. Even though I joined the tour halfway, I was amazed to discover how Delaware became the first colony to accept the newly written constitution to become the first state of the union. Essentially, since the constitution was written in Philadelphia, this gave Pennsylvania the first opportunity to be the first colony to approve the constitution, but a few representatives delayed the discussion by a couple of days, giving the much smaller group of Delaware representatives who received the written constitution copy just a day after Pennsylvania started their review to beat Pennsylvania in being the first colony to officially approve the constitution. The underlying history was fascinating.

Historic Courthouse, New Castle, DE – Steel Pier Amusement Park, Atlantic City, NJ

After leaving the historical courthouse, I got into the rental car and drove on to Atlantic City, New Jersey to check into my next hotel a couple of blocks from the boardwalk. After checking in, I walked down to the boardwalk and started taking photos of the beachside, casinos, and the amusement park pier. Monday afternoon foot traffic on the pier was light, so many of the rides were not operating, but walking along the pier was nice. Since the Hard Rock Casino was directly across from the pier, I chose its restaurant for my dinner. The nice, relaxing afternoon truly honored reaching my bucket list goal of visiting and taking a photo within every state in the United States.

Even though I had accomplished my bucket list goal, I figured that navigating New York City traffic to reach La Guardia airport for my flight home, so I had scheduled an extra day on my road trip plan. This gave me time to make one more stop on my tour. During my trip planning, I had noticed that Ellis Island was located close to a national park service location along the Hudson River called Liberty Park in northern New Jersey. On a map, I had noticed what appeared to be a small bridge from the park to Ellis Island, so after I checked out of my Atlantic City hotel, I headed to Liberty Park to check out Ellis Island. However, once I reached a visitor center near this bridge, I was informed that the bridge was built just for park employees and access to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty was only through a roundtrip ferry trip that launched hourly at a northern port in the park. Each ferry trip headed out from the Liberty Park port to the Ellis Island port, then headed on to the Liberty Island port, before heading back to the Liberty Park port. For passengers, the round-trip ferry cost was not restricted to one ferry, allowing groups to exit the ferry to explore each stop, then boarding the next ferry to take on the next leg of the trip. Since I was not sure about the New York City traffic, I stayed on one ferry, skipping the island tours, but taking excellent photos of Lady Liberty looking out towards the New York skyline. After arriving back at Liberty Park and retrieving my rental car, I successfully navigated the New York traffic to get to my Long Island hotel. The next morning, I dropped off my rental car near La Guardia and caught my flight back home. I relaxed on the plane, contemplating my very successful road trip journey.

Statue of Liberty facing New York City skyline

 

New England and Mid-Atlantic States Road Trip – Part 2

My New England and Mid-Atlantic States road trip had a good start with my stops in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and I was ready to take on the other four New England states and one national park on my list to upgrade my earlier perspectives. With the next phase of the trip starting in Massachusetts, basically the most foundational New England state, I planned two stops to explore, the Cape Cod seashore and Salem. I felt that trying to include the historical sites within Boston would be tricky trying to navigate the traffic within the major city on a tight road trip schedule. I started out early from my motel and headed for the main road into Cape Cod. My planned trip had the national seashore at the end of the cape, but when I discussed the planned trip a few weeks earlier with one of my neighbors, he recommended that I make a quick stop at Hyannis, a small port along the south side of the cape, so when I saw the exit sign to Hyannis, I decided to make the short stop. I took the exit and focused on following the road signs, but somewhere I suddenly found myself on a westbound road heading away from Hyannis. I turned up to head back to the main cape expressway, but since this turnoff trip had taken a few hours, I decided to skip the trip to the national seashore and headed off toward Salem.

Even though I had concerns about Boston traffic, I was able to navigate the west bypass expressway in sufficient time to make it to Salem by early afternoon. My choice of Salem as a stop on the trip was based on finding a mention of an historical cabin related to the Salem witch trials in late 1600s, which made me feel this stop would be a quick one. However, when I arrived at the small center area of the city, I realized that most of the locations were better reached by foot, leading me to park in a three story garage next to the city’s visitor center. Taking the time to make a quick stop at the visitor center, I discovered there were more interesting things to explore in Salem. I walked over to the Salem Witch Museum, checked out a small city park with a World War II memorial, bought a tarot deck in a witch gift store, walked down to the Salem Wharf National Historic Site to look out into the Atlantic, and went over to the historic House of Seven Gables, which was the inspiration for the classic Nathaniel Hawthorne novel. The afternoon was an inspirational experience into the early colonial history of this country.

Witch Museum/House of Seven Gables – Salem

After an impressive afternoon in Salem, it was time for me to head to the nearby hotel in which I had reserved a room online the night before through Expedia. Since the hotel’s location was a bit more complicated than my first two hotel stops, I went on the Expedia app on my cell phone to get the proper address information to search on the Apple Maps app. I noted that Expedia had a Maps link on the reservation page to direct the location into Maps to view. What surprised me was that as soon as the location was displayed on Maps, a calculated route path from my current location was instantly displayed. I quickly learned how to use my phone as a GPS guide for the rest of my road trip, something that would have been helpful earlier in the day to make that side trip to Hyannis.

The next morning was the start of a scheduled road drive day to Maine. Since my next exploratory stop was to be Acadia National Park, I had planned a full day in my schedule to re-experience the park 48 years after my first visit, so I had reserved a two-night stay at a nearby motel surrounding the day. I used the travel day to get used to the Maps GPS program on my phone, which I was able to keep charged up with a USB connection in the rental car dashboard. The only side stop beside gas and lunch along the drive was a quick stop at the Maine Welcome Center just across the border from New Hampshire. Besides picking up travel pamphlets, I also took a few photo shots of the forest area around the center, then headed on to my target location.

Acadia NP – Maine

The majority of Acadia National Park covers more than 50 percent of Mount Desert Island, which lies right next to the Maine mainland with a small bridge connection. My two-night stay motel was in a small town on the north side of the island. After enjoying breakfast at the motel, I gathered my camera and positioned my national park pass hangtag on the rear-view mirror, then headed out to experience the park. My first mission was to drive to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse location at the southernmost peninsula of the island. One Kodak photo from my visit 48 years ago was taken by my friend of me sitting on the rocky shore in front of the lighthouse, and my goal was to get a park ranger or another visitor to get an updated photo of me in front of the lighthouse. However, once I reached the location parking lot and carefully walked down a rocky shore area with other visitors, I discovered that the rocky shore had ebbed back from the ocean, taking away the broad open view of the lighthouse I had witnessed so long ago. The few shots I took barely show the lighthouse peeking out from the trees beside it. I headed back to my rental car and drove up to the main attraction of the park, the drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Because Acadia National Park is one of the most visited parks in the eastern US and Cadillac Mountain is its prime attraction, the national park service now required an online reservation to enter the road up the mountain. Before I started my trip, I had gone online and paid for my reservation for 2pm on my scheduled day to visit the park. I drove up to the road entrance and handed over my reservation before heading up to the top of the mountain. The ocean and bay views were fabulous as I trekked around the small trails around the parking area. I took my camera shots and headed back to the car. Having experienced the park, I headed back to the motel, picking up a dinner along the way. My timing proved to be perfect, as a thunderstorm built up and started pouring as soon as I settled back into my room.

White Mountains Creek/Lake Champlain Bay

The next day I headed out to experience New Hampshire and Vermont. Per my schedule, I headed west to drive along the Kancamagus Scenic Byway through the White Mountains National Forest in New Hampshire on the way to my motel reservation in Colchester, Vermont, next to Lake Champlain. In a bit of bad fortune, the previous night’s thunderstorm left a cloud cover over the upper New England area, so my quick stops along the byway gave me a darker cloudy view of the White Mountains and the nearby rocky creek area, but the natural experience captured was still interesting to view and experience. When I got to Colchester, I discovered the motel I had made my reservation in was a small 12 room location next to a four-screen drive-in theater. Each room was named in honor of a Hollywood legend, and my room honored the only living legend who was slightly younger than me, Tom Cruise. Check in was by phone, and the key was left in a flowerpot next to the door of the room. Inside, I found a complimentary ticket to the drive-in theatre. However, since it was around the first day of summer, I felt I had time to head toward the lake, and even with the cloudy skies, I would get good photos. As I headed down roads marked on the Maps app as ending by the lakeshore, I discovered that the ends of the roads became private entries to lakeshore homes. After driving around for a while, I discovered a small parking lot in a forested area which had a small dirt path to a bay shore attached to Lake Champlain. I collected a few good photos to represent Vermont and headed back to the motel. I had covered the New England states, and tomorrow would be a long drive to get to the Mid-Atlantic States on my journey.

To be continued…

 

New England and Mid-Atlantic States Road Trip – Part 1

Due to some unforeseen financial issues, it had been two years since I had taken a travel vacation to add more checkoffs from my bucket lists and increase my perspective of my country and the world. Three years ago, I had completed my basic goal of having been within all 50 states in the United States, but as I noted in my last travel blog two years ago, this basic goal was flawed as it did not consider whether I had actually stopped and truly experienced a perspective of each state and had the advantage of taking photo images of an important location within each state. This was the reason that I flew to New Orleans two years ago to truly experience Louisiana beyond the previous drive-through experience I had back in 1975. What was unmentioned in my blog from two years ago was that Louisiana was just the start of the states that needed a true upgrade of my perspective. Going through the list, there were 10 other states, as well as Washington, DC, which needed to be revisited. Luckily, all these locations were closely connected, as they consisted of the six New England States and four Mid-Atlantic States, so my road trip this year was planned to cover the complete set of states to fulfil a more complete perspective of all 50 states and the nation’s capital.

Growing up down south in Florida, my parents mainly planned our yearly family vacation to be a drive up to upstate New York to visit my grandparents and other close family members. For most of these trips, the only stops were for gas, lunches, and a motel visit. For a couple of years, I was able to convince my father to make an extra short stop on the way home, which included one year to be a stop at Gettysburg NHP in Pennsylvania, but we had no camera to record the quick visit. We also drove through Maryland back and forth on these yearly vacation trips, but the drive was through the shortest section of the panhandle which took us around a half-hour to cross. My one time in Washington, DC was right after I graduated from sixth grade in 1969. I had been a patrol boy at my school in sixth grade, a service that was honored to all patrol boys in the city’s school system with a special trip to the nation’s capital in the following summer. I only have a few black-and-white shots from a single-use Kodak camera to represent the trip. In 1976, after my first year at UCLA, I flew back to my parents’ home in Florida for the summer and reconnected with my high school best friend to take a road trip up to New England. During this trip, we drove through Delaware, New Jersey, and Connecticut, before making a quick visit in Newport, Rhode Island, where we used a single-use color Kodak camera to take a few shots outside a few of the mansions. We drove on through Massachusetts and New Hampshire to head to Acadia National Park in Maine, only the second national park I had visited at that time, but the first where I was able to take a few photos on another single-use color Kodak camera. After enjoying a day in Acadia NP, we drove back into New Hampshire where my friend wanted to do some antiquing at a few yard sales. After he got a tip at one sale location, we drove over to Vermont where he found the antique he was looking for. After a few other minor stops, we headed back and completed the journey. Even though these young period trips allow me to claim that I had been in these 10 states, 1 national park, and the nation’s capital, eight states were basically just drive-throughs, and poor photos represented the two other states, a national park, and Washington, DC. My summer road trip this year was designed to elevate my perspective in these states, allowing me to properly claim that I have truly visited all 50 states in USA.

After a diligent research on the representative locations I wanted to visit within each state and prospective map directions to reach these locations, I determined my best and most fiscally sound plan was to use New York City’s La Guardia Airport as my start and end point. On a Sunday in mid-June, I was on my way to LaGuardia. After landing and departing the airport, I picked up my arranged rental car and drove out to my first hotel stay in Stamford, Connecticut, using the timing to avoid major New York City traffic. The next morning, I was off to my main location to represent Connecticut, the seaport town of Mystic. The town sits just within the small bay of Mystic Harbor and is split by Mystic River, which only extends a short distance within Connecticut. Once I reached Mystic, I was able to find a street parking space in a neighborhood on the east side of the river, and I walked back down to Main Street, which was the one small bridge connecting the east and west sides of the town along the river. It was amazing seeing the sailboats and small marinas along the river on both sides of the bridge, then checking out the stores along west Main Street, which included Mystic Pizza, the pizzeria that inspired the 1988 rom-com movie. I turned around and walked back over the bridge, just as a large sailboat was coming down the river toward the harbor. Lights started flashing and bars came down on both sides of the bridge, stopping the light traffic. A section of the bridge rose up, providing a pathway for the sailboat to float on through to the harbor area. After the boat sailed through, the bridge section lowered and cars were allowed through. It was an amazing event that I captured on my camera and gave me a wonderful perspective of Connecticut living.

Mystic Main Street Bridge – Marble House, Newport

I walked back to my rental car and drove on to Rhode Island. My goal was to revisit Newport and get a deeper perspective of the Oceanside beaches and historical mansions that I and my friend had visited in 1976. When I reached Newport, I started my journey around the Ocean Drive loop, stopping at a beachside park to take a photo of a memorial statue of a Revolutionary War hero and making a couple of other ocean side stops to take interesting beachside photos. At the east end of the loop, I came upon the area of historic mansions. I parked in a small lot and walked over to take a tour of the Marble House, a mansion built by William Vanderbilt for his wife around 1890. The Marble House is one of eight mansions currently protected by the Preservation Society of Newport County. On my 1976 road trip with my friend, I can only recall seeing a couple of these mansions from the outside, so enjoying the tour of the Marble House provided me with a better perspective of the Newport mansions and history. The photos I took were clearer and better than the poor Kodak shots I took on the road trip 48 years ago. After the tour, I drove on to the motel reservation I had made just across the border in Massachusetts. With two states upgraded in my perspective, this first day was a wonderful start to my journey.

To be continued…

 

Midwest Great Lakes Road Trip – Part 4

My Midwest Great Lakes trip was now heading into the east Lake Michigan part of the tour. The boat tour around Apostle Islands National Lakeshore was the last scheduled boat or park tour on the trip, so my last two stops at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and Indiana Dunes National Park would be just personal exploration hiking tours, requiring no advance bookings. I fully expected to be able to see both sites in one day of travel. I checked out of my comfy motel stop in St. Ignace, had breakfast in a diner down the road, and headed for the Mackinac Bridge, the main connection between the two Michigan peninsulas. The Mackinac Bridge was a part of Interstate 75, allowing me to enjoy a limited access expressway for the first time since I headed up to Duluth through Minnesota. However, the bridge was going through its own summer road repair season as traffic was reduced to a couple of lanes on the southbound side. The bridge crossed over the connection strait between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, giving me a good view of both lakes as I crossed over, which allowed me to now claim that I have had the chance to see all of the Great Lakes in my lifetime. Just a few miles south of the bridge, my path directed me off of the interstate, which was heading down the center of the Lower Peninsula, onto US routes that were headed along the Lake Michigan shores of the peninsula in order to get to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which only led to more cross traffic and summer road repair season sections along the way.

By late mid-morning, I reached the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitor Center in the nearby town of Empire and got some exploration tips from a ranger. I drove up into the park and turned off onto a scenic drive in a forested area along the top of the dunes. I found a parking area and hiked up a small path to a point where the open sand dunes sloped sharply down to a small shore along Lake Michigan. The views were fascinating and inspiring. It was also amazing to see the number of people who decided to try and walk down the steep slope. The perspective of understanding how geology, an ice age, and time dug out the deep areas that became the Great Lakes was in full view at this overlook. I took my photos and headed back to the car. I completed the scenic drive and drove back down to Empire, where I had my first non-tote bag lunch at a busy café near the visitor center.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore montage


After lunch, I drove out, following the mapped out directions that would lead me down to Grand Rapids, where I would reconnect with the interstate highway system into Indiana. However, the dreaded summer road repair season, including a twenty mile northbound detour for one small section of a fully closed road, created delays in my time schedule. Once I got to Grand Rapids and back on the interstate highway system, it was in the late afternoon, and I realized that I would not be able to make it to the Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor Center before it closed. I headed directly to the Chesterton hotel I had booked my room and checked in for the night. After getting my dinner, I connected online to determine my hotel options for the final segment heading back home. Since my visit to Indiana Dunes National Park was now moved to the morning, delaying my start back west, I decided that the little side drive up to the southern portion of Wisconsin was not necessary. The rural area around Bayfield and Apostle Islands had given the Wisconsin perspective, so after visiting Indiana Dunes National Park, I was going to hop onto Interstate 80 and head back home to Colorado. I booked a hotel stop west of Des Moines.

The next morning, I enjoyed my hotel breakfast, checked out, and headed directly to the Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor Center, where I got some guidance from a ranger on the best trails to experience. Indiana Dunes was the smallest of the five natural destinations I had planned on this tour, and it was interesting to see that the central, easily-accessible beach area between the two ends of the park was still under the Indiana State Park system with an entry fee, while the national park areas were free. Per the ranger guidance, I headed to the eastern side of the park to a parking area near Kemil Beach. Since Indiana Dunes had only been re-designated from a national lakeshore in 2019, it was interesting to see that the park signs still had not been updated to Indiana Dunes National Park. I started out by taking a small hike around the forested Dune Ridge Trail, then I walked up the road to the small sand trail out to the beach area. The dune and beach area was a lot more level than the impressively steep slopes at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, but I still admired the simple natural vibe of the southern lakeshore of Lake Michigan in this newly re-designated national park.

Indiana Dunes National Park montage


After taking in another great perspective, I drove out of the park and hopped onto I-80 just a couple of blocks away. I reached my hotel in Des Moines that night, and then made it back home the following day. As I was driving through Iowa on the first day of this trip, I was amazed to see the many wind power farms along the way, so on the way back home, I stopped at a rest area in Iowa and took photos of a nearby wind farm. It was a perspective that was just as important as visiting the national parks, as it demonstrated our ability to continue to learn how to use the wonder of nature to empower us all. This was another great road trip.

Midwest Great Lakes Road Trip – Part 3

At the second Duluth hotel I stayed at, I considered my schedule for the next two days of my Midwest Great Lakes trip. Due to the tight booking at hotels and tour transportation that I had already experienced during the Isle Royale National Park and Voyageurs National Park segment of my trip, I felt that I needed to book both nights to cover myself during this time. According to the website, the Apostle Islands grand tour would cover three hours, and I surmised that I would then be able to travel across the Michigan Upper Peninsula within the afternoon to arrive at St. Ignace, where I figured I would be able to take the ferry over to Mackinac Island and enjoy a dinner in a horse-buggy town before ferrying back to St. Ignace. I found a room available online at a small hotel in St. Ignace and booked it for the next night. I then considered that the next day I would be able to cross the Mackinac Bridge, head down to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for a quick view, then make it down to the recently re-designated Indiana Dunes for a quick stop before checking into my next hotel. I found an available room for that second night in a hotel in Chesterton, right next to Indiana Dunes, and booked it. I felt I was ready for the next two days.

The next morning I got ready to head over to Bayfield, Wisconsin, where the tour boat was scheduled to depart at ten, but I would need to check-in early at nine-thirty. Since Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is actually closer to Duluth than the Isle Royale departure point I dealt with two days ago, I did have the opportunity to enjoy the hotel breakfast amenity before checking out and heading east to the Wisconsin border. Since Isle Royale was considered to be a part of Michigan, the moment I crossed the state border into Wisconsin, I knew I could technically consider that I had now been in all fifty states, but I decided to hold off on the celebration until I had crossed into the Michigan Upper Peninsula later that afternoon. Even though I was driving along the upper lakeshore of Wisconsin, I still noticed a few dairy farms along the way giving me the agricultural perspective of the state. I circled around small Bayfield Peninsula jutting off the north side of Wisconsin into Lake Superior and reached Bayfield, a much larger town and take-off point than Grand Portage in Minnesota. Instead of a small pier, the tour boats were taking off from a larger marina harbor with multiple piers and a car ferry dock for visitors seeking to get over to the largest Apostle Island, Madeline Island, for a chance to drive around an island. I parked on an unlimited parking side street, grabbed my last tote bag lunch and camera backpack, and then headed to the check-in center next to the marina.

The tour boat was much larger than the Isle Royale transport boat, and I found my seat on the open upper deck on top of the center cabin, just behind a young family. Our boat slowly backed out of the harbor and started up North Channel between Madeline Island and Basswood Island. As we traveled through the various islands, we experienced the sandstone cliffs next to the luscious forests on the islands. One island had been the site of a sandstone quarry, and we were shown a place where blocks of sandstone had been left when the quarry was closed. As we went further north, we saw where the lake had created sea caves into the sandstone cliffs and was shown one of the sea stacks, a jutting rock islet from one of the islands. As we reached the northernmost island on our tour, the island’s name, Devils Island, showed itself as the lake waters began to rock our boat as well as splash against the sea caves under the lighthouse on the island itself. As we turned and headed back, I took the time to bring out my last tote bag lunch and enjoyed it. We found quieter waters as we headed around Raspberry Island and admired the quaint lighthouse along the side. The islands were an amazing perspective of the power of Lake Superior, and an interesting comparison to the ridge island of Isle Royale.

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore montage


The three hour tour actually came closer to being four hours in length, so after a quick stop in the gift shop after leaving the boat and heading out the marina pier, I found my car and headed off east for Michigan. However, besides the extra hour on the boat tour, I also realized that I had not taken into consideration that I was changing time zones at the Michigan border, losing another hour on the afternoon trip. In addition, besides the Michigan Upper Peninsula not having a smooth interstate expressway across it, I continued to experience the Midwest summer road repair season on the US and state routes along the way. This led to me finally arriving to St. Ignace by ten that night, way too late to take the ferry to Mackinac Island for a relaxing horse-buggy dinner. Since I had already booked my hotel room for the next night down in Indiana, I knew I would not have time to enjoy Mackinac Island the next morning and would have to apologize to my friend for having to pass up his recommendation. I headed for my night stop and found out it was a small old-fashion comfortable motel with the owner living on the property. I parked in front of my room door and used the old-fashion metal key to enter the room. In a way, it was good that I had booked the next night’s hotel room back in Duluth, as I did not need to worry about having a Wi-Fi connection. Instead, I jumped into bed and relaxed into thinking about my next day heading into the Michigan Lower Peninsula.

To be continued…

Midwest Great Lakes Road Trip – Part 2

The first part of my road trip journey around the Midwest Great Lakes had been more about driving, re-adjusting, and re-planning on the go, but now I woke up at four in the morning in my Duluth hotel to prepare and set off to my first scheduled destination, Isle Royale National Park. Because of the early start, I was going to have to miss the included hotel breakfast amenity, but my lunch was already set. Before starting on journey, I had made and wrapped in plastic bags five sandwiches, which I placed in a small ice chest with five apples and diet sodas. I put the ice chest in the trunk with a small tote bag filled with five cookie packs, providing me with five simple lunches to save time and money on the trip. On the first two days of my journey, a rest area stop and a fuel stop were the locations of my first two lunches, but now I realized, after going over the boat schedule for the Isle Royale visit, that I had inadvertently and properly prepared the only option I would have for lunch on the island. I started driving up a state route to Grand Portage, the boat departure location to the national park.

Grand Portage was a small town, and the boat was docked against a singular short wooden pier next to a small wooden office cabin and extending from a small grass and gravel lakefront lot with ill-defined parking strips. The cars of my fellow passengers pretty much filled the small lot, and the captain with his two crew members gave us a short safety presentation before checking us on board. I took a seat on the outside of the cabin, holding my lunch tote bag and camera tightly in preparation of a rolling journey. After an hour and a half on the water, the boat came up along the southwest corner of the island where the captain pointed out a hundreds-of-years old ancient tree that had survived on the tight rocky coast. The island’s forest stretched tightly against the shoreline, barely providing any sort of beach area. The boat then headed into the Washington Harbor inlet within the island’s southwest tip to a short pier next to the visitor check-in center named Windigo. After covering my entrance fee and getting input from one of the park rangers, I decided to hike a small trail up to an overlook on the southern part of the island. I only had a few hours to explore before the boat return check-in, so it seemed to be the best choice. Even though the island has a decent population of moose and wolves, I did not come across any of these creatures, perhaps luckily. However, the trail was tight within the vibrant forest, forcing me into a balancing act of a walk in many sections. The colorful assortment of small red, white, and blue berries gave a natural American tone to the flora. At the overlook, I could just barely see over the trees a small pond on a small open grass field. I enjoyed my lunch, stashed the trash in my tote bag, and hiked back down the trail to the visitor center, taking some beautiful camera shots. Because of the isolation of the island, the rangers requested that visitors avoid using waste receptacles near the visitor center, taking trash back to the mainland for disposal, due to the meager schedule of waste pickup service at the island from the mainland. I made it back in time for the boat departure check-in, and I and my fellow passenger were given a close view of the lighthouse just beyond the harbor on our way back to Grand Portage.

Isle Royale National Park montage


As we were informed, Isle Royale National Park is the least visited national park in the lower forty-eight states, but it was very obvious why. With only a few low passenger boat transportation options to the island and a very short summer visitation season, Isle Royale is one of the hardest national parks to visit. The only other option a potential park visitor has beyond the small commercial group of transportation boats is some type of personal access to a lake boat or sea plane to take one to the island. I truly lucked out in getting that last seat available on the commercial transport to be able to visit a remarkable national park.

Once I made it back to my hotel in Duluth, I realized that I would need to find another hotel for the next night after I made my trip to Voyageurs National Park. I went online in my hotel room and lucked out again as a motel just a few blocks away had one open room available for the following night. At the same time, due to nearly missing out on Isle Royale, I went online to check out the boat tour schedule two days away for Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and was able to book one of the last remaining seats on the second Grand Tour boat. The next morning, I finally enjoyed the breakfast amenity I had missed the day before and then checked out of the hotel before heading northwest towards Voyageurs National Park.

My original idea was to head to the Kabetogama Lake Visitor Center around the southwest corner of the park for the possibility of a lake boat tour, but I had just discovered that this option was not currently available, so I headed to the Ash River entrance and visitor center along the south central side of the park. This location provided several hiking trails and overlook spots at its location along a tight section of Kabetogama Lake. The park ranger at the visitor center gave me the best trail options in the area and suggested I also check out the lake overlook behind the visitor center. In a calming moment, when I walked up to the overlook, I found five young woman stretched out on the rocky overlook, reading in their relaxed state, while a few motor and sail boats enjoyed the waters below. It was a relaxing state for me as well. On one of the other trails recommended to me, I reached an overlook viewing a large pond created by dams made by beavers in the park. Basically, my visits to Voyageurs and Isle Royale had provided me with a new perspective on the forest and lake environment of the Midwest. I enjoyed my next tote bag lunch on the last trail head, and then headed back to Duluth to check in to the second hotel, so I could plan for the next phase of my trip, after which I could claim that I have been in all fifty states in the US.

Voyageurs National Park montage


To be continued…

Midwest Great Lakes Road Trip – Part 1

A year ago, I had planned to take the major road trip that would officially allow me to claim having been able to experience all fifty states in the USA. However, the COVID pandemic forced me to delay this trip as travel restrictions rose up to fight the virus. Two years ago, I had viewed this trip in a simple format by flying to Chicago and renting a car to drive around Lake Michigan to experience the two states I had never visited, Michigan and Wisconsin, and the last state where I had only visited by changing planes in an airport, Minnesota. Yet, with travel restrictions creating new barriers even as they slowly started to lift, I realized this trip will need to be taken solely by car on a major road trip. I mapped out a path where I would drive from Colorado through Nebraska to Iowa, before turning north toward Minnesota. I noticed during my planning that Iowa had a small national monument along the Mississippi, Effigy Mounds, and decided to put this side trip into the schedule. In Minnesota, the goal was to visit its lake-based national park, Voyageurs, and then head over to a town in the northeast point of Minnesota, where I could catch a boat ride in Lake Superior over to Michigan’s lone national park, Isle Royale, which just happens to be closer to Minnesota and Canada than Michigan. After this boat visit, I next planned to head around Lake Superior into Wisconsin in order to take a boat cruise around the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore at the tip of a small Wisconsin peninsula. After this cruise, I would then drive across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to get to the Mackinac Bridge, the one connection over to Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. When I described my trip’s plans to a friend, he recommended that I take the time before crossing over the bridge to take a ferry over to Mackinac Island, where the small town on the island has no automotive transportation, only horse buggies to take visitors through the town. I added it to the schedule, and then plotted my path into the Lower Peninsula, planning a stop at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan. On my initial planning, I had not included Indiana Dunes, but when it was recently re-designated as a national park from a national lakeshore, I added it to my national park bucket list. After this final stop, I plotted my road journey to loop back up into Wisconsin to get a perspective of its farming and urban areas before heading back home. After getting fully vaccinated from COVID, dealing with a family issue, HOA concerns, the passing of a dear neighbor in my community, and the medical issues of a close friend, I finally prepared and set off on my journey in the middle of a hot summer, but I was about to discover that even with all of my planning, this was a trip where I was going to have to adjust and adapt more than with any other road trip I had undertaken.

My first day of the journey was basically a long drive through the heart of Nebraska into Iowa, where my destination was a small hotel just north of Des Moines, which I had booked online the night before. This has become the foundation of handling a modern road trip, using hotel Wi-Fi and my laptop to judge the next day’s schedule and book the next night’s hotel at each stop’s journey along the way. However, I was going to discover that this trip was going to need a bit more adapting in this process. Per my initial plan, the next day I would check out Effigy Mounds and then head to a hotel just outside of Voyageurs, but I quickly discovered online that there were no hotel availability near Voyageurs. I also confirmed that there were no hotel availability near the boat departure point to Isle Royale. The closest hotel opening for either location was in Duluth at the western tip of Lake Superior, centrally located about over two hours away from both destinations, as well as just a bit west of Apostle Islands, my next destination after the two national parks. The hotel was available for the next two nights, but was fully booked for the third night following, so I booked both nights to cover the three destinations and started to plan the schedule. As I thought it over, I felt it might be best to try and see Voyageurs before checking in to the Duluth hotel, which would be difficult with the side trip to Effigy Mounds, so I made the decision to drop Effigy Mounds from the schedule for the next day. The next day, I headed straight up the interstate into Minnesota, heading through the St. Paul side of the twin cities, but it still took longer than I had hoped as I approached the Duluth area. I began to realize that I would not reach Voyageurs until around late afternoon, which would not be the best time to experience the park, so I went to the hotel I booked in Duluth and checked in early.

Once I was in my room, I logged in to the Wi-Fi on my laptop and checked on basic information for Voyageurs for the next day. After checking on Voyageurs, I went over to the Isle Royale page on the nps.gov site to check on the boat schedules at the departure point for the following day. There was only one boat handling two trips to the island from the Minnesota departure point, and seating was fully booked. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get a chance to explore Isle Royale and check it off my national park bucket list. Suddenly, I decided to check on the boat schedule for the day I had planned for Voyageurs and found the boat had one last available seat available for its morning trip. I immediately booked the open seat, and swapped the schedule to visit Isle Royale before Voyageurs. I also realized that I would need to get up at four in the morning in order to make the boat check-in at the departure point around nine. Since, I was now delaying Voyageurs for another day, I also realized that I would need to find a third hotel night in Duluth for the Apostle Islands visit. This trip was fast becoming the most complicated road trip I had ever taken on. I could hardly wait to finally get to my first schedule designation on this trip.

To be continued…

 

Big Bend Road Trip during a Pandemic Time

Last year was a busy year, but also a frugal year as I held off taking a vacation road trip like in previous years. The major road trip that I postponed was a Midwest road trip around Lake Michigan in order to visit the two states I have never visited and the one state left in which I had only visited by changing planes in a major airport within the state. When I had created my initial plan for this trip, there was also two national parks included in the trip, but since then, a national lakeshore had been re-designated as a national park, adding it to the travel plan. I currently have this trip planned for the summer, but since I missed taking a trip last year, I decided to check out doing a quick spring break trip to another national park still on my list to visit, Big Bend National Park.

Five years ago, I had planned to visit Big Bend with five other national parks on a road trip from Los Angeles to Colorado, a trip I wrote about in an earlier post on my site. Unfortunately, Big Bend was just too far off the path for me to visit on my limited timeline, so it became an outlier for any potential future trips. When I considered adding a second trip for this year, I researched whether I could do a quick trip covering Big Bend with a visit to the Alamo in San Antonio and a quick tour of Louisiana, a state I had driven through once with no stops. However, it became obvious that it would take longer to travel to all three of these locations in just a week, so I pared down the trip to just Big Bend National Park. As a road trip, I determined that it would take two days to drive down to a location near the park, one day to visit the park, and two days to drive back home. In my planning, I noted the potential to stop in Roswell, New Mexico, to check out the UFO sites on my way down and to possibly visit Bandelier National Monument near Santa Fe, New Mexico, on my way back. However, as I looked to finalize my plans, the specter of the current COVID-19 outbreak began to rise up.

When spring break week arrived, the coronavirus information was just recommendations of social distancing. I considered that since I would be driving alone within my car and traveling to a more remote section of the country, I should be fine. I went online and discovered that motel options in Marathon, a small town nearest to Big Bend, were booked up, but I found a motel in another close-by town, Alpine, to the west that had a direct road connecting it to the western entrance to the park. I booked a room for the two nights, then booked a room in Roswell for a night on the way down to Alpine. The next morning, I took off.

I reached Roswell by late afternoon, which gave me time to check out the International UFO Museum in the downtown area. The admission price was inexpensive, and the museum was an interesting display of photos, artwork, and presentations in a large hallway. It didn’t take long to experience the displays, which were interesting, regardless of one’s opinions regarding extraterrestrial visitation. My motel also took advantage of the ET reputation, projecting a space alien welcoming all earthlings. I enjoyed my night, but woke up to find the area surrounded by fog. I wondered if I had uncovered an omen.

I drove south out of the fog and made it to Alpine by mid-afternoon. I was alerted by the motel manager about potential closures at Big Bend, so I went online to check the conditions of the park. All visitor centers were being closed, but the park entrances were still open. The next day, I headed down to Big Bend. When I got down to the entrance, I discovered that rangers were not manning the gates, meaning that my annual pass was unnecessary, as entry was now free for all visitors.

Mule Ears Formation, Big Bend NP

Mule Ears Formation, Big Bend NP

Big Bend was a wonderful southwest ecosystem of desert and mountains with flat areas of cacti and yucca around buttes and rock formations. My exploration took me down the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to where the Rio Grande exits out of the St. Elena Canyon. It gave me a chance to walk down to the edge the Rio Grande and look across to the cliff wall on the Mexico side of the river. Viewing the park during the opening of spring proved to be a most comfortable time as the outside temperature was in the comfortable 70s, which is probably why this was the park’s prime visitation period, since people would want to avoid the desert hot days of summer. It was a good day to discover this bend region of Texas.

Rio Grande at St. Elena Canyon, Big Bend NP

Rio Grande at St. Elena Canyon, Big Bend NP

When I got back to my motel after my day in Big Bend, I stopped in for dinner at a nearby diner where I had enjoyed dinner and breakfast earlier before going into the park, only I noticed that now every other stool at the bar had been covered to create distancing between guests. Concern that the diner would have to close in a couple of days was prevalent between the cook and waitress. Back at the motel room, I went online and booked a room in Santa Fe for the next night. I drove up the next day and discovered that I was just one of a few guests in the Santa Fe hotel. The hotel had to close their small dining room and was supplying the booking’s promised morning breakfast as a grab and go bag. Restaurants in the city had already closed down per government distancing rules, forcing me to get dinner through a fast food drive-thru. I also discovered that nearby Bandelier National Monument was now closed, so this stop was now dropped from the trip. The next day as I finished the drive home, I discovered that gas station marts along the way had needed to close their public restrooms as visitors had been stealing soap. I also noticed attendants at the gas stations were taking time to go out and spray disinfectant cleaner onto the gas pumps. I made it home from a very enjoyable quickie road trip to deal with stay at home orders and depleted grocery shelves. I hope to survive this pandemic concern and get an opportunity to take my bigger Midwest road trip in the summer.

 

2019 – A Year of Reviewing Indie Books

With the ringing in of the New Year, a calendar decade has ended and a new one has begun. Last year was a busy year for me, as I continued on in my position of president of my HOA board which dealt with many resignations during the year. At the same time, I completed my second novel and selected Outskirts Press to handle the self-publishing process. Disappeared and Found was officially published and released in November. In addition, the length of time that my first novel, Legacy Discovered, has been available as a solo published work has led to more decreasing connections with fellow indie authors on social media. It is probably for this reason that I only read and reviewed twelve indie books this past year. None of the books I read was rated at 5 stars, but most of them were rated at 4 stars, and only one had a rating of 2 stars. I enjoyed the group of books I read this year.

Now to reiterate my review standards from the past years postings, I had to be open to all genres and not let a genre type affect the rating and review of a work. My focus was on whether the story was told well, the characters were relatable, the plot functional and understandable, and the pieces fit together. If I could follow an enjoyable tale while pushing aside the typos, grammatical errors, and historical or cultural anomalies, the book landed within the 3 star zone. If I could feel more emotional attachments to the characters and find myself drawn into the plot action with less distractions from errors, then the book was landing into the 4 star zone. When character and plot all came together nearly perfectly within the genre I was reading, and editing was well-done, it was a 5 star effort.

My main method of selecting the books that I review come from the fellow indie authors who retweet my key tweets promoting my book, but last year two of the books I read were direct requests from two fellow indie authors asking me to be a beta reader for their new works. One of these works, Bump Time, was a start of a new series from Doug J Cooper, who wrote the marvelous 5 star four novel sci-fi Crystal series. When he informed me that the new series was a multi-universe time travel series, I warned him that I am tougher with time travel concepts. His plot was very innovative and imaginative, backed by his excellent writing skills, but I was not distracted enough to avoid seeing the basic time travel contradictions, so I gave it 4 stars. He did inform me that he will address the contradictions in the second book of the series.

The second book I was asked to beta read was from another indie author that I had provided high reviews for a couple of his previous books. However, this book was a different genre from the previous works, so he was publishing it under another name. I noted and commented on some plot issues in his suspense action thriller, issues that I found that he had addressed when I purchased the published version later. The hyper action in this political thriller does walk the line at times which is why I only gave it 4 stars, but it was still a very entertaining and suspenseful tale.

The other five books that received 4 stars from me included a post-WW1 historical fiction action thriller, a very graphic abusive relationship drama at the high school age level, a dark young adult horror tale, and two action detective mysteries with one having a psychic element. All were very engaging with only minor issues that held them back from the 5 star level.

Only one novel fell to a 2 star level in my opinion, as the sci-fi tale of a complicated relationship between a woman celebrity and a couple of males from an extraterrestrial alien refugee community on earth had just a few too many complex contradictions in the character mythos to overcome in the tightly written thriller.

The four works that landed in between with 3 stars dealt with an erotic romance thriller of Greek gods in modern day culture, a relationship road journey in the hippie generation 1970s, a serial murder mystery with a psychic consultant, and a very short 40 page novella of a prison drama that mainly plays out as an introduction to a potential series.

It was a light year of reading, but still a good year. I now have two self-published novels, and I hope readers feel they live up to the standards I have used to judge the works of my fellow indie authors. If avid readers do check out Legacy Discovered and Disappeared and Found and decide to purchase and read either or both of them, I hope they decide to let me know if they liked it and why through Amazon, Goodreads, and other book sharing sites. Good honest reviews are an indie author’s best friend.

My reviews can be found on my Goodreads Author page at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6491046.Kerry_Reis.

 

The Politics of a Homeowners Association

This has been a most interesting year so far. I had planned on it being a low key year, and in some ways, it has been as I have had to postpone my scheduled road trip for this year to next year. However, my responsibilities have increased. I realize that it has been over seven months since I posted on my website blog, but in the opening paragraph of that previous post, I noted that an interesting event had occurred in the previous year, having the position of president of the board of my homeowners association being dropped into my lap. The responsibility has been an interesting learning curve.

The concept of a homeowners association can be varied due to the type and number of homes in a neighborhood where an association can be formed. A homeowners association formed among a group of single family homes on individual lots is more of a collective oversight of the general neighborhood with more individual responsibility of private property. However, when the homes are townhomes or condominiums sharing one or more buildings in the community, more responsibility is placed on the legally controlled association to maintain the community, and individual homeowners are required to provide a monthly fee to cover the oversight and maintenance of the shared areas of the community. A covenant limited board of owners from the full group of homeowners are formed to handle the oversight. When I lived in Los Angeles, I owned a townhome in a building of six units, a small number that basically put every owner on the board. Under this situation, our association was more like a tight knit clique that handled the management of our building simply on our own. Yet, my current townhome is one of over one hundred units spread within a small neighborhood community which requires a professional property management company to handle the maintenance of building exteriors, landscape areas, and roadways, as well as the enforcement of the rules from board decisions and oversight of the association founding covenants. Due to the small size of the community, being on the board as an elected representative of the community is basically a volunteer duty, mainly consisting of attending a once-a-month meeting to handle community decisions. However, good board members realize that the responsibility of members are not limited to just the monthly meeting.

Community issues rise up quite often, which require the property management company to seek input from the board members. Some property management companies try to respond to individual owner complaints and requests on their own with very little reporting back to the board members, but other property management companies seek to maintain transparency with the board by keeping them informed of the communications as they come in. The property management company in my association falls into the latter category, which helps the board make more informed decisions when needed. In a way, it also helps the board members to get to know their fellow owners and neighbors, especially in regards to their concerns and needs. It is amazing how this fast-paced digital-oriented modern society has disconnected people from others living next door within communities. However, it is also amazing how this disconnect has created separate perspectives that have formed splits in the views within the community, a smaller version of what is visible in the political discord within and between countries on a global scale. In my position on the board, I have a front row perspective of this subtle division.

The main issue is basically in trying to find and understand the balance, dividing line, and responsibilities between the individual and society. In our situation, the individual is the person, family, or other legal entity that purchased the defined unit within the group community. Under the concept of ownership, the individual should be free to make decisions on how to enjoy and benefit from the property purchased, but is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the property. However, on the social concept of an association, the interconnection of the units and the common property which they all share put a group responsibility on the general maintenance of the buildings and land. The constant question is where the line between social and individual responsibility and ownership lie. Unfortunately, that line is not absolute, but individual perspectives always seek to find that absolute line.

The basic argument is mainly conformity versus individuality. On one side, exterior design should be standard throughout the neighborhood, whereas on the other side, an individual should be free to express themselves within the borders of their property. With townhome associations, since units are interconnected, it is understandable to have the association determine the general color and maintenance of the exterior walls, but it is amazing to see the argument regarding window design conformity. Windows are a pathway from exterior to interior, so the responsibility of maintenance and upgrading is left to the individual owner. However, since windows have an exterior side, there is a sense of design conformity that many feel the association has a right to impose on the individual owner, not just with frame color, but also with design style. Should an owner be forced to have side sliding windows over up and down sliding windows? For some, association conformity rules over individual choice, although for many, the association conformity usually must conform to their own personal view.

Another area of conflict is with landscaping. For one side, the association is there to handle plant and grass maintenance, so they have no reason to get involved with it unless the plants begin to die, which is when they send complaints to the association board about landscape contractor incompetence. However, the other side has an innate avid gardener persona that wants to create and maintain their own exterior garden area. These owners seek a space where individual flower and shrub design is created and controlled by their own views. Over-avid owners seek to impose their design views on common areas beyond their unit in order to assign their own sense of conformity throughout the community, regardless of the cost.

In the end, I see the role in which I have been placed as president of the homeowners association board is to fiscally find the best balance between these sides by listening and guiding owners to find a good level of individual freedom and social acceptance, but I am aware that this level will always change and it will never find full acceptance by all. Still, it is better than accepting one side over the other and encouraging division, something I see on a larger scale in this country and globally.