I have wanted to visit the “U.P.” since I started reading books by my favorite author, Jim Harrison. Many of his novels are set in the U.P. and center around his fondest topics: Food, Hunting, Sex, Fishing, and Drinking. My women’s book group didn’t really love him when I made them read, “Sundog”, so reasonable minds can differ on his merits as a writer. However, everyone in the U.P. agrees that these are all important activities…or “Lifestyle”, as I have been corrected by Yoopers. Most motels have large signs stating, “Fishermen Welcome”, and some state, “Bikers Welcome”. There are lots of both up here as charter fishing is huge, and Michigan does not have a “helmet law” after age 21, so your long, gray ponytail can fly in the wind off your boat or your bike. Summer activities also include,”Bog-Walking” and fantastic lake swimming, from sailboat anchor rode, to anchor rode. Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by area, the third largest by volume behind Lake Baikal in Siberia, and Lake Tanganyika in East Africa. With enough water to cover the entire land mass of North and South America with one foot of water, it can also create 30 foot waves. With less snow/ice cover every year, the lake is warming, and will be ice free by the winter of 2040. That is great for our daily swimming!…but will create even more lake effect snow for the U.P. which already gets DAILY snowfall during the winter.

We stayed within a stone’s throw of Lake Superior for 4 nights along the Pictured Rocks National Seashore. Both in a protected harbor sharing the beach with a seaplane, and in 12 Mile Campground (below) , on a tree-covered sand dune overlooking the Lake. The featured image is of the dramatic, multi-colored cliffs along the Seashore, best viewed by kayak.

We bog-walked trails lush with spruce, aspen, white birch, fir and maples. The maples are starting to turn red even in August. That means the U.P.’s other big attraction, hunting, will begin soon. We would love to come back in Winter, to a cozy cabin, when all those bog-walks become cross-country skiing and snowshoeing trails…and all those deer flies, skeeters, and gnats go away.

One of these trails had been converted to the most beautiful 18 hole “Disc Golf Course” we have ever played. Disc golf requires only a small, heavy frisbee for equipment, starts at a mark in the woods, designated the “tee” for the first throw. Usually there is a line drawing to show whether the target (basket) is dog leg left or right out of view, and the yardage to the basket. Then you wander through the forest using arcing, skidding, slicing, and every other throwing skill you have, usually just trying to “get outta trouble” because you are always somehow behind a copse of trees, or down in a shallow fern laden creek.

Finally you see the 2 ft. diameter basket, about 3 feet off the ground; it is made of wire with dangling chains above it to “catch” your disc. Now you start the short game and putting, trying to finesse it into the basket. When you finish that “hole”, you look for an arrow to direct you through the woods to the next tee. Like golf, the lowest score wins. If it is possible, I am even worse at Disc Golf than traditional Golf, but manage to laugh a lot more on this thick, forested course.  It is certainly no sillier than using a stick to launch and roll a tiny ball, but it is a lot easier to find a bright orange dinner platter (literally, as we also use these to support our flimsy paper plates), than a stupid tiny white ball that gets buried under every leaf, mud splat, and wrinkle in the earth.

We also couldn’t leave the U.P. without tasting the original Jean-Kay’s Pasties in Marquette. He told us he started cooking these when he was 19 years old, and is proud to tell you that residents of Cornwall, England burst into tears at the authenticity. They are soft cubes of steak, potatoes, and rutabagas wrapped in a thin, tender pastry. Yoopers eat it with catsup; a touch of tomato sweetness only enhances the subtle rutabaga flavor.  Nothing more was required. Just don’t call it a “pay-stee” as that it what strippers use to cover their nipples. This Yooper savory delight is a “pass-tee”. Got it?

Thanks to Bob’s gift of a copy of, “The China Study” by T. Campbell almost five months ago, we have switched to a 90% vegan diet for its long term health enhancing benefits. That means we eat EVERYTHING our friends and family put before us without questions, and sample tastes of local animal specialties wherever we are, but mostly, we eat plants. I was told that we must now label ourselves, “Flexitarians”….ycch….sounds like a gastrointestinal disease.  Unfortunately, it means we have no information about famous Wisconsin cheeses and sausages from our visit to Sheboygan, and instead will describe our visit to the nearby Kohler Factory to sample their lovely tubs. Kohler’s enchanting magazine ads enticed us to visit the museum, art center, factory (tours available to those over age 14), village (Whistling Straits Golf Course!!!!), and our personal favorite, the Showroom!  Steven approved the very deep Grecian soaking tub (short enough to fit in our tiny bathroom) for our next bathroom renovation. At $1600 with no bells, whistles, jets, or bubbles, he is going to have to imagine a hot water soak… in a dry tub, for awhile.

In 1912, Kohler built a rural village for employees to lure them away from the former Sheboygan factory on Lake Michigan. Kohler paid above average wages and was generally held up as an example of stellar management…until the employees chose to start a union in 1954. Management labeled them communists and went to war. Kohler became the site of the longest employee strike in the nation. 2800 of the Company’s 3300 employees joined the picket line, and stopped production for two months, until Kohler hired non-union labor. Six years of violence ensued between employees and strikebreakers until the National Labor Relations Board found for the striking employees; Kohler had to reinstate over 1700 employees, pay over $3 Mil. in back wages, and return $1.5 Mil. to the employee pension fund, but did not do so until a negotiated resolution in 1965. Labor leaders cite this plumbing supply company’s behavior to show why workers need unions. Industrial leaders point to the strike as an examples of union belligerence and indifference toward the true welfare of the employees.  With new management in place, Kohler once again enjoys great loyalty among its’ employees. However, the homogeneity of Kohler Village seemed like a draw to everyone but us; 98% white, median age 4o, mostly families, with 30% of the town under age 21. It is middle class, midwestern, and just as safe as can be. Does this sweet little village effectively prepare kids for the multi-cultural global village? We’re not so sure. We hope the Kohler Company sets up a scholarship fund to encourage the village children to travel, and get educated, beyond the confines of the Kohler Village.

We enjoyed the mural laden town of Ashland, near the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior. Look at these murals and tell me if the folk art style bodies/backgrounds v. the photographically detailed faces, look like the work of different artists, glued together.  Head sizes and necks don’t match bodies. The women’s heads are very dominant; the men’s heads and necks are tinier than their beefy, outlined bodies. Very odd….and strangely arresting. We couldn’t stop looking at these murals.

These murals are almost as bizarre as the “Cheeseheads”, big yellow foam wedges worn as fetching headwear during football season in Wisconsin. Perhaps the goofy toppers keep heads toasty in harsh winter weather. Hmmm, pretty “smart”, as you would expect from the folks that yearly host the biggest trivia contest in the world.

Many of us residing near the University of California, Berkeley, CA like to think we are the center of the 1st Amendment universe due to the Free Speech Movement and Mario Savio. However, I had to stop in Skokie, as at a memorial, in respect for the suffering of the residents of Skokie who felt that residing in the United States meant being free of Nazi intimidation, and to express my undying respect for the unpopular stance that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took here. They lost 30,000 members due to their championing of the rights of the abominable petitioners.

In 1977, the National Socialist Party (American Nazis) tried to get a permit for a Nazi parade in a nearby town. Unable to obtain a permit, they decided to go public with the trampling of their Constitutional right to gather and to express their ugly views. They applied to the Village of Skokie, because it would guarantee a big emotional response. Skokie had over 50% Jewish residents. 10% of the town were Holocaust Survivors. The idea of swastikas, goose walks, and Nazi uniforms could make many in this town react with severe symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The parade permit was denied, and a lawsuit began. The ACLU wrote amicus (“friends of the court”) briefs for the Nazis right to parade their views. The Supreme Court of the United States agreed. Many progressives pulled their memberships, not understanding the import of upholding our Bill of Rights, even for evil minority groups. The Justices upheld the principles of democracy, even though I am sure they found these beneficiaries of free speech to be repugnant individuals. Fortunately, there was no parade in Skokie (it happened later in Chicago), and in response to the Supreme Court’s decision, some Holocaust survivors established a Holocaust Museum here. I will always be, as George H.W. Bush described Dukakis, “A card-carrying member of the ACLU”.  Democracy in practice, is far more painful than in theory.

So starved for Big City entertainment, we have braved some of the hottest streets of summer to suck up the goodies available here. My friends Julia, Ruth and Sally, who grew up in the nearby suburbs like Winnetka, conveyed enough of the thrills to make me dream about a trip to Chicago since college. The second largest city in the U.S., it feels quite different from NYC, in summer anyway. Perhaps it is the influence of Lake Michigan and the breeze that makes it feel more casual and beachy, where NYC just feels ugly sweltering this time of year. Both provide enough modern art exhibitions (SMART in Hyde Park, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), and The Art Institute) to overwhelm even the dedicated enthusiast of abstract art. (Who is the tall, goofy guy trying to blend in with the cartoon faces over his head at the MAC?)

Then there is the joy of catching the latest films (Woody Allen’s fascinating and sad, “Blue Jasmine”, showcasing a Bernie Madoff type widow descending into madness; Cate Blanchett is so great in this role, the audience suffers through every stupid decision she makes, just waiting for the bad consequence to follow, then digging herself deeper, popping pills and telling lies as her only treatment.  I preferred the John Cassavettes’  lovely and tragic “Woman on the Edge” with Gina Roland, as she was so enchanting and creative, trying to claw her way out of a depression in a family and community with no understanding of clinical depression. Both movies make us so grateful not to suffer from clinical depression, and to have built up a “Bank”, of loving and wise people, financial stability, and good health to endure great losses. However, we decided we needed an immediate alcohol injection at a bar with a view to “process” the film and our feelings.

We found it at a hidden gem hotel bar: The Holiday Inn! With floor-to ceiling windows on the 16th Floor, overlooking the River and the full moon over the top of  legendary skyscrapers, it was an extraordinary find with no crowd after work on a weeknight,  a killer fennel/radicchio pizza, and great, reasonably priced cocktails. It made up for a lousy deep dish pizza; “Lou Malinetti’s” (his dad Rudy started making deep dish at the original Uno’s restaurant) couldn’t touch our best Berkeley/Albany/San Francisco deep dish pizzas from Zaccary’s and Little Star. Go west young man, and learn how to make a real deep dish pizza with fresh local ingredients!

We also enjoyed the convenience of the “L” for getting around town, and our visit to one of the oldest Vegan restaurants in the U.S., founded in 1981:  the Chicago Diner in Boystown, all vegan, all the time, even before it became a hipster choice. Amazing Reuben sandwiches, “milk”shakes, and the best boneless Buffalo “Wings” (made from seitan).  Hey Vegans, bring your BBQ ribs cravings here!

My reading group assigned, “Devil in the White City” by Eric Larson, about 5 years ago. It showed the dueling architects’ roles. As the City had burned down in 1871 (except for the old water tower in the featured image), Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan (father of the skyscraper and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright) had a clean slate to work with in the historic constructions for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. It was also the story of America’s first serial killer, who lured young women looking for work at the Fair to his boarding house…with a crematorium in the basement…creepy…!

The 90 minute river tour by the Architecture Foundation must be delayed for cooler weather, as will our tours of the neighborhoods, with Chicago Bungalow and Prairie Style architecture. As it was still 87 degrees at 10 PM we bailed on the chance to dance with the local Tangueros and attend the Jazz Concert outside on the Terrace at the MC. However, we did appreciate the folks boogying with the goofy yellow spotted sculptures there, and shopping at the best Museum Store we have seen yet. We are committing ourselves to return to this wonderful city sooner than later, but NOT during historically hot summer days.

…and I always thought a Boilermaker was a whiskey shooter/cocktail named after the workers who stoked the steam locomotives with coal. It is a shot of whiskey dropped into a beer, and drunk without removing one’s lips from the glass, eg. chug-a-lug. Sounds like a college experience, but since underage students don’t illegally drink on college campuses and certainly not ‘party hearty’ shooters, it must be…of course…the locomotive itself!

Our pal Reg is a faculty member here in West Lafayette, Indiana and gave us the grand tour, coinciding with Freshman Orientation Week. 5500 Freshmen is a lot of goofy kids on a remarkably compact and walkable campus serving 40,000 students. College campuses go all out with a designated, “Office of the First Year Experience” to ensure new student success. You could see these kids were exhausted, and their student guides told us they kept plying them with free caffeine drinks to get them through all the activities. We overheard lots of chirpy cajoling, “Oh no, you can crash later, you don’t want to miss this!”  Perhaps they are resisting indoctrination into adult life, or maybe the Freshmen were just tired of the big noisy locomotive on wheels careening through campus with a loud steam whistle…I certainly was.

Many stopped to pet Lety, stating how much they already miss their dogs at home. Hey! Be the first in your dorm to get a dog!

I guess you have to do something splashy when you live in the same neighborhood as “Samara”, the most unaltered of Frank Lloyd Wright’s furnished and landscaped houses.

Samara is a stunning mix of Chinese and Modern architecture and Prairie Style interiors. Still, the Terracotta Warrior garden sculptures seemed a bit over the top. We liked however, the way it seemed to inspire the neighbors to move beyond woodland creatures, pink flamingos and trolls. We give the “Weird Garden Art Award”, to West Lafayette: from bronze and ceramic sculpture (the featured image, “Courting”), to topiary, and painted aardvarks, boas and gorillas set amid the roses in formal flower gardens. The Terracotta Warriors have met their match.

We are in town for the Indiana State Fair too. “Everything you can imagine fried on a stick” is the food magnet at the Fair, but Reg met her match with an “Amish Donut”. Sized like one of those blow up temporary auto tires, even the donut hole pictured below, is 3 inches across. That is just scary.

… but then again, there are Art Cycles (photo credit: Dr. Regena Scott) and other weird stuff. Get thee to your State Fair, wherever you are!

In Bloomington, Indiana, Steven visited the fountain he played in as a young child (age 3-7).  He lived in a residential speech training program for severely hearing impaired children on the campus at Indiana University. Nowadays, they wouldn’t institutionalize such a young child for speech training, but in the 1950’s that was the best choice available. Steven’s mother, a wonderful advocate for her hearing impaired child, moved the whole family up from Kentucky to be close by and to ensure her son’s speech therapy and lip reading training during these years. Today, Steven is grateful he got exactly the training he did, as he was able to mainstream in public school by first grade interacting socially with both speech, and with the aid of bilateral hearing aids.

We also walked on campus to the world renowned, “Jacobs School of Music”, to see where one of my son’s best friends since Kindergarten is studying Composition. Steven realized that the Jacobs School of Music Main Campus…has replaced his childhood residence. A deaf school replaced by a music school. That is a lovely kind of irony, knowing that both of these very smart boys (reading at age 3!) were getting life-changing training in the same spot beginning 55 years apart, one of them from a musical family, learning the theory of music, and one of them learning the music of spoken language, and both training to thrive in the world, to follow their dreams.

Both sides of the River have gorgeous falls. Clearly the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side are the most dramatic with a 2200 foot crest and a 177 ft. drop. At 700,000 gallons per second, the falling water creates so much mist and wind that the bottom of the Falls are completely obscured, and the mist wets you with rain well down river. Unfortunately, seemingly “Un-Canadian” in style, the  overwhelming and ugly tourist dreck on the Canadian side is a big drawback to viewing the Falls. We would not have minded a reenactment of the 63 year old  school teacher Annie Taylor’s ride in a bucket over the Canadian Niagara Falls, or the swims/dives of 10 other survivors. As two have died (a kayaker and a jet skier), your ride now would result in arrest when you resurface.

The Falls in New York are not as wide, with less water volume and mist, and leave the piled rocks at the bottom visible about 1/4 of the way up the waterfall, making our falls look shorter, and certainly less dramatic. However, we’ve got a really beautifully landscaped old state park on Goat Island, that allows you to scamper all over for birds-eye views of the Canadian horseshoe falls. Also, we’ve got the most awesome tourist attraction of all, and it beats the Maid of the Mist boat trip in all ways, as the boats are not allowed to approach close to the falls due to submerged rocks.

There is no better way to experience the force of the water than the, “Cave of the Winds Tour” in the New York State Park. It also costs 50% less than the boats and you get silly souvenir sandles to boot!

“Cave of the Winds” starts with the provision of souvenir sandles and ponchos, before an elevator ride 179 feet down to the base of the falls. The cave collapsed several years ago, and now there are staircases and platforms directly under Bridal Veil Falls. If you climb to the “Hurricane Deck”, you will stay less than a minute with the pounding of the falls on your back and the intense gale force winds created by the falls. You will get soaked if you go there, even briefly. Some silly people, eg. Sally (circled in the photo above) and a busload of visiting foreign students, stayed on the Hurricane Deck for half an hour. Sally huddled in place grabbing onto the rail enjoying the pounding “massage”, while the students danced like dervishes. Thus we found another very refreshing way to beat the heat on our travels this summer.

Steven’s pal Kate from 3rd grade, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame made Cleveland, Ohio a travel destination. We missed the Rock Museum as we arrived an hour before the Cleveland Browns game. Chaos and expensive parking made us choose pretty walks as the best way to experience Cleveland.

The Peace Garden and Labyrinth in Chagrin Falls (utilizing Kate’s design), and the “Metropark” system surrounding Cleveland with parks, bike routes, and waterfalls, was a far better choice.

On route to Bloomington, we took a lunch stop in the Columbus, Ohio “North High Street Art District”. There are some great murals.

We also spent a fantastic day with Steven’s cousins, Jo Ann (and her family) and Karen (and her husband) in Springville, Indiana at the family’s Red Horse Hollow. From the great meals at their sister Katy’s house in Florida, we knew to arrive hungry.  The gals (skinny, tall, and long-legged like all of Steven’s family) provided us with mountains of Bill’s delicious BBQ, “Mom’s Homemade” blueberry, and sugar cream pies, and too many sides, including fresh picked Indiana corn on the cob. The only sane thing to do was take a nap that afternoon but…Joanne’s five horses needed to be groomed and worked.

Easy choice:  sleep v. groom/ride/bathe horses. Afterward, I smelled deliciously of horse poop and horse sweat…Yippee!

The beautiful gray was my ride…sweet! We stayed in this lovely log cabin where the family even provided another five dogs to make sure we felt welcome!

There is nothing like swinging on the porch watching fireflies at night, and fawns at dawn. Check out the big Rottweiler mix snoozing through the fawns visit 15 feet away. If it wasn’t so much work maintaining a big spread like this, I would recommend we all just sit on a porch swing in Indiana and eat corn on the cob all summer.

I somehow mistakenly believed that Toronto was a mid-size Midwestern Canadian city, provincial in nature. I was surprised to find a booming, sprawling metropolis filled with new high rise resident towers and cranes atop steel carapaces all around the City, capturing the view over Lake Ontario. There is a wonderful mix of old and new, maintaining historic brick buildings at street level, interspersing modern sculpture in pocket parks and pedestrian walkways, and overshadowed by glassy towers including CN, at one time the tallest tower in the world. As you would imagine, the traffic is terrible due to construction and density. The other surprise was the cultural diversity in Toronto, especially showcased at the Caribana Festival. This is in no way like the U.S. Midwest; what was I thinking?

We walked the dog through a few Arts Districts in the City, finding sub-standard croissants and closed galleries on this civic holiday, so we bee-lined for the magnet drawing us to Toronto: THE BATA SHOE MUSEUM. We first learned of this museum in St. John’s, Newfoundland from the “Roaring 20’s” exhibit at The Rooms, where the gorgeous shoes popular with “The Flappers” were showcased.

The history of shoes at the Bata Shoe Museum starts with a casting of footprints (found by Mary Leaky in Tanzania) from the era of our ancestors, Australopithecus africanus, of whom “Lucy” (casting of skull shown below from the Signal Hill Museum in Newfoundland) is our oldest humanoid skeletal remains.

World culture expressed through footwear is the theme of the permanent shoe exhibit, exploring arctic, jungle, desert, and mountain applications, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, and focusing on decorative arts and function. The Northamerican Moccasin  exhibit showcased stunning beadwork.

All because Sonja Bata, after marrying a man with a shoe factory, traveled the world collecting shoes, tools, and documenting the craft of shoemaking in each culture, beginning with the Maasai in Kenya (featured image).

Starting from the first rubber soled mass production shoe, the same Keds we grew up wearing, and providing an alter for my worship: Roger Federer’s tennis shoes with the red clay stuck to them.

We really enjoyed the “Rise of Sneaker Culture”, an exhibit which persuasively showed the impact of hip-hop music on the shoe industry. The greatest focus was the fashion impact of the band RUN DMC which made unlaced white leather high tops de riguer, but the majority of the shoes were the Prada/Gucci/Jimmy Choo/Vera Wang designer versions of the sneaker.  It made me recall Carrie Bradshaw’s response to a robbery, where she was willing to hand over her jewelry, her wallet, her life, as she wailed, “Take anything you want, but p-le-a-s-e  don’t take my Jimmy Choo’s”.

These Prada “wingtips” are hilarious. It prodded us to enjoy trying on shoes in the museum “play area”. Phew! Steven finally found his blue suede shoes so we could dance out of Toronto with style!

 Nearby, we enjoyed a private tour of the ROADTREK factory in Kitchener, Ontario where our small, city-parkable RV was built. We expected a Detroit-style assembly line and instead found individual vehicles being driven from station to station. They are brought in as new cargo vans, and the first job is to replace the standard gas tank with a one liter tank, to decrease flammability risk in the small, open facility. Next, the top is peeled off like a sardine can, holes are cut for side windows and floor systems (think gravity based grey and black water holding) and then the 8 week building process begins: application of the aerodynamic tall roof, building and installation of the best cabinets in the RV business, and water/gas/electric/solar/propane/sewage system installation before painting and reinstallation of the standard gas tank. After final testing, it drives out for delivery as each RV is based on a custom order. We now understand why these rigs cost over $100,000 new, and maintain their value; the priority is to keep them light enough to give us the 17-21 mpg that we enjoy…with all of the comforts of home. We also enjoyed seeing the very secret “Prototype”…sleek. Needless to say, no cameras were allowed on site so we can’t spill the beans, but we will say, we drooled over the improvements.

Actually, 1865 islands. Formed from a precambrian rock bridge, Canada claims more of the individual islands.

 The USA claims more land area (some of the islands are quite large and have schools and businesses for year round residence) and more of the water surface in this part of the Saint Lawrence River exiting Lake Ontario. The First Citizens called it the “Garden of the Great Spirit”. The mob played cat and mouse with the Feds here during Prohibition as the Islands created countless places to hide the booze.

Many Manhattan celebrities had homes here including Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein and George Bold, the owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Bold built a castle for his wife (a Tudor version of the Taj Mahal story) who died without inhabiting it. The castle below  is the smallest of the three structures on the island. We enjoyed a 2.5 hour boat ride to explore both the Canadian and American sides.

Also, Bold’s personal chef, Oscar, created the salad topping: Thousand Island Dressing. It is made with mayonnaise, chives, paprika, garlic, and salt and pepper. Chili sauce is then swirled across the top to suggest the sunsets here, and then finely chopped dill pickles are sprinkled over the top to suggest the 1000 islands. One of the best versions of this dressing is used as the “Secret Sauce” on In-N-Out hamburgers in California, a secret to their success. You can even order fries, “Animal Style” which means topping the fries with Thousand Island Dressing and freshly fried onions, and raw onions, way better than the Quebecois favorite, Poutine, which tops fries with gravy and cheese curds, and looks like vomit. I am sure reasonable minds can differ on the best way to mess with a french fry.