Travelogue

I had a great idea a few weeks ago to write a post about my weekend in Madison in late June.  The wife and I managed to pack so much into our 36 hours there that I thought it would be interesting to share with the world.  However, I then realized that there was something approximately eight times more interesting at my fingertips: all the trips I took this summer.  Over the span of 12 weeks (from May to August) I took eight trips to eight different locations.  I've traveled a lot in all summers since graduating college, but I apparently took it to the extreme this year.  Without further ado, here is my Rick Steves-style breakdown of the Midwest (and a few other places).


Trip #1: Omaha

Predicted Highlight: Telling Charlie Van Moorleghem scandalous stories about his father

Actual Highlight: Meeting Charlie Van Moorleghem

As a newly-minted 29 year old, I happen to have a lot of peers that have reproduced, with a few that have even done so multiple times.  In spite of that, I hadn't had a close friend create a human until Matt and Jenny gave birth to Charlie.  The common refrain among males my age is that having kids will ruin all the fun, and I definitely feel that concern as I approach such an event.  I'm definitely not super excited for the sleepless nights followed by 20 years of consecutive weekends busy with soccer games and birthday parties.  That said, I am excited to usher in the next generation of people that will achieve more than we can currently dream about, and I can't think of a better pair to get it started than those two.  As I held Charlie and watched him smile, I realized that we'll all soon be releasing little versions of ourselves onto the world, which is quite the thing to envision (especially when you contrast that with the most persistent memories of my friends, which are a little scandalous and a lot alcohol-y). 

Aside from the new person, there were a lot of other cool things that happened while I was in town.  We met up with the Olsons and had a very Omaha-y night, getting pizza at Zio's and beers at Upstream.  I spent Memorial Day with my extended family, which of course included other small children.  Most unique of all, my parents, Ad, and I spent an afternoon driving through the Loess Hills finding a couple of cool places to climb.  Yes, it was a tad frustrating driving through dirt roads in Iowa without an idea of where we were going, but it all worked out when we were treated to views like this one:

Of course, there would be some even nicer views later in the summer, but we'll get to that.


Trip #2: Milwaukee (PJ's Bachelor Party)

Predicted Highlight: Celebrating PJ's pending nuptials with copious amounts of beer and german food

Actual Highlight: Inventing I-Ball, which will almost certainly become an international sensation

There's nothing particularly spectacular about Miller Park.  The food selection is great, but it's great at a lot of parks, and it's even better at places that aren't ballparks.  You can get beers like Central Waters in a paper cup, which is kind of cool, but you can get Great Lakes in a giant plastic cup at Progressive Field, so that's pretty much a wash.  The roof can be opened on nice days, but other roofs can open much more fully (it feels like a building with a skylight as opposed to an actual open park).  It's not a bad park by any stretch - I have after all been to US Cellular - but it's also not one to inspire any grand odes to baseball.

The outside of the park doesn't really catch one's eye either.  There are a bunch of parking lots.  One is on the other side of the interstate.  Another is filled with buses.  There is a catch, though, that makes the outside of the park tremendous.  On gameday, the parking lots fill with a bunch of people from Wisconsin.  And if there's one thing people from Wisconsin know, it's how to drink beer in unique ways.  It was in these very lots that the concept of the paint stick was introduced to a very enthusiastic Fro.  And it was in these very lots that our group was inspired to invent the game of I-Ball.

I-Ball - short for Ingenuity Ball, of course - is a tribute to the indomitable ability of young people (we're still young, right?) to spend an hour in the most ridiculous way possible.  I'm not sure what I enjoyed more: the way we would rotate in perfect unison after each turn, or the overblown excitement after every "holer" (of which I got two!)

Luckily, this would not be the final game of I-ball this summer...


Trip #3: Chicago (Geffre's Wedding/Jenn's Bachelorette Party)

Predicted Highlight: Poker/alcohol/DMK/celebrating friend's happy times

Actual Highlight:  A gloriously awkward moment

So I wouldn't actually say that the moment I'm about to describe was my favorite moment.  If I got to relive just one part of the weekend again, it would most certainly be something else.  However, the term "highlight" doesn't necessarily correlate perfectly with "favorite."  In this context, favorite pretty much describes what you enjoyed the most while highlight can aspire to a little bit more.  In this case, highlight aspires to a moment so unique and so awkward* that I must share it with the world.  So here we go.

*it was neither poor nor black though

Jenn was nice enough to let us stay with her the night between the wedding and the party.  As often happens after such a night, everyone gradually woke up and shared a groggy morning together.  This particular groggy morning took place in Jenn's living room which has a large series of windows that face the street on which they live.  Across the street is another house with a similar set of windows.  This is not surprising as most houses are across the street from other houses (especially in Chicago), but what was surprising was the person in the house across the street.  And it wasn't so much that there was a person, but rather what she did.

I don't remember how I first noticed her.  I tend to notice things from my surroundings more than most, so I probably just happened to catch her moving around at some point.  Since I was facing the windows, I noticed her more than once because that is what happens when your head is angled towards something.  One of these times, I noticed to myself "hey, she might not be wearing pants."  Later I realized that "yeah, she definitely isn't."  And then finally it was "and now she's just naked."  Just to sum it up, the situation was now this: I was sitting on a couch, tired, eating breakfast with the wife and two friends, talking about Boy Meets World, and there was a naked person like 30 feet away.

If you like imagining, try to imagine yourself in this position.  What exactly do you do?  If you just sit there, you keep staring at this naked person for who knows how long.  Maybe she's generally a naked person.  It'll probably last forever, and that's all you ever see when you close your eyes.  If you instead decide to get up and move, it's suspicious.  Jenn would ask if I didn't like her couch, and I'd probably have to say "yeah, it sucks" as a cover, and then she would hate me forever.  If you go the bold route and say "hey, that lady is naked" then everyone probably starts staring, and she probably notices us staring, and then it's revealed that Jenn and PJ play doubles tennis with naked lady and her boyfriend every weekend, and now I've ruined their Saturday afternoons in perpetuity.

As you probably guessed, I chose the first option.  Luckily, she eventually put some clothes on and went to do something else.  The rest of the day went on as scheduled, with plenty of food, beer, and fully-clothed friends to go around.  The moral of the story is that life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you'll miss all the nudity.

(Sorry, no picture of this one.  You'll just have to imagine a naked woman.)


Trip #4: Madison

Predicted Highlight: Ordering a Tin Mitch from Rossi's and then eating it

Actual Highlight: Drinking Honey Caps

It's probably a bit of a cliché to say that the best part of Wisconsin is the food and the alcohol, but I'll say it anyway.  The pizza we wolfed down moments after arriving into town was fantastic (thanks to Wang's spicy garlic sauce), and the amount of Capital and Great Dane beer we drank was appropriately large, but the absolute best part of the weekend was re-discovering Old Sugar Distillery.  The distillery didn't open until after we moved away, but we did visit there during the previous summer's trip to Madison.  I believe I had something like a rum and coke the first time, and while it was a fine drink, a rum and coke only has so much upside.  For our second trip (and the eventual third trip when we went back at night), we instead sought out something with more potential memorability:  The Honey Cap:

The Honey Cap is made from a glorious combination of limes, lime juice, honey, sparkling water, and the distillery's own honey liqueur.  I am rarely one who enjoys a lot of mixed drinks, but the perfect combination of sour and sweet made this drink a winner.  We made a few of these for Ad's family during the next entry in this post, and they were a big hit.  I heartily recommend them to all.

Of course, we also did a ton of other things while we were back in our old home.  We visited Epic (where Ad and I used to work) to check on the progress of the farm campus.  It was predictably ridiculous - here are some photos as proof.  We went to Capital Brewery, where I had my mind blown by the fact that they not only have an IPA now, but also a double IPA* (they weren't that great - stick to the Amber).  We ate at The Weary Traveler and Bluephies, and had some drinks at the terrace, where storms quickly forced us indoors:

*My mind was blown because I went on a tour back when I lived there, and the brewmaster basically said "we don't really like hops."

Also, we learned that Ken Cosgrove might have lived a double life as George Vitense:

The lengths some people will go to write science fiction stories...


Trip #5: Myrtle Beach

Predicted Highlight: Unwindulaxing on the beach

Actual Highlight: An afternoon in the city

Myrtle Beach is very touristy.  I would call it the most touristy place in the world, but I'm sure other places have it beat, and MB does at least provide definite place value with its eponymous beach.  I enjoyed said beach a good deal, but in general my favorite thing to do when I'm on a trip to an urban area is to spend some time doing what the locals would do (or what I would do if I lived there, I guess).  Thus, one afternoon I got the wife and brother-in-law to join me in an afternoon on the town.

We started by eating a late lunch (it was technically dinner) at Mrs. Fish, just north of the center of the city.  We had eaten here a couple of times last year, and it was as good as ever.  Regardless of the type of fish you choose, it is grilled and seasoned to perfection.  The sides and appetizers were great as well.  After that, we made our way up to the tasting room of New South Brewing, which is as far as I can tell the only sizable brewery in Myrtle Beach.  We had planned to go on the 4:30 tour and then get a taste of their beer afterwards, but as it turns out, South Carolina had just passed a law* that allowed them to sell beer directly to people without a tour.  Thus, we got to enjoy a couple of pints in a small bar/office area that I imagine will be expanding soon**.  I had a dry-hopped lager and an IPA, which were both solidly in the B+/B range.  It was a solid operation for a relatively young brewery, and I look forward to trying it again if we ever venture there on another family outing.

*From both that article and from talking with the brewmaster, I got a sense of an inferiority complex that South Carolinians may feel with regard to their neighbors to the north.  For any SCers that read this (of which I'm betting there will be zero), is this a common feeling among the state's residents?  FWIW, I think that Clemson had the best uniforms in college football, so I'm on your side.

**The practice of selling beer directly was so new that they didn't have taps in the bar area, so they had to run back into the brewing area to get beer after we ordered.

Also, I saw this truck.  This might have been the highlight of the trip:

Trip #6: Chicago Suburbs (PJ and Jenn's Wedding)

Predicted Highlight: Slow dancing with Danny Stagl

Actual Highlight: Pretty much the entire wedding day

Unlike the other trips in this post, I really have nothing particularly enlightening to say about this one.  This was simply a great wedding weekend that I enjoyed very very much.  I got see the vast majority of my ND friends and was able to spend a lot of time catching up with them over brunch*, lunch, drinks, dinner, dancing, and other.  I got to be there as PJ and Jenn start their married life together.  I got to tell Danny Stagl that I would mold his "supple clay" with daily advice sessions...I don't really remember what I was going for there...it was late.  And finally, I got to play a post-midnight game of I-ball with the majority of the wedding party.  All in all, it was a superlative time.

*If you ever get the chance to go to Wildberry in Chicago, get the Berry Bliss pancakes.  Don't think about getting an omelet or something, just get the pancakes (although you can get them on the side, if you dare).  They look like this.


Trip #7: Great Basin National Park

Predicted Highlight: Climbing a mountain

Actual Highlight:  Almost climbing a mountain

One of the best parts of our trip to Great Basin was the isolation.  The park sees less than 100,000 visitors a year*, so on any given summer day there's only about 500 to 1,000 people in the park.  We stayed in a small town outside of the park called Baker, which boasts a population of less than 100, and a total of two restaurants.  This gave us a great chance to be alone, away from all of the stresses of regular life.  It also gave us chance to connect with the other people who had made their way out there.  And in all of our conversation the common refrain was of shock that two people from super-flat Ohio had come to Nevada to hike up a mountain.  While our Ohio background would ultimately catch up with us, it didn't stop us from enjoying a great time above 12,000 feet.

*For reference, Yellowstone once had almost a million visitors in a month.

Wheeler Peak is in some ways the tallest mountain in Nevada.  Yes, Boundary Peak is technically the tallest point in the state, but it sits right on the border, and the mountain itself isn't technically an independent peak as it sits just a few miles from a taller mountain in California.  Thus, in my mind, the goal of our trip was to get to the top of Nevada.  However, as our hike ventured into its fourth hour, we made the joint decision that we would create our own summit somewhere around 12,200 feet.  We were only about three quarters of a mile from the summit, but there was almost a thousand foot altitude gain left.  While the climb itself was hard but not impossible, every step up the increasingly rocky trail indicated just how much harder the journey down would be.  It was disappointing not to reach the top, but we still made it a long way, and still got to enjoy some amazing views of the valley more than 7,000 feet below us:

Other than trying to climb the mountain we did a lot of other cool things.  Great Basin is home to the Lehman Caves, which is probably the most popular attraction at the park.  We took the tour, which was as fascinating for the history of the cave as it was for the cave itself.  A couple once got married by a formation that looked a little like an altar, and a sci-fi movie about Mars was filmed there as well.  We also took a lengthy hike in the area surrounding Wheeler Peak which concluded with a jaunt into the glacial cirque* beneath it.  Our near ascent of the peak was probably a more majestic experience, but the apex of this hike was certainly the most haunting.  Once we travelled past a sign warning us of the dangers of falling rock, we found ourselves surrounded by mountains on three sides.  In addition, there was a thin cloud layer above us (that would later become storms) that only added to the hushed sense of wonder.  This hike ended up being a more badass version of the Emerald Lake hike in Rocky Mountain NP because of the elevation and isolation.  A picture can't really do this justice, but here is one:

*For me at least, the fifth image in Google image search for 'glacial cirque' is Wheeler Peak, so yeah, it's pretty textbook and pretty awesome.

And then we ate at In and Out in Vegas on our way back home.  The well done fries were fantastic as usual.  I've now eaten at an In and Out in three different states*, so that is cool.

*Four if you count Northern California and Southern California as two different states.

Trip #8: Rockford (BP Tourney/Fantasy Draft)

Predicted Highlight: Educating the populace of Rockford on the virtues of shopping at Menards

Actual Highlight: FINALLY BEING DONE TRAVELING!

My weekend in Rockford was fantastic.  But what was even more fantastic was the realization that all of my travels would soon be done.  Obviously I love to travel; going to see new places is a great way to expand your horizons and going to see old friends is a great way to reconnect with the past while still living in the present.  That said, I was just exhausted at this point of the summer, and was excited for a little time to enjoy home with my newly bought case of Zombie Dust.  As I enjoyed my afternoon at Brewsky's, I reflected on how lucky I was to be there among friends, and how lucky I was to be able to take part in all of my summer trips.  My team's unofficial Menards sponsorship may have only gotten us to the semi-finals, but it was a great summer nonetheless (and hey, the Eugene Hackers could win their second straight FFFL championship this year...we do have Ron Mexico, after all).  Here's to another great summer next year.