Part 2: Best. Summer. Ever. 17

Okay, if you missed part one of the tour, you can pick it up here.

At Millville, Toyota again used the Vital MX truck for a display vehicle. Woo hoo!

The Sunday after the event was spent finishing up some work at Camp WM, and then we headed back towards Chicago. Along the way we got a bit of a scare as we spotted a deer at full sprint towards the highway, but he stopped just before we went by. Whew!

Back in Wisconsin, we stopped at Cave of the Mounds in Blue Mounds. It's not the biggest cave I've been in, but still a worthwhile tour. Both my son and I were duly impressed.

The ribbon stalactites above are dubbed "cave bacon", and it's not hard to see why.

Gabriel enjoying the view.


There was one section where you had to turn sideways to slide between the walls of cave, and a couple other spots where your forehead could be in jeopardy if you're tall, but it was a fun trip. Cost was $15/ea.

We actually camped (I know, shocker, huh?) at Lake Kegonsa State Park, in Stoughton, WI. It was a nice place, if a little filled with mosquitos, which kept us inside more than outside. Lots of empty spaces to pick from on a Tuesday afternoon. We picked one not too close to rest of the crowd. They have 96 sites, of which 25 have electric available.

With the following race in Washougal, the X Games the following weekend in Los Angeles, and the next National in Unadilla, I opted to leave the truck and trailer in Chicago, and fly to Washington and California, while Gabriel headed to Colorado to spend a week with my parents. He flew back to California the following week, so we spent a few days at home before flying back out to pick up the rig and finishing up the rest of the season on the east coast.

After returning to Chicago, we came back to find everything nicely intact. The only thing missing was an empty five-gallon gas can, and judging from the puddles (and reports of stormed that we missed while gone) maybe it just floated away. No matter, it was an easy replacement.

Food on the road? I'll admit to occasionally falling into the chain habit...hitting places like Outback or Chipotle. With those you always know what you're going to get, but at least it's consistent.

We did try a local place in Aurora called Portillo's Hotdogs. It sort of reminded me of something like a Fuddrucker's, but with hot dogs as the primary foot item. We went there after noticing how huge the drive-thru line was, and after Yelping it, I opted for one of their Italian meat sandwiches, which was really good. My son had a good bacon cheeseburger, and something else that was recommended on Yelp...one of their chocolate cake shakes. And yeah, it tasted exactly as advertised.

I've never had trouble sleeping just about anywhere, and the trailer is no exception. I do think this mattress will get replaced somewhere down the line, though. I've never in my life had one where I can feel the individual springs as easily as this one...and it also has a hard wire edge that's a bit uncomfortable when getting in and out of bed.

Now for something a little different...Gabriel and I went to one day of the three-day the Lollapalooza Music Festival in Chicago.

With the trailer parked on the outskirts of Chicago we opted to take the Metra train into town. Cost on the weekend? $12 for the two of us.

We walked to and from the train station (this view is just outside of Union Station in downtown Chicago). Tourists headed downstream, and a barge headed upstream.

Our path took us past the Building-Formerly-Known-As-The-Sears-Tower. Way up at the top you can see the Sky Deck...a clear glass extension that you can walk out on. We opted to skip it this time around.

Here's the sign out front. The event was held in Grant Park, along the shoreline at Lake Michigan.

Buckingham Fountain, in the center of the park.

The food and drinks were reasonably priced, which was cool. You could sample several things, and not break the bank. Here's my son with a lobster "dog".

There were a few people there.

Here's a blurry iPhone photo of Green Day taking the stage. We also saw Social Distortion, AFI, and Against Me. All-in-all, a good day, though it might have been more productive on the photo side if my phone hadn't run out of battery. Chalk it up to being on the spectator side of the fence for once, and not able to bring in my normal camera gear. On the other hand, I got to relax and have fun, rather than stressing about getting "the shot."

The next morning as we headed to Ohio, and the AMA to visit the Motorcycling Hall of Fame Museum, we noted that we'd lucked out. We'd had great weather, and lots of fun, while the third and final day of the festival it rained on everyone.

This Honda XR500 was "dressed up" for use in the Terminator 2 movie.

We've seen a few of Evel's helmets over the years, but never one with the message that this one has on the back.

There's a bit of everything, including trials bikes, mileage record bikes (just shy of 200mpg), and land speed bikes (over 300mph).

Past champions? Yep, they're well-represented...though you currently won't find much for modern-day heroes.

It's always interesting to see how far we've come. This Harley was an early dirttracker.

After visiting Pickerington, we stopped by Niagara Falls, and hiked all over the U.S. side. There was plenty of parking on Goat Island ($10), and we also opted to hit the Cave of the Winds tour, which was $11 each.

This one's from the north end of the Horseshoe Falls (Canadian side). You can see one of the Maid of the Mist boats at the bottom, and that's a bit of Niagara Falls, ONT (Canada) on the top. It was hard to shoot much here without getting everything misted over from the spray.

Here we were atop the north end of the American Falls, looking south.

With he Cave of the Winds takes you in an elevator down 175 feet from the top of the falls to near the bottom of the American Falls. Then you get to hike around a sketchy-looking series of steps and platforms to just below the falls. There's one platform called the Hurricane Deck that was scary-close. That water is loud as it comes down, and it creates its own wind, and has lots of power.

There used to be a cave behind one of the falls (which is where the tour got its name), and they apparently used to do a tour in there. But after a partial collapse, only the name remains.

This looks safe, right?

Note the row of teeny, tiny people along the edge at the very top of the falls. Oh, and we had a random celebrity sighting, as well...Flava Flav was doing some sightseeing of his own. And yep, he was wearing a clock as usual. After that, it was on to Unadilla.

In the pits we had a great parking spot in an awesome grass-covered pit area. It rained off and on all weekend, and we were dry camping. But I did figure out my timing to BBQ corn. Soak for 15 minutes, cook on the upper rack for 15 minutes, then three minutes on each side on the lower rack. The outside comes out blackened, but inside? Mmm...just right.

After the race we drove to Southwick, MA, the site of our next race. There was an open practice, and since this is the only sand track on the National circuit, quite a few of the riders made the trip over to get in some early sand riding.

We stayed at the track one night (nice and secure, level, and with a water hookup), and we'd have probably stayed a second night, but the grey tank was full and we needed to find somewhere to dump. We'd been checking the local truck stops, but no luck on finding a Flying J. We stopped in on a local campground, and they said all the parks in MA got together and decided that they'd been losing so much business to Camp WM (Wal Mart), that if you wanted to use the dump station, you needed to stay at least one night...so that's what we did. The park (Southwick Acres), was nice and quiet, and had lots of long-term spots. We just stayed for the one night and moved on.Next stop? Boston.

After Southwick, it was a run across the Mass Pike to Bawstin...er, Boston. First stop? The USS Constitution. Parking was a little bit of an adventure with the trailer still attached. I got sort of a disgusted look from the security guard as I turned into the Naval Yard, but he mellowed out a little bit after I told him, "That's where the GPS told me to go." Smile After a quick U-turn, we found street parking...two spaces, where I dropped $2 in quarters into a pair of parking meters.

We got there late enough in the day that we could only do the top deck visit, and we actually went back the next morning. Where to stay? We checked on Yelp, and found a campground only 15-20 miles north of Boston...the Harold Parker State Forest. Fortunately, they had space available, and the fees were reasonable, but it was all dry camping.

The next morning we stopped by the Naval Yard again, and got a better look at the retired Naval destroyer Cassin Young, which is currently in drydock.

We also did the below deck tour on the Constitution again, which was narrated, and added quite a bit of insight to life aboard the ship...like how the sailers aboard used the ends of their neckerchiefs to double as ear plugs when they were firing the cannons.

We later went downtown and had a blast walking around. We started at

Faneuil Hall Marketplace (basically a normal outdoor mall...but with street performers, sort of like Venice Beach).

We then walked to the North End through a cool Italian district, and met the owner of a gelato stand, and talked to him for a while about the area.

We also saw this statue of Paul Revere, with the Old North Church in the background.

Actually, you can't hardly walk more than a mile or so without running into a statue of one patriot or founding father.

If you'd prefer pubs, there was a section closer to downtown that looked like it'd satisfy your need for a pint.

We'll definitely go back there in the future to do more exploring...maybe on one of the bus tours. But in the meantime, we had a weekend to fill, and it was on to Maine. We knew we wanted to check it out, but didn't want to go as far north as Acadia National Park. (Back south to Cape Cod was next on the list). We sort of did a dartboard thing, and found a KOA near Richmond, ME, which became our base for the weekend.

While checking in, I asked the campground hostess if she had any suggestions for a place to visit, and she suggested Boothbay Harbor. "An old fishing village that got kind of touristy." Jackpot! (And way better than Freeport, which is *only* touristy.)

We walked around one afternoon, and sampled some of the local treats (like an ice cream place that puts the ice cream and toppings on top of chunks of a hot waffle). But we also decided that whale watching the next day was on the schedule.

Here's a flag on the nose of the Captain Fish's boat that we went out on. I think the price was $38 for me, and $32 for Gabriel...and the cruise was something just over three hours.

And our Captain.

Seeing some lighthouses along the way was a nice bonus.

We saw quite a few minke whales, as well as some harbor dolphins.

The view on the way back into the harbor.

And once back on land...

Here's one of the local inns.

And some local wildlife.

How do you pass up a sign like the one below? Answer? You don't.

Heading south we made it to a friend's house in Cape Cod. While there the weather was horrible, with high wind warnings, and rain, but it didn't stop us from throwing on raincoats and hitting the beach to look for shells.

The sea was pretty angry, and spit out this lobster trap bouy.

With a long gap between races, a friend of mine invited my son and I to visit his family's house on Cape Cod. We got to hang out there for several days, and as you saw from the earlier post, the weather was pretty rough. It actually stayed like that for several days, with lots of rain and wind, so we we didn't exactly spend tons of time on the beach. We did, however, spend quite a bit of time inside the old nautical-themed house (probably not surprising, since it overlooked the Hyannis Port Yacht Club), watching the boats bob in the bay.

There was even a little excitement one morning, when one of the larger sailboats broke loose from its mooring, and was headed toward shore (nearly sinking one small sailboat) before the crew noticed and got it safely back into deeper water.

Oh, and the Hen&Chickens boat in the photo above? It was a light boat (instead of lighthouse) that used to be a stationary fixture in the area. Apparently there were several of them at one point.

On the last afternoon there, we did get a pretty good break in the weather, and did some walking around on the beach to collect shells, as well as stop by the small post office...which might as well double as the news center.

Yes, the Kennedys live nearby. Yep, we peeked down the street they live on, but didn't venture down it.

Here's one for the golf fans. Yep, the course there looks droolworthy.

All in all, a pretty amazing place. The big difference between east and west coasts in my eyes? Nearly every house there has a large yard. In California, the houses are packed together, and seem to cover every inch of available space...especially along the coast. This seemed a lot more open and relaxed...not as frantic.

For Southwick Gabriel was helping out, sporting a headset, and uniform, and using an electronic gadget to check the scoring transponders before the riders headed out onto the track, as well as clipping off transponders after the end of the day.

After Southwick, and a couple solid months on the road with me, we put him back on a plane to Vancouver, BC. So for Steel City, I was back to a one-man show in the trailer...well, except for Steve Cox. But he usually stayed with us on weekends anyway.

Working in the dinette area of the trailer one night with the radio on...and I notice that if I put my leg to where it touches the support pole, the radio reception gets worse. As soon as I move it away, it gets better. How odd.

Following Steel City, I climbed in the truck, fired up the GPS, and when it asked for a destination, it felt odd to push the Home button. The drive back across the country was pretty uneventful, and there was still a weekend's racing to go at Pala Raceway, but after 14,500 miles of driving, the bulk of the trip was finished. My trip's not completely unique. There are plenty of privateers that follow the same path, though their weeks are often filled more with rebuilding bikes and fixing their transportation, as well as looking for places to practice.

Twisted Beverage Company came on board as a trailer sponsor (and site sponsor). Sweet! This one was in Elk City Oklahoma at a Route 66 museum there. It looked like a cool spot, though I didn't have time to stop and wander through. I was trying to dodge the remains of a hurricane that were working their way up through Texas and Oklahoma.

What was unique was the opportunity, though I've heard of a couple other journalists toying with the idea of making similar trips next summer. I'm hoping I can do the same again. There are still plenty of things to see and do across the U.S., as well as following some great racing. And yep, I'm already dreaming about next summer.