Yellowstone NP

Friends,
My country music education continued as we rode from western North Dakota to northwestern Wyoming. Taking in all the scenery across Montana mixed very well with the blues, bluegrass, and country music Baxter showed me. Montana's 'big sky' nickname is apt. It just seems that you can see more sky there. Open spaces and fresh air.
We stopped in Billings to pick up a winter hat for Chris. For those of you who don't know, Cabela's is the 'world's foremost outfitter' of outdoor gear, and they have a retail location there, so I immediately had to call my father and let him know. He was green with envy. Once inside of the arena-sized outdoor store, we found the hat section in just under 15 minutes. All the hats were expensive fleece jobs, so we asked a young woman for help. "I might have something less expensive in camo" she said. Baxter paused: "camo...flauge?" I turned around to laugh, and the saleswoman politely agreed. Awesome. He settled on a hunter's orange hat, and we were off.
We approached Yellowstone in the evening, and decided to eat dinner just outside the park, and pitch our camp in the dark, instead of pitching in twilight and being starved. We devoured the "Best Pizza in the West" (not saying much, i know) and set off for the park. We passed the gates at 8pm, and drove the 6 miles of winding pitch black road to the first camp site. FULL. We drove another 21 miles to the next campsite, also full. When we got out of the car to look around, a park ranger let us know we could camp on the overflow camp space. This was a god send, as we were pretty exhausted, and nerve-wracked from driving almost 30 miles narrowly avoiding deer and elk in the dark. We pitched there, and made some nice friends. Sitting around our campfire drinking camo...flauge Busch beer, we relaxed and turned in for the night.
The next day was full of wildlife, geysers, rock formations, waterfalls, and a horrific boxed salad lunch. (next to some germans) The highlights of the day included watching a herd of buffalo sip water from the opposite bank of the river, seeing a family of elk walking around the hotel, and being awed by Yellowstone's impressive falls.
Instead of paying $120 a night for a hotel room in the park, we spent a grand total of $12 on campsites, and $6.50 between us on rented showers in the very same hotel. We stocked up on hotdogs and firewood, and made it back to camp. It was an excellent but early night of hotdogs and beer under the trees and stars. The temp. at yellowstone drops to about 35 degrees this time of year, so we bundled up and used handwarmers Mrs. Baxter sent us. It was WAY colder the second night in the park.
We rose early, and hit the road for Salt Lake City. Fires in the park made us leave through the north entrance, and miss Old Faithful, but the rest of the park was WELL worth it. We stopped at the Old Saloon (est. 1902) in Emigrant, MT, and enjoyed my second breakfast there in a little over a year. Good times! We gradually warmed up over the course of the drive, and forged on to another state neither of us had been to before.

WHOA. WE'RE ALIVE.

Folks, sorry for the lack of posts, national parks and remote places will do that to you. I'll catch you up on our last few days in installments, to make everyone's lives more interesting.
We last left you in Minnesota. We had an EXCELLENT day in Minneapolis. Took in the Basilica (first in the US) The Walker Art Museum's public sculpture garden (featuring the work of Alexander Caulder, among others), and a nice walking tour of down town. While having lunch at Lyon's Pub downtown, a well-dressed businessman wished our waiter "a successful evening" This struck me as odd, and fabulous... so I repeated this to Bax, and he promptly said "what did he say?" I repeated, and he bust out laughing. "Oh, I thought he said 'Sass-Fooey'...I figured maybe it was a Minnesota thing?" Needless to say, this stuck, so we've been wishing ourselves and others 'Sass-fooey' across our great nation. We met my friend Meredeth from BC, and she took us out around Uptown. The Bulldog Pub (serving tots!!!) CC Club and Galactic Pizza were very good to us. We stopped by Nye's Pollonaise "Polka Bar" on the way home... this ended up being a latino-rock band and piano karaoke bar. Needless to say, we enjoyed listening to the regulars who were a little too good at karaoke. Love the ringers. We walked back to our hotel and ended our perfect day in Minneapolis. Drinking schlitz made for a fun game of tallying our 'schlitzisms'. So much fun, and BIG thanks to the Morins and Meredeth! You guys are the Schlitz.
The next morning we drove from the Twin Cities on i94 to Teddy Roosevelt National Park, in Western North Dakota. This GORGEOUS park was teeming with buffalo, (the roadside ones startled us at first) and badlands formations. We grabbed dinner at The Ol' Missouri, whose menu had 8 choices: 4 burgers, and 4 cuts of steak...Montana micro brew Moose Drool polished off the burger nicely. We walked downstairs and were informed there was live music that night at the saloon. Perfect. We drank 7+7s, and I began my country music education. Baxter expertly compared the minstrel to Merle Haggard and Clint Black. The dancing cowboys and cow...women were awesome to watch. One cow-gentleman in particular dominated the dancefloor, and every song he had a new lady to accompany. At first I thought he was just dancing with everyone that he could, but after a few tunes we realized he was dancing with whoever asked him to. A gentleman...with the sickest soup strainer I've ever seen. For once, i didn't feel like an outsider in this new western/country situation. I felt right at home, and really engaged by the music. good times. Camping out the first night went super well. Incredibly gorgeous night sky in North Dakota. It's a pretty beautiful experience to see the milky way with your naked eyes. No wind, or rain.
That's it for now, I'll fill you in on further posts. More pictures to come!

Day Four Minneapolis

All is well.
Departed Chicago after a full day of taking in the company of our friends who live there. Big thank yous to everyone who made time for us in Chicago!
Our first stop outside of the windy city was the Baha'i Place of Worship in Wilmette, IL. Baha'i is the newest of the world faiths, and one that focuses on tolerance and acceptance. The building itself is GORGEOUS and something like a less traditional Muslim style architecture.
Next stop was Milwaukee, WI for lunch with former Bostonian Megan Harriman. A dental student at Marquette, Megan found time to take us to her favorite place for lunch, in Milwaukee's historic 3rd ward. It was delicious. Baxter managed to quaff his entire 16 oz. lemonade before the waitress got back to the wait station. Good Ward.
Listened to Thriller front to back, and decided to text the messaging service Cha Cha to find out who played guitar on Beat It. The answer service replied to Baxter's query with nine texts' worth of lyrics from the Savage Garden song "I want You".
The real fun happened after lunch. We stopped to get gas and switch up the driving situation in Ixonia, WI. This fateful stop yielded a BP station with a zoo attached to it. You read that right, literally, a zoo.
Inside this barnyard were about 30 chickens, 10 goats, 4 asses (not including us), 15 sheep, 3 ponies, a gigantic pile of poop, and one pig...named James Bond. This pig happened to be the ugliest living thing either of us had ever seen. Imagine an orc having mated with miss piggy... Please see the attached video for Baxter's documentary on life in the barnyard. Unreal. (Bax apologizes for the language, but I think it just adds to the feeling :)
At this point Baxter took over driving, and I passed out for a little. When I woke up, Baxter asked me one of the stupidest questions I've ever been asked: Do you want to stop and play mini-golf at the US's largest mini-golf course? OF COURSE I DO. PULL OVER.
We spent the next hour competing for free ice cream on Black Beard's Challenge, the most difficult of the five 18 hole courses at Pirate's Cove in Wisconsin Dells. 90 holes of mini golf on a fake mountain in Wisconsin. Too good to pass up, right? The fact that we still had three hours to drive to MN didn't phase us either. Great stop.
We arrived at the Morins' house around 9pm, and we were hungry. They fed us DELICIOUS homemade chicken soup, and apple pie. So good. Heading to bed now, thanks for reading.

Day Two: Chicago

Night time in Chicago. We began day two with perhaps the best diner breakfast we've ever had. Cippy's Place is this awesome luncheonette on the Ontario side of the falls, open and run by Don Cipparone since 1963. Bax and I were the only people aside from the cook in the place. (Monday morning at 9:45) After a regular came in and started chatting in a thick Canadian accent, Baxter leaned over to whisper to me: "I think they're talking in Italian" Can't make these things up.
We set off across Ontario and made great time. (obeying the speed limits posted in km) We were "randomly selected" for a full car search at the American border. We took our wallets and went inside the waiting room. A customs officer made us turn our pockets inside out, and keep our hands on the counter where he "could see them" while we waited for them to go through my entire car, and all our belongings. It was at this point that i looked around the room and realized the only people without uniforms were about 15 other white male 20 somethings with beards... and a Muslim family. So much for random inspections. It seems the folks at customs have been watching 24. Awesome.
After an hour in the customs office, we were released. We stopped for lunch at Charlie's Bar and Grill in Pottersville, just north of Battle Creek, Michigan, and made our way to Chicago without further incident. Met up with Baxter's friends here, and had dinner with Mike Laf.
Crashing with Baxter's gracious and hilarious friends tonight, and with Laf tomorrow.

night one, niagara falls, Ontario

Niagara Falls. Preeetty misty.
Picked up Baxter in Syracuse, had an excellent dinner with his parents, and then set out for Canada. Crossed the border without incident, and checked into the hotel successfully. Took a nice long walk to the falls, and got pretty soaked in the mist.
Great interaction with the border guard:
BG: How long will you be in Canada for?
Me: One day
BG: Carrying any weapons, or alcohol?
Me: No, sir
BG: What do you have back there, just clothes?
Me: Clothes, guitar, amp, some microphones
BG: Where are you going?
Me: Niagara Falls, and then returning to the US in Michigan
BG: (looking at backseat full of stuff) ...Where ELSE you goin?
Me: LA, moving.
BG: Arite, have fun boys.

Baxter's mom and dad sent us off with delicious food for the road, and a new term. After a few minutes of standing out in the driveway and rearranging the backseat, Mr. Baxter said: "I'm sorry, we're helicopter parents." "What? Helicopter parents?" ... "yeah" he said. "We hover."

that's all, good night. Thanks for stopping, and please pass the blog on to anyone who might want to read.

Getting Ready

The road is hard, the road is tough. It's a damn near impossible way of life.

Extended road trip west number two. Commencing Sunday September 20th in Amityville, NY, and concluding Thursday Oct 1st in Los Angeles, CA.

For those of you who know about the last time i drove out west, this trip will be similar. The general route is northern, and I'm taking a great friend along. There are however, a few important changes. I've traded in the Mini Cooper for my own car. A beautiful 1995 Honda Accord EX that I've named Pamphila, after Lincoln's secretary of war Edwin Stanton's sister...Pamphila.
I know what you're thinking...great name, right? I'm in the middle of Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" and I thought the name to be ridiculous the second I came across it. Perfect for a car.

Also, traded in Mike LaFemina for Christopher Baxter. He's younger, Lighter, Smaller, Faster, Blonder, and arguably the nicest person I've ever come across. LaFemina, you're out, you weighed the car down, and took up too much room.