The Great Lakes

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A Lighthouse along the North Shore, it was just such a beautiful place

These were prolly the coolest shrooms ive seen all trip

Shrooms at Gooseberry Falls along a hike up the river

Traversing the bridge at Gooseberry Falls

This is when i got stuck the second time. I had to use a rock for a shovel

This is the view from where i was digging - the only thing that kept me sane.

This sucked - Natty thought i looked pretty funny - i was just beat

The beach right in front of where we got stuck. It was such a quiet place with this beautiful rock beach. So peaceful

We dipped into the Michigan Upper Penninsula

We were amazed at how much of the country is farmland. We had to document it.

Now on to WISS-KAN-SAN , well - thats how the locals say it

A cool house we saw as we drove along Lake Michigan

Mcdonalds has regional food. In Wisconsin they had the McBrat.

Lakeside Chicago in the Morning - amazing how empty it is.

Along the bike path on the Lake - This was a great public path. As the day went on, it got nice and busy.

Chicago had so much little art pieces around. This one really got my attention.

Another Art piece - can you see me trying to touch the bottom of the radio flyer.

We just started quacking up when we saw this. We jumped off the bikes and had to take a picture

This is me wiping the bird shit off of the shirt of this lady. She asked me if i could help her out - i couldnt let her down.

But then she just walked away when i was done - and i was left holding the dripping bird shit napkin - Damn!

Buckingham Fountain with the Sears Tower in the background

At this point we were driving quickly to Niagra Falls, so these states didnt see much of the steveandnatty show

We cheered as we made it into New York. It definitely wasnt like the movies. We drove the backroads in and the place was very quiet and rural.

Natty spotted these amish people and had to take their picture - They look just like my visions of the pilgrims

A good stealth picture of our Amish friends

We got to Niagara in the evening - made for some nice slow shutter pictures

The river right before it hite American Falls

Close up of Horseshoe Falls - I never knew that Niagara Falls was made up of 2 falls.

A Red White and Blue fountain on the Canada side of the Falls

At night, Canada shines these big lights on the Falls.

The North Shore of Lake Superior won us over immediately. We were also happy to be out of hay-bale-land temporarily. The first place we stopped was Stony Point, the topic of a small featurette in Surfer Magazine a few issues back. The probability of catching surf here was very slim, we knew. It was summertime and the Lakes were sure to be flat, but we were California dreamers, nonetheless. Steve would've loved to tell the boys back home that he surfed the Great Lakes. We pulled up to the overlook with fingers crossed but the lake was in a calm slumber. Even though it was flat you could tell that if there was a storm that this place would be going off. It's set up to recieve some nice swells with the tons of points and rocky beaches.

Up the coast a ways, Steve found the "perfect spot" on the beach to camp out with the van. He pulled in and right away the van got stuck in the rocky mud. Luckily for me this situation qualified as a "blue" duty and therefore the oneous was on Steve to get us out of the mess. (Somewhere along this road trip we decided to split up responsibilities into "pink" and "blue" so we wouldn't fight over who does what. As old-fashioned as it may sound, it's been working out well for us.) So Steve took off his shirt and began digging. He dug this way and that. Got us out of one rut but we sank quickly into another. So again he dug. The whole episode lasted about four hours, but in the end the Hawaiian boy triumphed and was rewarded with the most comfortable seat in the house, er, van, and an ice cold refreshing Busch Lite...ahhh. Man - that shit just sucked! I couldn't believe how stuck we were. Luckily we found some wood and some old pieces of asphalt nearby to help get us out. The view was pretty cool though from where we were. A pretty place to get stuck. I first tried jacking up the van. I got the jack under the van and started cranking it up, when all of a sudden, the crank handle broke. I was pissed. The ground was so soft, but it wasn't like sand of mud it was like a bunch of loose golf ball size rocks. It was pretty tricky, but with alot of digging and the correct placement of those asphalt pieces, we were able to get the van out of there. WHEW!!

There isn't much to tell about the North Shore (we like calling it that) because we didn't do much. We spent most of our balancing rocks and the like. It was just the pace we wanted.

When we got to Chicago, we parked the Hulk and checked out the views from atop our wonderfully cheap Wal-Mart bikes. There's a super bike path along Lake Michigan that goes from one end of the city to the other. The pictures speak for themselves. The city is beautiful. I had to laugh, though, when this lady asked Steve to wipe some bird shit off the back of her work uniform and then she left him with the dirty kleenex. Just look at the pictures to see how i felt about it.

We were both looking forward to seeing Niagara Falls but neither of us knew just how much water would be dropping off the ledges there. I mean, wow! The falls are on U.S. soil but the best views are from the Canadian side.

Now we head East to New England