Gym, Tan, Laundry

Moving right along with the storm behind us, we headed to the Jersey shore. We checked into the Pakistani run Knights Inn which was supposedly just 3 miles away from the exciting nightlife of AC. Kai went to work on perfecting his Jersey Shore hair and tan, while I searched for transportation options into the city. 

Fist pumpin like a champ

Turns out, the Knight's Inn is 3 miles as the crow flies, and about 5 away by car. There were no buses or metro or trains near us and no sidewalks to ride bikes and we didn't want to take the Truckster into the city. We called for a cab and for a steep $25 dollars one way fare, we headed to town. We quickly made friends with our driver, Sid, exchanged numbers and arranged a deal for a cheaper ride home at the end of the evening. That done, we were ready to gamble.

Just like the amusement park, we hit the casinos systematically from south to north. We walked into each hotel, immediately found the bar and inquired about drink specials of the evening, a little hard to come by as it was a Wednesday night in Atlantic City. Nearly everywhere we looked there was elderly folks at nickel slots, with bingo-ash cigarettes, and skank-shift cocktail waitresses. Where was Snookie, Paulie D., and the Situation? Probably rehab or the STD clinic....

I, being the cheapskate I was raised to be, decided to only risk $1.00 at each casino and then move on. It was my gambling husband who encouraged me to raise the stakes and handed me a $5.00 bill. While at the Trump Taj Mahal I found a simple slots game with a nice mermaid across the top where I could bet just 0.30 cents a pop. It wasn't long at all until this mermaid was just handing me cash and giving me free bonus rolls! I won $18.00 with Ariel before deciding to move on to the next game. I decided to only use machines that looked appealing to me, so I spent the next several minutes at the Dirty Dancing and Sex and the City video slots games. At the end of my Trump experience I was up $32.00 bucks!

We moved on, I lost 10 dollars, yaddy yaddy yadda. I was back to not really liking gambling any more. We called Sid and met him outside the alley of House of Blues. We rode home listening to Sid tell us about his night, about how he lost the screw out of the left side of his glasses and the lens was falling out, I asked if we were safe riding with him and suggested that he look into contact lenses.

That night back in the room, I prepared some potentially dangerous nachos with squeeky cheese purchased back in Wisconsin and homemade salsa from Alaska. I soon discovered our microwave was non-functioning and called the front desk to see if there was one in the lobby. He said, "Is it very important?" To which I replied, "Well, it isnt life or death but it's 3:30 am and we're drunk and could really use some nachos." Hassan, the young Pakistani front desk clerk, met me in another room to use a microwave. He looked puzzled at my 2 paper plates that stunk to high heaven. As I microwaved, we discussed what Hassan was doing in Atlantic City. Turns out, he's a finance major and he and his entire family had recently immigrated to New Jersey. Hassan had also never seen nachos before, I told him to not be dissuaded by these particular nachos as nachos are generally much better than these were. In retrospect, I should've offered him one, but in my drunken state I had forgotten my manners. 

The next morning we loaded the van in preparation for the stormy drive ahead of us. Humid and muggy inside the van, I slid open a side window to get a breeze in while I put away our clothes. I guess I don't know my own strength, because I slid the window open and it shattered into about 87,000 pieces. This was not good. While I got the breeze I was after, our home now had a windowless hole. We headed away from the Jersey shore and found a glass repair shop in Pleasantville, NJ. The nice gentlemen there were able to cut a piece of safety glass and silicone it into the hole. "Well, it aint gonna slide no more, but it wont shatter neither." Tropical Storm Lee caught up with us at this point and completely soaked the 2 guys working on the window. We stopped at a the local library while the silicone set up, and hoped that the ghetto fabulous job would stand up to the storm and the freeway. 

We eventually bid farewell to Jersey and headed down to Washington DC to meet Brandon and Lindsay who were arriving that night. 

I Don't Think The Heavy Stuff's Gonna Come Down For Quite a While...

 Driving through Pennsylvania was rough. We had thought Illinois was spendy, but by the time we made it through Pennsylvania we had spent $35.90 in highway tolls! To make matters worse, we received a call from home informing us that we were driving right into the eye of the Tropical Storm Lee. My step-dad in Alaska had been looking at our GPS tracker online and realized that the storm was about to dump buckets upon buckets of water directly on us. We had been listening to a hilarious comedian named Hannibal Buress on our newly discovered Pandora comedy channel, so while we were aware it was raining incredibly hard, we were unaware of just how gnarly it was about to get.

We decided to push on through so as to not lose our home and vehicle in a flash flood that night and arrived in New Jersey just on the border of Philadelphia. We stayed for free at a Walmart that night to counter balance the $31 fee for utilizing PA's rain soaked turnpike. In the morning, we decided to backtrack to Philly for a famous cheesesteak. Logically, we headed straight to Pat's King of Steaks, as rumor had it, owner Pat Olivieri had supposedly created the sandwich back in the 1930's. We had seen this particular cheesesteak stand featured in several Food Network and Travel Channel programs and knew that there was a very particular way to order. Luckily, the instructions for ordering were posted right there on the wall in case you didn't have it memorized. I ordered 2 cheesesteaks, WIT cheese- one WIT provolone and one WIT cheez whiz, both WIT onions. Nervous I stumbled a little, but to my surprise, instead of being ostracized I heard, "Here you go sweetheart, one WIT provolone and one WIT cheez whiz." And just like that, my order was complete. 

Now, we would never tell the family of Pat Olivieri (God rest his soul), but we thought that the cheesesteak was just alright. We both had to slather it in mustard and spicy peppers, and my provolone never really melted because the meat wasn't hot enough. So there, we paid a $5.00 toll to come back to Philly specifically for the best cheesesteak in the world and, in the words of Larry David, eehh. Maybe we should've eaten at rival Geno's....

It Is Recommended That You Remove Your Earrings

 Luckily for us, the weather took a turn for the worse upon our leaving Motown. Instead of the 90 degree heat, the clouds rolled in and Cedar Point, Ohio was a cool 63 and cloudy. We had been planning on using their Pet Check which Kai had discovered, an air-conditioned kennel in which you can park your pet for the day while you ride. However, with the cold front coming through, KK was just fine in the van. We parked and actually put on jackets for the first time in a month and headed into the amusement park. 

We decided to attack the park systematically starting at the beginning and working our way around. We had 8 hours to hit every single roller coaster Cedar Point had to offer and we were determined. Anxiety was high and excitement was in the air as we joined the first line for The Raptor. The sign out front had said a 30 minute wait.... 1 hour and 25 minutes later, I was so frenching tired of people watching the SAME people that you saw over and over as you snaked through the cattle corrals. Don't get me wrong, the people watching was great, teenagers were out in full force making out with each other and small children cried in line in anticipation of the fearful ride ahead of them.... buuuut if you say I have to wait 30 minutes and then make me stand there with no entertainment for nearly 3 times as long, I might go crazy. I ended up reading several free samples on my iBooks app on my iPhone and this helped to pass the time. 

The first ride, all 1 minute of it, was worth the wait. And from then on, we actually had great luck and significantly less wait times. It became obvious that these acne ridden teenagers had no clue about classic, old school scary. The lines at the wooden roller coasters were non-existent, and this meant great things for us. Having ridden on a wooden coaster in Mexico several years back, we were well prepared for the body jostling, neck cracking, back breaking, larynx shattering thrill ride. The wooden coasters are frankly the scariest rides around due to the sheer age, engineering, and horrific prehistoric sounds. As we boarded the coaster the announcer let us know that we were about to ride the oldest, tallest wooden coaster in the world. Scarier than Mexico?!?!?! YES!!!!! My neck still hurts today but it was worth it.

Cedar Point boasts some of the world's scariest, tallest, fastest coasters. We had been told the night before by the kid at the campground gate to, "Ride the Dragster last. You won't have any fun on anything else if you don't." Hmmm... perplexing. It became crystal clear as we approached the Top Thrill Dragster ride. This was a roller coaster that had no shoulder straps, went 120 miles per hour straight away, then climbed 421 feet into the air, and then took a turn straight down. It was, perhaps, the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. The 120 mile an hour speed hits you in the face immediately and so powerfully that you forget that you're about to climb 40 stories up into the air, only to go right over the other side and plummet face first to the ground. No wonder kids were crying in line!!! I thought, now does this constitute as child abuse? Dads in line trying to convince their 9 year old daughters, "It's not really that scary, you're just overreacting. Plus, it's over in like 22 seconds. You can totally do this." One little boy with red eyes tried to persuade his dad that it wasn't actually the thrill ride that he was upset over but the long line. I call bullshit on that, kiddo. Buck up, daddy wants to ride. 

Top Thrill Dragster, straight, up, down, straight again. Over

 We hit one more mega ride after the Dragster despite the campground kid's instructions. It was nearly dark out and this coaster had that super scary slow climb where you have entirely too much time to think about your life, decisions you've made in the past, people you love and care for, and which of those might come to your funeral. It was built at the edge of the park, meaning it was nearly on the sandy shore of Lake Erie. So when we reached the pinnacle, you had an amazingly clear view over the huge lake, then a second later you were plunging toward imminent death. Not even water could save my burning throat at this point and Kai asked if we had any lozenges back in the van. We had an awesome day, breaking only for the bathroom and one meal. It was like a full work day of pure amusement, an  awesome finale to our long day of power riding. 

We camped that night in a nearly deserted campground as the holiday weekend had come to a close. The guy there let us hook up to electricity free of charge and the dog had free range to roll in all the grass she wanted. He said some people had to actually leave early due to the storm the previous night, and sure enough, at the dumpsters there were several gazebos and tents in total disrepair. 

We had some free time between Cedar Point and the arrival of my brother and sister-in-law in Washington, DC, so we decided to go to Atlantic City to win back some toll road money.

Don't Need Nothin' But a Good Time....

We pulled into the nice tree lined streets of the Royal Oak neighborhood of Detroit, MI in the evening. It was warm and muggy and American flags hung limply in the yards of 1940's homes with white picket fences. Our hosts for the weekend, Roanoke original Jason Trompeter and his new wife, Pam. We instantly hugged and hit it off with Pam and hit the road to meet a Craigslist ticket scalper. Heeellllllooo Detroit!

We pulled into a chain restaurant and out comes a guy in a turquoise dress shirt and tie with 4 tickets to the Detroit Tigers game in hand. Jason pulls his murdered out Volvo up to the curb and upon inspecting the tickets, proceeds to go apeshit on this guy. "Sir, you said that the tickets were in row 4 and these are clearly in row 24 which is an obstructed view seat. Sir, why would you be dishonest with me? Sir, why weren't you truthful in your Craigslist ad, why would you lie to us? Sir, we drove all this way and you weren't truthful in your ad sir."

Jason claims this was his first Craigslist interaction, but I won't believe it. He rode that guy hard, not hard enough to get the tickets at a discount, but still, I was proud. He said that we could still easily order tickets online to the game, and myself, not really being a sports fan, could give a shit. I had no idea what an obstructed view even meant and though a game day would enhance my Detroit experience, it certainly wouldn't ruin it if I had missed out.

The next day we met Jason and his co-workers for happy hour when they all got off work. Enjoying half off drinks and appetizers, we chatted with about 10 mechanical engineers- topics ranging from HVAC air-conditioning systems to where to go in town for the best hummus. After several hours we decided to head home to meet up with Pam who was getting off work. As we exited we said good bye and I could see that Kai had an strange look on his face. As we walked, he told us about how one of Jason's co-workers had just told him that she was an "Empath". An "Empath" is a person who possesses the "gift" of feeling what others around them are feeling, whether they want to or not. She can not only sense others' feelings, but actually experiences them as her own. She began by complimenting Kai on his beautiful wife, and then said, "But you like boys, right?" Kai was taken aback and jarred a little, however this was not the first time he was asked, or told rather, that he was gay. Once several years ago at a gay/lesbian bar back home that I liked to go dancing at, a gay man told Kai he liked guys, but just didn't know it yet. It must be his fabulous hair, his unique appreciation for vintage things, and his calm demeanor that cause the false gaydar blip...

The next day we toured some old neighborhoods of Detroit, there were multimillion dollar homes, mansions rather, that were now for sale or deserted. Imagine entire neighborhoods just desolate, buildings covered with graffiti and garbage and that's Detroit proper. These former elite neighborhoods were the homes to the Chrysler executives back in the day as they were just a short drive to the factories. Now the surrounding areas of these former glory neighborhoods are crumbling and run down. It was sad, depressing, and overwhelming to see a city so crippled. 

We headed down town to the ball game that afternoon. The stadium was in the hood as most of Detroit seemed to be, so we parked in a private parking garage so as to avoid coming back to the car to find our windows bashed out as this often occurs.  The parking garage was actually a converted old theater, complete with beautiful ornate ceiling decor, a stage and even some remaining red velvet curtain. The car safely parked in the most beautiful garage ever, we walked to the CoAmerica stadium to see the Detroit Tigers, Magnum PI's team.

It was unbelievably hot that day and I felt sweat actually dripping down the center of my back after only a few minutes. We decided to hydrate with 8 dollar beers and ball park hotdogs. We found our seats eventually and made friends with a large, Michigan accented, cackling, bachelorette party. There was an elderly couple just ahead of us that I thought might die of heat stroke or old age at any given moment. The woman was wearing a long sleeve polyester shirt and I had already seen 3 people wheeled out of the First Aid station to waiting ambulances, I was nervous for her AND myself in this heat. 

Detroit's Oldest Fan

Trying to beat the heat by getting naked

A ways into the game, the bachelorettes began squawking about an impending storm. Sure enough, the sky had massive clouds moving in on us and the wind was starting to pick up. The Tigers were down by 4 runs so we decided to bail. We ran to beat the wind storm and rain as we watched the water in several fountains blowing sideways. 

 The Arts, Beats and Eats festival was in Jason and Pam's neighborhood that whole Labor Day weekend. With several live acts, food from local vendors and and art showcase it was a bargain at just $3.00 for admission. That night after the game I had every intention of dragging our whole party to the festival as Bret Michaels, former lead singer of Poison, and star of his own train-wreck reality show, was playing at 10:15pm. Tree branches were in the middle of the street when we arrived home and the sky was bright with lightning. I looked on the festival's website and saw several Twitter updates that the concert had been put on hold. At this point we were tired from all the heat, beer, and pretzels so I melted into the couch, vowing to check the updates frequently but expecting the worst. Kai took the dog out for a walk and when he returned he opened the door and said to me, "Come outside right now." Oh my, that sounded serious. Was he about to come out of the closet? When I walked onto the front porch I heard the glorious sound of "Every rose has its thorn... just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song." Oh shit, I thought, someone get me a lighter and a crappy straw cowboy hat!!! We continued to rock out to our private porch concert dancing along to "Don't need nothin' but a good time, how can I resist..... nothing but a good time, and it don't get better than this." It was awesomely bad and it made my weekend and Detroit visit complete.

The following day we headed down to the festival for slow cooked pork sandwiches, over priced art, and live music galore. The people watching was great and the food not too shabby. That night Vince Gill would take the main stage and the following day Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and George Clinton and P-Funk!!!! I wished we could stay but we had likely worn out our welcome, KK had to be kept separate from adorable puppy Skylar so as to not teach her bad habits, Jason and Pam had to return to work, and Cedar Point Amusement Park was open for just one more day before shutting down to winter hours!

I wonder if any Empaths ever asked Bret Michaels if he was gay....?

The question isn't "what we are going to do", it's "what aren't we going to do?"

We knew Chicago was going to be an expensive visit, but we didn't know that the state of Illinois would be charging you just to get there. By the time we reached the city, we had already spent $7.90 in highway tolls! After a restful night at Extended Stayamerica, we took the bus to the metro station. An unfriendly bus driver offered up little to no information on which stop to exit the bus for the station. We decided to take our chances and jumped out upon seeing the train station a few blocks ahead. We were just discussing what a snatc-face our driver had been as we watched her turn directly into the station parking lot. She just smiled big and pretty as she exited and drove past us, still a block away on foot. So that's how you're gonna do us, huh, Chicago? 

Frustrated at the station we were unable to find a ticket that would allow us to ride all day, so we just bought a one-way pass. As the train was approaching I saw a metro map out of the corner of my eyes, I darted over to grab it and boarded the "L" train into the city. I opened the map to begin our plan of attack on Chicago and Kai says, "So, you couldn't find a map in English, huh?" It was at this time that I noticed that my entire subway map was in Espanol. I had in fact noticed the giant word "MAPAS" on the front, but I figured you probably just flipped it over for the English version. Not so. Luckily, Kai and I both have 2 years experience in high school Spanish and iPhones which we used to quickly bring up the subway map online. As we rode we heard the automated voice announcing stops and safety warnings. "Please remember there is no soliciting or gambling on the train." We laughed imagining the dice and craps games of the past, damn the man.

First stop was Wiener Circle for a hot dog in Lincoln Park as recommended by our virtual Chicago tour guide, Coco. Colleen aka Coco is my very, very good friend back in Anchorage who is originally from the south side of Chicago, so via text messages, she set up our whole day. We ordered the wiener "with everything" not really knowing what we were in for, but more just doing as we were told by our native guide. 'Everything' as it turns out, is three slices of tomato, a full pickle, several hot chiles, mustard, onions, relish, and a dash of celery salt. I think you needed a Chicaaaago sized mouth to fit it in, but we tried our damnedest.  

But I don't have any cash! Then I don't have wiener!

After our first Chi-town culinary experience we moved on by foot, bus, and train taking in the sights of Grant Park, the Buckingham Fountain, The Bean, the Art Institute, the Cubs and the Bears' stadiums, the Loop and the Magnificent Mile. We found ourselves in a state of culture shock to see ethnicities again after Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota. It was refreshing to be a part of a bustling city. Less refreshing was the 87 degree weather which the heat index put up to 91. We gladly rode the bus just to get the free air conditioning. 

While we had one bad experience with a disgruntled bus driver, we received overall, a great vibe from this city. We found the metro workers, and general blue collar peeps to be some of the nicest around. Nearly everywhere we went we were asked, "Do you need some help?" which solidified our opinion that the people of Chicago were very warm and, also, that we appeared very lost for the most part.

We stopped for street performers, a group of young black guys who had a well rehearsed and pretty funny script mixed with beat-boy dance moves and crowd interaction. They later hit you up for 5 or 10 bucks for the "free" entertainment. Moving along we gave money to a homeless man selling copies of The Onion newspapers for his shelter, and yet later when I had to make an emergency stop at Walgreens for feminine needs, we were thoroughly juiced for that purchase with a 9.75% sales tax. When I commented on the expense of the city, the clerk told me, "You came to the wroooong city, girl." Clearly we were not getting out of Chicago for cheap.

Luckily at the Walgreens we were able to buy the all day ride pass for a reasonable $5.75 which allowed us to the ride bus and metro to our hearts content for the next 24 hours. After several bus rides it was decided that the city bus drivers are the only unfriendly people in town, almost as if it was a requirement before being hired on: Do you have a commercial drivers license? Do you have good hearing and eye sight with or without corrective lenses? Are you rude and do you mumble and scowl frequently? Great! You're hired to be a driver for the Chicago Transit Authority!

That night we headed back to Skokie, IL tired and wiped out from a full day of big city sight seeing. We couldn't leave Chicago without eating a deep dish Chicago style pizza though. We decided to go for Coco's number 2 recommendation for pizza as we had already left the city. Giordano's is a local Chicago chain that opened back in the 1970's and they seemed legit with lots of Chicago history up on the walls and an Italian theme throughout. http://www.giordanos.com/

As I ordered I wondered if the owner had any relation to that creepy guy Gary Giordano who may or may not have recently murdered that woman in Aruba... We ordered a medium, which is typically the perfect amount to provide us with a filling meal and a day after snack. The Ukrainian waitress didn't really go with the whole theme, but she was incredibly nice as she dropped off the biggest, thickest, deepest, juiciest pizza we had ever seen. I don't know how her thin Eastern European arms even carried that thing to the table without assistance. We pushed through and had two slices each just to make a dent. I texted our tour guide in anger that she hadn't warned us that this pizza was the size of Rhode Island. Evidently, one slice is enough. So we packed it up in a to-go box thicker than a moving box and schlepped it back to the hotel. 

Sadly we didn't have enough time to see Hugh Hefner's place or where Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago dines... we could've spent all week in Chicago just in search of John Hughes' movie scenes, gorging on pizza and wieners, but Motor City was calling us.

They Don't Respect the DEET!!!!

We stayed the night at the Charles Lindbergh State Park in Little Falls, MN. We felt this was an appropriate fit as we've been trying to get through this not so great audio book since leaving Alaska. The book is about a Russian Jewish family who immigrate to New York City in the early 1900's and, during the long ship ride, they manage to lose their youngest child. As the book continues through the years, the mother of the missing boy starts to believe that her lost child has grown up to become Charles Lindbergh the famous pilot. I'm not sure if it's the writing itself or the actor narrating the book that grates on my nerves as we listen along. I hate the lead character, the mother, Esther Lipshitz, with a passion. She is a neurotic whiner who later becomes completely obsessed with this notion that her kid, who's presumably dead, is the famous American hero. The male narrator gives her a wicked Russian accent, to which I can relate, but other than that this book just won't stop. We're on disc 9 of 11 and it's taken us 26 days to get this far. Unfortunately we're in an area that's not getting great reception so we've decided to finish it. I'm not even going to give you the name of this book so as to curb your curiosity, just trust in me as a book reviewer, that you do not want to waste your time with the Lipshitz family.

Back to the state park.... it was nice, devoid of humans for the most part but filled with wood snapping noises in the trees. I can't be sure but I think the woods were full of raccoons and squirrels, though I never saw any. Kai claims he saw a coyote run across the road as we were choosing our spot, crazy I know, but I missed it. The next morning we decided to get down to business and do a Crossfit style workout. We ran the length of the campground and then did step ups, box jumps, push ups, plank ups and lastly, sit ups. We were dripping sweat and despite the DEET bug spray we applied beforehand we are swarmed by mosquitoes. As Kai put it, "These guys have no respect for the DEET!" and they didn't. We were like magnets for these beasts. They are a smaller breed, maybe the smallest I have seen so far, but they are cunning. You don't feel the initial sting like with most mosquitoes, instead you notice their little black bodies on your person, but it's already happened. Smack! Blood gushes every where as you realize you're too little too late. Then the swelling comes on, the itching comes at this time as well and while it's heavy it doesn't last as long as you would think. Despite the 6 new bites I received this morning, I'm still glad we worked out.

Our initial grand plans for daily morning workouts and exiting the vehicle every 4 hours to walk has gone down the drain. It's just been so hot here in America that you hardly want to leave the air-conditioned Truckster unless it's for a swimming hole or a cool building. This is a horrible excuse, I know, but we hope to begin to acclimate soon. We also know that our future home, San Diego, doesn't receive the scorching dry or hotly humid waves like we've seen so far. Luckily for us, they seem to remain pretty even keeled and that sounds lovely. Regardless of our weight gain, we're enjoying the sights thus far. We've been told by more than a few people that we're "on the adventure of a lifetime" and "Oh, I'm so jealous!!!" when hearing about our itinerary. They usually ditch their coveting behavior after I remind them that we are, in fact, homeless and that's nothing to be jealous of. 

The Mighty Mississippi

It rained for the first time since we've left Canada and while the van really could use a de-bugging, it was depressing. It rained the entire state of Wisconsin. We opted to skip Madison, WI as previously planned and grudge-#$%@ it to Chi-town.  

We found a hotel in northern Chicago close to the metro station that accepted pets and didn't actually ask just how large our dog was. We've found that most "pet friendly" hotels really mean "we're pet friendly if your dog is less than 25 pounds." We checked in and got caught up on some True Blood online with our non-restrictive free wifi. The next morning we took the train into the city while KK enjoyed an American Chopper marathon on Discovery channel in our air conditioned room in Skokie, IL.