Rocks park

Where the black seaweed stops is the water level at high tide.

It's about an hour and a half from low tide.
The shallow progression of depth results in mud flats nearly 1km in width from the shoreline.

All in all, it makes this a shitty place to pitch your tent, unless you are camping on top of the middle rock.

Berry picking between Toronto and Montreal

On my way back to Montréal I found a wonderful part of Ontario that isn't flat! This little spot near Gananoque distracted me for about an hour. The roads are long, with gentle curves and some surprise crests, but mostly safe enough to really wring out the bike. No cops in sight. Slowing down in front of people as a courtesy assured me that I wouldn't have any trouble.

Using the GPS I found my path back to the freeway, and on the way, spotted a berry farm advertising U-Pick currants and gooseberries. I have a healthy obsession with these little fruits, called ribes. The gooseberries are particularly interesting. The skin is green, but mostly transparent, so you can see veins in the flesh. They are firm like grapes, but the skin is thinner. Can't really explain the taste. Maybe like a cross between bitter raspberries and grape?

I was suffering from the heat, yet again, and figured I could use a break, repack my stuff, let my phone charge (again!)

Stacks of large plastic baskets used to collect fruit were pile high against the walls inside the wooden store at the end of the driveway.

At this point I had just a wee spot on my wee: in the tank bag. And here they were showing me 2 liter baskets! No way those berries would make it back to Montréal, except as jam.

I collected some of the small baskets and tried to follow the driving directions that the counter girl had given me, and promptly got lost, had to go back and admit defeat. On the second try I got it. Right next to the irrigation pond of course!

Oh, it would be an understatement to say that I was ecstatic. I was deftly stabbing my hands into the squat bushes, trying to extract berries and in turn getting stabbed as punishment for my haste. I got a bit too excited about the gooseberries when I found the blackcurrents and redcurrents, I hardly had any room left in the two baskets.

The redcurrants are small, and difficult to harvest because the skin is so sensitive to pulling. I tried using a technique where I pull from the top of the bunch to the bottom, trying to shear the berries off, but it was just making a bloody-looking mess. Just as I was getting the technique down, I heard a blast of air, and then the sound of water splashing back down. The irrigation pond was behind me. It almost sounded like a whale, when it comes to the surface to expel a breath through its blow-hole. What the hell? I made it a point not to turn around immediately--I wanted to play it cool.

I continue picking a few more berries, then turn to see a man, in a scuba mask, face half submerged, breathing muddy bubbles out the sides of his snorkel mouthpiece. I said nothing. In retrospect I should have said something! Sometimes things we encounter in the day-to-day are just so strange, that we don't know how to react. I didn't know how to respond to a man, all geared up, swimming in a muddy irrigation pond.

I continued picking.

A minute later he gets out of the pond, takes of his flippers, gathers his things, and walks by, give me a nod and a grunt. I could barely hold back my smile as I said, "hey". The strange thing was that he was in swimming in simple swim trunks. If he had been in a wetsuit, it would have added some legitimacy.

Three Rivers (Detroit)

After Chicago, where I felt fairly safe, I was prepared for any American city, right?

The plan was to ride straight through Detroit, but to my amazement an event was going on, called Detroit Couch Crash 2012. They expected 40+ people to show up, and had plenty of space to crash, so I figured, why not? I ended up staying 2 nights, the first I spent in their bus, the second camping.

About the bus, this group of organizers also does a trip to Burning Man every year. They had an even nicer bus with a kitchen, bathroom, etc which broke down on them last year. So they were stranded and ended up buying a 1994 Thomas school bus for $3k. Who knew a bus was so affordable? Hint to my friends reading this...

This event was also known as Detroit Camp City. The idea is that they make a few activities, and your goal is to iron on "merit badges" onto a white t-shirt. There were about 9 of them for various activities like "Just showing up" and "arts", which you earned by grabbing a can of spraypaint and painting the school bus as pictured below.

I slept on the bus, in the street, near the old train station, which is used for filming a lot. I didn't know at the time, but around the corner was a shelter, and a few blocks away was a real camp city where the homeless had erected a half dozen tents.

The location of the DCC camp was interesting, it was a 4 lane road with a bunch of abandoned buildings, and when you looked down it towards downtown it was very post apocalyptic. The outskirts of Detroit are very abandoned and very run down. Nothing is going on.

I had some great Mexican food the first night, this area of the states has great authentic Mexican.

The next day I formed a 4 person clique and explored the city with the help of Nicoli (the other guy in this picture) and his sweet Mini Cooper. We stopped at the Eastern Market to have some BBQ and watch Karaoke. 

Luckily, things were spiced up even more when Prince showed up all done up and performed 2 hits for us.

We ended up along the riverwalk, laying on the grass talking about CS and looking across at Windsor, ON.

There was a great party on the second night, where we were camping in the yard of one of the organizers.

Several people witnessed me dozing off in front of the fire, a sweet gal named Janée woke me up with a glass of water and voiced some concern about me falling into the fire. She's pictured on the far right in our little clique above.

I woke up after a nice night's rest to find this guy right next to my face. I saw him before I went to bed and thought I had taken a piece of paper and scooped him out and dropped him outside.

In my drunken state I must have gingerly knocked him off the tent wall and onto my tank bag instead, and then shaken the piece of paper free of nothing! I'm still laughing about this. Oh well.

Social commentary on Americans: fat Captain America. The story about this is that a group of LA street artists came out here to show the artists of Detroit how it's done. This was a bit of an insult to the Detroiters who felt that local artists should have been recruited. As a result, even the really nice works were vandalized. Captain America had "go home" tagged on his belly, which was then repaired.

On the last day I did a couple of things.

First, the former Motown recording studios. "Mo" because Detroit is Motor City.

Second, we went to Belle Isle park. The water is surprisingly blue as with Chicago, some people went swimming, and a guy who I ended up crashing with in London, ON brought a kite he flew. I tried to get some nice video by attaching one of my keychain cameras to the kite but it didn't come out well. We also went to the nature conservatory, which is basically a greenhouse with plants from all over the world.

About Detroit, I'd say that the city is 85% black, there is a lot of graffiti, the city is a bit grunge, but that's part of its charm.

The signature of Detroit is the GM Tower or "Ren Center", which is a iridescent blue fringed central tower with 4 sister towers arranged around. Here I am in front of it, just after we had some deep dish pizza

Chi town

Chicago is by far the largest American city I've visited in my life. I really was a bit frightened at the prospect; most Canadians I speak to are certain that big US cities are really dangerous, and I still hold this opinion but Chicago was amazing.

The person I was staying with had gated parking for my motorcycle. Here it is behind bars, and me longing for it...

The L

Maybe it's my ever-growing interest in trains, but the elevated trains in Chicago really caught my imagination. They basically built scaffolding to drive trains on and it is as sketch as it sounds. They are noisy trains, riding on uneven rails planted on wooden planks, throwing wild sparks everywhere, and they ride right through people's backyards; you can literally see people taking showers in their houses. From below, you are never quite sure if the whole platform is just going to collapse on you!

I enjoyed sitting outside of Dunkin' Donuts watching people climb the stairs to the platform and seeing and hearing the trains roar away bathed in flashes of spark light. It would reflect off of the glass skyscrapers like on a welder's face mask, very industrial and rough like.

Taste of Chicago

During my time here, the Taste of Chicago was running, which is this food festival that takes up a street close to the lakefront. They sell tickets to purchase food for $8 for 12 tickets, where a sampling of food is usually 5 tickets. I tried some potstickers, bought a huge slice of watermelon, some crabcakes, and a beer. It was a super hot day and I saw this black guy walking the other way, shirtless, and decided he was doing it right and I popped the shirt and walked around that way for most of the rest of the day.

I then wandered down to the famous "bean" in Millenium Park and took some good photos and video, too.

Shedd Aquarium

I walked along the waterfront to the Shedd Aquarium. The water is surprisingly clean-looking.

The aquarium had a Jellies exhibit running (sponsored by Walgreens, the same place offering for me to meet Dan Aykroyd, these people really get around). 

I was waiting in line for a few minutes in the terrible heat until this guy offers me a CityPass, which offers a set price for a bulk of attractions including the Sears/Willis Tower. It was $80. $80 to get out of this heat into the fast lane? That sounds fair to me! So I bought the CityPass.

The Jellies exhibit was pretty cool, the rest wasn't much to look at, except the seahorses and they had a live scuba diver in the large main tank at the entrance who had a full face mask on where he could answer questions from guests, which I thought was pretty cool. As he was talking to the audience, he was feeding fish to some of the rays, every sentence interrupted by the hiss of him taking another scuba breath.

Jellyfish by definition are pretty uninteresting, they have no brains, can't respond to their environment and basically have to wait until food floats into their mouths. But they sure are pretty. I guess they're kinda like the dumb blondes of the sea. There was a bit of talk about Jelly blooms, where Jellyfish overbreed and flood the waters with their brethren, and there was a case where a fishing boat was capsized by trying to pull in a fishing net filled with thousands of pounds of huge jellyfish. In another instance a power plant had to shut down because jellyfish clogged up their cooling system.

I met a family from Argentina who took this pic of me.

Chicago skyline from the Shedd Aquarium

Art Institute

I saw Van Gogh in twice on this trip, the first time I can't really remember where it was...and the other was here at the Art Institute of Chicago. They had his more famous works including his bedroom at the asylum he lived his last days in. Apparently he painted 3 copies of this, so it's not quite as rare as I thought. Here's what I'm talking about: 

Sears Tower

I promised myself I'd go late to the tower because I was convinced I'd get a more interesting view of the city. I was right.

They have these extending glass sky boxes that you can stand on so that you are suspended right above the street.

There is something gritty and natural about Chicago, maybe it's the jazz heritage and the black influence, but the city never left me feeling unsafe, and it seems well integrated.

I stopped by this dive bar close to the canal and straight off the lake from Navy Pier, and chatted with a few locals for an hour or so, who recommended that I go to Weiners Circle for late-night food. Here we go...

The Weiners Circle

So I hop on the bus and head this way on a lark, at 2:30am, expecting nothing special (except maybe trying my first Chicago-style hot dog), and ended up getting a cultural experience I won't soon forget.

I've never been so close to black culture as this time, the amount of slang coming from the back of the counter was so foreign to me. I must have looked really white. So I order my dog, and go to sit down when I hear the cashier girl shout to two girls getting out of a cab, "Tell that ho to get out of my neighborhood, I ain't never seen her but I can see she's a ho!" Well, the sister of the "ho" comes inside the restaurant demanding an apology and soon 10 people are involved in this argument and the ho's sister is loosing the argument quickly. I've never heard so many creative insults in such a short period of time. I actually recorded this on my music player, player below. WARNING:This is pretty vulgar.

Meanwhile, me and everyone else not involved is just laughing about the whole thing; sitting at a junk food place, 3 in the morning, witnessing a neighborhood verbal brawl, in the big city...was quite an experience for all of us.

Here is the place, and here is the dog.

Seeya guys later, I'm off to Detroit!

Backwards, then on to Chicago

So today I left Madison, WI. It's a shame because I really liked this place. If you are thinking of a University to go to, check out UW Madison, this place is amazing, the town is really a college town, and very progressive compared to the surrounding areas.

The Theatre

I had one of the most amazing experiences last night. Firstly, I took my host Allison and her brother to dinner, and had a great Tibetan meal at a place on State street. As we were walking around, we passed by the Overture Center for the Arts, where there were hundreds of well-dressed people milling about. I had seen a poster advertising Billy Elliot being played at the Overture, so we figured this was the intermission. Allison took advantage of life and suggested we sneak in for the second half, so we sauntered in like we owned the place and got some seats!

The dancing was amazing, the lighting, stage decoration, story, I was really amazed by the performance. I may pick up going to the theatre as a habit!

My eyes welled up with tears at the part where Billy and his dad are singing a duet, it was such a heartwarming experience. The live orchestra was captivating, the theatre itself was beautiful. All of this in Madison! I could fall in love with this place based on the Overture Centre and the Capital Building alone! I couldn't help but envy some of the dancers, they had obviously worked amazingly hard at their craft, and found a prosperous niche (at least I imagine these people are paid well). The kid playing Billy Elliot was 14, from Canada, woot!

What an experience, thanks so much Allison for encouraging me to break the rules. I forgot to make a donation, I think they deserve my money, I hope to see something like that again...

Today

Devil's Lake

Cool lake just north of Madison, they have a beach, hiking trails, visitor centre, etc. $10 to get in for the day, they let me drive through for free. A lot of families.

Dr Evermore's Forevertron

So after driving 45 minutes to Dr. Evermore's location, he was closed today (Tues and Wed). There was a big sign, "No trespassing Violators will be Prosecuted". A close friend of mine visited the states and trespassed, and ended up getting arrested and going to court. I was going to learn from her mistake so I didn't enter, but I did snap some pics.

You can see the Forevertron in the left of the photo, slightly covered by trees

It wasn't as big as I had thought it was going to be. A friend of mine, Kiwi Irwin has a brother (Kenny Irwin) who constructed more impressive ones in his back yard in Palm Desert, CA. Google Image Search of 'kenny irwin robots'.

I'm going to get a bit sidetracked here, but back to Kiwi (pronounced 'Keevy'). He was an acquaintance of mine who suffered severe brain damage in an auto crash about 4 years ago, he has been bedridden since. As far as I know he is responding to stimulation, improving slowly.

His brother is an interesting story. I've never met him personally, but I remember going to a party at Kiwi's house and having a BBQ in the shadow of huge robot sculptures made of trash and electronics and recyclables, it was awesome, and a bit creepy! Pics of that coming soon, I need to find them on my computer. Kenny converted to Islam and his name is now Eriani something. Mixed in with some of his sculptures are the carcasses of animals, with fur attached in some instances. Like a said, special stuff.

I'll try to find some more pictures but here's a link for the time being.

DCC4

Detroit Couch Crash #4 is a social event involving couchsurfers in the region. It goes until Sunday, and since I'm heading for Detroit this might be a convenient way for me to camp with some like-minded people.

[Detroit Camp City 2012 is 5-day event put on by the Detroit CS community, and is our fourth annual event meant help people have a blast in Detroit and surrounding areas. We believe that positive experiences in Detroit, and good memories, empower people to combat outdated misconceptions and spread realistic, experience-based impressions of our city.

Getting to Know Corn

I've noticed that in southern Wisconsin, the corn plant appear more pointy, with curled up trumpet-type leaves instead of floppy ones like I had been seeing before.

At first I thought they just planted different varieties of corn from what I've seen, but then I started seeing the floppy leaves and pointy leaves in the same field! What gives?! I was 5 minutes away from just going and asking a farmer what was up, until I thought about how the pointy plants were in high parts of the field or around the edges--where there is less water. They were also more blue-gray tone compared to the really green floppy-leaved corn plants. It appears Wisconsin's corn is just really thirsty!

As I said in another post, I rubbed the nose of the badger in the capital building and wished for rain, so I really hope Wisconsin gets it! It appears much-needed.

Driving to Chicago

Stopping in a few towns, namely Lake Geneva, which is basically one huge resort, I made decent time to Chicago. They rent JetSkis for $115/hr, but I had a time I needed to be in Chi-Town. I might come back here with a girl at some point in the future. I sent some more postcards from Traffic going into Chicago on the toll road was terrible, really not fun, and 50% of people are texting or talking on the phone, and I thought MTL was bad. I'd rate Illinois drivers almost as bad as Minnesotans. I don't know what's going on, because the Wisconsinites and South Dakotans are downright sensible.

Tomorrow

Taste of Chicago is running right now until the 15th of July. So I'm going to be eating a lot of food and listening to music.

Madison's Capital Building (took a tour)

While in Madison, I stopped by the capital building, which I had some pics of in a previous post I think. Designed by the same architect as the NYSE, this thing's amazing from the outside and is even more impressive inside. So they built this thing 3 times. The first version was just crappy, the second one burnt down (they had fire extinguishing equipment that was conveniently being serviced at the time of the fire), and now the present one stands.
One of the most impressive things about this building is the amount and origin of the stone. They even have some fossils nicely exposed in the stairs and supreme courtroom walls. The main dome is granite (the first of its kind), white bethel granite from Vermont is used for many columns, the flooring is Italian marble, the green columns are Algerian green granite

All of the gold that you see is actual gold leaf and not paint.

Me in front of the Madison capitol building at night.

In the state senate chamber is a large mural painted on the back wall, it contains all of your basic allegories, beautiful women pointing to wealth, farmers, miners and other tradesmen symbolizing prosperity and resource wealth, soldiers symbolizing those who held glory and made sacrifice. In the late 90s the entire building went through a 14-year restoration including this painting. A known 'mistake' in the painting was better revealed after that.

After the artist had completed it, he was told that since Wisconsin in the badger state, the painting would not hold credence without a badger being painted in. So the painter removed one of the four soldiers and painted in a badger. After the restoration, the missing soldier's head became more clear above the badger, as a ghostly image where you could make out ears, eyes, and cap. Their very own ghost story!

This same chamber was the first in the nation to have electronic voting. The representatives had buttons on their consoles to vote Yea or Nay, and s button to call an assistant page as well.

Madison has a cool tradition where an orchestra plays music on the capitol steps on Wednesday and everyone camps out on the grass to listen. Unfortunately I wasn't staying till Wednesday so I missed out on this.

Madison is a pretty place

Last night I stayed in Madison via a last minute Couchsurfing.org host offer. Allison is a sweet girl with beliefs very much in line with mine. Imagine my delight when not only had she heard of Montréal but she was in love with the city! Her brother is going to McGill soon, and she told me a great story about Igloofest. It feels great to have someone understand how great Montréal can be!

She was very curious about how easy or difficult it would be to move there for work. I'm pretty sure that if you have a degree, and a job offer, it's painless to move. I think she'd really like it.

In addition, I got a reply from a girl host in Madison who couldn't host me, due to already having a couchsurfer that night, who was a Torontonian! We all met up for drinks, then dinner at the Weary Traveler. This place is pretty unique because everything is local farm sourced, they even mention the farm name for the chicken used.

Madison is a unique place in Wisconsin, an island of sensibility, progressiveness, and liberality in an otherwise midwestern-minded state.

On my way to Madison I took some pics:

Love this place, it's in Rochester!

First helmet pic

My favorite birds, swallows

And the capital is beautiful, the dome is only slightly smaller than the Capital Building in Washington, D.C.

Today my goal is to see a thing called Dr. Evermore's Forevertron, and swim at the beach off of the University of Wisconsin Terrace, shown below:

The Forevertron is the largest scrap metal sculpture in the world, so Dr. Evermore says. He may be biased.

Visiting the Mayo Clinic

I stopped in Rochester because there was no way I'd make it to Madison yesterday. Rochester is known for the world-famous Mayo Clinic medical center. The hotels all have shuttles to Mayo as most guests are patients.

The center itself offers tours because of its great size and its museum and artistic works. I took a self guided audio tour of the artworks.

I also took a look at the museum. The highlight for me was one of the first heart and lung bypass machines, this one's circa 1957.

I have some video of the atrium, where a pianist is playing live music, most probably for patient comfort.

I stayed last night in a hotel for $50. While I don't like spending he money, I certainly got my money's worth, as I could take a long-needed shower, have some breakfast and coffee, wash my clothes, soak in some air conditioning, etc.

Leaving Rochester at about 3PM I met a guy on a Harley and rode with him for about 2 hours. We took 2 gas stops together. He was retired and visiting his daughter. He said he had almost 100,000miles on his 2005 Harley. After talking about how I dropped my bike, he chimed in saying he had dropped his nearly a dozen times, and to me he seemed like an experienced competent rider. In his most recent crash he was in a relative's driveway, and started loosing traction on the gravel and tried to "power out" of it. Instead, the bike straightened out quickly and spat him over the handlebars, where he hit the ground breaking 5 ribs in the process. He said it was the most painful experience he's had, and it took 10 months to heal. I didn't feel so bad about myself after that story!

Here are our bikes together