timharnesstravels

My plane back to London was scheduled for 7.30 in the evening, so I had the best part of a day left in Chicago. Plan A was for me to get the train into Union Station, leave my bag at left luggage, go to the Shed Aquarium, and get another train to O’Hare airport. After some research online, it turns out that there is no left luggage department at Union Station, doh! 

So Plan B was put into action, Lizzie kindly drove me to Chicago and we went to Navy Pier on the Lake show near the mouth of the Chicago River. It is a very big concrete pier built for training sailors in the war, but it’s now a tourist destination. It gives excellent views of the Chicago skyline and has a row of tour boats alongside for trips into the lake. Lizzie parked in Level 1 Aisle C, and we went to explore.

You can see that there is a bit of difference in size between me and Liz. Which she lacks in size, she makes up with in personality!

 

 

We ate lunch in Bubba Gump Shrimp, named after Forest Gump’s best friend. The Jambalaya I had was very good, much better than I expected, and had loads of fat shrimps in it.

We failed spectacularly to find the car in the labyrinthine car park with confusing signage. It took us half an hour of dashing along the Pier at various levels, and up and down several lifts before we found the Mazda. Using Google Maps we started driving to Clinton Station for the Blue Line to the airport. Lizzie then decided we would go for Plan C, driving me straight to the airport. She dropped me at about 4.10 and in fifteen minutes I was checked in and through security, with a three-hour wait in departures to look forward to.

The journey back via Keflavik was long and uneventful. The best bit was when my lovely wife met me at the airport, what a gal!

I slept in until 9am, all the beer and rock music at the Fair must have worn me out.It was a beautiful morning so we took the ski boat out again. The Ski Ray is over twenty years old, but it’s a beast of a boat. There is a large lump in the middle, and underneath the cover is a 350 HP V8 engine, and it can go very fast! This time I managed to move out from behind the boat to the calm water beyond the wake, and then cross the wake to the calm water on the other side. The boat was going at about thirty miles an hour, so I was very chuffed with myself until I hit some bumpy water and fell on my face. My nostrils got a very rapid sluice out, but no harm was done. I think I could enjoy water skiing again, but it would need to be on the warm calm water, which isn’t available at home.

 

 

After lunch (burgers from the grill) we took the pontoon boat from Eagle Spring Lake to Lulu, for some more serious relaxing. At the entrance to Lulu was a small police boat containing two local cops. Every weekend there are two cops keeping an eye on the fifty or sixty people who go to Lulu to enjoy themselves, not a great use of police resources IMHO.

 

 

The weather was warm, the lake water was warm, and I was very relaxed. I clambered into an inflatable seat and bobbed around Lulu with a cold bottle of Corona clasped in my hand. Also, there is the bonus of being able to stay in the same place while “using the restroom” while drinking a beer.

 

 

In the evening I drove with Martin back to Clarendon Hills in his small Japanese sports car, alongside giant Mack and Peterbilt trucks on the Interstate highway, it felt a bit intimidating. 

To wind down after the journey we went down to the basement and watched his giant TV. Martin likes YouTube, and he showed me some films by a guy called Colin Furze from Stamford. He builds ridiculous contraptions like rocket-powered go-carts and his own Wall of Death and tests them out himself.

I have already done the ski boat, skull and paddle board, so canoe was next on my watercraft list was the canoe. Martin’s canoe came from a garage sale for $60, and it has a very well-worn look with patches of glue and fibreglass keeping the water out. We paddled the canoe around the perimeter of the 350-acre lake so we could look at all the beautiful houses. They are generally covered in white or blue aluminium siding, and the roofs are made of asphalt shingles. To my eyes, they look very neat and tidy and colourful, like Lego houses. Some are very big houses worth over a million dollars, and they are used just for summer weekends. Every house has a short pier with a pontoon boat , a ski boat and a selection of water toys. Martin’s cottage is one of the oldest and smallest on the lake and has his collection of boats at the end of the garden.

The weather was windy in the afternoon, and not conducive to more water skiing, so we drove to nearby Milwaukee for the Wisconsin State Fair. There is a permanent showground which is true to its agricultural roots by having huge barns in which buffed up livestock was being shown by teenagers parading past judges. In the dairy section there was a very useful sign explaining the nature of chocolate milk.

A more popular attraction was a vast funfair with every chunder-inducing ride you can think of. I’m way too old to go on all the spinning, whirling and swinging rides, but they are fun to watch. The most entertaining was a double seat attached to a hundred foot tall catapult. The riders are flung upwards at high velocity and then oscillate up and down. The riders are mic’d up so you can hear them squealing and swearing.

There are endless fast food stalls selling mountains of deep-fried food, I think you could get Type 2 Diabetes in a week eating that stuff. The traditional treat at the Fair is the Cream Puff. It is a bun of choux pastry about six inches across, which has been sliced across and filled with whipped cream. There is an entire building dedicated to making and selling Cream Puffs, and queues of hundreds of people who buy them and take them home in boxes. I tried one and it’s like a big chocolate eclair, without the chocolate. 

There was a most interesting stall selling all sorts of dead animal material, mostly pelts and stuff creatures. Squirrels were put to great use in tableaus. What fun!

 

There are many different bands playing around the Fair, and we found the Cheapshots in the Budweiser Pavilion. They are a local Milwaukee covers band that played all the songs you want to hear, really really well; Shut Up and Dance, Play that Funky Music, Don’t Stop Believing, Jump, Uptown Funk. The funniest was Shake It Off, because the singer was a big guy with a baseball cap and he had all of Taylor’s moves! Drinking beer and singing along was fantastic fun, happy days!

Martin does love a bit of mechanical engineering, especially if it’s at least a hundred years old. We drove south from Wisconsin into Illinois to go to the North Illinois Steam Society Threshing Bee. It was a get together of steam and tractor enthusiasts, with hundreds of magnificent old machines and interesting characters. It was very similar to the Traction Engine Rally that we went to as kids at Carrington on Lincolnshire Fens. The enormous steam engines would have less power than a modern small car and took a lot of work to operate. Every one of them was a labour of love by their very proud owners. There was a sale to support the society, and I bought three brand new baseball caps and three old copies of National Geographic for $3, quite a bargain.

The guy below was my favourite, with his straw hat, mutton-chop whiskers and bare feet!

There was a sale to support the society, and I bought three brand new baseball caps and three old copies of National Geographic for $3, quite a bargain. In fact, it came to $2.55, but having a big heart, I let them keep the change.

There were stalls manned by enthusiastic re-enactors with old wartime gear. one guy was dressed as a WW1 German soldier, who was showing off a large collection of hand grenades and tench maces. I’ll bet he had some trouble getting through airport security with that lot!

Our journey back to Eagle Spring Lake took us through typical Mid-West farmland, which was mile after mile of Soybeans and maize. That’s all there was, an agro-industrial duo-culture for creating food for beef cattle to make steaks and burgers.

Wisconsin has a tradition of the Friday night Fish Fry. Martin took us along to a local golf club, which was packed with eager fish eaters. Lizzie struck up a conversation with another couple, who really love the British Royal family. They wanted to know my opinion of them because I was a subject of the Queen. I think the Queen does a great job as Head of State, but otherwise, I don’t think about them much. The other fish eaters really didn’t like Prince Charles because of his dysfunctional relationship with Princess Diana. But I have never met them, I’m not interested in their private life, and quite honestly don’t give a shit. 

My choice of fish was Walleye, and it came as a breaded fillet which could have been any white fish. It could easily have been that great favourite River Cobbler AKA Vietnamese Catfish that often appears in English supermarkets. The accompaniments were potato pancakes, coleslaw, rye bread, and some strange potato and bacon dish. It was all tasty and filling, but once was enough. I washed it down with a lager that came with a slice of orange in it, but it didn’t actually taste of orange. As a cultural experience, it was about as exotic as Fish and Chip Friday at Wetherspoons.

We woke early and got the camp packed away very quickly, Munising’s charms wear off very rapidly. Back on the road we travelled south through the Upper Peninsular and back into Wisconsin. We stopped briefly at a souvenir store to try on daft hats and be amazed at the vast amount of tat on sale. The gorgeous titfer below is a “cheesehead” hat as worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers, I think it would be perfect at Ascot.

Three hundred miles later we were back at Eagle Spring Lake in the sunshine. Martin got his ski boat out, a twenty-five-year-old craft with a powerful inboard motor. I sat on the back of the boat on a platform and put on a pair of water skis and a tight buoyancy aid. Slipping off the back of the boat, I floated in the water with my knees close to my chest and skis sticking out vertically, grasping the handle of the tow rope. Martin slowly moved ahead until the rope was tight and I shouted: “hit it’”. I got up, wobbled and did a face plant in the lake. I tried again, and at my second attempt I was up and skiing! I managed two circuits of the lake before I got tired and gave up. I was very pleased with myself since I haven’t skied for eight years!

I had a bash at paddle boarding, but only succeeded in going round in circles, so I gave that up quickly. The single skull was more my kinda boat and I got on well with that, but the lake was a bit choppy and my blades kept catching crabs. There are no actual crabs in the lake, but there are turtles, snakes and plenty of fish.

 

I really wouldn’t recommend Munising for a long holiday. There is basically only one reason why tourists visit Munising – the Picture Rocks – which I will describe later. It is a small town on an enormous lake. Lake Superior is the size of Austria and has an average depth of 483 feet, if you spread it out like Marmite across the entirety of North and South American, it would cover it to a depth of 30 centimetres!

We booked a boat trip at midday, so we had the morning to explore Munising. About 10 minutes would have been enough, there really is bugger-all there. The main employment is a paper mill, and then a small number of shops and banks in a few street parallel to the lake shore. It was once famous for making wooden bowls, but Ikea has now cornered that market.

Martin went back to the campsite to get his hat, so we literally had to run to get on the boat with about 50 other excited tourists. A couple of miles from the harbour the Picture Rocks begin. They are Limonite (a type of iron ore) cliffs which have been stained with manganese (black) and copper (bluey green) in very pretty patterns. They also have caves and rock arches underneath them, which collapse occasionally. For a couple of hours, we chugged up and down and admired their loveliness, and waved to the people at the top of the cliffs.

There are not many places to eat in Munising, but there is a rather excellent branch of Subway. I always hesitate when I have to choose a combination of bread, meat and various salads and condiments, it makes me feel a bit doddery. I was brought up simply asking for six penn’orth of chips, no choices apart from salt and vinegar.

In the afternoon we drove out of Munising to a State Park where we could walk along the top of the cliffs, with great views of the lake. There is a rock formation called the Castle which is fenced off to prevent people climbing up it and wearing it down. Sadly it didn’t stop this bloke, he did make it down again after his mate had taken his photo.

Once we had seen Picture Rocks from all the angles, we felt that we had seen all that Munising had to offer. So we returned to the campsite to cook some more food and swore at the pathetic barbecue which only managed to simmer our chicken dinner and burn our sweetcorn on the open fire. But what the hell, I was hungry and anything tastes good if you wash it down with enough beer.

Martin decided we would go on a big adventure; get into his big Mazda car and drive up to Lake Superior. Liz and Martin packed a load of camping gear and food into the car and we set off from the cottage and headed north (ish). Martin set the Sat Nav in the car, and was also looking for directions on Google Maps on his phone. Confusion arose when the two systems gave different directions, and some foul language was spoken as we figured out which way to go. It’s a long way to Lake Superior, about 300 miles north through Wisconsin and Michigan.

Our destination was Munising, which is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is to the north of Wisconsin and completely separated by water from the rest of the state. People in the UP call themselves Yoopers. The route is mostly concrete dual carriageway with many heavy trucks and cars. The peculiar thing is that they have very few white vans over here, I don’t know what they use for local deliveries and tradesmen.

We stopped at Walmart to buy a cheap barbecue to cook on, and a Frisbee for fifty cents. At about 7.30 we got Munising and the State Park, where Martin expected to find a campsite. There wasn’t a campsite. bummer! So we drove back to the local Information centre to find other campsites. The Catching Crickets campsite didn’t have any power, but we got the last pitch at the municipal campsite right next to the lake and started putting the tent up at 8.30. It was very dark by the time we had cooked dinner and got a few beers down our throats.

Most people on the site have RVs, some of them are the size of a coach, and have a jeep towed behind, with bikes on the back. The campsite was full, but the shower block was quiet and there was no queue for the shower. Then I realized that everyone has their own shower and toilet in their camper van.

 

 

 

The 12$ barbecue that Martin bought was a bit crap, and Lizzie was annoyed with it. It did prove adequate enough to cook a large piece of marinated beef that Liz brought in a huge cool box. After a few beers and some food, we almost forgot about the epic journey to Munising, and sat around the camp fire, ate beef and drank beer. I did get lots of smoke in my eyes and in my clothes, but it kept the mosquitos away.

 

Martin has a cottage on a lake in Wisconsin, the state to the north of Illinois, so we drove up highways 294 and 94 in his Miata (which is and MX5 in the USA). When I last drove in the States in 2003, everyone drove at 55. Now they all go at 70 or 80 mph, and it feels a bit intimidating when a massive Mack truck goes past when you are sat in a little sportscar!

On the way, we stopped at Bass Pro Sports to see how men spend their recreation time in the Mid West. It is a huge shop, a shed the size of a big Tesco or Asda, that sells huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ gear. The walls are liberally covered with dead animals, either their skins or heads, and there is an aquarium in the middle full of native fish. The shop has a vast selection of fishing rods, guns, bows, ammo, clothes and lots of stuff I didn’t know existed.

 

 

It even had a big selection of fishing boats with huge engines costing up to $50,000. Most had two engines, one to tear off across the lake to get to the fishing spot, and then a “trolling” engine (often electric) to chug around slowly. I wasn’t in need of any deadly weapons or overpriced clothes, so didn’t get anything. I did have fun trying on daft hats, especially the Cheese Head, worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers football team.

 

 

We arrived at the cottage on Eagle Spring Lake in the early afternoon. The weather was warm and sunny so we headed out onto the lake on the pontoon boat. It is a platform on two aluminium tubes with couches on it, basically a party boat. Eagle Spring Lake is actually a mill pond since it is dammed at one end and once powered a saw mill. It is quite shallow, only about six feet deep and quite weedy and muddy. It is connected by a channel to Lake Lulu, which is a proper lake and up to forty feet deep and much better for swimming in. Martin anchored us in the middle and we spent the afternoon eating snacks and drinking G&T and beer. If one finds the right sort of music on Spotify, once can also boogie on down on one’s pontoon boat. Coldplay’s Adventure of a Lifetime was a perfect tune for dancing in the middle of a lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was time to get outta town, so Martin drove us down the highway in his Mazda MX5 into Indiana, the next state to the south. Martin is a mechanical engineer, so we went to a steam museum at a place called Hesston (not the one near Hounslow). It was a lovely site in meadows and woods a few miles from Lake Michigan, that was run by enthusiastic volunteers. It had a full-size steam engine with a marvelous Shay engine that drives all the wheels so it can tackle steep hills. There were several small engines running on 7.5-inch tracks, but capable of taking twenty people around the track. A steam engine ran a complete saw mill which was cutting logs with a frightening four-foot diameter circular saw. For lunch we had some slow smoked brisket in a roll with barbecue sauce, sloppy and delicious.

Lake Michigan is over 1600 miles around and is 290 feet deep, it’s as big as the North Sea! At the southern end is the Warren Dunes State Park, a beautiful sandy beach with dunes two hundred feet high. We got out some folding chairs and watched the kids swimming in the lake in the warmish fresh water. When the sun clouded over it felt like a good time to climb the steep dunes to admire the beach from on high. Jeez it was hard work! Slipping sand is much tougher to climb than firm rock or grass, and we ended up ascending like monkeys on all-fours.

It was time to take the plunge into the lake to cool off. Guess what? I had forgotten my swimming shorts, so I swam in my M&S underpants. They are well made stout British underwear, and performed perfectly well, no one laughed and pointed at my soggy pants. On the way home Martin bought some sweet corn (12 for $1.99) and peaches from a farm shop in New Buffalo. He barbecued the corn when we got back to his house, it was really sweet and fresh, the best I have ever eaten!

August 5th 2017

The suburban trains in Chicago are clad in stainless steel and are double decked, so they look very cool.

 

Martin and I took the train from Clarendon Hills into Union Station, a very grand classical building with a cavernous ticket hall. There was a pop festival on in Grant Park today called Lollapalooza, so the city centre was full of lightly clad young people. We walked through the park past Anish Kapoor’s giant shiny steel bean, and then Frank Geary’s Millennium Park, an outdoor theatre with a curlicued titanium proscenium arch.

Martin had brought some food along, so we ate it sat on a wall overlooking a marina. I ate half of a supermarket sandwich which must have had a pint of assorted cold meat in it. A steady procession of yachts and motorboats came past us heading towards Lake Michigan, so we smiled, waved, and said all sorts of terrible things about the boats and their occupants.

Chicago city centre is very impressive, and has many of the best skyscrapers in the world. They date back to the first steel framed buildings in the 1880’s, and there are many beautiful Gothic skyscrapers and some that look like wedding cakes.

I last visited Chicago and the city has changed since then. There is now a walk along the Chicago River, with restaurants, bars, boat trips and gardens. It could rival the walk down London’s South Bank. By then we wanted a bit of culture, so we got an Uber to the Museum of Science and Industry. It is sited a few miles out of the centre in a huge classical styled building, a proper temple to learning. There are many excellent interactive displays, buttons to press and levers to pull to make things happen.

We returned through busy traffic to the city centre and went to the Trump Tower for a drink. It has a bar on the sixteenth floor with fantastic views of the river and surrounding buildings. The President didn’t show up, he was playing golf in Florida. Martin thought there were some good bars in an area called Rush and Division, but we only found one underwhelming Irish bar for a pint of Samuel Adams. Walking back to Union Station we had to wait an hour for a train, which was then half an hour late setting off! It was crammed with teenagers going home from the festival, in high spirits but well behaved. Arriving back at Martins at midnight, he made us poached eggs on toast.