Road Trips and Hike Reports

Friday: One of the parts of our trip logistics that was harder to figure out was how to get to O’Hare to pick up the rental car.  Since I wanted to get the day started as early as possible, I would have preferred to take the L to O’Hare and head out from there.  Unfortunately we had too much luggage to realistically navigate public transit at rush hour.  In the end I decided to that the conventional answer was probably the best answer.  Take a Lyft to the airport with all our stuff.  The trip to the airport wasn’t terribly congested but it wasn’t fast either.  Thankfully we were dropped off right in front of the ‘multi-modal center’ which houses the rentals so we had just a short walk to get to the Enterprise office.  There was absolutely no line and we were in a brand new Kia Carnival with 54 miles on the odometer in just minutes. We had breakfast at a bagel shop/deli in Buffalo Grove IL.  We also tried to find a coin laundry but our initial att...

This trip has been on the calendar for so long it seemed like it would never get here.  We booked the train and the 2 Chicago and Madison hotels back in April when we last saw our friend Jim in Saratoga Springs.  As it turns out the timing is pretty great since we’re preparing to move (to someplace with worse Amtrak connections) and fall is our favorite time to travel in general. Jim arrived Monday afternoon so we had all of Tuesday to hang out before our train left at 11:30 pm.  Brian had to work but Jim shopped for CDs in Rochester in the morning and I did some more packing and cleaning at the apartment.  Later in the afternoon we had just  enough time to watch ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ which was a very challenging and long movie to take in.  At 5:30 we  had a lovely dinner in Fairport at Bocaccinis with Jim’s other Rochester friends.  We watched another movie (this one with Brian) at home before taking Uber to the Amtrak station.  ...

It was a little warm by the time we got to this trail.  This 'state forest wild area' is the largest in Pennsylvania at over 50 thousand acres spanning 3 counties.  I'm not sure what exactly differentiates a state forest wild area from a normal state forest.  The largest state forest in PA is astonishingly large at 300 thousand acres.  The Quehanna Wild Area is a fascinating and under-visited area.  The drive through (on th Quehanna highway) is exhilarating with lots of curves and dips and very little traffic.  It was previously home to a number of defense industry research areas including a small nuclear reactor.  This hike actually started just off of 'Reactor Road' which led to that, now completely demolished, nuclear reactor. The variety of scenery along this loop trail was phenomenal.  There were areas that were very dry and even semi-arid feeling but also wet and muddy areas.  The vegetation varied a lot from mostly hardwoods in some a...

This hike was the start of our long weekend trip to Pennsylvania.  I really wanted to get away for a trip before summer crowds and heat set in.  We stayed Friday night at the casino in Salamanca (NY) then 1 night at a motel in southern PA before a planned 2 night stay in a Yurt at Ohiopyle state park (PA). The hike was a good start to the weekend.  This was not a site we'd been to but, like about half of our NY hikes, it is along the Finger Lakes Trail.   There was, on a per mile basis, a fair amount of climbing on this hike.  

After our great breakfast at the River District hotel, we headed towards Madison.  We had a nice loop hike picked out for the University of Wisconsin arboretum but it was pretty warm and humid by the time we got near Madison.  We ended up just going straight to our hotel with the plan that we could park the car and wander around town until check-in time.  Surprisingly, they let us check-in VERY early, about 11:30 am.  Our room was gorgeous with a floor to ceiling window overlooking Madison's growing downtown.   After dropping out stuff and using the bathroom etc, we headed out to walk around Madison and have lunch.  State Street is Madison's pedestrian shopping street that starts at the Capitol building and goes many blocks West towards the UW campus.  It was pretty warm but by preferring the shady side of the street we managed to avoid overheating.  We spontaneously decided to eat at Noodles & Company because we like it and there aren'...

Wednesday was a long driving day.  We started out heading South on US-385 through Hot Springs SD and then East on US-18.  It was a very desolate stretch of plains for several hours.  Later, following the suggestions of our friend Bob (who was born in South Dakota) we were on SD-44 East of Winner and saw some gorgeous ravines and very dramatic bluffs of the Missouri River. We overnighted at Fort Randall Casino which was not a winner nor a very nice place to stay.  The hotel wasn’t awful but it was VERY basic and old but it was cheap.  The next day we spent most of driving East through Ohio on US-20. US-20 makes a very direct and generally high speed journey across many miles of Iowa.  We made a brief tour to visit an Iowa institution, Maid-Rite , in Waterloo.  It wasn’t Brian’s favorite lunch but the strawberry shake we agreed was excellent.  We visited a state park in Iowa, Backbone State Park. I had previously stopped at this large state park, Io...

Since we'd both been to South Dakota before, we didn't feel any need to go to Mount Rushmore or Crazy Horse.  For most people, having been to Devil's Tower would fall into that same camp but I absolutely adore Devil's Tower and have been 4 times now.  So we headed out on that long drive first thing Tuesday.  Weather was gorgeous, much cooler than the day before in North Dakota.  We walked the Red Beds Trail which is about 2.8 miles and goes along a much wider and wilder loop than the very short paved trail that winds directly around the base of the rock.  Since the park ranger said parking was limited (it was busier than you might expect for a mid-September Tuesday), we opted to park at the picnic area at the very bottom of the entire area near the Prairie Dog village.  This added a stiff hike up the flanks of the butte before we could join the 2.8 mile loop and since we enjoyed it so much we went a little more than a complete circle on the loop to take the...

We were up very late last night and we had to do laundry at the hotel before we could head out so it was about 80 degrees when we arrived at the trailhead after driving south about 60 miles on US-85.  The sun was very intense and I couldn't find my sunscreen this morning so I used a hand towel from our hiking backpack as a cover for my ears and neck as best as I could.  We bought a big jug of water but should have had a third 'spare' water to supplement our ever present 27 ounce metal bottles.  We had to be very judicious with our water consumption throughout this hike.  Low humidity and a cooling breeze made the temperature and intense sun more comfortable but it was still a little rough for me for the first 2 miles. We chose to start the trail by crossing the scenic road immediately and doing the loop in that direction.  The trail worked its way up into a few of the many buttes found along the 16 mile scenic road that goes through the North Unit of the park. T...