And then they came back to civilization
So, the Big Gay Road Trip comes to a close. It's bittersweet; i'm sad it's over, but happy to be home (especially with Frank the cat sleeping on my chest, and my own bed to look forward to soon). Still, it was a hell of a lot of fun.
Sometime Sunday night, while we were hanging out in St Ignace, i showed starlingthefool the Hey Girl video, which meant that we then spent the last half of our roadtrip going "Hey Girl!" at just about everything we saw (cows, giant boats, statues of scary bears, the world's largest cherry pie, each other). Which seemed appropriate, seeing as it was the Big Gay Road Trip and all.
We left St. Ignace and headed out across the Mackinac Bridge, which is awesome; i'm a fan of bridges in general, and this one's pretty cool. We stopped for pasties (our last ones of the trip, sniff) and then headed down US 31, where we saw the world's weirdest giant scary bear advertisement in Grand Traverse, and then saw the world's largest cherry pie:
Fuck. Yeah.
We'd wanted to see a World's Largest Something on our trip, so the World's Largest Cherry Pie was pretty awesome. We also passed over the 45th parallel, halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. (Which really says something about how much more there is to the north of us that i think we don't think about. Or maybe that i don't think about.)
After that, though, we passed about eleventy billion fruit stands (and, sadly, didn't stop, mostly because it was cold and rainy), and then suddenly we had returned to Civilization. Which didn't look very civilized, if you asked us; it was suddenly all strip malls and chain stores, none of the awesome personality of the northern, less populated towns. (And i know i'm over-idealizing, and those towns have their issues. Mostly, we just missed the trees, yo.) We stopped for dinner in Holland, randomly picking the New Holland Brewing Company before i realized i'd heard of their beer before. Tasty food was had, then we plowed on, eschewing the highway and the strip malls and the chain stores for the Blue Star and then the Red Arrow highways.
And then suddenly we were in Indiana. We stopped at a sketchy motel in the Dunes; the chick running the place told us it had wifi, but it worked better with the door to the room open, if that tells you anything. (Most telling: It didn't work at all.) We both slept rather poorly and had weird dreams; mine were about bugs and i woke up convinced the sheets were crawling, although they weren't (i hope).
Today was rainy and a bit dreary, although it led to some rather spectacular clouds once we hit Chicago. First, however, we hit a diner in Chesterton that was absolutely perfect--we'd had really good food the whole way, and this was a nice way to cap off the trip, sitting at a diner with extra bacon and fried potatoes and eggs and cigarette smoke and Hoosiers.
And then, of course, we played Meatloaf at top volume. Like you do. (Like we do, at least.)
We took 12 and then 20 through the Dunes and then into Gary, then hopped onto the Skyway and took that into Chicago... and then our trip was over. I waved goodbye to Lake Michigan, hugged starlingthefool, and headed home to Madison. Where i did--oh crap, i still have laundry that needs to go in the dryer. *facepalm*
And now, once i flip my laundry, bedtime. Because this trip was awesome, but boy, am i tired. starlingthefool was a fantastic road trip partner--she's an excellent driver and DJ, a fantastic conversationalist, and someone who's easy to hang out with and talk about everything and nothing with. We pretty much saw everything we wanted to see (including the World's Largest Cherry Pie, yeeeah) and did everything we wanted to do, i think--most important of those being that we got out on the road and Saw Cool Shit.
I still want to go back to the UP, though. Even if they do get a freaking lot of snow up there. I'm entertaining thoughts of going back for the National Pond Hockey Championships in St. Ignace, especially as they're over my birthday weekend this year...
(All of my pictures are now up on Flickr under the BGRT tag.)
Sometime Sunday night, while we were hanging out in St Ignace, i showed starlingthefool the Hey Girl video, which meant that we then spent the last half of our roadtrip going "Hey Girl!" at just about everything we saw (cows, giant boats, statues of scary bears, the world's largest cherry pie, each other). Which seemed appropriate, seeing as it was the Big Gay Road Trip and all.
We left St. Ignace and headed out across the Mackinac Bridge, which is awesome; i'm a fan of bridges in general, and this one's pretty cool. We stopped for pasties (our last ones of the trip, sniff) and then headed down US 31, where we saw the world's weirdest giant scary bear advertisement in Grand Traverse, and then saw the world's largest cherry pie:
Fuck. Yeah.
We'd wanted to see a World's Largest Something on our trip, so the World's Largest Cherry Pie was pretty awesome. We also passed over the 45th parallel, halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. (Which really says something about how much more there is to the north of us that i think we don't think about. Or maybe that i don't think about.)
After that, though, we passed about eleventy billion fruit stands (and, sadly, didn't stop, mostly because it was cold and rainy), and then suddenly we had returned to Civilization. Which didn't look very civilized, if you asked us; it was suddenly all strip malls and chain stores, none of the awesome personality of the northern, less populated towns. (And i know i'm over-idealizing, and those towns have their issues. Mostly, we just missed the trees, yo.) We stopped for dinner in Holland, randomly picking the New Holland Brewing Company before i realized i'd heard of their beer before. Tasty food was had, then we plowed on, eschewing the highway and the strip malls and the chain stores for the Blue Star and then the Red Arrow highways.
And then suddenly we were in Indiana. We stopped at a sketchy motel in the Dunes; the chick running the place told us it had wifi, but it worked better with the door to the room open, if that tells you anything. (Most telling: It didn't work at all.) We both slept rather poorly and had weird dreams; mine were about bugs and i woke up convinced the sheets were crawling, although they weren't (i hope).
Today was rainy and a bit dreary, although it led to some rather spectacular clouds once we hit Chicago. First, however, we hit a diner in Chesterton that was absolutely perfect--we'd had really good food the whole way, and this was a nice way to cap off the trip, sitting at a diner with extra bacon and fried potatoes and eggs and cigarette smoke and Hoosiers.
And then, of course, we played Meatloaf at top volume. Like you do. (Like we do, at least.)
We took 12 and then 20 through the Dunes and then into Gary, then hopped onto the Skyway and took that into Chicago... and then our trip was over. I waved goodbye to Lake Michigan, hugged starlingthefool, and headed home to Madison. Where i did--oh crap, i still have laundry that needs to go in the dryer. *facepalm*
And now, once i flip my laundry, bedtime. Because this trip was awesome, but boy, am i tired. starlingthefool was a fantastic road trip partner--she's an excellent driver and DJ, a fantastic conversationalist, and someone who's easy to hang out with and talk about everything and nothing with. We pretty much saw everything we wanted to see (including the World's Largest Cherry Pie, yeeeah) and did everything we wanted to do, i think--most important of those being that we got out on the road and Saw Cool Shit.
I still want to go back to the UP, though. Even if they do get a freaking lot of snow up there. I'm entertaining thoughts of going back for the National Pond Hockey Championships in St. Ignace, especially as they're over my birthday weekend this year...
(All of my pictures are now up on Flickr under the BGRT tag.)