Coffee-and-Pie

Current Statistics

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:30:05 -0700

As of Oct 17, 2006, I have driven 15,290 miles which is 24,607 kilometers.
On Sat, October 21, 2006 I ended the drive in Redwood City, California.

South Dakota Badlands

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Driven: Fri, September 22, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/2bd/Badlands-of-South-Dakota.html This article has 18 pictures associated with it.

It is difficult to find words for the badlands. Yes, I could go into geological history or write of "majestic beauty." They are bad for crops, bad for cattle, but extremely good for the soul. Go there. See for yourself. it is a place not to be missed.

To Wall SD

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0800

Driven: Thu, September 21, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/264/To-Wall-SD.html This article has 12 pictures associated with it.

How much fun you can have on the drive from Pierre to Wall! I drove the "Bad River Road" out of Pierre and saw some really beautiful hills. The Bad River Road is a good digression. It is well graveled and clearly marked. There are a few alternative routes you can take away from it and after driving through barren hills for what seems like forever you will pass into gigantic fields of Sunflowers and after a few miles be right back into the wide-open hills.

Wall, South Dakota has roadside signs forever leading up to it. The Wall Drug store is the main culprit. Apparently they have been up to this for many-a-year and turned the town into a sucessful tourist trap.
But Wall is the best place to stay before a drive into the South Dakota Badlands. Yes, I went into Wall Drug and had an unimpressive piece of pie--some things ya just gotta do. There is a life size Brontosaurus out by the interstate. if you are going into the Badlands, you will pass right by it!

To Pierre SD

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0800

Driven: Wed, September 20, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/264/To-Pierre-SD.html This article has 14 pictures associated with it.

The last night I stayed in Aberdeen, I didn't stay there. I got back to town later than I had intended, about 8:30. It turned out there was a Super-sized Walmart opening the next day and every hotel room in town was booked. This is not a 1-or-2 hotel town. Clearly, these folk are big on shopping and a new Walmart opening up is something not to be missed.

The closest town with a hotel was 45 miles away. I set off. The town had two hotels... all booked up. The next closest town was Huron, 45 miles further. That adds up to 90 miles extra to drive for a hotel just because Walmart was opening a new store. Huron boasts the largest pheasant in the world. I think it was staring into my window the whole night.

To Aberdeen SD

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Mon, September 18, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/262/To-Aberdeen-SD.html This article has 10 pictures associated with it.

So much time, so little to do. I'll start with a gallery of images taken on the day's drive. It was an overcast day, but the drive through North Dakota's Sheyenne Valley was lovely. The trees were just beginning to turn and the misty haze made things interesting.

The following day I spent with relations in South Dakota. I have posted a few of those images here

To Valley City, ND

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Sat, September 16, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/262/To-Valley-City,-ND.html This article has 9 pictures associated with it.

When I reached Grand Forks, North Dakota the previous day I was impressed with the number of creative, old signs they had about. I was also impressed with the price of gas. It was a new low for my trip, $2.18 per gallon. I determined I would fill up my tank while I was in town, but I was distracted the previous night by a stock car race. I was sitting in Grandma Butterwicks restaurant contemplating my pancakes when an old boy's cell phone rang. I think he was hard of hearing because he talked really loud.

"Oh hi, Joe.
Yah. Yah.
Oh I'm sittin' having my coffee at the restaurant here.
Oh yah, I'm done with my eggs, yah.
Scrambled.
Fillin' your tank are ya now? What're you payin there?
Oh, is that so?
Yah, well it's two-twelve here.
Oh yah, well it went down over night, you know. I'm lookin' right at the station across the street.
Yah, yesterday it was two-eighteen.
Oh yah? You're goin' to the lake now? Fishing, huh?
Oh yah, well, no not today. I have other things I have to do.
Yah, yah, well you go then. Hope you catch your limit.
All right then, bye now."

To Grand Forks, ND

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Fri, September 15, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/To-Grand-Forks-ND.html This article has 6 pictures associated with it.

Grand Forks, North Dakota is an interesting town. It has some nice, old signage. I am discovering many Midwestern towns have nice signage. Good signage makes it easier to pick out where to sleep and where to eat. Who has the coolest sign? Sure, it might be a superficial way to choose, much better I google the town and study reviews and find out what other people have to say or scour my AAA guide and choose based on price and ratings and other junk that allows us to quantify the unknown in advance. But where is the fun in that? After all it is only one bed, it is only one meal. I value esthetics so I might as well support them in my own way. Besides places with cool signs are rarely, if ever, franchises. All of the money I spend there stays in the community nothing goes out in franchise fees. I am also guessing that a locally owned food place is less likely to have disgruntled youthful employees who hate feeling they are part of some impersonal machine and might try to express their unique individuality while preparing my food.

In Grand Forks there is a restaurant called the Bronze Boot. It has a great sign in the shape of a giant boot. When lit up at night the lights on the spurs look like they are spinning. The Bronze Boot is a traditional, Midwestern "fancy" restaurant. Inside it is nicely appointed with booths and tables and a few high-backed, private booths. It is nice enough to make anyone think they are in a nice restaurant, but not so overdone that a farmer from 50 miles out is going to feel uncomfortable when he brings his girl into the city to impress her. They serve meat, mostly, and will be happy to burn your filet mignon to a crisp if you so desire. If you ask for medium rare, they describe the result to verify this is what you really want. Some of the meat they offer is fish and poultry, but I suspect they didn't sell too much poultry until the last decade or so. From the cholesterol-laden plates I saw, this is still a red meat restaurant in a red meat town. They served the basics: red meat, potatoes baked or fried, and a token salad... if you ask. Inga, my heavily accented German waitress approved my choice of the ribeye commenting that it was her favorite.

Border Crossing

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Fri, September 15, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/Border-Crossing.html This article has 4 pictures associated with it.

Kenora, Ontario is situated against Lake Of The Woods and the drive out along the lake is a nice morning drive. Continue West on Highway 17 and you will pass into Manitoba where Highway 17 changes into Canada 1, a freeway of sorts, it has fancier exits and signage. It was when I passed from the 2-lane highways of Ontario to the freeways of Manitoba I realized what an incredible asset the interstate system is to the U.S.. Well, for moving goods and things from point A to point B, for meandering around it is not so great. The interstate systems allows us to transport materials by any number of routes to a destination. Similar to how packets of data bounce across the internet, but not quite so efficient. In Ontario, there are really only two highways and only two rail lines that cross it. Any goods that Cross Ontario have to go by one of these four routes. It is a blessing in a way, it keeps the greater part of Ontario beautiful, frontier-like and unspoiled.

I had originally thought I would mosey into Winnipeg and maybe a bit further West before heading back into the States, but the previous evening I had taken some time, done some math and realized I was paying about $4.60 per gallon for gas up there! Yikes. I also spend some time in google maps. Google maps implied that there were roads, little roads, that crossed the border with no border guard! No way! This I had to investigate. A few miles into Manitoba I headed South on highway 308. Ten miles in, the pavement turned to dirt for about 50 miles until I reached Moose Lake. Google implied that if I kept going straight when 308 ended at Sprague, Manitoba, the little tiny road would cross right over the border. I found this hard to believe, so I had to check it out.

To Kenora, ON

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Thu, September 14, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/To-Kenora-ON.html This article has 2 pictures associated with it.

"You're Mister Choo Choo!"

There was a pause. "Yes, I'm a Mister Choo Choo, there're lots of us you know." Mike came back well, from my unexpected outburst. He had just told me he was an engineer for the Canadian Railroad.

"Wow, that is so cool! I have a friend that would be flipping to be sittin' next to a real train engineer."

"I used to feel that way myself 20 years ago, eh. Now it's just a job."

"Yeah, but you're in a train, I'll bet you see some lovely countryside."

Sioux Lookout, Dryden

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Wed, September 13, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/Sioux-Lookout-Dryden.html This article has 1 pictures associated with it.

When I was driving back in from the woods I drove Sixty miles or more through a smoky haze. I thought at first I was near a sawmill that was burning its sawdust, but I wasn't driving beyond the smoke, and I didn't think sawmills did that any more. It went on and on. It wasn't until I listened to the news later I realized what was the true cause, there were ninty-some wildfires started by lightening burning out in the Ontario backwoods. All of the firefighters of the area were busy extinguishing the fires. The smoke had lightened up a bit by the time I reached Sioux Lookout, Ontario.

Sioux Lookout is an interesting name for a town. It is even more interesting when you know the story behind it. The Sioux tribe lives nowhere in the area. It is in territory for the Ojibway tribe. Long, long ago the Sioux would trade with the locals. The Sioux would travel up into the territory with their wares and trade for furs or whatever was the commodity sought. Everything went along swimmingly for a while until one clever Sioux thought of a way the trade would be even more profitable. How can you make trading even more profitable? Return with the payment as well as the goods brought up to trade. This required slaughtering everyone in the village they traded with. This seems kind of dense. I mean, if you just want to kill everyone and take everything they had, why bother schlepping all of the trade goods around and go through the motions of fair trading? It was an awfully complicated way to raid a town. The Vikings simply sailed in, slaughtered everyone, then took what they wanted. It's much simpler and much more honest.

North!

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Mon, September 11, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/North.html This article has 5 pictures associated with it.

I was thinking North. Canada is big. If you look at a map of Canada you will see lots of towns with no roads to them. The Northern part of Canada is wide open with few, if any roads. The map I was using marked a number of roads that were winter roads only. Their routes crossed rivers and lakes when everything was frozen over. Frozen over! For the last three mornings there had been frost on my car. A month earlier I was swimming in the ocean off of the Florida coast. Now I was in an area that freezes over all winter long and I was about to go... Norther!

It was one of the reasons for heading into Ontario in the first place. Go as far North as possible within my time constraints. Ignace would be my jumping of point. I would drive up to Pickle Lake and keep going. The pavement ended at Pickle Lake, but one of my maps showed that it continued as gravel. Oboy! Let's go at least a hundred miles into the bush! And what a name for the end of the road, Pickle Lake! Funny thing about Pickle Lake. A few days later I was checking into a Motel and the Lady at the desk raised her eyebrows when I mentioned I had been to Pickle Lake.

At the Lone Pine Motel

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Sun, September 10, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/At-the-Lone-Pine-Motel.html This article has 3 pictures associated with it.

"I have good dreams." The speaker was a fellow who repairs cameras in Missouri. He was showing me pictures of his property. He had put in a lake and decorated it with lots of stone walls, docks, six-sided buildings and a waterwheel, actually three of them. Apparently, he dreamt of waterwheels a lot. "Life is about your dreams, finding them, following them and making them yours. You have to live your dreams." He has five waterwheels so far on his place. One at the entrance by the road, one by his front door and three by his lake. He was living his dream building waterwheels. He even had three or four little ones in his repair shop.

If life is about living your dreams, the Lone Pine Motel in Ignace, Ontario, where I was staying, was built of dreams. Dreams made into reality, one board at time. The Lone Pine Motel was built by hand and the man who performed the work did a beautiful job. The motel was his dream and he dreamed completely and thoroughly. He did not stop when he had walls and roof. Much of the trim of the building was custom milled. The furnishings in all of the rooms are all designed and built by him. Chairs, tables, desks, dressers, stools all made by him. Even the shades of the desk lamps are made of wood--ten panels spiraled out each with holes drilled into it spelling L-O-N-E (a pine tree) M-O-T-E-L, one letter on each panel.

To Ignace, ON

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Sat, September 9, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/To-Ignace-ON.html This article has 4 pictures associated with it.

Travel is not simply the act of bringing yourself to a new location, it is meeting new people, trying new foods and discovering the differences, obvious and subtle, in how people, just like you, live in other parts of the world even if that "other part" is simply the next town over. In my conversation with the locals of Schreiber, Ontario the previous evening, the conversation drifted into some of the delicacies of life that are unavailable in the States.

"Gravy," One fellow offered.

The whole table assented

"Oh yeh," he continued, "I went down to the States to go to a NASCAR race, eh. I was at a restaurant. I asked if they have any gravy for my fries. The waitress said she didn't know and went into the kitchen to ask. She came back and said 'We have ketchup.' What kind of restaurant doesn't have any gravy, eh? Up here we put gravy on everything."

To Schreiber ON

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Fri, September 8, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/To-Schreiber-ON.html This article has 1 pictures associated with it.

When one travels left and right, up and down on the map, certain things keep needing adjusting. Three days ago I could leave at 6:00am and it was breaking light. On this morning it was black. Pitch black. I packed up and headed out into the darkness. Which is asinine in this part of the continent. Why? Moose! Out here there are moose. A moose is a gigantic creature. The body of an adult male can be 1,200 to 1,600 pounds. Um, that is easily half the weight of your/my car. What makes it even more dangerous is that the greater portion of that mass is above the hood of your car. That means mooseseses have long legs. Being hit by a vehicle moving at 60 miles per hour is bad news for the moose whether its legs are long or short. But for you the long legs can easily spell your death. It is rather complex and involves the theory of relativity. But using one of Einstein's visualization experiments I think it will all become clear.

First, imagine you are sitting in your car and it is stationary. Now, imagine a mass weighing about 1600 pounds (725 kg) floating about three feet off of the ground. 1600 pounds is similar to two 100 gallon (378 litre each) barrels filled with water, but a moose is much denser than water so lets freeze these barrels just to get things right. Got all that? Next imagine these frozen barrels hurtling toward you, three-feet off of the ground at 60 mph (96 kph.) Oh gee, is that about where your windshield is? And that mass will hit you where? Isn't your trunk a lovely place to end up mangled with ground moose? Oh, it's not? Well then, don't be a fool. Don't drive in moose country after dark! Moose are dark in color, their coats don't reflect light and their eyes are too high up to do so. Even during the day they can be hard to spot.

In Wawa, ON

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Thu, September 7, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/In-Wawa-ON.html This article has 4 pictures associated with it.

How do we choose where we end up, when to stop. For some it is a personal choice. Others have it chosen through circumstance, work or other obligations causing us to be in one place or another. Still others leave it to chance. When Evelyn (of Evelyn's Place in New Orleans) decided she didn't want to be in New York City any more, she flipped a coin and the seventeen-year -old Evelyn headed to New Orleans. When we have the opportunity to choose--and really, we always do--how do we decide what place is for us and how do we define where we want to spend the rest of our lives?

When Eugenia and Rafal Stepien left Poland all they knew is that they were going to America. Where in America they were going to was still undecided, all they knew was somewhere on this continent they would settle down. They rented a car and drove across Canada and then back across the United States. They knew they wanted to buy a motel. A small place they could fix up and host people. They discovered in more populated areas, motels were not as profitable. People wanted to stay in hotels with bells and whistles. This suited them fine, they didn't want to live so much in the hustle and bustle of things. They chose Wawa, Ontario. For them it seemed like heaven. A small town surrounded by nature. The weather suits them fine, the summers are mild and they love the winter activities open to them. Wawa is unique for the area. There will be snow in Wawa when all of the areas around are without . Rafal loves the snow. He loves the rest of the year too, but all of the activities that are available only when there is snow is like pure play for him. Rafal is aware that just because it is below freezing doesn't mean it is cold. If the sun is out it can be the most comfortable weather you can experience.

To Wawa, Ontario

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Driven: Wed, September 6, 2006 http://Coffee-and-Pie.com/pages/261/To-Wawa-Ontario.html This article has 5 pictures associated with it.

I'm chasing ignorance. Mine own specifically. I see it everywhere and like a mad Fire Fighter I get dizzy with stomping it out, spinning like a dervish at 78 rpm. It was this very ignorance that took me to the tip of Michigan. I knew nothing about it. No one ever talks about it. And that strange peninsula, what's with that?

It is the same stomping that causes me turn up some rutted side road. What does it have to offer? What can it show me? What can I discover there? On my way North that morning I turned off the pavement. The lakes up there cause the side roads to twist and turn. It was overcast and I lost my North. It didn't really matter. I found a nice lake and recorded there for a little bit. Eventually I found my way back and it only took an hour or so. It is beautiful in Northern Michigan full of nature and wilderness.