Solo Adventure

"Traveling for the sheer joy of it down a country road is a sweet search for things that are elusive; a quest for yesterday's pace and peace. Adventure for the sensitive."

                                                                             ~Doris Scharfenberg, Country Roads of Michigan

Four years ago I did a series here on the blog called Back Roads Adventures. I took a detailed map of all the different counties here in Michigan and began plotting different drives. All the roads began with the initial M (Michigan Road) or B (which probably doesn't stand for back road, but I can pretend). These roads were desired over roads that started with US (United States) or the worse of the letters, I (for Interstate).

Some of these M and B roads have become dear old friends, and I try to drive them at least once a year, usually in the Autumn so I can enjoy a fall color tour at the same time.

The one that calls me the loudest is B-35; a drive through small farming communities, past muddy cow pastures and golden corn fields. Even though it seems like just a scenic drive, there is a destination on this road, an old school house that is slowly, or quickly depending on the year, falling into decay. I pray every year that it is still there, so I can photograph it one more time, document the changes.

Four years ago, I would turn down any back road I came across, but I have found myself getting more hesitant to go out on driving adventures. It is so easy to just stay around home and not venture very far. But at forty-nine, I don't want my world getting smaller already. So I made a hotel reservation for an area of Michigan I haven't been to before, one night away seemed a good way to ease into it.

Last week when I set off on my first solo adventure since driving to Pennsylvania two years ago, my destination was east, across the state of Michigan, but somehow I found myself driving north first. Mainly to avoid those nasty US and Interstate roads, but also to set the mood for this solo adventure. The night before I left, I had a vision for the self-portrait that opens this blog post and I knew the perfect place to take it, the gravel road next to the decaying school house. The captured image turned out pretty close to what I envisioned; first time for everything.

There are a few things I will change for my next adventure:

1. One night wasn't quite long enough, so next time I will do two.
2. Less driving; spending more time in a few specific locations.
3. My favorite images from this trip are the self-portraits, so I will do more of those next time.
4. More research on a area, so I will know specific locations I want to explore.

There probably won't be any more solo overnights this year, but I am going to go out on some day adventures this fall. Getting started is the hardest part, now that that is conquered I know I can do more. 

Unexpected Destination

Photo Credit: Glen Huizenga

I have proclaimed in past blog posts that I am not one for doing much research ahead of time for road trips, and this continues to hold true. On our recent adventure to Indiana to photograph covered bridges, my research consisted of Googling Indiana Covered Bridges, which revealed this site with a map and listing of all the covered bridges in Indiana. I printed that first page of the site and then got my road atlas of the United States, I opened it to the Indiana page and looked for a bigger town near the main amount of covered bridges so I could find us a hotel. I found Crawfordsville, about a half hour from the start of the bridges, located a Holiday Inn Express there, and booked it. We have oodles of points to use from all my husband's traveling, so we were able to stay all three nights for free.

On Sunday, in route to our hotel, we stopped at an Indiana rest stop. I spied a fold out Indiana road map mixed in with all the tourist trap brochures, I thought it would be good to have that and easier to carry around than our big road atlas. I wanted to open it up and scour the surrounding land once we were back in the car, but due to life long car sickness issues, I figured it would be best to wait until we got to the hotel.

At the hotel, back from supper at the local "quaint" restaurant, I settled on the bed and spread out my map. I found where we were, found where the bridges started, and then studied other local attractions in the area. I was floored when I saw the words Turkey Run State Park right next to the first bridge I wanted to go to. Turkey Run State Park has been on my photography/travel bucket list forever. Any Midwest travel magazine I have ever read has listed Turkey Run State Park as a must see in the state of Indiana. Finally I could check it off my list.

The next morning at 8:00 a.m. we were at the Narrows Bridge, part of Turkey Run State Park to photograph the bridge at sunrise. Best bridge of the trip, and everything is better at the golden hour. After we were done at the bridge, I suggested we drive into the park and check it out. We wandered about a little, but knew that we needed more time than we had to do it justice, we had many more covered bridges to see that day.

Over supper that night at the less local, but with more quality controlled food, Cracker Barrel, we discussed what we wanted to do the next day. We both had had our fill of covered bridges, eventually they all start to look the same. I suggested that we go back to Turkey Run State Park in the morning and do some hiking. My husband went into research mode, looking for the most rugged trails we could do. You know the ones with ladders to climb to get out of the canyon, the ones with 140 steps, some of those "steps" being boulders to climb up and over, or navigate down. Visions of my trip to Pennsylvania last year and my friend Andrea falling and breaking her leg filled my head. I was looking for meandering trails that wound along Sugar Creek, flat trails with only a few wooden steps. But since my husband was being such a good sport about photographing bridges with me, I knew I had to do the rugged trails for him.

The only way to do anything without crowds of people in your pictures or in your way in general is to go early, so the next morning we were back at Turkey Run by 8:45 a.m., there were only two other cars in the parking lot when we pulled in.

To get to the hiking trails we had to cross this suspension bridge that spanned Sugar Creek. I knew then that whatever ruggedness I would have to endure it would be worth it to see the beauty of this place.

Photo Credit: Glen Huizenga

I did climb the ladders out of Bear Hollow, I did climb the 140 steps on the way to Boulder Canyon and climbed up and down boulders on the way to Falls Canyon. I did traverse little streams here and there throughout the canyons. I did not fall, but next time I will remember to pack my hiking poles, just in case. But even without the poles, I would do it all again because the views were incredible.

For the second half of our hike, we did take the meandering path along the creek that led to the Narrows Covered Bridge, and the Lusk Homesite, but it also led us across little streams and into another hollow with boulders to climb over, and rocks to squeeze through, even when you get what you want, you end up compromising.

The Drive-In

The summer of 1974 I turned six years old, and at that point remained, blissfully, an only child. But within my mother grew my soon-to-be baby brother. This would be my last summer of blissful delight.

My mother worked second shift at the local hospital as a medical transcriptionist. Our mornings started slow, but our special time of day together was lunchtime. Most often those lunches were spent at home, sharing bowls of Campbell's Chicken and Stars soup, or grilled cheese sandwiches made with Kraft American cheese on square slices of Wonder white bread, and grape Cool-aid to drink in plastic Tupperware cups.

Once a week we would get groceries and have lunch out. In 1974 there were mostly local diners and greasy spoons in our town. We had one fast food chain restaurant, Burger King, located downtown next to the movie theatre. I loved to sit on the orange, vinyl topped, chrome swivel stool at the window counter eating my Whopper Junior, and crispy, heavily salted french fries, watching the people come and go from the theatre.

But my favorite place to eat lunch was the Dog n Suds drive in. The concept of a drive in restaurant fascinated me. You couldn't go inside - Car Hops Only, you ate in your car. The menu was on a stand next to your car, you pressed a button and spoke into a silver metal speaker to place your order.

I would sit in excited anticipation in the passenger bucket seat of my mom's metallic blue, 1973 Ford Mustang, while we decided what to have for lunch. Shortly after placing our order, the car hop would come out bearing a red rubberized tray laden with Charco Cheeseburgers and "World Famous" Coney dogs, heavily salted french fries, and frosty mugs filled with Dog N Suds root beer, and hook the tray onto my mom's partially rolled down car window. I would carefully unfold two large paper napkins and spread them over my lap, praying no ketchup or mustard from my cheeseburger would spill onto my perfectly matched Garanimals outfit.

Our town no longer has a Dog n Suds drive in, and hasn't in many, many years. A few of them still exist. On a recent adventure day I happened to be near one, and thought it would be fun, for old times sake, to drive in and have lunch. Unfortunately my adventure day was on a Tuesday.

At first I was extremely disappointed, but as I stood in the empty parking lot, I realized what I wanted wasn't the food, but the opportunity to photograph a piece of my history and to tell the story.

I never liked root beer anyway, except with ice cream in it.

The Hummingbird and the Jackhammer

"And curiosity is an impulse that just taps you on the shoulder very lightly and invites you to turn your head a quarter of an inch and look a little closer at something that has intrigued you."         ~Elizabeth Gilbert

Many of us are probably familiar with Elizabeth Gilbert's speech on The Flight of the Hummingbird and Passion versus Curiosity. Finally, somebody was saying that is was ok to not have a burning passion for one thing, it was ok to be interested in lots of things, it was ok to be curious and to follow that curiosity, much like the flight of a hummingbird flitting from one flower to the next, in the end cross-pollenating everywhere it goes.  

Photo Credit: Glen Huizenga

My husband, largely due to his job, is a "have one focus, one destination and get there as quick as possible" kind of guy, a jackhammer. Opposites do attract.

In Toronto I think we balanced out hummingbird and jackhammer personalities very well. I was in charge of the wanderings and curiosity during the day, and he was in charge of the  research and destination for our breakfasts and suppers. 

Monday, our first full day in Toronto, he steered us to Over Easy, a diner around the corner from our hotel, delightful omelettes. Over breakfast I unfolded our downtown Toronto street map, and picked a road for us to start our hummingbird flight on. 

Shortly into our walk I spied the above church tower through a break in the buildings. I knew my curiosity would lead us there, and what a marvelous turning of the head it was. St. James Cathedral and it was open for self-guided tours. 

I felt something move inside me in that church, looking at the exquisite stained glass windows, touching the wooden pews, worn from generations of hands passing along the wood. These details are lost in today's modern buildings. Awe-struck wonder is what I felt.  I don't fully understand my fascination with old buildings, and may never, but that feeling of awe is enough. 

The Distillery Historic District

My curiosity led us to The Distillery District, with only one directional hiccup, that caused a bit of a debate and to which I will admit I was wrong. This is the only time you will see those words printed on this blog.

Our family has a wonderful relationship with the distillery at home, so we were excited to try some Canadian spirits. Unfortunately, there are no distilleries in the Distillery District. Although the area is very touristy, I loved it. The old buildings were delightful to photograph. Artist studios were located in one of the buildings. I was particularly drawn to the work of artist, Jodi Wheeler. I had an engaging and informative conversation with her about her photo transfer process. 

We had lunch here. I would highly recommend the bratwursts. We were too early for the tour.

St. Lawrence Market

I saw a photograph of the outside of the main St. Lawrence Market building when I was doing that tiny bit of internet research on Toronto before we left, I knew we would have to go there.

Unfortunately the first day we tried to go they were closed - Closed Mondays.

So we went back on Wednesday. 120 vendors of every imaginable edible delicacy, including ostrich thighs. We were there early, shortly after they opened, so it wasn't busy yet. I can only imagine later in the day what a zoo it probably is.

I am the only olive lover in my family, I was swooning with delight at all these and would have liked to sample every one, but I doubt they would have mixed very well with the pancakes I had for breakfast.

Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres

The best slight turn of my head happened Tuesday night after dinner at Oliver & Bonacini Cafe'. My husband had heard about the restaurant from a fellow that he works with, like I said, always doing research. We decided to take a walk along Yonge street to see the sights at night and people watch. We approached a beautifully preserved theatre and I had to stop and take a few shots with my phone.

Then I noticed this sign on one of the windows. I knew what we would be doing Thursday at 5 p.m.

Lobby off of Yonge Street

The history of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre is a long and fascinating one, spanning nearly 100 years. It not only chronicles the magnificent design, architectural and entertainment highlights of an era, it also reflects the evolution and growth of our heritage and culture.

Winter Garden Theatre

Built in 1913, the complex was the Canadian flagship of Marcus Loew's legendary theatre chain. Designed by Thomas Lamb as a "double-decker" theatre complex, it contained the Winter Garden Theatre, constructed seven stories above the Elgin Theatre.

Elgin Theatre

The two theaters were of distinctly different personality: the Elgin was all gold leaf and rich fabrics, a formal theatre of plaster cherubs and ornate opera boxes. The Winter Garden was a botanical fantasy, its walls hand-painted to resemble a garden, its ceiling a mass of real beech boughs and twinkling lanterns. 

Winter Garden Theatre

With the decline of vaudeville, the Winter Garden closed in 1928. It remained closed for more than half a century, becoming a time capsule of a bygone era. The Elgin, with its grand domed ceiling, continued as a movie house, gradually slipping into disrepair with the passing of each decade.

Winter Garden Theatre

What a restoration treasure these two theatres are now. To read more about the history and restoration work click here. This hour and a half tour was the best $12 I have ever spent. If you love old buildings and history, and find yourself in Toronto, you must go on this tour. 

After the tour, the hummingbird and the jackhammer walked hand-in-hand back to the hotel to get ready for one last magical night in Toronto. 

Curiously Wandering Toronto

The sound of a trumpet pierces the early morning hour. Wait a minute! A trumpet! I open my eyes and hit the button on the side of my Fitbit - 4:30. Seriously! Who plays a trumpet at four-thirty in the morning? Knowing that sleep is now lost, I slip out of bed and tip-toe off to the bathroom. Too early to get up, I return to bed, settle myself on my wedge pillow, arrange the soft white sheet carefully over me, knowing I will be pushing the button on my Fitbit every fifteen minutes for the next hour and a half. Six o'clock a slightly more reasonable hour to get up when on vacation.

I love to travel, but I am a terrible sleeper away from home. Who am I kidding! I am a terrible sleeper, even at home. Too often on vacation, the beds are too hard, the room too hot, the fan too loud, or the neighbors next door decide to have an alcohol induced discussion at midnight. None of those things are a problem here in our studio suite on the sixteen floor of our historic hotel. One King West situated on the base of an old bank building is located on the corner of King and Yonge Street, on the edge of the Financial and Old Town districts in the heart of downtown Toronto. No, the problem here seems to be an early morning trumpet player. This might, slightly, be my own fault. When my husband noticed that one of the windows was ajar and wanted to close it, I told him to leave it open, I love hearing the street sounds. Sometimes you get more than you bargain for.

My husband and I are here to celebrate our 30th Anniversary. Toronto is quite the departure from our usual relaxing country vacation. I decided as we embarked on our thirty-first year together, we should push ourselves out of our comfort zone, see some new sights and work on discovering places together. He loves to do research on places, and know where he is going. I prefer to lace up my shoes, walk out the front door, and set off down the sidewalk, seeing what catches my eye as I wander along.

Already pushing us out of his comfort zone and knowing that I wanted to be able to celebrate our thirty-first anniversary together next year, I did do some research before the trip. There were a couple of places that I wanted us to visit, just as we had when we did a brief stay in Toronto twenty-seven years earlier. Casa Loma was at the top of the list, me being the lover of old, unique buildings. When I did some internet searching I found the City Pass which included entry to Casa Loma, CN Tower, Royal Ontario Museum, Ripley's Aquarium, and the Toronto Zoo, all these places for $58 US dollars per person. Even if we only made it to four out of the five, we had already saved quite a bit of money. I printed a map of downtown Toronto that I could easily fold up and put in my pocket, not entirely trusting that the Travel Pass plan that I had signed up for on my iPhone with Verizon would actually work, and then there would be no Google Maps. I also printed a map of the subway lines, although in the end we walked everywhere we went, Toronto being an easily walkable city.

We arrived in Toronto on Sunday afternoon, a smooth drive into the city and located our hotel quickly, thanks to Google Maps. The one dilemma we had was finding the valet parking for the hotel, not knowing it was behind the hotel, on a side street. So we first parked in a public parking garage and walked to the hotel, instead of driving around endlessly. After registering, we walked back to the garage, drove the car to the proper area and handed it off to the valet, always a weird feeling to hand someone you don't know your car keys and walk away.

Once unpacked, clothes stowed in drawers and hung on hangers, no living out of a suitcase for the next five days for this girl, I was excited to get out and explore. Neatly folded downtown street map shoved into my pocket, camera slung across my body, we were off to the waterfront. I grabbed our City Pass paperwork before we walked out the door, just in case we happened to wander down to the CN Tower.

Coming from Michigan and living within a mile of Lake Michigan, it takes a lot for a body of water to impress me, and honestly Toronto's waterfront felt lacking. So many people wandering around, all looking at the screens on their phones. I think my husband and I were the only ones without our phones in hand. It was also kind of dirty. We hurried along. Sighting the CN Tower, we made that our new destination.

CN TOWER

The City Pass helped us skip some of the line, but we were still eventually herded into lines like cattle. Having been to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the differences in the structures were quite apparent. Less space on the enclosed viewing platform, a much smaller open air viewing platform. A small section of glass floor at the CN Tower than people felt compelled to sprawl out on for lengthy periods of time.

Still, a delightful view of the city of Toronto, although looking back we probably should have done the CN Tower later in the trip so we could look at all the places we had been, as opposed to not knowing the places we were yet to go. I recommend visiting the tower once, but once is probably enough.

What caught my photographer's eye and history lover's heart was Roundhouse Park across the street from the tower. A 17-acre park that contains a preserved locomotive roundhouse which now houses the Toronto Railway Museum.  We never made it to the museum, that leaves something for next time.

Also located in Roundhouse Park is Steam Whistle Brewing, a brewery that sells only one beer, which is hard to fathom for somebody that comes from Beer City USA where the average is 40 different brews on tap. We did make it to the brewery the next day, at least I didn't have to ponder what to order.

By this time it was getting late, and we still had to eat supper. We wandered back to the hotel amid the traffic and horn honking...

**The rest of our wanderings of Toronto coming soon...

Celebration of Life

Last weekend my husband and I attended a Celebration of Life gathering for the wife of one of my husband's co-workers. We were gathering with the family to celebrate a gracious lady who passed away last fall, after a much too short battle with cancer. While the guys stood around talking about work, three of us 'spouses' sat at a long banquet table eating Swedish meatballs, and spinach feta dip with melt-in-your mouth homemade pita chips. While we caught up on each others' lives, we were also watching the photo slide presentation of Cathy's life on a large screen television. After the first loop of the presentation, the three of us made two observations: first, we were impressed with how many photos there were of Cathy and Charlie together; second, we needed to go through our own sticky page photo albums, and throw away some of the photos in them, before those photos showed up someday in our own Celebration of Life slide shows.

It's been quite a while since I have looked through those early years photo albums, so one day while everybody was gone, and it was only the dogs and me, I carried a dining room chair into our closet, reached into the back corner of a high shelf, and took down those dusty, sticky page albums. There are definitely some photos that need to go. My husband seemed to have a knack for taking surprise photos of me walking through doorways, I DO NOT want any of those in my Celebration of Life slide show. While looking through them, I across this photo, a 19-year old me in the late 1980's. Such a bad fashion era, when everything was oversized. Fashion aside, this photo was taken at the Hardy Dam, one of the dams I visited last week. This is still about as close as you can get to that fabulous building in the background. Needless to say this was disappointing.

I had much better luck at the Croton Dam, being able to view that from two different vantage points. This was the closest I could get. The explorer in me really wanted to go inside that building, but I know that isn't reality. I was jealous after I reading this sign.

To be able to ride an excursion train to this place, receive a tour, and have a grand dinner...Heaven! Can you imagine a time when this was an exciting adventure to many, as opposed to today's week long trips to amusement parks. I was born in the wrong era!

When my own Celebration of Life slide show plays someday, I want it filled with pictures of places I have been, things I have done. I want it to show that I lived this one glorious life to its fullest.

P.S.

For those who are wondering where the mysterious stairs from my last post led to, they led to this old building which is still a functioning elementary school.