What a month! There are a lot of pictures here, so feel free to skip the words. I'll try to be brief, but I always say that.
After Zach and Laura's wedding I drove straight for Notre Dame. It was good to be back on campus, lots of great memories there. Anyone want to drive down for a game this fall?
After staying one night with a friend, I continued on to Columbus OH. I drove through a pretty impressive storm to get there.
I wanted to check out Banshee, the new inverted coaster at King's Island, a short drive from Columbus where I stayed with a high school friend.
The plan was to spend a whole day at the park, but considering the completely empty waiting queues for every ride, an evening did the trick.
That meant I got a day to relax before hitting Cedar Point. Gatekeeper was built since my last visit, and I was impressed! B&M has been building these "Wing" coasters all over the place and they're a lot of fun.
The real occasion for going to Cedar Point was to give this guy a proper Bachelor Party. Joey was my roommate at Notre Dame and I was charged with Best Man duties. We had a great day.
The three Schmitt brothers in the stocks.
The ceremony was fantastic. Joey and Kaitlyn looked so happy! Being math majors, they had some fun with the place settings. At the head table all our answers were 0, unsolvable problems, or, like mine, non-existent.
The day after the wedding I drove north to Crooked Lake near Petosky, MI. I was there just before leaving for Ecuador and it was great to be back!
Lots of kayaking, good friends, great food, and, of course, all the water sports you can handle.
This little Boston Whaler is what towed me around most of the week. No wake, but the driver has to counter-steer like crazy.
I left my wakeboard across the lake while I was in South America. I went to reclaim it and took a few runs behind this beautiful boat. Such a huge wake.
There are two staples in Harbor Springs that everyone knows: Tom's Mom's Cookies, featuring Michigan's famous dried cherries, and Gurney's Pharmacy which cranks out hundreds of amazing sandwiches for lunch every day. I look forward to them every time I go.
It's so peaceful up there. Everything slows down, it's the perfect vacation spot.
This summer I got to know the extended family and we had some great days. This is wake surfing, a sport I haven't quite gotten the hang of. Still lots of fun.
My last evening I was able to get out on a fantastic ski boat. It's an '83 Nautique. Skiing it is amazing.
I also took a morning set before I left and was fortunate to have a pro photographer in the boat.
It felt so good to ski! Thanks to everyone on Crooked Lake for a great week.
I drove down to Chicago on the 18th to catch the Billy Joel concert at Wrigley. I've wanted to see him my whole life, and it was a blast.
He's looking a little older, but man, can he sing. I sang along with every song. So much fun!
On Saturday we went on a bar crawl with what felt like half of the city. It was a great time with great friends I hadn't seen in a while.
I spent five days in Chicago doing typical Chicago things. We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, walked along the lake, and, of course, went to Millennium Park to see the Cloud Gate (affectionately known as "the bean").
We also ate some incredible food. Eataly had just opened up their Chicago grocery/restaurant and this may have been the best pasta I've ever eaten.
We had to go to Uno for deep dish. Apparently Sam Adams brews an "Uno Ale". It was quite tasty.
After stashing my car in one of the few free parking spots in Chicago, I flew down to Charlotte to meet up with Zang, a fellow trombone from Notre Dame.
He had a WRANGLER.
Zang and I share a passion for roller coasters, so naturally we rode 23 different ones in two days. I had been to Carowinds before, but Zang needed the 13 new credits so we rode them all in a row.
This park is cool, it straddles the NC/SC border.
Our second park was Six Flags Over Georgia. Lots of great coasters, but unfortunately our timing wasn't great and we ran into a lot of maintenance issues. This is a great ride but it was down all day.
Our last day in Atlanta started with putting the top down on the WRANGLER and going to do some hiking.
I was so happy to see Catherine again (another trombone player from ND) and to meet her husband Jason! Great people, thanks for the hospitality!
After hiking we went to the World of Coke which had moved and been redesigned since I was last in Atlanta.
They have a lot of the same advertising and antiques they had before but they added a few new gimmicks like this vault that apparently holds the secret recipe.
I learned that in the 80s they tried to change the recipe for coke at the 100 year anniversary. They called it "New Coke" and it was a huge flop. They were receiving tens of thousands of calls a day to change the recipe back, so they caved. That's where the whole "Coke Classic" campaign came from.
The finale of World of Coke didn't change much, you can still try Coca Cola beverages from all over the world. I was happy to see Inca Kola from Peru, I drank this stuff on planes in South America all the time!
We finished off our Georgia trip with pizza and trivia with Catherine's group of friends. We were in the lead before the final question but couldn't seal the deal. Can you put these toys in order from earliest release to most recent? Hot Wheels, Legos, Pound Puppies, and Silly String. Good luck!
Had to get a picture of this at the Jamba Juice in the airport. This is Georgia people, the Peach State! Love the irony.
Back in Chicago, we went to Wicker Park for a street festival on Sunday afternoon. Good food, good beer, and good music. Good times.
Every Sunday at the Galway Arms a group of Irish musicians get together to play some classics. Sully goes every Sunday, and I was lucky enough to go two weeks in a row. Very passionate musicians and some great music. And, of course, a few pints of Guinness.
I spent my last day at one more park. Six Flags Great America in northern Illinois built Goliath since my last visit, currently the world's tallest, steepest, and fastest wooden coaster. "Wooden" is a bit of a stretch, but the entire track is built on traditional stacked wood, so it counts.
Wooden coasters that go upside down are all the rage these days, and this one does it twice. It's a fun ride!
Before driving home I had a great night out with my relatives that live outside Chicago. Helen was a great hostess, what a great way to end the trip!
I've been recovering here in Minnesota the last couple days, and tonight I fly off on my next adventure. Come back soon for pictures from Alaska!
Summer School ended last week so summer vacation has officially begun! We kicked it off a little early the weekend before with a trip to the Boundary Waters for Zach's bachelor party.
After all the gear was loaded we had breakfast at the lodge before heading out. We had six total, all high school friends plus Zach's brother, the best man. Here are Barry, Andrew, and Zach. Check out Andrew's...er..."awesome" hat.
Gearing up to push off. We camped for 3 nights. Ability ranged from essentially no canoe experience to seasoned veterans.
From left to right: Kyle, Andrew, me, Zach, Barry, and Matt.
Paddling to our first site. Matt was my partner the first day, and he was awesome. He learned so much on this trip: paddle strokes, how to deal with a capsized canoe (sort of), and a bunch of knots.
I would highly recommend a canoe camping experience to anyone who enjoys the outdoors. You carry all your gear between lakes on trails called portages which are measured in rods (a rod is one canoe length, 16 feet). Our shortest was 12 rods and our longest was 230. Here's Kyle doing the heavy lifting on one of our first portages.
There are a few ways you can get the canoe up on your shoulders, we did a one person lift for the most part. These canoes were on the heavy side, they didn't trust us with the kevlar ones.
The groom portaging on day 1
We didn't see any bears but hanging your food is still a good idea. Zach and Matt did some brotherly bonding getting the food up onto a weak branch.
This was the big portage. It's marked as 230 rods but with all the switchbacks it was quite a bit further. This is the only portage we took two trips to cover and we took turns with the canoe. Here I'm bringing it up the front side of the hill.
Day 2 was beautiful, we had lots of sun in the afternoon and found a great camp site on a lake to our selves.
We portaged back to Pine Lake to hike Johnson's Falls, a series of waterfalls that empty down into a creek.
At the top there was a beautiful calm pond that was great for swimming. Matt and Barry saw a moose before we all got up there.
On the way back down we took turns standing under the waterfall, it was quite powerful. With the water so high the current was pretty strong.
Bridal party minus Stuart in the run-out pool.
Day 3 was pretty rainy. We got hit once paddling across Deer Lake and again right after setting up camp. I was a little worried we might tip a canoe with all the wind but everyone did a great job and we made it without anyone getting dunked.
After our last night we packed up and had an early pick-up to get back to the lodge. We stopped in Duluth on the way home to get some hard-earned burgers at Fitger's Brewery. Delicious.
And this past weekend Zach and Laura tied the knot! It was such a great weekend filled with great friends and a beautiful wedding. Congrats to Zach and Laura!
I'm now on the road again, writing from Notre Dame and heading on to Columbus OH to stay with a high school friend. Come back soon for roller coasters, another wedding, water skiing in Northern Michigan, a concert in Chicago, and lots more shananigans. See you all soon!
