"Travel is only glamorous in retrospect."

The first three days you start thinking "I am totally going on craigslist when I get home. I am going to buy a trailer and I am definitely doing this more often but I am going to do it better and travel farther and longer, and really visit some of these quiet hidden gems in this country." The final three days you long for a dresser to put your clothes in and a reason to cook an elaborate meal.

This was my fifth trip across country. This was the first one I did with my mother.
Here was our itinerary*:
- Drove through Canada to Grayling, MI (an arbitrary location chosen by convenience). We were very fortunate and had no problems at either border.
- Crossed the Straight of Mackinaw into the upper peninsula and met Lake Superior for the first time. Ended up spending one night in Duluth because it was too sad and cold to stay there a second.
- Detroit Lakes, MN - the most pleasant and unsuspecting part of the trip, and awesome pizza!
- Bismarck, ND - had some steak and all the hotels were aimlessly overpriced.
- Billings, MT - they had a lot of pro-fracking paraphernalia around.
- Missoula, MT - I liked it so much, I was looking up houses on Trulia before dinner.
- Spokane, WA - I just wanted to see Adam.

(*This is a reference list for my mother, so she can stop asking me and start correctly identifying where we stayed...... love you, mom!)

The most giving friend I know. Packed up my entire trailer and included this fine Vespa!

The first night, we drove into a burning ring of fire.

Didji loved Lake Superior.

YEEEEEHAAaaaaw!

Bragging to Brian about having New Belgium and Shiner on tap.

We finally hit mountains!

 The view from our motel room in western Montana.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig...

Teddy and Aunt Tad are all settled in.