It’s the night, or the early morning before we leave. It’s hard to believe that we will actually unplug from our work and everyday lives for two whole weeks!

I’ve stayed up late watching the documentary 13th about the 13th Amendment and the history of the prison industrial complex in the US. I’m glad I’ll be around friends who will understand if this history, and present reality, makes me weep.

-Sophia

We met up at Fenna’s house, gathered all the last minute things and took care of the last minute tasks. Jav and Phoebe are in one car. Nadine and Alex are in another. Aya, Sophia and Fenna are in the third. Our first destination is Ohio to pick up Charlie.

-Sophia

Travel log. 8/12. Shopping, packing, on the road by 1 pm. Picked up Charlie Madison OH under the Sheetz shelter in the pouring rain. On the way to Ann Arbor.

-Nadine

Just tripped over the Pennsylvania border!

We arrived at Fenna’s uncle Mark’s house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, reconfigured the cars and gear. Mark cooked a great dinner and afterwards we circled up and shared the ways we like to connect with each other and how we were planning to use devices (cell phones, etc)

We left Mark’s at 8:30 and drove to Chicago. We walked through the park across from the Chicago Institute of Art to the Chicago Architecture Center where we met a tour guide who took us around to look at buildings and told us about downtown Chicago’s history and architecture.

Car Conversations:

What’s in Wisconsin?

Fields and fields of Corn

White houses

A Museum of it’s self

Today we left Mark’s friend Judy’s house to drive to Effigy Mounds State Park in Iowa. We got off the highway to take the country roads and see what Wisconsin is like. We crossed the Mississippi River. We took the Fire Point Trail through the effigy mounds, which are burial grounds of the native people who live here..

We woke up in the woods and got going early. We drove across the bottom of Minnesota to South Dakota to visit the Corn Palace.

We went to Pine Ridge to see the place where Nadine stayed when she was a teenager.

Visiting Pine Ridge, east of Wamblee

Jerilyn Elk goes out to this traditional structure her children built her at the site of Wounded Knee and tells the story of what happened at Wounded Knee, with pictures, newspapers and books she’s collected. She points and says over there is where they gathered, and there is where the tanks came, there is the mass grave. She’s one of few people left who speak traditional Lakota, which has a male and a female form. She shares this information about the massacre that happened in our great grandparents lifetimes, about subsequent protest/AIM occupation and attack that happened in our lifetimes. And the current poverty, addiction, bad health that people endure due to the devastation of the holocaust against the Lakota people (Lakota Oyate) \240or 7 Council Fires (Oceti Sakowin). She and her husband decided to do this in the 1990’s.

We slept at Cedar Pass campground in the Badlands of South Dakota, after hiking the Notch (some of us) and the Window trail (the rest of us).

We woke up early and packed up. We are getting very efficient at setting up and taking down camp and kitchen for 11 people! We hiked the Castle Trail in Badlands National Park, stopped for some views and extra hikes, took a look at the prairie dogs at the Prairie Dog Town, and headed out of the park. We stopped for ice cream and gas at Wall Drug which is in Wall, South Dakota.

Torture museum!!!!!!

Alex says he just can’t get the magnitude of the landscape into the photos. Being there is not like the post card.

Yesterday we drove through the Black Hills into Wyoming and set up camp at West Ten Sleep in Big Horn National Park.

Today, we woke up early and gathered up to figure out our plans for the day. Aya, Phoebe, Charlie, Fenna, Jav and Sophia hiked up to the top of the mountain to Mirror Lake. Nadine, Alex, and Mark hiked part way and then went back. Sini and Jacob went on a shorter hike to a waterfall.

Then we drove to Cody, WY

We had no cell service in the mountains so it took a while to get the photos of our hike up the mountain.

Altitude sickness made me lose track of picture taking. We got two campsites at the very top in the boulders of the Big Horn. Mark declared his swim was the highlight of his trip, so Nadine tried it. Swimming is wonderful, but the water was very cold, the ground slippery mud between the toes, and everyone in jackets liked at me likei was crazy. I said “Cryotherapy.” And they said, “Ah. Hm.” The high forest and lakes were beautiful, but the altitude gave me a headache that was hard to shake and I threw up foam. Ugh.

The colors came back as we drove down from 11,000 feet!

Sini, Jacob, Charlie, Aya, Sophia, Phoebe, and Jav went to the rodeo.

We got in late from the rodeo last night, to the site that Mark, Nadine, Fenna, and Alex had set up.

We left a little later this morning and drove through the Rocky Mountains

We rode the Bear Tooth Mountain Pass. We got out at 11,000 feet and took a picture. It was freezing! Just a little way down at 9,000+ feet we stopped at another vista where it was really warm. There were chipmunks!

We went to the town of Red Lodge to get Bear Spray and dinner.

It started raining gently on the way back over the pass. Most of us turned in early after our day of relaxing and listened to the patter of the rain on our tents.

We left early this morning from the campground near the Top of the World in Beartooth National Park, stopped in Cooke City, Montana for coffee and donuts. Then we drove into Yellowstone National Park.

We went to view the falls on Yellowstone River at the Canyon Village. It’s a rainy day!

We walked along the boardwalk over the sulphuric fields at Mammoth Hot Springs.

Mark asked if we got to hear the buffalo snorting. Yellowstone was lovely.

We arrived last night at Mark’s friends Tom and Suki’s house around 8pm. We did not set up our tents due to the hour, the air quality due to nearby wildfires, and forecasted rain. Sarah arrived last night.

We rode bikes 15 miles downhill through the piney mountains, over old train trestles and through tunnels on the Hiawatha Bike Trail. One tunnel was 1.6 miles long, dark and cold inside. We rode through it twice- at the beginning and the end. \240It was raining lightly the whole time. We were soaked and dirty by the end. Thankfully, Nadine stayed back and did 8 loads of laundry so we all had something clean, dry and warm to return to.

Nadine is enjoying seeing Sarah and the babe. Sarah says sleeping in a bed is different than sleeping on the floor or ground. She says tonight Nadine should sleep in the bed. It’s been nice resting up at Tom and Suki’s.

A group went swimming in Coeur D’Alene.

In the more, we said our farewells to Sarah, Tom and Suki.

We drove through Glacier National Park and then across Montana.

We took a detour to find a campground before the sunset. We drove down a dirt road to find the campground closed. Luckily there was another campground next to it. We set up camp and cooked as the sunset. Someone had left a pile of wood so we had a fire.

We drove across Montana and in to North Dakota. It hailed along the way and then there was a double rainbow. We got to camp just before dark and set up. It rained slightly. Some of us had a candy party, trying unfamiliar candies like the Idaho Spud, Big Hunk, Twin Bing (the most discusting of all), Rocky Road and Salted Nut Roll.

Driving all day!

We went through North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. We stopped for dinner at Basics Food Co-op in Wisconsin before driving the rest of the way to Ann Arbor.

We arrived in Ann Arbor a little before 2am, unloaded Jav’s car and went to bed.

Jav and Phoebe left in the morning to drive to Rochester and then Connecticut. Sini went to orientation for her first year of college in Michigan.

Fenna,