Underneath the Lakes

Life under the lakes, away from the predacious phantom hounds that lurk in the back alleys of the G20 Summit section in Toronto, may not be as golden and gorgeous as the backcountry of Canada on the north shore of those same lakes, but leave it to Hoyle and I (of Hoyle,Tanner) to make a good time out of any time granted us. After being turned around by stiff-lipped Canadian customs guards, we drove back onto good ol’ American soil and headed south through Amish farmland until we rolled into Syracuse and laid our lowly heads down for the night. With the ‘Cuse behind us, and after a nice shower in a wonderfully abandoned hostel, we meandered through the rest of New York state and finally pointed our bug-stained grill towards the West. Later that day we reached the Buff’ (Buffalo) and lingered a mere moment gazing over the mighty maw of Niagara Falls, mingling with the cast of international sightseers that spend hours giggling in various languages and snapping more pictures of themselves standing in front of the falls than is necessary. For a couple of guys who’ve spent the majority of this trip in the quiet solitude of some of the east coast’s greatest wildernesses, sights like Niagara Falls, with so many crowded human bodies ogling the wonder of nature, wear on us quickly. After avoiding a few more Canadian border crosses poorly recommended to us by our GPS, we finally managed to flee the area and be on our way.

Next came Detroit – one of the saddest, most forlorn cities these two travelers have ever encountered. Our good friend, Brock Laborde, there shooting a movie for a couple of months, shared his upscale hotel room (minus a microwave) with us for the night. After being caught in a massive downpour and taking shelter in a doorway from lightening strikes exploding on the tops of the skyscrapers around us, we wandered the downtown scene in search of a place to get a few drinks. We forgot that this was Detroit. At times, it felt like the three of us were the only souls walking those streets. The place was a ghost town. There was not a single bar or club open in the midst of that mighty downtown area. Not a single one. If New York was the liveliest metropolis we’ve ever had the chance to play around in, Detroit was the most abandoned and left behind. Other than the corner market where the most wonderful little twinks were discovered, the only other facility open that night was the MGM Grand casino. Pockets full of poptarts and winnings on the slot machines, we drank a few mixed drinks and ended the night watching what might be the next best thing to come out of Comedy Central. Time will tell. The next morning B fed us breakfast on the top floor of the hotel and then kicked us out to prepare himself for a night with the ever popular band, We Landed on the Moon. 

Chicago came next and was a blur. We had time to pick up a deep-dish pizza and that was all. With ten pounds of dough, cheese, peps and sausage on the dashboard, we cursed through a few more tollbooths and slipped into Wisconsin. Another fire in another state park outside of Madison. Devil’s Lake State Park. Four out of six beers from a six-pack (the other two were stolen in the night off of our picnic table by beer bandits). In the morning Hoyle and I swam a mile out to some jumbled boulders on the side of a mountain in some of the most attractive water we’ve yet had the chance to dip in. Lounging on the shore we got the call that a friend of ours’ was trapped in the Chicago O’Hare airport due to a nasty layover, so instead of carrying on north, we turned back around and went to the rescue. 

And now, as I write this, the three of us, plus Cedars, are heading north again to Minneapolis in yet another rainstorm. The deep-dish, after 24 hours, has finally been finished. Tonight, we enjoy the flavors of another big city. I think we’ll be in Minnesota for a while. There are many wonders in this state to partake in, and there will be much tale to tell when it is all over. Both Hoyle and I are reaching the limits of our pre-planned budget, and the time to start heading south is nearing. But not yet. 

Canada: Off Limits - Forever

A quick update: No pics...

Canada is on fire. And Hoyle and I never made it into the burning country. Apparently there is a G20 Summit in Toronto, which is the very city we were aiming to visit. Apparently the country is on high alert and planning on battling a horde of protestors and potential peace terrorists. Apparently, Hoyle and I have lived a pretty eclectic and off-beat life style, out of the mainstream and with enough random adventures in cities and countries all over the world to make us look suspicious to Canadian authorities. Add a sordid past with a confusing criminal record sort of deal, long road trip beards, tons of miss-matched camping gear, a pseudonym website and very, very dirty boys and you’ve got every reason, as a Canadian federal customs agent, to pull those boys inside the interrogation room, separate them, berate them with irate questions, strip search their car, threaten one of them with arrest and eventually turn them around and send them back to America. On top of that, one of us is banned from ever returning to Canada for the rest of his life. Forever.

Basically, all this means is that instead of going over the Great Lakes and entering Minnesota from the north, we are now going under the Great Lakes through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. Oh yeah, and also that Canada is off limits (forever) to one of the members of the Hoyle,Tanner team. Cedars, however, was given complete clearance. The Canadians welcome him through and through. 

All in the Upstate

The people who live in these mountains hike hard. These are no meandering lower Appalachian trails with gentle climbs and switchback ascents. When you climb up to the highest peak in New York state, Mt. Marcy, you go straight up its bristling fur-covered knobby backside. The small shrub pines choke the trail, at times making it hard to see ten feet ahead of you. And if the trail isn’t covered in scented stinging pine needles, its littered with boulders of all sizes, trickling water, deceiving quicksand-like marsh pits or uncut trees draped across the path – all ascending with radical steepness. If your burning thighs and calves don’t slow you down, the incessant black flies just might. Still, Hoyle and I, along with Cedars, climbed ever onward.

Lush greenery abounds in these mountains that spill water in every direction. We were always crossing streams, directly from boulder to boulder or over long swinging bridges. At the summits you enter an alpine climate, as the mountain steward told us, where the fragile plants live in an ecosystem not unlike those found in the artic tundra of Alaska and northern Canada.

On the back side of Mt. Marcy we met up once again with the fabled Hudson; this time at its headwaters in Lake Tears of the Clouds, where it is as fresh as it ever can be before flowing south and dumping its acquired collection of gurgling brown refuse into the ocean not far past the Statue of Liberty. But up on the mountain, that part of its story is very far away. Up on the mountain, everything is very far away. The endless miles stretch out to a vanishing horizon of fading green peaks. This is New York at its finest, at its most beautiful.

The chipmunks wrought havoc on Cedars’ psyche, always one step out of his reach. Nonetheless, he cannot help but give chase each and every time. Just as Hoyle and I (of Hoyle,Tanner) cannot help but continue to pursue the open road. She is a wench that refuses to offer satisfaction, always cunning, always calling. Her treasures are endless. Her lessons invaluable. But not unlike every other thirsty road-weary traveler, we pay our six pesos and enter her bedchamber – time and time again.

Now the Adirondacks slowly disappear behind us. Ancient barns and farmhouses on rolling forested hills surrounds us. Canada lies before us. We make one last stop at the site of the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics for some delicious New York chili and beer. With bellies full and bodies black fly bitten, we throw ourselves at the Mounties and the great Ontario lands beyond. 

New Times in Old Forge

Within an hour after driving into Old Forge, an upstate New York hamlet in the Adirondack Mountains, someone asked us if we’d like to raft a river in the morning. Apparently, the Hudson wasn’t done with Hoyle and I yet. On Friday morning, we were underneath the river riding a subway train from Manhattan into Hoboken. On Saturday morning, we were on a whitewater inflatable raft with the two owners of the ARO River Company paddling Class III and IV rapids in the headwaters of that same river. Welcome to Old Forge. Welcome to good times. In the winter, Old Forge is a quiet blanket of snow-covered trails and a haven for thrill seekers on snowmobiles. In the summer, it’s a lost paradise for seasonal folks looking to get away from the surrounding big cities. Basically, it’s a quintessential summer town. For 3 – 6 months in the middle of the year, the population triples. Still, it never has a feeling of being overcrowded or stuffy. Walking from bar to bar at night, one might encounter a black bear or a startled deer just as likely as one might encounter some tipsy stumbling local. For two nights, Hoyle and I were one of these locals. 

Our sleeping arrangements found us tucked into what was once the town’s icehouse back in the early 1900’s. From there, we ambled with our hosts to the taverns around the corner, wherein two nights we were on a first name basis with half the people there – the bar tender, the owner, our river guides, and several motorcycle bikers passing through, among others. This was small town. This was familiar to us. In a place like this age isn’t the standard for judging demographics of a local haunt. Instead, it’s camaraderie and storytelling, a thirst for whiskey shots or local beer and a mutual enthusiasm for adventure. By the end of the night, everyone knows your story and you know theirs. You’re all friends and you genuinely mean it when you say you’d like to see each other again someday. I guess, in a way, I finally understand that song from the show Cheers.

This country is wild and still loosely untamed and largely overlooked by the rest of the nation. It has a feeling of being tucked away, but unlike some pockets of civilization in the Appalachians for example, these aren’t rednecks or backwards people. They love their country, they attend its top schools, and they love the land – fishing and hiking and boating and sharing a spirit of cleanliness that comes from the fresh breeze that blows in from the high mountains. I don’t think they mind being sort of forgotten. And it feels good to be among them, forgotten along side of them, in a place well worth discovering.

Still, as refreshing and pleasant as it is here, the adventure must continue. This place will be remembered well along this journey. But for now, Hoyle and I are prepping to head back out to the trail. Our plan is to spend a couple of nights in the northern part of the Adirondacks, do a loop trail up to the highest point in New York – Mt. Marcy, and then continue on. It will be time to head west then. Perhaps into Canada. Time will tell. And destiny. And the spirit of adventure. And all that jazz.

New York State of Mind

New York City. Oh the times! Nowhere else does the current of life ebb and flow in exactly the same way as it does in NYC. From our second story headquarters on 14^th street in Manhattan, where the stamens fill the air with pollen and the subway trains vibrate up the pipes and through the toilet against one’s tender cheeks, we headed off each day into a land of merriment and mirth. “It’s a concrete jungle out there, kids,” Hoyle and I’s (of Hoyle,Tanner) fathers used to tell us. We belittle them no longer for what seemed like wise folly. Their lessons have been learned. In the days that followed our trip from Hoboken underneath the Hudson River, dear Hoyle and I sampled that concrete jungle/good times life.

Cedars entertained the ladies over at the Chester Animal Boarding facility in New Jersey while we were wined and dined by the Big Apple herself, as well as our wonderful friends who call her home. Following are some points along the adventure well worth mentioning…

- We ate the red meat pink stink absolutely delicious hamburgers and drank the light and dark beers (the only options) of an old wood-lined little bar called Corner Bistro. It doesn’t matter how you order the boigies – they always come out bloody. Just get your vampire fangs ready. We also dined at Los Hermanos – the most quintessential real-to-life Mexican food I have ever eaten and heralded by Anthony Bourdain as one of New York’s best-kept secrets. Can’t forget about Two Boots either – a pizza joint boasting a mixed recipe combination from Louisiana and Italy.

- We spent five hours wandering the halls of the New York City Natural History Museum, not nearly seeing it all or studying all of the collections or reading all of those interesting historical facts; but still there’s no beating the life-sized full fossil skeletal displays of a bus-long diplodocus and the king of all carnivores, the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex. Those old bones make you feel really small and stir up a sense of wonder parallel to no other awe-inspired feelings.

- We played pool in an underground gaming tavern alongside scores of ping-pong tables, shuffleboards, chess games, really cheap PBR and a live jazz band.

- We ran what was supposed to be a 5k corporate sponsored race in Central Park. The 5k turned into 6, 7 and 8k because we decided to sprint from the apartment to the park, not recognizing that the distance was over three miles until we stopped a stranger and got the disheartening news (the race was starting in ten minutes). A cab ride got us to the park, where we ran its length searching for the event grounds. But when we arrived the race had already started, and the five thousand runners, including our Virginia who was legitimately running with her team, were nowhere to be found. So what to do but to run the course backwards until we met up with the throng. But then of course we had to search that said throng of thousands, face by face, until we found her. Unfortunately, a text told us that we had missed her and so, turning around, we filed in with those corporate athletes and powered past them all until Virginia’s backside appeared, where then we all three finished proudly. Afterwards, we appropriately partied down at her company’s food tent.

- We sipped aged absinthe topped with blue flames at a tiny little hole-in-the-wall bar while listening to Mick Jagger sing the blues from his retirement home in the juke box. Hoyle then proceeded to find a best friend, a pantsuit friend, two regular friends and a best bartender. Hoyle was on fire.

- We trekked along a new park in the city – an elevated footpath that was once a rail system ferrying New Yorkers by train in and around the convoluted maze of concrete spires.

- We walked endlessly, always. Other than the subway system and the occasional cab, your feet are your main source of transportation. The city that never sleeps is always on the move, its denizens always in transit, to the next bar, to the next restaurant, to the next slice of pizza. While walking one has the chance to encounter motorcycle gangs on matching cross-bikes doing tricks in the streets, police cars disguised as taxi cabs and streets that have been cut out of buildings, leaving them misshapen and crooked and oddly interesting. We walked through Columbia’s campus, Brownie’s Café, Washington Square, to Magnolia Bakery and through St. John the Divine Cathedral – one of the most inspiring and magnificent structures in the city. We even walked past the diner which boasts the façade of the show Seinfeld.

- We watched several episodes of King of Queens and got valuable tips on how to both live the simple New York life and be a great and humorous working-class husband.

- We ate and drank and showered more in these last five days than we did in the length of this whole road trip. Those New Yorkers don’t sleep. They live like kings and queens. In New York City, there is no other way. You either live, or you get washed out of the city like the gutter trash that collects in the corners of the streets every night.

In the end, we’re both happy and sad to leave the city. Our friends there are priceless and the absolute best in the world; however, all those car horns and bus brakes and nonstop ultra city sounds have Hoyle and I longing for some peace and quiet, for the soft crunch of a forest trail underneath our hiking boots. Tonight we’re bound for upstate New York, where we’ll spend some time in the Adirondacks – again under the stars and on the ground. Our budgets seem to be holding up. So far so good. No need to spend the compass and point the Jeep south just yet. For now, we push on.

Sorry for the lack of pictures along this part of the journey. New York kept us too spellbound, and often a little too tipsy, for us to find the time to pull the camera out and snap some quality pics. (This is why we have been forced to make this particular blog entry more literary instead of visual) Maybe next time. In compensation, dear sweet Hoyle and I offer the following road trip factoids:

1. Cedars’ namesake, our friend Stephen, forcefully pushed an elderly woman down on top of some other patrons on a city bus.

2. Virginia earned herself a trail name for her spectacular ability as a New York City host. From now on, we shall call her “The Nards”. She is also a hotshot pool shark and should be invited to join your team. But be weary of playing against her unless you’re looking for one helluva challenge. 

Downtown Doo Doo Brown

Manhattan in the summer. Dark rain clouds hover overhead. But nothing falls. It just remains miserably hot and sticky, like the best of Louisiana. Our backs start to get slippery, the fabric of our shirts stick to our skin, as we enter the big city with our hiking packs on, carrying all that we’ll need for the week. This time, cooking pots and flashlights and survival gear get replaced by fancy shirts and extra pairs of shoes and designer jeans. New York City style. So far so good. Our host, Virginia, has a quaint little studio apartment in the middle of it all. There’s just enough room for our sleeping arrangements - her queenly bed, a pull-out bed from the couch and a folding floor mattress. The once hardwood floor is just a mattress floor now, a carpet of blankets and pillows and sleeping bags and such. Outside the world is alive. Down the street there is a donut pub, a 24-hour porn store and a host of other eateries and bars. The entertainment is endless. Our friends are wonderful. There are museums to see, theater to watch, restaurants to taste and a load of other adventures we are going to have to pack into the course of this one week. Poor Cedars, out in the countryside of New Jersey. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.

The Turnpike Terrors

Hoyle and I are only mere moments from our leap off of the edge of eastern New Jersey into the mangled and maniacal maw of Manhattan and greater New York City beyond. But first, let’s reflect…

They say it takes about a month for an AT thru-hiker to walk the Appalachians across Virginia. Dear sweet Hoyle and I drove across the state in about six and a half hours. We had a date in the country’s capital and couldn’t be late. The lush mountains turned into hills and those into sweeping horse farms made of white fences and micro managed landscapes. Lighting bugs are like wild fires out there, like misplaced, blinking stars in every direction. Strobes of tiny green lights like a host of playful animals constantly blinking in the woods. In the end, we of course missed our date in DC and opted instead for our first hotel on the trip. Refreshing. The next day we wandered into busy Georgetown not far from the president’s house and lounged around for most of the day people-watching in the district. A quick nap on the lawn near the Potomac River and then a walk to a friend’s pizza bistro where we drank some of the strongest beers I have ever chanced to sip (and ate some delicious oven baked pizzas). From there, our host, Ben, introduced us to the DC nightlife. We met a real friendly bartender in a seedy bar where they serve you a whiskey-coke by giving you a plastic cup, a bucket of ice, a can of Coca-Cola and a small bottle of Jack Daniels. You do the rest. The bartender indulged us in stories of his childhood selling heroine (pronounced “hair-on” by him) in the old Washington DC neighborhoods not far from where we were drinking. Hookah bars. Rooftop bars. Lots of sidewalk banter. Late night diner. We meant to see a few museums the next day but just didn’t have the energy for it.

Cedars was treated to breakfast in the woods outside of town and then we headed north. We then proceeded to be violated by the New Jersey turnpike system, which ate our dollars and quarters like a hungry savage road troll. We stopped to watch a movie and relax from the madness. Finally, we made it to the country, to the Pennsylvania/New Jersey state line along the Delaware River.  People, this place is paradise. So incredibly quaint, so romantic, so fussy, so cute. Little villages nestled in and among the mountains and along the river. Lost of old stone barns, lots of homes with Sotheby’s signs outside. Lost of expensive bed and breakfasts. Tubers on the river. Teams of road bikes hugging the curves of the roads. Covered bridges. American flags. Herds of deer in every direction. Geese. Geese. Geese. We weren’t sure we ever wanted to leave and also couldn’t understand the spell that this place had on us. We eventually found a secluded hiking trail and camping spot with advice from some local rock climbers and walked into the woods after sunset to sleep under the thickly canopied trees. 

Saturday we ambled through the countryside of New Jersey in no hurry and with no particular aim or destination. We searched out old historic land markers or points of interests – all or most of which were disappointing. Towards the evening we found ourselves in the northern part of the state, again near the Appalachian Trail and in the mountains. We pretended to be hikers and slept in the basement of a church, washed our clothes there, took some showers, shot some hoops and wandered out to the only bar in town to take in some live music and some odd New Jersey culture. 

And now we stand on the cusp of the big city. Soon, we’ll separate from Cedars and the Jeep – one in a kennel and one tucked away in a parking garage respectively. Then it’s to the subway system we go. We press on and ever on. Until the budget demands otherwise. Until the adventure runs it course. Ever on.

The Mt. Rogers Turn-Around

ICP says there is magic everywhere. Well, true or not, there is certainly magic out on the trail. Hoyle and I(Tanner) have just spent three glorious days in the Mt. Rogers wilderness north of Damascus, Virginia – each passing moment full of myth, merriment and adventure. Tis the ingredients for fortune and glory, kid – fortune and glory.

The night before our trek, we found ourselves in the arms of the most wonderful caretaker to ever walk these Appalachian hills. Wearing a combination of steel-tipped cowboy boots, mesh camouflage pants, a soccer jersey and Ozzy Osbourne tinted sunglasses, we dubbed this gentle anti-government, anti-law enforcement, long-haired, puss-filled and bleeding eye ball character – Crazy Horse. Neil Diamond couldn’t have created a better hero himself. Crazy Horse welcomed us into the Mt. Rogers Outfitter hostel, where after giving us a tattered towel and a blanket, he directed us to a tiny room with what looked like two massage tables for beds. Then he retreated to a wooden cage where he slept on the floor in the middle of a pile of trash and loose debris. 

At that same hostel we met our first AT thru-hikers, the Prospector and Survivorman, two kids who had worn themselves out with a strict and regimented trail pace from the beginning of the trail in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and who had both decided to cash it in, get tickets back to their respectable homes and try the AT another day. They were good kids and could not be faulted for their mish-mash attempt at thru-hiking. The AT takes down 9 out of 10 attempted thru-hikers every year. It aint no easy thing. Anyway, we talked gear, swapped stories and ended the night watching one of the most acclaimed AT documentaries ever made – “Trek”. Who knows, maybe it was enough to change their minds and get them back out there. If not, they live on to fight another day.

 And then it was Hoyle and I’s turn. Two buns ready for the oven. Two cupcakes eager for the pantry. You get my drift. We headed into the Virginian highlands, with Mt. Rogers always looming in the distance. We were finally moving some miles with our own sturdy hiking footwear. That first night we stayed in an AT shelter near the summit and learned two valuable lessons. 1. The trail to the highest peak in any given state is not always a good hike, and may even be the crappiest hike of that particular trip (Virginia’s highest peak certainly fits this description). 2. There are two kinds of people – those who are generally interesting and who participate in a sort of give and take of valuable life experiences and lessons, and those who just don’t really seem to have anything of significance to pass along. The guy who slept in the shelter with us that first night was of the latter variety. An older guy with a group of teens who decided they didn’t want to stay in the shelter because of that leech was a member of the first variety. We dubbed the leech, Wild Horse, because at one point he described himself as such, relating his life to the wild ponies that live in those mountains. He also tried to tell us that Garth Brooks wrote the song Wild Horses, instead of it really being the Rolling Stones (he had many such things to tell us). He also woke up in the middle of the night screaming because he saw Cedars standing over him and thought he was some sort of wolf or demon. “You don’t belong in here!” and “Get away from me!” are a couple of the lines we heard him shouting in his absolute terror. Keep in mind he had met Cedars hours ago and had hung out with him and us since that meeting. By the time Hoyle and I were awoken by a real group of wild horses in the morning, our friend had already gone, heading on down the lonely trail. It was best that way.

With no timetable and no itinerary, we started off into day 2. Grandiose weather, leisurely hiking, we went from trail to trail, trying different routes that took us to different altitudes and vistas – mountain overlooks, bald patches with scattered boulders as big as houses, blooming rhododendrons, dark fur trees, golden green fern carpets. Towards the end of the day we stumbled upon a fenced-in clearing where sat a husband and wife on the back of their pick-up truck. Little did we know, but we were about to be caught up into the world of “trail angels”, wingless do-gooders who seek out hikers to bestow upon them all sorts of various niceties with no obligations expected on the part of the hikers. These particular two bestowed their niceties in the form of hotdogs and beer and quaint conversation. Those hotdogs were like savory steaks to Hoyle and I, and after tugging three of them down, we wrapped up our dialogue in the grass, popped open another can of natty ice and hit the trail again, full as ticks full on blood.

That night we left shelter camping behind and, nestled in between giant grandmother rocks, we pulled our sleeping bags close to the fire and watched the endless display of satellites, shooting stars, nebulas and galaxies overhead. Coyotes sang all night in the distance, and the center of the Milky Way moved slowly across the sky. Until the rains came. At first a few drops. And then a few more. The stars disappeared and the mountains wept. Hoyle and I moved under our separate rain shelters and slept with the tip-tapping sound of water pellets on the material covering our heads.

And then the barking started. It was light out. Morning. Cedars was after something. Like a couple of crab-snails we burped out of our cocoons to find out what all the hustle and bustle was about. There in the grasses around our campsite stood an assortment of fifteen wild ponies, watching Cedars’ manic antics, watching our wide-eyes appear from inside our sleeping bags, and taking it all in stride. The rain had slackened off a bit. The ponies were a curious lot. Short little miniature things with long unkempt manes and pot bellies. Two foals, maybe a week old, watched curiously from their mothers’ sides. Cedars barked and barked until it was evident the horses didn’t care. And then he barked a bit more. They studied us for a while, even let us mingle among them and scratch behind their ears, and then, with a few last barks to see them off, they turned and headed for the heels. So we did too.

The rain came back and we hiked out of those mountains like a couple of wet paper bags – but enjoying every minute of it. Back at the state park, I snuck Cedars into the showers with me. We both got a nice shampooing. Hoyle and I stripped down our gear and packed it away. We were then interrogated by two little girls, twin sisters, inquisitive and cute, about ten years old, who asked us about everything under the sun. We gave them what answers we could. They still had more questions. Always more questions. They won. We were exhausted. They said goodbye to Cedars one last time, Hoyle entered Washington DC into the GPS, we cranked the V8 and with a sweet purr like a congested whistle pig from the engine below, we headed north. Clean as whistles. Through the land of Roanoke and the scattered pine.

MIAGO DRAHF, we say to the naysayers.