Visiting our "Maine" girl

La Casa de Leach

Right here it looks like Timmy is going to row, but we quickly learned that Carly was the only one that could successfully get us out to the sailboat.

He has his "boat" clothes on.

NED!!!!!

Niagara Falls/Buffalo/Upstate New York

Blue with his buddies.All of us giving love to Nikola Tesla.

Jojo and Mikey - two guys who don't check the blog that often and might not find out I put this picture up.

Such an artist, yo

Of course, Nick is missing

The newbie driving the bus.

We have been spending way too much time together.

Following our exodus from Middle America we arrived in in upstate New York ready to check out a natural wonder or two. The visit to Niagara Falls was great. We arrived around sunset and got great views of the water. We then made our way into Buffalo to find the origin of this whole "wing" business. We stumbled upon what may have been the original place to serve the the wings of buffalo dumped in barbecue sauce. The food was delicious and we began to wonder if we would ever see a bad meal on this trip. After a brief rendezvous with my old pal Mike and a couple of Aussies we hit to road for another trek as the northeast has proven to be our speediest endeavor while still possessing all the entertainment we could imagine.

Wisconsin

The Bus hits the Wild

Timmy battles the ballon.

Cheese curds

Attempting to catch dinner

Soccer match on the shores of Lake Michigan

After a great recharge in Lakeville we headed east yet again, this time towards Bailey's Harbor just north of Green Bay. Our friends from San Francisco, Joey and Jakie, agreed to put up the seven boys for a night and showed us great hospitality. We rolled in late in the night, as directions like, "Turn at the graveyard," were doing little to help us. The next morning we woke up in a beautiful wilderness scene and immediately threw ourselves into the surroundings. Clad with fishing poles and kayaks we went around the various bodies of water, basked in the sun, and caught absolutely zero fish. I'm not saying my friends are liars, but I don't think there was even a nimble to whole day. The absence of fish wasn't a big problem however, as Joey and Jackie cooked us up some bratwurst, cheesy potatoes, green beans, the whole deal. The meal was exactly what we needed to fill up our stomachs for what might have been the longest single drive of the trip - 750 miles to Niagara Falls.

Minnesnowta

So we finally went back to where our trip started - Minnesota - which had a lot less snow this time around. The plan was to roll into town Friday evening and surprise Timmy's little sister at her graduation party. We rolled into the Ryan household with the bus blaring music and all the boys excited to get taken care of by yet another family from across the U.S. Luckily, the word hadn't yet spread to Liz and she was very surprised, not only by our presence but by our attire as well. The party provided us with fresh food (no more macaroni and cheese right out of the box), clean clothes (everyone got a chance to finally wash their board shorts), and warm showers (apparently the lakes and rivers weren't cutting it). The next day we headed out to Elko Speedway, a Ryan family staple, to get our hands dirty painting kids faces. The day was a success as the bus did an excellent job converting itself into a booth for face painting and a Ryan took home the checkered flag. Hint - it was not DanPat. The next day we were able to see one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes, cruising over to Mike Forbord's for some wakeboarding, waterskiing, and whatnot. I guess we looked like we were having so much fun that he decided to jump on, bring our total back to about schevem. We all had to take it easy that night as the next day we were off to the land of cheese, WISCONSIN!!!!

Chicago

The Bean

Millennium Park

Warped images from the bean in Millennium park.

Mikey and Allison

Bubby, Gabe, and Tim thinking about how one bean could mean so much to a group of monkeys.

Nick, Alison and Tim smiling through the heat.

Chicago River

Alison's patio look out.

Jo-Jo makkin deep dish.

Gabe walking across the auditorium in Millennium park.

Nick and Fritz

Mikey waiting for the train into Chicago.

Sears Tower

The Bean in Millennium park, psychedelic man.

Matt, Gabe, and Nick trapped by the bean.

The Chicago skyline.

Bubby drove us about 200 mi through the night after St. Louis. We parked at an off ramp trucker sleeping section but were almost devoured by mosquitoes so we moved a few more miles down the road to sleep behind a McDonalds. We rolled into Chicago around noon and drove through the city for a few hours trying to find parking, wasting precious diesel. Finally we found a spot a few miles out of the center of town near a train station. We got on board a train headed towards the center of Chicago. When we arrived we were greeted with open arms by our friend, back to the roots companion, and host, Alison, who let us shower in her apartment and showed us the way to Millennium park. There we tried to wrap our heads around the huge metallic bean that warped Chicago's sky line. After the park we got some famous Chicago style deep dish pizza then went to a bar around the corner to watch the Celtics vs. Lakers, game 1, NBA playoffs where we met an attorney from Chicago named Fritz (sorry if I misspelled that man.) Alison took us in after the game in her awesome apartment where we could see Union Station and the Sears Tower. Unfortunately we lost one of our monkeys in Chicago, Matty D, who we look forward to seeing in New Jersey. He played us a song on the bus before we took off, brining out some emotional good byes that only the open road could cure.