Lessons

We've enjoyed all three of our long road trips, but we realized that one of the pleasant things about the first one, to Santa Fe, was that we took a full two weeks and were able to stay in one place -- Jamie Morris's lovely casita -- for nearly a full week. That was a bit further, of course, so the respite was perhaps more necessary. We would gladly have spent another day or two at the Speckled Hen and in Madison -- especially since the weather cooled off for a couple of days -- and definitely would have liked to stay at our pretty resort hotel in Door County for a longer period.

In general, while dual line highways are great for making time and getting from place to place, a trip is more enjoyable if you can spend more time on smaller roads. The operative phrase is "more time."

We got very little use from the large cooler we lugged around. We only needed to keep the two cans for feeding Ziggy, some limes for our gin and tonics, and the little bit of cheese and sausage we carried along. Our gray cooler bag, which we also had in the car, would have been amply sufficient for the purpose. So that's what we'll try next time.

Otherwise, everything functioned pretty well. Our system for packing and unpacking the car was quite efficient, and the luggage racks available most everywhere made it a breeze. There may be a way to pack so that we can take just one or two bags in on a quick overnight stop, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Can't wait for the next one!

Roadtripping

Some random observations after out trip:

Roads: Obviously an important component of a road trip. It's amazing the thousands of miles of paved road in this country, from turnpikes to scenic routes. In particular, the opportunity we had in Wisconsin and Michigan to travel some very beautiful two-lane roads with hardly any other traffic made for an enjoyable trip.

On the turnpikes and interstates, however, there was an amazing amount of work being done, though none of it really slowed us down. It's probably good that this much upkeep is going on.

The only real problem we had was Chicago, which was the most horrific traffic experience of my life. It took us fully four hours to get through Chicago. Freeway traffic leading into what we have since learned is an infamous interchange known as the Circle was at a virtual standstill. After an hour of crawling only a couple of miles, we saw an electronic sign that time to the Circle, just a mile away and almost visible, was 22 minutes, so we opted to take a free lane to get off the freeway. However, every other route was similarly jammed.

Not only was it Friday the 13th in early rush hour traffic punctuated by cloudbursts of rain, it was also the middle of Taste of Chicago. But, we were told afterwards, traffic at the Circle and in Chicago in general is always terrible. It's a shame. I've always had Chicago in mind as a great city to live in, but you'd have to be crazy to put with traffic like that. There's no excuse for inadequate infrastructure like that. It may be stupidity or incompetence, but I have to suspect it is simply corruption that accounts for lack of adequate planning. My brother said no one has any money to build new infrastructure and my retort -- unfair to him but part of my general frustration with our misguided political priorities -- was, Is that because we're such a poor country? The answer, obviously, is no, but way too much money has gone to making some people super-rich at the expense of a huge economic inefficiency that afflicts the millions of Chicagoans who have no choice but to put with hours lost in traffic.

Bottom line for me: Avoid Chicago like the plague. Don't drive near it or through it. I don't even want to fly in and out because of the traffic to and from the airport. It may well be a great city, but I can live without it.

Food: This may turn into another rant, but I'll try to keep it short. For whatever progress is being made in some trendy cities toward healthier eating, the food available to the traveler is by and large execrable. That fact lays bare the reality that except for those privileged enough to afford alternatives, industrial food production is the only choice for most people.

So dinner our first night at was at Roy Rogers at a rest stop. Our mantra was it keeps body and soul together, but in fact it is a bit soul-killing to eat food that bad. The rest stops in Pennsylvania and particularly in Ohio are new, modern, clean, efficient. But the ubiquitous fast food outlets are hopeless.

Things aren't much better elsewhere with bread, potatoes, grease and fat an important part of every oversized meal. Aside from the great but hugely expensive meal at L'Etoile, the best meal for me (aside from Darras's excellent grilling at the RV) was the fish boil in Door County, a refreshingly simple and hugely inexpensive meal. As I detail elsewhere, the food at Vinology was too gussied up to be completely enjoyable. By far the worst restaurant meal was the one on Mackinac Island at the Gatehouse, which is supposedly affiliated with the Grand Hotel. They should be ashamed of themselves and I would never trust them for anything after the poor excuse for a brisket sandwich they gave to us.

Global climate change: Visible everywhere in the dead grass and stunted crops brought on by a drought that has made one-third of the country an emergency area. Killing heat that limits normal recreation. Climate change deniers are in the same category as Holocaust deniers, imho.

A gloomy post, I guess. In spite of my reservations about this and that, however, it was a great road trip.

Roadfood

The final day of our trip restored some of my faith in the Sterns' guide to roadside eating. All three meals were at Roadfood sites and none of them involved hamburgers, barbecue or fried chicken.

We had breakfast in Ann Arbor at Zingerman's, a quaint little deli downtown that has become a major mail-order house for gourmet food. Granted you don't need the Sterns to tell you that Zingerman's is worth a visit, it was nonetheless among their listings for Ann Arbor. I had bacon and eggs and toast -- a decisive rebuke to the over-fussy efforts at B&Bs and proof that simple, high-quality ingredients with little adornment make for the best meals.

For lunch, we made a short detour to the New Sandusky Fish Co. in Sandusky, Ohio. It also gave us the chance to check off a fourth Great Lake, Lake Erie, for our roadtrip. I had targeted this Stern recommendation for lunch on our trip out, but the timing was off. The timing this time was not great since it came after our ample breakfast at Zingerman's, but the yellow perch sandwich we shared was really worth the detour. The amazingly fresh lake water fish had a lovely sweetness. Fried in a light batter on a roll with tartar sauce, it made a simple and satisfying lunch.

Although Hancock, Maryland is getting very close to home, we opted for an early dinner at the Park-n-Dine diner recommended in Roadfood. As promised, the restaurant offered a variety of tempting home-cooked Sunday dinners. I opted for the pot roast, which, though not as good as the one my mother used to make, was quite tasty and satisfying. The pie, however, was a huge disappointment. As Andrea said, if the Sterns don't specifically recommend it in their description -- which they didn't -- it's probably not worth ordering.

I still think the Roadfood focus is too narrow, but it certainly reliable within those parameters.

Vinology

This trendy restaurant in Ann Arbor has really good wine but the food was too fussy and complicated in a way too typical of wannabe gourmet temples.

The avowed philosophy at Vinology is to carry the best representative of each varietal -- surely an ambitious goal and open to discussion. But in fact they had some novel wines and everything we tasted was very good to excellent.

In particular, Andrea's flight of "The Whites Less Traveled" had some very crisp, flavorful wines, including one from Turkey -- who knew? My flight of reds, "When Dirt Tastes Good," was, well, a little muddier, but I got what I was looking for.

The white flight was 3 oz. each of Arneis, Riofava (Italy); Emir, Kavakledere 'Cankaya' (Turkey); and Gruner Veltliner, Turk (Austria, in spite of its name). The red flight was Pinot Noir, Arnoux (Burgundy); Cabernet Franc, Couly Dutheil ‘les Gravierres’ (Chinon); and Tinta de Toro, Familia Solana (Spain).

The food was not at all bad, just tricked out too much. The homemade burrata, for instance, was wrapped in some leathery casing and had too many herbs. A truly fresh, homemade burrata can stand on its own. I ordered the Radishes 3 Ways as a starter for the simple novelty of it, but the raw radishes were tough, not crunchy and juicy the way they should be, while the pickled radish was pretty good.

My main course, a Lombatello (hanger steak) alla caprese, was a tender enough piece of meat, but smothered in a balsamic demi-glace and some sort of pesto and surrounded by the tomato and mozzarella, while the crispy carbonnara pasta, baked into a crust, was heavy and probably superfluous. Too much stuff! Andrea's Alaska Sockeye Salmon was tasty but not exceedingly fresh. We were disappointed when our waiter said there was no ice wine for dessert, even though the online menu lists one and one of the Tripadvisor comments singled it out.

The restaurant had a warm cave (in the sense of wine cellar) like atmosphere, which was fine on a hot summer day and must be great in the winter. Service was prompt and efficient. It was full on a Saturday night and extremely noisy. All in all, especially for the novel wines, a good find.

Our first choice was Logan's, a New American just around the corner from Vinology, but when we called ahead the recorded message informed us they were on vacation just that week.

The scenic coastal trip along Lake Huron on the way to Ann Arbor was a culinary wasteland, but gave us the opportunity to have a delightful little picnic at one of the roadside parks on the lake. The cheese and crackers we had bought at Fromagination in Madison and solicitously maintained in our cooler served us in good stead.

Mackinac Island

A lovely little oasis of flowers and intimations of bygone luxury. We took the ferry (Ziggy's first boat ride!) to this island which has no cars (the only motorized vehicle above a couple of hp was an ambulance). Tons of bicycles, wagons, horse-drawn carts and buggies, and pedestrians like us.

We fell into a charming seaside patio -- the Carriage House at the Hotel Iroquois -- and had a nice drink sheltered from the madding crowd outside. In retrospect, we should have just stayed there or come back for dinner, but the unimaginative and very pricey menu, along with the rigid seating hours of 6:30 and 8 (we wanted 7 or 7:30) turned us off.

So we wandered through the island, which is a bit like Cape May with its restored Victorian houses. There is a big lovely lawn in front of Fort Mackinac where we joined dozens of other foot-sore tourists in just sitting and looking at the harbor.

The most striking thing about Mackinac Island is the flowers. The entry way into the Carriage House dazzled us with the array of beautiful flowers, but it turns out that is a signature of the island, with every house adorned with potted flowers or beautiful gardens.

Dinner was a disaster. After traipsing around the island and finding most eateries very downscale and crowded, we discovered that we could no longer even get into the Carriage House. We ended up sitting outside without a lake view at something called the Gate House, which claims to belong to the Grand Hotel, the famous old hotel sitting on the bluff of the island. The food was terrible and even the drinks were bad.

The wait for the ferry, which switches from half-hourly to hourly in the evening, seemed long, but all in all it was a delightful little excursion.

Lake view

A hotel room with a lake view is particularly exotic. Last night in Sister Bay in Door County we stayed in the Country Resort Hotel, a modest hotel in a spectacular setting overlooking Sister Bay, an offshoot of Green Bay. We looked across to the marina in the part of town around the edge of the bay. It was a soothing view, both from our room and the terrace they had next to the pool with chaises longues.

Tonight is even more spectacular as we look onto the blue waters of Lake Superior from our Holiday Inn Express Lakeview in Munising, Michigan. The drive here could have been through Sweden -- a straight highway cut through the fir and pine trees with an open blue sky overhead and fluffy gray clouds. For some reason, Michigan is on Eastern time, so it was still light at 9:30 p.m. It was also awkward when we called at 7:19 about the 7:15 sunset boat tour to see the picture rocks along the coast here.

Fish boil

A terrifically simple yet oddly satisfying culinary experience, this practice of Wisconsin lumberjacks turned into tourist attraction is really a must-do for a foodie in Door County.

We went to the Old Post Office in Ephraim, one of a handful of places that do a real fish boil more or less daily. We sat on benches in a circle out back where a wood fire kept a big black kettle boiling. Earl, the "boilmaster," came out and tossed in the potatoes and onions. After a while he came back out with a big pan full of Lake Michigan whitefish, trimmed and cut into serving portions. After explaining that the fish are added about 20 minutes into the boil and that they must cook 8 to 11 minutes, he set the pan, which had holes like a steamer, into the kettle and amused us with corny puns while the fish cooked.

The dramatic moment of the fish boil is when they throw kerosene on the fire at the end, making it flame up, enveloping the kettle, and causing the contents to boil over, removing all the scum and detritus that may have floated to the top. They take the kettle contents -- boiled fish, potatoes and onions -- and serve it remarkably efficiently, with drawn butter, cole slaw and bread.

I thought the fish was great -- very fresh, with a delicate flavor more robust than from poaching. They come along and remove the center bone and the most obvious pin bones, so I encountered only one or two smaller bones. (Andrea took the fried chicken option because she doesn't like bones in fish.) The only drawback was that Ephraim turned out to be dry so there was no wine or beer unless you brought your own.