A River House and A Lake Boat

On Friday morning, I got up and worked for a few hours while Faith did crafts and hung out with my Mom. As afternoon arrived, we packed up, bid my parents farewell, and got moving once again. This time we were headed to Dubuque for a weekend with my closest childhood friends for a trip that had taken months upon months to finally get planned and straightened out. It was to be the first trip where all four of us and our ladies could get together for more than just an evening. Suffice to say, I was very excited to see them and catch up for the first time in several months. We headed up to Dubuque, stopped at a grocery store to get some supplies, then got to our lodgings on a houseboat anchored in a small backwater off the Mississippi across the river in Illinois. That evening, Faith and I cooked burgers, and I managed to set the grill almost completely on fire. Thankfully, no patties were harmed, and I was able to douse the flames without issue. Once the grill had cooled, we made and served surprisingly delectable burgers. We spent the rest of the evening admiring a beautiful sunset while taking a dip in the hot tub on the roof of the boat. Earlier in the day, we had noticed that there were a lot of spiderwebs on nearly every exterior surface of the boat. I had figured that there would be some spiders, but nothing prepared me to see the large, mean-looking spiders upon every web. None of us like spiders, so we were careful to step around them as much as we could and use something other than our limbs to swat them away when necessary. As the moon rose, we went back inside and hung out for a while longer before crashing into our cozy beds.

The next day, we were joined by the last couple who could not make it the night before and quickly sped into Dubuque to explore the weekly farmer’s market and a recommended cafe before we headed into Galena, a small, touristy town a little ways off the Mississippi in Illinois. We spent the rest of our afternoon poking through shops of all kinds to see what they had to offer. I tried circus peanuts for the first time and almost immediately determined that I do not like them… there’s something about them being called “peanuts”, colored orange, tasting like bananas, and having a very strange texture that just doesn’t jive with me. After making it through most of the stores, we hit Vinny Vanucchi’s for some pretty good Italian before heading back to the houseboat. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out, having an excellent dinner of gyro bowls, and taking another dip in the hot tub. Seeing as it was still early in the night and we had lots of energy, we elected to split up: the men went to a local casino while the ladies stayed at the boat and had some wine. At the casino, we wandered around, people watched, and managed to only lose a collective $2 on the slots. We followed up our losses with a round of bowling before heading back to the boat. The rest of the evening was uneventful, and we all went to sleep rather tired from a long day of activities.

The next morning, we got up and made a quick brunch of pancakes and sausages while collecting our things and cleaning up the boat. We went back into town to do some thrift store shopping before finishing our time together at a local brewery. We all bid each other farewell and hit the road towards our respective destinations. They were all headed back to the Cedar Rapids area, but Faith and I were headed east to see some of my family in Indiana. We worked our way across the bottom part of Wisconsin before entering Illinois and skirting south of Chicago, around the bottom of Lake Michigan, and to the small city of South Bend, Indiana. We met up with my great-uncle(ish), Gary, and his son, Nick, to catch up with them for the first time in several years. We met them at a local restaurant and chatted with them over a bowl of bibimbap, a superb Korean dish. We followed them back to their place and continued chatting into the night until we called it and nodded off in our van.

The next morning, we talked with them briefly before saying goodbye and hitting the road again. We didn’t have anything planned until the evening, so we decided to backtrack slightly to hit Indiana Dunes National Park along the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The area is pretty… but it doesn’t really compare to any other national park that we’ve been to. So, we walked along the beach, dipped our toes in the water, and kept driving. We more or less followed the lakeshore east and north until we got to South Haven, MI where we killed some time at a thrift store before heading east to Kalamazoo to meet some close college friends. Bryce and Anna were still at work (lame), so we hung out at a coffee shop until it was time to meet them at Anna’s apartment. They took us to downtown Kalamazoo where we caught up over some incredible tacos, margaritas, and a few games of mini-bowling, which was surprisingly difficult. We haven’t seen them for nearly a year, so it was great to hang out and talk about everything that has happened in our lives. As night came, we re-parked our van in a more secluded part of the apartment’s parking lot and got some sleep.

Though many of the locals passed our van that morning, none said anything as we awoke, got ready for the day, and headed out without incident. We drove east to Battle Creek and spent a good chunk of our morning exploring Horrocks, a huge hybrid between a grocery store and farmers market that had so many varieties of almost everything: olive oil, vegetables, fruit, wine, beer, meats, cheeses, and so many other things. We then spent some time working at the neighboring Barnes & Noble before heading back to Kalamazoo to meet up with Bryce and Anna again. They took us to Bryce’s parents’ lake house where we spent a few hours out on the boat before the sun set. During that time, they tried to teach me how to wakesurf. Apparently, I am neither a natural nor merely decent at water sports as I was wholly unable to get up on the board and spent most of the time getting my sinuses thoroughly cleared as was drug through the lake. This went on for a while before I called it quits and let Faith take a turn. She got up on her first try. I was a mixture of proud, ecstatic, annoyed, and depressed at this, but mostly happy that she didn’t have to endure the pain I went through… at least until some of her subsequent attempts. Bryce and Anna both had no issue showing off their board skills and giving us something to strive for. As the sun hit the horizon, we headed back to their house, had some brats, chatted for a while, then bid them farewell and drove back to Anna’s apartment. We again slept in our van in the parking lot and thought nothing of it, but some of the locals apparently did.

The next morning, just as we were getting up, I peeked through the blinds and saw the front of a police cruiser a few feet away. Oh joy. I hopped up into the front seat and started a dialogue with the officer (one of three) standing outside our minivan.

Me: “Good morning”
Officer: “Why are you here?”
Me: “We’re visiting a friend who lives at these apartments.”
Officer: “And you’re sleeping in your car?”
Me: “Yes, she doesn’t have a spare room for us so we’re sleeping in our van.”
Officer: “Well some people here reported a suspicious van. You can see why it would be suspicious for some people to be sleeping in their van here. You look like you’re squatting here.”
Me: “Okay…but we aren’t squatting, we’re visiting our friend who lives here.”
Officer: “You know you’re on private property, right?”
Me: “Yeah…”
Officer: “Are you going to leave if the property manager tells you to leave?”
Me: “Yeah…”
Officer: “Okay”

The officer walked back to his vehicle and the other officers to theirs. Why they needed three officers in two cruisers to deal with someone sleeping in their van is a mystery, especially when there is plenty else going on in Kalamazoo they could be dealing with. We got ready and headed into town to a coffee shop to spend the afternoon getting some work done. Anna recommended the coffee shop to us as it had a drink that Faith and I were both very interested in trying. We made our way over there, found a table with an outlet, and ordered their coffee and coke drink. The drink was a shot of espresso poured over coca-cola and ice. It sounds weird, but it was delicious and gave me plenty of caffeine to stay focused and a bit jittery for the rest of the morning well into the afternoon. As evening approached, we headed to see a childhood friend of mine that lived just southeast of Kalamazoo in Portage, MI. We caught up with Will and Christina over some excellent homemade Chow Mein and talked late into the evening. That night, we made our bed in their driveway and enjoyed an excellent night of sleep without fear of being found “suspicious”.

Stats

• ~600 miles of driving
• 3 coffee shops
• 1 park stroll
• 3 rounds of bowling (1 full-sized, 2 mini)

Animals Seen

• Seagulls
• Crows
• Turkey vultures
• Bullfrogs
• Spiders (far too many)