Since we were coming through the Boulder/Denver area, I got in touch with a couple of my Blues Guitar Unleashed friends who live nearby. Sue and I had a great afternoon with Chris and Frank. Chris generously hosted us all, providing both lunch and jam space. We played through a bunch of blues standards, switched around on various instruments, and tried a few things out in preparation for “The Show” (that’s my name for it), the annual BGU Live gathering which we will all be attending in Memphis in early October.
Dayton O. Hyde is an author, conservationist, rancher, cowboy, former rodeo clown, photographer, and the founder of the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in Hot Springs, South Dakota. He is also my uncle. A college buddy of my dad’s, my “Uncle Hawk” introduced his wife’s older sister to my father. The sister soon thereafter married my dad, and a little later became my mom, so that introduction turned out to be an auspicious event for me and my brothers, if nothing else.
We’re trying out our newest technology upgrade – that black rectangle on the lower right in the photo above. Works great! Read on for a few details on how and why we wound up with this system.
Yes! In fact, Harry Chapin pretty much nailed it right there. Here’s what we’re talking about:
A day or two ago, Rod & Tanya were at their desks at home in Egan, SD reading a new post on Technomadia about their friends Chris & Cherie’s stay in our driveway back home in Vermont. At that very moment outside in Rod and Tanya’s driveway were The Destinators (aka Doug & Sue), enjoying a cup of coffee in their rig, catching up on the news and a few select blogs – and reading the same Technomadia post. See what I mean?
The blues community in Duluth, Minnesota has been putting on a blues festival right there on Lake Superior every August for 28 years. (I never knew!) When we found out about this year’s festival and noticed how it coincided closely with our evolved and updated route and timing, and how they have overnight RV parking in the adjacent Duluth Entertainment Conference Center (DECC) parking lots for festival-goers, well, there was really no decision left to be made. The only dicey part was that RV parking was first come-first served, but we showed up early in the afternoon on Thursday and we got The Destinator a spot for the weekend.
If you have been following along with us, you may remember a few posts back I talked about a project I worked on that was coordinated by an organization headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI. I also talked about the people I met and got to know in that time. Not coincidentally, we were in that same part of Michigan for a couple of days last week.
In Clarkston, Michigan, west of Detroit, we stumbled onto the best way to arrive at a Dead concert:
This way, please
Front row parking
As an aside, the Westies got to park together, too, though they were relegated to one of the “regular” lots:
The venue was cool – DTE Energy Theater – if you imagine the lawn at Tanglewood tipped up 20 or 30 degrees (so you can see the stage! From The Lawn!) it’s kind of like that. Also, Sugarbush friends, there’s a ski area right outside:
About twenty-five years ago I joined a research project to develop a computational methodology for predicting the metallurgical phase changes, dimensional changes, and stresses that occur during the heat treatment of steel. This was a joint project, coordinated by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences in Ann Arbor, MI, with about 10 partners including the bearing manufacturer I worked for, a couple of the big auto manufacturers, a handful of national laboratories and university research labs, and a small consulting firm located near Cleveland. A core group of us worked together closely for the next several years developing a computer-aided engineering tool that has now evolved into a software package for heat treatment simulation called Dante.
Members of this core group got to know each other pretty well and formed some close friendships that lasted well past the culmination of the project. I continued to work with Dante and my Cleveland friends after I left my corporate job and started out on my own. Although we’ve stayed in touch since then, I hadn’t seen my friend Lynn in more than 12 years. Happily, we were able to fix that last week. In fact, when Lynn called me back to let me know this get-together could work, and I heard his voice saying, “Hi Doug, it’s Lynn calling” (exactly the same greeting as every phone call I ever had from him), those 12 years just kind of fell away.
Lynn, Ethnea and Doug
Stairway to heaven, er, the ledges in Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Ethnea, Sue and Lynn on ledges trail
Lynn and his wife Ethnea showed Sue and me some of the amazing county parks they have near their house (the Cleveland Metroparks), and a national park, too – the Cuyahoga Valley NP (I was a little disappointed that there was no entry fee, because otherwise my Senior Pass would’ve let us all in for free). We also got a tour of downtown Cleveland and dinner in the Tremont neighborhood at a classic, off-the-beaten-path pub called the Prosperity Social Club (certainly one of the coolest names for a pub that I’ve ever heard), with great food and (of course) excellent beer.
Cleveland skyline
Cleveland at dusk
New EY building
From Cleveland, we headed to a state park campground in Lakeside-Marblehead, OH. They had a few walk-in sites set aside for the weekend and we were able to snag one of those. This was undoubtedly the densest campground we’ve been in, and because it was a sunny, hot weekend the place was pretty full. But it’s in a beautiful area, with great views of the Great Lake (that’s Lake Erie, for my New Englander friends) so it turned out to be a great place to wander from. We found a bike ride that would take us to the ferry to Kelleys Island, a destination which was highly recommended by Lynn and Ethnea.
Measured in feet?
That recommendation turned out to be completely justified. There’s not much traffic on Kelleys Island since the only access is by boat – mostly golf carts and bicycles among the few automobiles – so we did a little walking and a little riding. We hung out at the Kelleys Island Brewery for a while (great beer, great sandwiches), wandered back into the center of town where there was a music festival going on (really good music, and a little more beer), and biked up to the north side of the island where there is a geological feature called Glacial Grooves, said to be the best known example of the scored and scraped granite made by the advancing glaciers that formed the Great Lakes, the Appalachians, and all the rest.
Sue on KI ferry
Personal tiki lounge
View of our campground from tiki lounge
Kelleys Island Brewery
View from KI Brewery
Michael McDermott headlines KI Musicfest
Roadhouse Family Band – note 10 year old drummer!
Glacial grooves
Glacial grooves
Special bonus feature, this post only – TWO sunset photos (both by Sue):
Sunset over Lake Erie from ferry dockSunset over Lake Erie from East Harbor
The Tibbets Point Lighthouse in Cape Vincent NY is at the start of the St. Lawrence River and the outflow of Lake Ontario, so for us it marks the true beginning of the Great Lakes portion of our journey.
