We’re en route home after our 3 weeks in Norway. But I won’t be home for long—I hit the road this weekend to make my way up to Isle Royale National Park.
Jen will be joining me in Milwaukee and we’ll have a couple days on the island with friends. Afterwards, we’ll hit a few more park units, dip into Canada a bit, and probably colored a few more counties. I’m also threatening to bring Jen to a twine ball.
I’ll drop her off in MSP to fly home from and will make my way back to PHX via the Dakotas and Wyoming (because why not?). It’ll be our first camping road trip with the new Grand Highlander and our new electric cooler setup.
I haven’t posted anything here, but we’ve been exploring Norway for 3 weeks.
Well, tonight we found ourselves joining several thousand new friends marching to the royal palace to wake up the king and celebrate Norway’s World Cup win with some synchronized rowing and singing songs with unknown words.
Added some premium nanoceramic IR tint (LLumar FormulaOne Stratos) to my new Grand Highlander. It should keep things much cooler than the generic tint during the hot Phoenix summer.
Our favorite meal of the trip was a stop at Burger Bench in downtown Escondido. Great burger, great craft beer selection, great atmosphere. Jen said her grilled cheese was the among the best she’s ever had. Highly recommend. 🏷️26.06A
It didn’t take too long to hit 1000 miles on the new Grand Highlander—it’s day eleven. 😂
Angles 🏷️26.06A
This place had (new) shag carpeting tacked to the wall. 🏷️26.06A
Green Cheek Beer 🏷️26.06A
This rug really ties the whole room together. 🏷️26.06A
First big drive with Mac! 🏷️26.06A
Did some minor surgery to our new Grand Highlander to add a custom phone mount. It was both easy and terrifying to do.
I posted a hastily-shot video of the emergency gear I kept in the spare tire area of my Subaru Outback, in case it’s helpful for anyone else. I didn’t think to record the other things that we kept stashed around the vehicle but maybe I’ll do that once we get the Grand Highlander dialed in.
Straight outta Monty Python 🏷️26.05A
Watch out for Frank, he’s a bit of an ass. 🏷️26.05A
We made it to Grinnell, but missed out on JB’s gravesite, as the cemetery was closed. But we did find the memorial plaque near his old home. 🏷️26.05A
Merchants National Bank 🏷️26.05A
We found Radar from MASH in Ottumwa. 🏷️26.05A
American Gothic 🏷️26.05A
The easiest, most instantly useful improvement nearly any hotel can make is to add a simple elevator sign to hallways. There’s no reason to make every guest scan both ways trying to descern if there’s an extra gap somewhere between the doors or remember which way they approached their rooms from.
We paid homage to Aldo Leopold today, visiting his gravesite and birthplace/boyhood homes. 🏷️26.05A
