Cracks in the Concrete: A Motorcycle Odyssey Through Modern America

At a gas station outside of Minneapolis, I met Squirley. I didn’t get a photo with Squirely, but picture a skinny guy in black with tattoo sleeves from his knuckles to the top of his neck and a bowler hat. Squirely came up to me to discuss the windshield and storage I had rigged up on Harriet as he also rides an Interceptor 650 among other bikes. We ended up getting into a real fun conversation about the new 750cc bike in the works that Royal Enfield has teased. The conversation was emblematic of a trend I’ve noticed on this trip: riding a motorcycle - particularly a classical styled, rarer/less mainstream bike like an Enfield - generates a ton of opportunities for conversation and connection that otherwise never would have happened.   In Minneapolis, I went to my friend from college, Maria’s, for dinner, where I caught some of the rain delayed Notre Dame game and met some her Minneapolis friends.  Dinner at Maria's featuring a roast, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, and...

As I approached the North Dakota border, the skies opened up and I got thoroughly drenched. Rolling into North Dakota, I immediately picked up a strange, off putting smell in the air - almost like a mix of agribusiness fertilizer and industrial oils. Having gotten a later start than hoped for, I didn’t pull into Fargo until about 4:30 and thus missed out on some of the most compelling attractions (a Scandinavian music performance at the local library and a funky modern art museum). Not feeling quite up to a corn maze in my wet state, I rode then walked around NDSU’s campus, then went to the Fargo visitor’s center to see the biggest tourist draw in the city: the wood chipper from the tv show Fargo. Some pretty flowers at NDSU This one kinda reminds me of Sorin Hall at Notre Dame NDSU's campus had a lot of this yellow brick with red roof and trim - they were neat, but the campus as a whole was not the most interesting or beautiful I've seen A fraudulent replica of the wood chippe...

When I was in high school, my church youth group went on a service trip to Steubenville, OH, and the host family we stayed with had a bunch of drawings and quotes painted on the walls of their house. One of these was lyrics from the 1992 Indigo Girls song, Ghost :  And the Mississippi's mighty  But it starts in Minnesota  At a place that you could walk across With five steps down And I guess that's how you started Like a pinprick to my heart I've never been much of a poet, but I've always found a haunting beauty in these lyrics. And I've always wandered if what they say about how the Mississippi starts is true.   As I rode through the lake country of northern Minnesota getting further and further west, I started crossing a narrowing Mississippi River multiple times. And each time these lyrics kept working their way back into my head.   I rolled into Grand Rapids (MN not MI - don't get me started on how every small town in Minnesota has a counterpart wi...

Greetings from Collegetown Bagels in Ithaca, NY. I had hoped to catch up on the blog this past weekend, but turns out I was pretty busy with my brother's wedding. Thus the blog perpetually stays about 2 weeks behind my actual travels. Without further ado, here are my reflections on Minnesota's North Shore. If you say “North Shore” in Pittsburgh, people assume you’re talking about the neighborhood on the northern bank of the Allegheny/Ohio River that’s home to the sports stadiums, the casino, and of course, Tequila Cowboy. Thus, I was rather confused when Minnesotans kept telling me I needed to go to the North Shore. Eventually, I pieced together that when Minnesotans say “North Shore”, they’re referencing the ~150 miles of Lake Superior shoreline between Duluth and Canada, which is home to about 7-8 stunning state parks and many scenic coastal villages.  After spending 4 days on the North Shore, I’m not sure why this area of the country is not more widely known. It topped many ...