So we woke up early in Niagara Falls… ready to get started on Day Two of our adventure!
We knew we had a long ways to go… and yet we had to walk down to see the falls in daylight first!!! So cool to see it in natural light… to fully see the power & force of the water. But where does it all come from? Where does it all go?… and more importantly… Why doesn’t it ever stop???

We stopped to get gas before we head out…
and I loved seeing how they had even “Canada-ized” the McDonald’s logo!!!

And then the moment of truth… going through Customs in the opposite direction!
The Customs Agent going into Canada told us that Canada pretty much lets anyone into their country… but it’s getting back into the USA that is a bit tougher. And here we are without any passports!… “PASSPORTS PLEASE!!!”

So here go again… but this time we know what’s going on… and we’re hoping for the best. Needless to say, the US Customs Agent was not nearly as chatty & cute. He was a bit more gruff & obstinate. He found no humor in our situation. But eventually he let us through.. and BACK INTO THE USA!!!

And so we were off… back on the road. I finally got a chance to drive…
and found out that Chris is a brilliant conversationalist!!!

Needless to say, upstate New York is beautiful! So many trees and hills…
and they only increased as we headed towards Lake Placid and into the Adirondack Mountains! As the mountains & trees increased, so did my anticipation, excitement & anxiety about the race!

And then with Chris back at the wheel… the rain clouds moved in!
Okay, maybe full-on STORM CLOUDS!!! It was crazy. Tough to see the road at times! Good thing was that the locals all turn their flashing hazard lights on when the rain comes. Brilliant idea!

The rain stopped as we carried on… but there were more clouds to come.

The sky eventually cleared up as we entered Adirondacks State Park.

As we continued on, the trees & mountains increased. So pretty… and yet somewhere back in the deep recesses of my head I started worrying about the IRONMAN race ahead of us. This are not little hills for bike riding… they’re downright MOUNTAINS!!!

At the High Peaks North rest area, we read some signs about how HUGE the Adirondacks State Park is… it’s the largest contiguous state park in the country, over six million acres… approximately the same size as Vermont… and three times the size of Yellowstone!

Somewhere along the road… I had forgotten how big Adirondacks State Park was… I knew it was huge, but I was wrong when I kept referring to it as “six hundred million acres!!!” By erroneously adding the “hundred” into the equation, I made the park a LOT bigger in my head… and my stories!!!

Soon enough we started seeing signs… exciting & somewhat terrifying… LAKE PLACID!!! Reality started setting in about the endurance race before us! Chris may have been training for real… legit training with a professional trainer!!! Me?… not so much. I was a bit concerned about my lack of training. And quite honestly, a bit unfocused knowing that my Mom was still in the hospital and not getting better… and knowing that some tough decisions were being made while I was gone. In fact TODAY was the day that my Dad, brother & sister were having a very serious meeting with my Mom’s doctors to determine if there was truly any hope of her improving. I wish I could have been there… as it was in my mind a lot of the day… but we all knew that my Mom would have wanted me to go through with this trip to compete in my THIRD full IRONMAN race!

The scenery was AMAZING!!!
So beautiful… we had to stop a couple times along the way to take in the sights & smells….
and dip our toes in the water!!!

We finally made it to the small town of Lake Placid. A quaint little town known for hosting TWO Winter Olympics!!!… as well as hosting the Lake Placid IRONMAN!!! So much so that they have a large placard on a boulder in front of Mirror Lake. See the buoys?… already set out in the lake for the race. A little concerning as I am NOT a strong swimmer! And can you see where the buoys go?… ALL THE WAY down to the other end of the lake!!! I was a little freaked seeing the distance… and knowing that we had to swim all the way down & back… hop out of the water… get back in… and do it all again for a second loop!!! YIKES!!!

A full 2.4 miles of YIKES!!!

And here you can see the buoys a bit better… ALL THE WAY DOWN!!!
For this race, the buoys would always be on our right… swimming the yellow side first, then returning back on the orange side!

After a bit of an internal meltdown… I calmed down a bit as we walked around town and finally had dinner at a sweet little restaurant overlooking Mirror Lake… and the ever-present Swim course! Just as a constant reminder! A reminder that I don’t know how to swim well… and might NOT be prepared enough to do this!!! 2.4 miles is a LONG way to swim!!!

Loved the low-flying fog & clouds moving in & floating through the hills opposite the lake!

A healthy dinner after all of the junk & coffee cake pizza I had eaten all day in the car. A little clean protein and something green actually tasted great! And another great ending to Day Two of our adventure!… and Welcome to Lake Placid!!!

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Well, the big day was finally here. After much soul-searching, and rationalizing the trip, Chris and I finally packed up the car… bikes, gear, luggage, and road trip snacks!!! With all of the things that were going on with my Mom in the hospital after her latest stroke, it had been hard to focus. Hard to keep on task… and hard to rationalize going on “vacation” while she was laying in a hospital bed. But I taught my Tuesday night pottery class, got home late and finished packing, and over-packing, and got a couple hours of sleep. But as of this morning … we’re on VACATION!!!

After packing Chris’s car with all of our stuff…
we set the GPS course for Lake Placid and headed off!!!

Lucky for us, we have some of the greatest friends ever!!!
Including our friend Nancy who knew we would need some road trip snacks… and had stopped by earlier in the morning at Chris’s house to drop off this huge coffee cake “pizza” with lots of fruit & icing! Nancy knows it’s one of my favorites from my favorite bakery in Elk Grove Village… Jarosch Bakery! She knew this because two years ago when Nancy & I went up to Madison to cheer on Chris in her first full IRONMAN, we stopped and got one of these for our road trip together… and polished it off with ease!!!

Needless to say, we hadn’t even made it to the Skyway Tollway Bridge before we cut into it… basically still in Chicago!!!

So there we are blindly following the GPS… talking… chatting… singing.. and eating.
Basically all of the fun of a road trip as we finally crossed into Indiana across the Skyway Toll Bridge!

And then soon enough… hello Michigan!!!

Soon enough there were “signs” along the road that we must be nearing Detroit.
Kind of exciting… as I have never been to Detroit. Still just following the GPS in the car.
Still having a fun time chatting & sightseeing along the way!

And then we started seeing highway signs that caused a bit of concern…
we didn’t want to go to either Lansing or Canada??? Uh oh… Which way to go?!

We knew we wanted to keep going EAST towards Lake Placid. So we continued on…

But then all of a sudden…

All of a sudden we came upon this really cool looking bridge. The Ambassador Bridge. I was so busy admiring the bridge & taking pictures… I wasn’t really paying too much attention to where we were headed. I guess in hindsight I should have known better?…

The bridge was cool. The bridge was long… with no options to exit. Before we knew it, we were stopped at this weird Toll Booth looking area that was moving very slowly. It was only then that the reality of the situation began to sink in. Why was it taking so long? Why weren’t the cars moving through faster with their iPass? Something must be going on?!!!

It was only when we finally made it to the Toll Booth window that it hit us.
As the guard in the booth asked us for our PASSPORTS… “Passports please!”
Of course we didn’t have them. Who knew you would go through Canada to get to Lake Placid? The GPS route never said anything about needing a passport? So we sheepishly offered up our Driver’s Licenses… and again “Passports please!” The Customs Agent was surprisingly nice as we bumbled our way through the “interrogation”… Where are you going? Why are you coming to Canada? How long are you staying? Where were you born? All we had was Lake Placid… IRONMAN… triathlon… here are our bikes… here’s our gear… just following GPS… we had no idea… we’re idiots from Chicago!

We asked her if we had any other option… to maybe turn around and stay in the USA. She said we could, but then we would need to backtrack all the way and go back around UNDER the lake… thus adding about 3-1/2 to 4 hours onto our trip. We said NOPE… we’ll try our chances in Canada! So after she scanned our Driver’s Licenses and chatted it up with us… she finally let us through.

And then, and only then… as we were now driving through the Canadian countryside, Chris decides to tell me she printed out a traditional map from Mapquest. Showing the route we “thought” we would be taking. Apparently Chris didn’t realize that there might be different GPS routes… she assumed the printed out online map would be the same as the GPS directions in the car. Apparently she was wrong… and apparently it was too late to use this printed map!!! Oh well, scenic route here we come!!! Hello Canada!!!

Luckily… we were now headed towards Niagara Falls for the evening! It had been a long time since I had been there… and we both knew that it is much prettier from the Canadian side. And since we were in Canada already… all good, right?!!!

We found a hotel room just a few blocks from the falls. We settled in quickly and then walked to find dinner. After dinner, we walked down to see the waterfalls. Another wonderful surprise was that the falls were all lit-up in wonderful colors!!!

And if that weren’t enough, they also decided to show off and welcome us with an amazing fireworks display over the falls. AMAZING!!! And such wonderful timing for us… and our surprise “adventure” into Canada!!!

After the fireworks, it went back to just the beautiful light-painted waterfalls.

And then it was back to the hotel for a well-deserved night’s sleep. Chris had done most of the driving, while I did most of the photo-taking… and eating. It was only Day One.. and we’ve already had a wonderful adventure. So much more fun to come!!! And THIS is how Chris and I travel… one adventure after another!!!

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My buddies Chris & Nancy were SO EXCITED
to come out to see me at ART IN THE BARN today!!!

Apparently too excited to look at a calendar first… as ART IN THE BARN is still almost a month away!!! We’re just going to call this a test run… and we’ll see them both out there again for “real” on September 28th & 29th in Barrington, Illinois! Too funny!!!

One of the best parts of ART IN THE GARDEN is that we get to “play with” the other artists on some fun collaboration projects. Looks like my pal Cory McCrory has already started her part… guess I need to get started on MY part of the project too! She’s got a good head-start on me… hopefully I’ll “catch-up” tomorrow!!!

Click here to see more of Martin’s amazing paintings!!!

Celebrating the Fourth of July with my annual road trip down to Central Illinois to visit great friends in the little town of Chenoa. The town does a great job hosting a very Norman Rockwell-ish small town celebration… parade, house decorating, corn dogs, lemon shake-ups, cotton candy & SPECTACULAR fireworks! A wonderful “escape” to get away from everything going on these days!

A crazy-cool tree I found with these wacky spikes popping out everywhere!!!

And then the EXCITEMENT started!!!

And yes, Chenoa is definitely stepping up their game…
and here’s their ONE traffic light… which is actually just a blinking red stop sign light!

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Since we are in-between class sessions at Lillstreet, we decided to “celebrate” last night with a little Tuesday night BINGO!!! While I came so, so close SO MANY times… it was even more exciting when my friend Tiffany actually won one of the rounds!!! B-I-N-G-O $$$ !!!

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Congrats to my friend, metalsmith & occasional co-teacher Pam Robinson for being honored tonight at the SNAG Conference here in Chicago with the 2019 Volunteer Recognition Award… for her endless hours volunteering to make these metals conferences happen so smoothly! Well done Pam – you deserve it!!!

For more about SNAG, and Pam’s big award… click here!

Direct from the SNAG website…

The Board of Directors is happy to announce the 2019 Volunteer Recognition Award recipient is Pam Robinson.

Pam Robinson is a Chicago-based jeweler and metalsmith who earned her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, studied gemology and wax carving at The Gemological Institute of America, and has taken countless workshops across the country. She is perhaps best known to the SNAG community as a conference emcee but she has done far more than that for SNAG behind the scenes.

Pam attended her first SNAG conference in 2004 and has been committed to the organization ever since. She immediately felt a connection to SNAG because of the like-minded community and people who generously share their knowledge and friendship. Two short years later, she took on the critical role of being the Co-Chair for the Chicago conference in 2006.

Pam joined SNAG’s Board of Directors in 2012 and was the conference liaison until 2015. She was instrumental in organizing, planning and scheduling conferences in Chicago, Toronto, Minneapolis, and Boston.

She helped implement changes to the structure and schedules within the conferences and created policies and contracts to streamline these complex events. In addition, she managed the Education Dialogue, the Trunk Show, and tirelessly edited the conference brochures.

Pam has been the Trunk Show coordinator in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019, communicating with all participants both pre-conference and onsite. This year, she is also the Conference Workshop Coordinator.

She recently joined the Women’s Jeweler’s Association (WJA) Board of Directors – Chicago chapter, and was a founding member of The Chicago Metals Art Guild (CMAG).

For over 26 years, Pam has taught classes at Lillstreet Art Center and is currently the Director of Education, and the Director of the Metalsmithing, Jewelry & Glass department. She has also taught metalsmithing workshops nationwide. Her work has been in numerous exhibitions, featured in print (both magazines and books) and on the bodies and hands of wonderful patrons.

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Spent the weekend down in Bartonville (near Peoria) visiting some good friends & playing in their amazing garden with my Cousin Kim! It’s just enough warmer down there that they are easily a few weeks ahead of us. So many Spring flowers already blooming in their amazing garden! Full of colors, textures and a bunch of wonderful rust pieces!!!

Had a great time yesterday hanging out with my talented metalsmith friend Sarah Chapman at the ONE OF A KIND SHOW. Her work is amazing… great designs, incredible craftsmanship, fun textures, beautiful stones… and great shadows too!!!