Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. What do they have in common? Corn crops and miles of flat plains.


We set out from Detroit one cloudy day and first stayed in Grand Haven on Lake Michigan. This was my first Lake Michigan experience and boy, it is a monstrous lake. Absolutely amazing. The howling winds whipped up wind swell and the lake's edge looked like a flat day at any Australian beach.
We drove into the North of Michigan to Leeland and the area of the Petosky rock. This area has some beautiful summer "cottages" on the thousands of lakes around the area. I feel Americans use the term cottage very loosely. When I picture a cottage, I think of an old Grandpa in his 5 metre squared farm trying to piece together a couple of veggies for a salad later on. I picture the little Grandma walking with a cup of tea in hand from her small kitchen to her one living room passing the main bedroom on the left. Cottages in northern michigan are NOT like this. They are mansions. Some of them with more than 8 bedrooms and as many bathrooms.



We visited Leeland to witness the marriage of Bess and Marcel Garraud, friends for years from the old Taylors College days in Sydney. After 8 (or more) years of dating, they finally tied the knot in a beautiful location. All the Aussies stayed in the Aussie house and Bess' family and friends stayed in her family's "cottage". The wedding was in a beautiful garden and the reception was in an old barn done up for the occasion. A classic wedding! Highlights of our time in Leeland include the wedding, Glynn rocking out in the stretch hummer, Jen and I SUP'ing from the Aussie house to the nearest point 12kms (8miles) round trip and passing the 45th parallel half way point between the Equator and the North Pole. Seriously, we passed it.


Following an awesome week with Aussies, we took a leisurely drive to the other side of Michigan and onwards to Alpena on Lake Ontario. Steph, Jeremy and co. were awesome and great hosts on the 4th of July weekend.



From there it went south. I mean, we went south all the way through Ohio to Cinncinatiiannttiiianti (Cincinnati for short).


We first lived it up in the burbs for a couple of nights with Brent and Jacki. Coincidentally, we were there when history was being made. Yep, it was the night when television networks aired a 2 hour preview of Lebron James' move to Miami. We got to hang out with them for a few days and they introduced me to Corn Hole. It kinda got addictive! We also got a chance to eat some awesome ribs at Montgomery Inn...Brent they truly were the best.


We then kicked onto downtown Cincinnati where we stayed with Nancy, Jake and their adorable little girl Isla (named after the Aussie actress Isla Fischer). We were greeted with hugs and the warning that we should go out of their building and to the left, not the right. Right i said and we left. Nah, we stayed there for a while and chilled with the three of them for a while, after almost 5 years apart it was like we didn't skip a beat..except now they have a little one! Highlights include our trip to Jungle Jims, the warehouse chock full of international food and drinks, the trip to the park, watching the World Cup Football finals and seeing Isla tuck into a mint oreo cookie. I taught her well. Looking forward to seeing them more often now and super excited for the grand opening of Isla's Cupcakery :)

From there we went to the Windy City and what was the first thing we did when we arrived? Ate deep dish pizza. We had been to Chicago previously in the dead of winter but we loved it in the summer. Awesome! We SUP'd three times and we just had an amazing view of the Chicago skyline. We also had the chance to catch up with Lina and her new little one, Isabella as well as Kathrine who we saw in a great play. It was either the play or the Cubs game but at $40 for limited view seats, there was no choice really even if they were good seat, the play was equally as entertaining.

In the middle of June we spent 5 days in Dublin, Ireland on a prolonged stopover from Abu Dhabi to Detroit. We'd never visited Dublin and it was a really cool introduction to a pretty darn good city.


We arrived all bright tailed and bushy eyed after our overnight flight and started to venture around town a bit slowly but surely over the next couple of days.. with almost perfect weather to boot!

There were a heap of buskers out and about in Dublin and they ranged from horrible to pretty darn good. One we did like was this pair of shoes.

But seriously this guy below was amazing. He played a guitar that was vertical and he seemed to pick at the strings like a bass rather than strum at it like a normal guitar but he used two hands to pick. The sound was very cool.


We did a tour of the Wiklow mountains and Kilkenny with PaddyWagon Tours. Quite a nice time with a driver who swore like a drunken Irishman. We saw a bit of the Irish country side as well as the little town where Bono and Mick Jagger have houses. The town is the only place in the whole of Ireland without a pub! Every town or city seems to have a historic castle and an old church and they somehow all want to charge you an arm and a leg to get in. These well traveled folk didn't fall for those old tricks but we did snap a few photos from the outside our euros don't travel very far in Ireland so we have to be careful what we pay to see from the inside and what we are content to observe from a distance instead!






Jen tried to find her Irish ancestors in Ireland only to find out she's Polish. Just kidding, but we couldn't find them. This is a note to anyone who wants to trace their ancestory in a foreign country: You need to know the name of a family member who lived in that country BEFORE you travel there... This below is as far as she got! I'm probably more Irish than you...


We arrived during the heat of the football world cup and the atmosphere around town was quite jovial. Although this was not shared by all...

And of course how can I forget that there was literally a pub on every street corner? The old saying lives up to its name and whilst we didn't dare do any pub crawls (although we should have as we could have walked 3 blocks and been too drunk to continue and returned to the hostel quickly), we did sample a few of the local brews. Smithwicks (pronounced Smiddicks) was a fav of mine and Jen liked the apple ciders.

Before we finish up here, we'll leave you some random images from the pubs we visited.

Despite the rising temperatures in the UAE, we still managed to get out to do some climbing in RAK. Unfortunately, Nick sprained his ankle earlier in the week so he came along to take some photos and appreciate the scenery and serenity of the mountains. It's little trips like these that make living in the city bearable, knowing that you can get out and feel like your a million miles away from the constant traffic and honking is priceless.


We started out early in the morning around 6 am and climbed almost until 2pm. We ran out of water early on, it's always amazing how you have a ton of water and you think it's enough...it's never enough out in the heat. Thankfully, with Nick not climbing, he offered to head back into town to get more water and some snacks. We did a few different routes and Clint my climbing partner for the, had his first go at lead climbing later in the morning. I think pictures always make climbing look like you could just walk up the rocks, but this is tough work guys.