We stopped at the Museum of history in Detroit before heading out to meet the Freemans in Ft. Erie, Ontario. We learned A LOT about cars in the last few days and then got to take a photo in a Model T.
Fiona and Summer met in Xiamen and haven’t seen each other in 4 years. It was a great reunion for them and for our families. Luckily we got the minivan so we can all fit in for outings! We headed to Niagara Falls in the evening to see the lights and hopefully less people.
We love Canada!
The Diego Rivera Frescoes are why I chose to come to Detroit, Michigan and they were worth it. I spent about an hour just taking in the room and absorbing them from the use of fresco to the stories each panel tells is amazing. The grey toned one of the people walking across a bridge was especially interesting to me. In the early 1900 esp during the Depression, Henry Ford paid his employees $5 a day, which was huge for the time, but he worked them to the bone. You can see the exhaustion on their faces. If you ever get the chance to go to the DIA, please go. The girls were amazing as they entertained themselves with a virtual reality device exploring other parts of the museum and learning about different art. At about 4 hrs, they had enough and we headed to the science museum that was FREE.
Here we spent another 3 hours where we explored electricity, water, color and all things science. We had a great time.
That was yesterday Sunday June 23, today we were a little less ambitious and went to a ceramic study that was founded in the early 1900s. They mostly made titles and we could walk through the casting, firing and glazing areas of the studio. Very cool for me, boring for the girls. Didn’t take any photos. We then went downtown to explore some of the art deco buildings which were AMAZING.
The weather has been amazing and as you can see the girls even had jackets today. We also hit Heidelberg Project where there is some crazy ass art! One street in Detroit is covered with recycled items and clocks everywhere. Google it. It’s crazy.
Our Airbnb is great and it even comes with old school hair dryers from the salon back in the day. Lulu decided she wanted to dry her hair last night with one. She lasted 5 minutes. Tomorrow we head to Ft. Erie Ontario to see the Freemans.
We arrived in Detroit just in time to go to Piquette Ford Factory, where the first Model T was conceptualized and made. When we arrived there were all these old cars in the parking lot. We thought “that’s cool, they have lots of cars outside”. Well we ran into a group of people driving these cars from NY to Washington. It will take them 4 weeks in total. They can go 45 mph and drive about 200-250 miles per day. You can see the route on the map. They are doing the same drive that a Model T did in 1910. It was so cool and such luck for us. The tour was cool but running into these people was way cooler.
And since we are staying in a Polish neighborhood of Detroit, we went and had Polish food. I totally felt like I was in Eastern Europe. Girls loved it as much as us. And no the girls weren’t drinking Polish beer!!
So after 2 years we are back on the road. We have grown up a bit and have learned a lot from our trip 2 years ago. This time we rented a sweet minivan and as you can see in this photo it has 2 sunroofs. We are headed to Detroit which we will get to tomorrow. We are staying the night in Athens, Ohio. We drove through Gent, West Virginia and now are in Athens. So funny to be in cities with these names in the US.
Here are few photos from the road. In the first one the resturant that is attached to the gas station is called EATALY. We laughed so hard. And another photo of a beautiful bridge crossing the Ohio river from West Virginia to Ohio. See ya tomorrow in Detroit.
We arrived in Salmon, Idaho around 4:30 on Saturday July 1. Sandy, Corrie, Tom and the kids were already there. Sandy tells us that we are going to a demolition derby. Â It will be a first for the Dirilgens!
I didn’t get many photos but in between the cars hitting each other, there were 4 motorbikes with couples on them. The man was driving and the woman was sitting behind him with a baseball bat and a balloon on their head. Each person was trying to hit the balloon of the other people. The last balloon not popped wins. It was quite the show.
Salmon is a small town in Idaho, where Sandy spent some time growing up there. She gave us the local tour around. It was great and it was great to see these people that I made so many memories with while in Berlin.
We left on July 5th and headed to Colorado via Salt Lake City. We stayed at the cutest AirBnB, I wanted to take it with me.
We arrived at Yellowstone on a Friday morning and drove right in, didn’t have to wait at all. We heard about the long lines to get into the park and was really happy that we didn’t get in one. We drove to our campsite to set up and then go explore. We were right next to Katie and family which was great. It was a beautiful place to spend the night and for $28.
We went straight to Old Faithful which was only about 12 miles from our campground but it took a good hour to get there. On the way we ran into a herd of bison. It’s nice as everyone is just as interested as you in seeing nature and everyone is going slow and stopping at random places. 
Arrived at Old Faithful with about 20 minutes to wait for it to go. It is called Old Faithful for a reason. Little did we know the Smiths were there at the exact same time.
It is pretty amazing to think that there is an active volcano under the earth and it could erupt at any time! The guy next to me said “the US is gone if this blows and we can’t go live in Cuba, cuz Trump is taking care of traveling there.” I just nodded. He was decked out in Cuban flags. I didn’t tell him I was secretly Cuban!
We went on to explore the other hot spots of the park before going back for dinner at our campground.
Hot dogs, sausages, and S’mores for dinner. I think we threw in a few carrots too.
Stunning.
Beautiful flowers grow at the water faucet. And the water came out fast and COLD.
Next stop Idaho.
It took a good 3 days from Roselle, IL to get to Big Sky, MT. We hooked up with The Scherers and drove from South Dakota to Big Sky together, just two Subarus on the road!
We were exhausted upon arrival it was a lot of driving. Luckily we were staying there for 4 days and our next few drives were way shorter.
Even though I said I wasn’t going to do anything on the first day in Big Sky, I was happy that we went on a little hike very close to where we were staying. It was beautiful and I kept telling myself that we are not in New England as that is what I was reminded of.
Waterfall action shot, we were getting so splashed here.Â
From Big Sky where we had temperatures from 45F-85F (7C-29C) we all drove to Yellowstone where we camped for 1 night. We got in for FREE since Fiona is a 4th grader. So FYI: all 4th grade students get into all National Parks for free. The entire car gets in for free. It was great and saved us close to $100 for the 3 parks we went to.
Arrived in Hill City, SD around 5 pm local time to the awesome Scherer family. We ate a lovely dinner and then headed to see Mt. Rushmore. It was a crazy busy day but we didn’t have much time, we needed to head out in the morning for Big Sky, MT.
It was very cool to say the least. It was brief as we were exhausted from driving all day and we still had one more day of driving to get to Big Sky, MT.
After leaving Pittsburgh we headed to Roselle, IL. We are new to being in the car all day so we didn’t make it all the way to my cousin’s house and decided to camp. We thought it was a good idea until about midnight when it started to pour. My tent is about 18 yrs old and it leaked a tiny bit. The girls slept all night but mama didn’t. Also the weird guy parked next to us in his car all night kind of freaked me out so I just couldn’t relax. I survived and we got up early and drove to Roselle.
We had some nice down time with my cousin Stacey, her husband Jim and their son Adam as well as  seeing my Uncle Garry and Aunt Barbara and cousin Chet. It was a great chill 2 days. Washing clothes and catching up on family gossip.
Deep conversation with Uncle Garry.
At the neighborhood pool.
Celebrating Fiona’s 9th and Adam’s 11th birthdays.
We then hit the road for 3 days of LONG driving.
Day 1: Roselle-Le Mars, Iowa Flat corn fields
Day 2: Le Mars-Hill City, SD
This was a crazy day through the Badlands and really strong winds.
Wide open spaces.
Reminded us of Capadoccia in Turkey.
We have a lot better photos from our DSLR, once we get home I can upload them.
Badlands.
That is a bison in the distance.
At the famous Wall Drugs.
Then onto Hill City to meet up with the Scherers (that’s Katie Carlin’s family). It was like the day never ended but this post will. South Dakota and Montana up next.
After FallingWater we drove about an hour to Pittsburgh where the plan was to go to Andy Warhol Museum, stay the night at an AirBnB and then hit the road to Roselle, IL and stay with my cousin and her family. Well there was a hiccup. As with most museums it was closed on Mondays and although I swear I did my research, I screwed up. We had the afternoon free and went to the museum Tuesday morning instead. It was all good, we were on holiday. So we were to our AirBnB chilled for a few hours and then went out to explore.
loved walking around the city
and going up the funicular which is very much like the one in Tunel in Istanbul. In fact as weird as this sounds Pittsburgh really reminded us of Istanbul.
from the top
Pittsburgh, it was such a pleasant surprise.
Being silly.
Dinner. A great recommendation.
drinking from the faucet 