Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo: 3 Days

In order to be able to spend a bit more time exploring the much awaited province of Quebec, our time spent in the Ohio to Ontario areas was a bit speedy.
Ohio was a beautiful state with a very interesting mixture of a population...we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (...gift shop...we're poor...), and stayed with a local tortured artist who showed us the local dive bar scene. The city is very interesting with lots of Lake Erie beach homes and a red brick-and-metal downtown to combine into a sort of open-air, industrial-feeling sort of metropolis...very cool. From there, we made it down an hour or so into the Amish country...think Kingpin. Minus Woody.

The same day we left Ohio via the Amish, we arrived in Pennsylvania's Steel City just around nightfall to the sounds of the Pirates winning a home game (illuminated by fireworks over the Allegheny River). We soon got lost in the stone streets of the lush, pretty-but-industrial metropolis, had an ATM eat Dale's credit card, and penniless finally arrived at the apartment of our more than gracious hostesses of the evening, Kate and Sarah, around midnight. We then awoke at 6 am to retrieve the eaten plastic, slept in a pretty little park for a few hours, and then made it into Buffalo after an hour or two stop at one of Lake Erie's beaches just before the New York border. Buffalo was more of a stop-and-go sort of place for us, where we splurged on a hotel room, slept for about 20 hours, woke up, ate some delicious wings at Anchor Bar, and sped off to the local spectacle of Niagara Falls. Here is our evidence:

The Motor City

After a quick night in Alpena, MI along the beaches of Lake Huron, we made it through Flint (without any knife wounds) and into Detroit the afternoon of the 13th of August. We stayed with Jimmy's godfather Danny in his very charming 50's-era red brick bungalow. From there, we were able to explore Big Jim Gribbin's old stomping grounds, and the downtown area of the city. I (Dale) have never been to Detroit before, and I was very surprised at how clean the downtown was...the whole place has a very cool feel to it, like it's been through the ringer so much that the residents that still make up the populous are very proud of their roots and want to keep it up, even in the worse-off socioeconomic areas. It truly is a tenacious metropolis, with very awesome freeways, I might add :)
Between trying to break into the Joe Louis to crash an employee's baby shower, Spanish films, deciding whether Lafayette's or American has the best coney, seeing John Lee Hooker, Jr. perform in Ann Arbor, and being in Recording Studio A of Motown Records, the Motor City was an eye-opener and a crazy good time:

Da UP

From Traverse City, we ventured up the finger over the Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan (or the 'UP'). We spent the night camping right next to the famous Soo Locks (connecting Huron to Superior), just over the water from Canada. After some awesome local accents & delicious breakfast pasties the next morning, we drove out to the Shipwreck Museum on Whitefish Point (about 15 miles from the wreckage of the Edmond Fitzgerald) and then to Tehquamenon Falls, which were both breathtaking. It was a very interesting, very rural part of Michigan...again I digress to pictures, as they will say it better: