_ early in the morning, we drove in to chicago from our hotel by the airport.

_ the streets were still quiet, but already preparations were being made: barricades erected, police in place.

_ and then our first glimpses of the runners, streaming from the subway stations toward grant park.

_ almost 20,000 people ran the chicago rock and roll half.

_ we lined up, and looked up at the skyline, and waited for the gun.

_ we ran with the first wave...

_ and quickly realized that running & shooting don't go all that well together.

_ so you'll have to excuse these shots!

_ we strode through the glare of the rising sun beneath the underpasses...

_ ...and burst out into downtown chicago.

_ as the sun poked out over the skyscrapers and the course turned onto the lake-front, the heat rose exponentially. water stops became central to a good running strategy, and we started to alternate water with electrolytes.

_ ...and powered on.

_ groups of local high school cheer squads lined the course, shouting us on, and throwing the occasional gatorade our way.

_ a few miles from downtown, the landscape lengthened out. it became more spare, less distracting. runners were left alone with their individual battles of physical will.

_ at the southern-most point, we switched back, passing beneath an encouraging symbol of rock and roll's potency.

_ and, motivated by the skyscrapers on the horizon, we rushed to meet them.

_ the finish line in sight...

_ ...and then the greatest thing ever: the guilt-free stop.

_ we turned back to watch the other runners come in, and saw a good spread of emotions. a last, powerful push, for example, and its accompanying rictus.

_ or what appears to be disbelief at having run so far and so fast.

_ in the last mile, knowing it's the last mile, exhaustion typically gives out. it exhausts itself, and is replaced with a light-headed 'presentness': effort without physical effect. thought goes numb, it's just breath and a vague sense of movement.

_ and then you cross the finish line and it's like 'ah jesus what the hell!'

_ distrusting the race-clock, many people checked their watches before they even stopped running.

_ while others let their power song run out.

_ this girl was in a world of her own...

_ ...happy to be done, perhaps, amply satisfied.

_while others looked a little pissed off, wondering why there were so many people crowding their sunday-morning run.

_ many raised their arms as they crossed the line. for themselves, for the pictures, it wasn't clear.

_ and some just pushed themselves even harder...

_ ...who cares who's looking.

_ a clock-watcher, one foot past the line.

_ by this point the sky was slightly overcast, the heat hazy and the humidity up. it wasn't great running weather anymore...

_ ...and, as such, some people were more than happy to be done.

_ while others relished the moment.

_ running, in the late miles of a race, when the aforementioned numb-mind sets in, has a curious effect on the facial muscles.

_ ...and in the seconds following that guilt-free stop, when you return to yourself, who knows what they'll do.

_ it's an interesting mirror, and to see yourself like this is to see yourself in a rare light.

_ people kept on coming, ten a second, crossing the finish line.

_ experiencing their finish in their own profound and personal ways.

_ no matter how conditioned they were as runners, the aim in a race like this is to push your limit.

_ so when they crossed that line, the exceptional runner fell away, and the day-to-day person, the subway strap-hanger, the girlfriend, the stocker-of-shelves, the commercial producer, stepped back into place: more often than not, agonized.

_ but of course, this was a fantastic moment.

_ so unequivocal an accomplishment...

_ that even babies can tell.

_ after a long training run along the north country 119, we stopped in on friends from dc. they were swimming out at their dock, so we jumped in, and swam out to the float.

_ the whole family was there for the week, three generations of women.

_ and all the components of the summer too. the little beach, the small sailing boat, a grill, some lounge chairs...

_ and when we came out of the water, they gave us dry towels. they asked up to stay, but, as usual, we couldn't...

_ ...so we assembled them for a quick group photo...

_ ...and that was that.

_ after a long sequence of meetings and phonecalls, we found ourselves on the banks of the pere marquette river, michigan's famed trout-fishing river, waiting to meet tommy lynch, or, as he's more commonly known, the fish whisperer. WATCH OUR VIDEO BELOW.

_ as he had a guided trip only fourty-five minutes later, we didn't have much time with him.

_ tommy's been fishing the river here for nearly 30 years, and leading guides for 15. though he's out here almost every day with a group, he still comes out in his free-time. night-fishing is his obsession at this time of the year. it's not rare for him to run a trip in the early evening, stay out until dawn mouse-fishing on his own, and then take another group out in the morning.

_ he showed us his boxes of custom-made lures, all with strange names.

_ there were madame x's, tarantulas...

_ ...all refering to the snackfood of river trout.

_ the river was a little busy with canoers at this time of year...

_ and though it seemed calm and quiet to me, they had a real effect on the fishing.

_ and didn't help maintain the pristine environment. tommy called these cans 'canoe eggs'... spawned when they congregate.

_ we barely had any time to relax and take in the scenery, before tommy felt a tug.

_ and there it was, a 2o inch brown-nose trout...

_ tommy hadn't even taken a net, so he beached it, and held it up for us.

_ then, as it was during the day, he released it gently back into the river.

_ he'd come back at night, he said.

_ a fellow fisherman on the pere marquette.

_ after the fear and near-death experiences of cedar point, we decided we need something more summery and relaxing, so we drove through scenic downtown sandusky and headed for the harbor at catawba island, where we caught the hourly ferry to put-in-bay.

_ put-in-bay is a small village on an island 15 miles due north-west of sandusky. you can see mainland ohio on the horizon there, just over the wake of the ferry.

_ the island itself has a bunch of beautiful summer homes and hotels, but the ferry itself seemed to be full of day-trippers like ourselves.

_ we had hardly any time, so we availed ourselves of the offer of golf carts, and took a spin around.

_ everything is within striking distance via golf cart, and so a few minutes after leaving the harbor we stumbled upon this idyllic scene. CLICK ABOVE TO VIEW LARGER, and see the plume from the nuclear power plant on the far horizon.

_ as we keep repeating, no man is an island, but if you were, in fact, an island, you'd want to be one with an airport. that basically ensures that you're a great island (as long as it's not offensively large).

_ we clipped our map to the wheel of the golf cart, where ordinarily you'd keep the scorecard, and tried to stop it from being blown away.

_ heading into town via the most direct road from the ferry dock, you pass the admiral perry statue, named after the victor of the great battle of lake erie in the early 1800's. it is a symbol of the subsequent & enduring peace between the US, canada & britain. not that these people care.

_ this, as you can tell, is *the* boardwalk of put-in-bay, ohio, and a good place to get a beer while watching yachts come in and kayaks go out.

_ edging up past the town proper, we came upon perfect little vignettes of life on an island in lake erie. here we're looking across the harbor to the perry monument. the boardwalk is just out of view behind the trees on the left.

_ and if you turn to the left, this is what you see. right behind us there was a pop and son fishing, but as we were speeding past on a golf-cart, we didn't think it safe to spin around and shoot backwards. in fact, most of the pictures in this series (apart from the last batch) were taken while driving. not terribly safe, and not that great if you like your horizons level.

_ every summer destination needs a maze, and if you don't have a maze of shrubbery...

_ ...then make a maze of what appear to be portapotty doors.

_ suitable fashions for a day of pedaling.

_ though we were under massive time constraints, we knew exactly what we wanted from our trip to put-in-bay, so we parked the cart and followed a trail through the bushes...

_ ...along the beach and inland, across a dry meadow...

_ and out onto a quiet promontory.

_ where we disturbed the birds, and kept...

_ ...on...

_ ...walking.

_ our time up, we ran back to the cart and sped back to the dock.

_ and, on the return ferry, we saw another example of this summer's most common hairstyle. astute viewers will notice something wrong with this story... tell us what it is!

_ cedar point, an amusement park, sits on a peninsula sticking out into lake erie. thus you can only approach it from one angle, and the first thing you see is this wacking great beast of a rollercoaster right in the middle. called the top thrill dragster, it is over 400 feet tall, and the car itself accelerates 0-120 in four seconds. the name 'top thrill' is amply deserved. WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS

_ of course the rapid acceleration has its massive physical affects, so, when coupled with the psychotic fiddling of the hissing, clanking machinery, it becomes a pretty scary ride.

_ watching the riders go 0-120 is enough of a spectator sport for most.

_ yeah, these are 17 seconds you won't forget in a hurry.

_ the type of construction used in the top thrill dragster is unique, and puts it in the ultra-rare class of 'stratocoasters', only two of which are in existence. the other is in new jersey, at the competitor six flags.

_ the limitations of photography are always apparent, but what we most regret being unable to accurately capture is the wooshing sound and wind of the car as it zips past.

_ you can hear the throb of the motor in the video above, but it's really not the same. all sounds other than the fake throttling motor sound are created by the mechanism itself, so when you hear the hiss & clank, that's the hiss and clank of a big engine built to shoot kids into the sky.

_ and shoot them it does. we saw a lot of different reactions, from what we expected: fear, to excitement, and joy, and, quite often, proof of having gone deep into their happy place. this guy's on the couch.

_ we heard all sorts of stories. sometimes, due to weather or wind...

_ ...the launching device doesn't provide enough power to send the car right over the top...

_ ...and so, just short of the top, the car starts to roll backwards, towards the start station...

_ the designers knew about this, and installed a magnetic rig that chases the departing car, intending to slow it down it if starts to 'rollback'.

_ but cedar point superfans wait anxiously for their chance to experience a 'rollback', since this means that once it arrives back at the start station, you can either get off...

_ ...or go for another blast up the hump.

_ on other, even more rare occasions...

_ the car will fly up the ascent...

_ ...slow to a crawl...

_ ...and rest right on top. neither falling back nor going forward.

_ but those are rare occurrences. the rest of us have to find pleasure in the temporary joy of achieving an open-air speed & acceleration that would otherwise be impossible.

_ at least not with this level of comfort.

_ where you can scream for 10 seconds...

_ ...and then eat some funnel cake (with a wobbly hand shaking off the sugar).

_ amazing and expected sunsets, in the city where the river has caught on fire and burned at least thirteen times. CLICK TO VIEW LARGER

_ CLICK TO VIEW LARGER

_ pretty much what the title describes, though you, the viewer, are spared the pitching and keeling of a ship on the open seas.

_ our fingers were fat around the ropes: jibs left to flap for a minute too long.

_ though no man is an island, you *can* live in a lighthouse, and we all wished we were sitting up there right now.

_ we found the best seat on the ship, way back and thus more stable, and suspended over the waves in case of, um, spillage.

_ but then the sea air swept in, and we felt much better (until dry land, when the sequence repeated itself)

_ well... why do we have to explain ourselves every time? what's more summery and american than the all-american soap box derby?

_ held in akron, ohio, every year since 1934, the derby is the culmination of months of regional trials and championships.

_ and unlike other world championships, there are actually people from outside the US. there were german teams running around too.

_ but, of course, this was an american affair.

_ heats ran all day, under the stark north ohio sun. there were, perhaps, over a hundred different competitors across many different classes.

_ there were big cars, little cars, and, of course, the classic soap box racers.

_ the cars are streamlined and built for both lightness and also weight. as the racers are powered by only gravity, they have to find the sweet spot between lightness and heaviness.

_ you could kind of tell that a lot of the parents were deeply involved in the building and coaching of their racer kids.

_ in this class, there is only a 1/4 inch of exposure allowed, and the cars go pretty fast.

_ walking around the pits, we saw many examples of pride in workmanship. the cars were all beautiful. while waiting for their heat, all the cars line up on the slope behind the start line, and so everyone stands with their leg just like this, to stop it rolling away. CLICK TO SEE FULL SIZE

_ we followed a bunch of racers through their heats.

_ ...saw them get into position; mentally prepare...

_ ... and then zoom off down the track. go knuckles go.

_ corbin bernsen of major league fame was on site, filming scenes for his soap box derby film 25 hill in between heats. this isn't him, but plays a commentator in the movie. he's in the middle of a scene here, and really looks the part. he's famous too, but his name escapes me. first person to email me with his name gets something (props, perhaps).

_ it must be nerve-wracking to be waiting up at the top of the hill. held in place by only a big barrier that drops at the pull of a lever.

_ sometimes we could see the riders getting visibly nervous.

_ and rightly so. there don't seem to be too much control in the hands of the rider.

_ it's just physics. a calculation of gravity & weight & wind etc.

_ the cars can reach up to 35 miles an hour, which feels even faster when you're that close to the ground, and in a vehicle designed with speed in mind, not safety.

_ the spectators ate their funnel cake and hot dogs, drank their lemonade, and waited for their favorite racers to start.

_ cars in the pens at the top of the hill, waiting for the call to head down for their heat.

_ a canadian entrant.

_ we followed one of their highest-ranked competitors for a while...

_ maranda busby of moss point, mississippi.

_ she just looked the archetypal soap box derby girl of comic books and that, bob haircut and pluck.

_ and her dad had more than a passing resemblance to our favorite mechanic: monty of rescue rangers fame (google it). which made us look back at maranda, and the 'gadget' resemblances started to recurse.

_ she was doing really well that day, winning many of her heats, and the busby's seemed confident as she stepped into her car for the last heat of the second-to-last round.

_ please note the silly bandz, positioning this photoseries squarely in 2010.

_ she took one last look down the track, before her dad closed the hatch.

_ ready to go.

_ then, bang, she was off.

_ maranda sped down the track...

_ and accelerated down the slope.

_ the finish line was so far away that those waiting at the start line have to wait for the official call. from our position, it looked good...

_ but we still waited... a quiet minute...

_ ...then the call came in. victory. she won the heat, and was through to the final.

_ the races culminated in final battles between cars of the same class.

_ and then the final 'overall' race.

_ which maranda sadly did not win. she came second, and for a few seconds, before the official result came in, all the reporters and photographers surrounded her. for that time, these fireworks were for her.

_ but then the call came through, and this girl here, morgan champagne of dover, new hampshire, took the title. as you can tell, she was a little shocked.