The end to an incredible cross-country roadtrip

Location: Long Beach, California, USA

I can’t believe it. But we actually got up at 2 AM – which was great because we got to take our time on the drive and not freak out about getting me to the airport on time.

We head out of Amish town in Wisconsin (which was creepily dark without electricity) and drove straight West. The ride was uneventful. Dan and I played music and talked and Emma slept in the backseat. Somewhere in Southern Minnesota we ran into this giant field of flashing red lights. Literally a thousand lights that all blinked on and off at the EXACT same time. It was so creepy. After some stellar iPhone research, we learned that it’s a giant windfarm and those are the flashing lights at the top of the turbine. I tried to capture it in a photo, but with no luck. It was way too dark to see anything clearly.

We turned South at I-35 (yes… the wrong direction) and drove about 20 miles out of the way to hit the Iowa border. Ok, I know this is sort of cheating, but technically, I did touch Iowan soil, so I have been to the state. I pledge to go back at some point in my life and actually see some of the state, but for now, that’s all you’re going to get. Since we had to wake Emma up for the Iowa sign, we kept her up to catch the Minnesota sign once we turned back North. Minnesota has a really great sign on northbound I-35. We decided to sit on the wall for this one, and after I set the camera up and hit the automatic timer, I ran for the sign, jumped up on the wall, hit the back of the sign and fell straight on my face on the ground. Luckily, my camera clicked right as I hit the ground and Dan and Emma are cracking up (thanks guys). Second shot was the one and I made it without incident.

From here, Dan wanted to snooze a bit, so I took over the wheel (*shudder*) without much drama. I stalled the damn thing once, but then we were fine. I drove us up through Minnesota, around St. Paul and Minneapolis and West towards North Dakota. Fargo is right on the other side of the border and unfortunately, we couldn’t find a sign for North Dakota (my LAST state!!) so I was quite disappointed. We found some stupid buffalo painted in rainbow that had a plaque that said North Dakota, but I thought that was stupid and was in too much of a bad mood to play nice with the state. Ruined my whole trip.

Ok not that bad. Fargo was actually quite nice, except there is absolutely nothing there. We were trying to look for a generic place to eat lunch, a Chili’s, TGI Fridays, Hooters, anything. We couldn’t find anything. We drove around town for a solid 30 minutes before finally stumbling upon a cute little sandwich chain called Cousin’s. At this point we were desperate, but luckily, the food was actually pretty good.

From here, Emma and Dan drove me the short hop up to the Fargo airport and we said our sad goodbyes. Thanks again for everything you guys, especially for helping me finish all my state s :)

The airport was actually pretty impressive inside. The check-in/security process was very quick and straightforward. The wait was quick and the plane boarded quickly. We were out of there in no time. I slept the whole flight except when I was eating snacks (gotta love Allegiant Air’s snack packs). I hopped on the train to Long Beach and got to Sam’s at about 8 PM. Of course, the girl is cooking up some trouble, and has some sort of get together planned tonight as a welcome home. Something about beer pong and chicken queso dip? Not sure but it sounds amazing, so I am going to go participate. Update soon and a wrap up for the trip! What a great one it was.

XOXO

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There is no good reason to leave Spring Lake, Wisconsin

Location: Dalton, Wisconsin, USA

What another beautiful day we have here at the lake house. I slept in most of the morning and awoke to a clean kitchen (thanks guys! Seriously, awesome treat). We’ve spent most of the day today doing absolutely nothing – and it’s been wonderful. I came to a revelation today that if you are traveling for longer than a week (notice I said traveling, not going on vacation) that it is ABSOLUTELY essential to take a day off once a week, or at the least every 10 days. Take one day, spend it in a hotel or other semi-private lodging arrangement and do nothing. No sightseeing, no tours, no landmarks. Go to a park, catch up on your blog, write some e-mails, upload your photos, watch TV, sleep in (and don’t feel guilty). I think this is the biggest piece of advice I’ve run across during this trip and needless to say, I was very grateful for today. We were actually supposed to leave this place today and spend the night in Minneapolis with Michael (a couchsurfing friend) but it’s so wonderful here, that we decided to stick around and get up early in the morning to finish he drive to Fargo.

We also decided to take our band’s first album pics today. Rockin’. We also attempted to put the rowboat down by the water into the lake, but it’s heavy and we found nothing around we could row with. As the second scene for our band pics, we decided to climb this awkward tree that leaned out over the water. En route to said tree, Emma, bless her heart, steps right into a pile of what I can only describe as Gloop. It was muddy shore water that was likely had at least a 60/40 water to dirt ratio; it was like quicksand. She stepped in with one leg, submerged up to her mid thigh in gloop and then made the all to easy mistake of stepping her second foot down next to the first to try and pull herself out – no dice. Now she’s got two legs in gloop up to her waist practically. I think, honestly, I was more hysterical than she was. I saw her sinking farther, and in between laughing and taking pictures from atop the tree, I had moments of panic that we wouldn’t be able to get her out. Brian saved the day though and drug her out with a large tree branch and his manly strength (*cough*). Emma even had the guts to reach back into her leg holes after she was out and fished out her shoes. All of this, combined with 40 degree temperatures made a frozen little Aussie girl, so we promptly cleaned off all the mud and ran back inside to escape the cold.

We watched a little more football this afternoon and then drove to Madison about an hour away to drop off Brian at the airport (he’s renting a car and driving one-way back to Chicago where’s he’s spending a couple more days with Sam and then flying out of there). Once we got back to the house, it was all cleaning, laundry and eating leftovers. We polished off the turkey and casserole pretty quick and grazed on the pies for the rest of the night. It’s early, now (about 9:30) but we’re headed to bed because the “plan” is to leave at 2:30. HA. We’ll see if that actually happens.

XOXO

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A Day Dedicated to Stuffing your Face? Sign me up!

Location: Dalton, Wisconsin, USA

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It’s a beautiful day here on Spring Lake. The sun is out, it’s about 40 degrees F, and we are STUFFED full of Thanksgiving wonderfulness. Let me back up.

So the Cranberries, were amazing. They played such a great show and haven’t changed one bit. Sometimes I think concerts can drag on a bit, but this was the perfect length, the perfect crowd, the perfect venue. It was just very well put together. We left the show and walked Brian and Sam to a bar before heading back home to get some shut eye and pack up all of our junk.

We left Chicago, around 7 AM. Despite previous ideas, we did not pick up Brian’s brother and his friends in northern Chicago, so it was just the four of us (Dan, Brian, Emma and myself). We stopped at a Wal-Mart Supercenter just north of Chi-town and split up in to groups to grocery shop efficiently (duh, my idea – I even made a separate shopping list for each person). The best part, is that we only spent $120 including all of our food AND booze. Such a great deal. Now we hit a small problem after we got back in the car, and that was that we were already putting 4 people, plus our luggage (which included Brian’s guitar) into Wanda, who is quite small. We literally had to load the groceries in through the windows on to Emma and my laps in order to fit everything in. Let’s just say, it was not the most fun hour of my life.

After driving through the Wisconsin countryside for what seemed like forever, we finally arrived at our own perfect Thanksgiving Day lake house. I mean, seriously, I could have not picked this place better out of a catalog. The house itself is a 2.5 bedroom (two full sized rooms and a small twin bed in a ½ room) with a large living room/dining room/den area, a GIGANTIC back wrap-around porch and a huge entryway/living room/dry room. The place is HUGE - way more than we needed. There is even a washer and dryer in the basement (which has been going basically non-stop since we got here). The house is right on the water, with a small rowboat and dock attached. There’s a climbing tree, hiking trails, a huge yard. And the best part is that we are in the middle of Amish country so everyone around us is riding their horses, riding horse and buggies, we’re surrounded by bakeries, woodworking shops, tack shops, cafes. Absolutely perfect.

As soon as we got here, I started cooking. For our meal today, we had:

	A turkey
	Green Bean Casserole
	Mashed Potatoes
	Rolls

I also made queso for pre-dinner snack while we’re watching football and two pies for desert: a pumpkin pie and a chocolate pie. Now, this was my first Thanksgiving I’ve ever cooked the whole thing for and I was really nervous but trying not to show it so that everyone wouldn’t think I was a rookie. But everything turned out really great, nothing too overcooked, no food poisoning, and no leftovers. I’m quite proud of myself :)

So tonight we are watching football and drinking and playing card games and practicing our band and just hanging out. Bedtime will be early tonight and tomorrow will be another day of just… doing nothing.

XOXO

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