see.something.different

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I try to answer that question everyday. Yep, it's true... I just don't know. Now that we have moved to a new city... I plan to figure this out. Some people just know what they want to do.

Mike... he loves books and knowledge. Sometimes he will talk to me about what he is learning or reading and it literally sounds like another language. I know he is speaking English and the words sound right but I just watch them fly right over my head. He wants to teach people (in real language) about what is inside some of our greatest books.

At one point I thought I wanted to go into medicine and make people feel better when they are sick.

Then I thought, I can't be so creative in medicine, maybe I want to design the spaces people feel better in. So I am in interior architecture and for the past 2 years I work on Health care design...

But tomorrow, I am going to scratch a little 'itch' so to say. I met a friend here in Chicago the other day. She works in a bakery designing cakes. Tomorrow I am going to shadow her and her bakery friends. Let's see... baking, sweets, making people feel good, and design. Hmmm... I will let you know what I... cook up!
:0)

see.we

The day after we arrived in Chicago, we had so much to do. We managed to find a futon among other things and due to Michael's storage situation we couldn't pick up his belongings until Tuesday. Tuesday we got up, collected Michael's stuff around town and he took the U haul trailer back to the rental shop while I walked to the bank.
I was having some banking issues... not to name names but a certain California teller lead me to believe that I had to close my bank account take all my cash (along on our road trip) and reopen the account in Chicago in order to keep banking with them. Long annoying story.
Realizing I was misinformed and had multiple overdraft fees I marched myself up to the bank and 2 hours later finally get things resolved. Meanwhile, Michael is calling and texting me frantically about meeting up for coffee. This was unlike him (to be so persistent about my coffee needs) so i told him to bring some up to the bank. We walked back home when I was finished and then something strange happened... When we walk in the door of the apartment, Mike grabbed my hand and insisted I sit down on our 'new' futon (I hadn't had lunch yet so asking me not to go directly to the kitchen was um... difficult) but he insisted. I sit down and just as I do, he kneels down and asks me to marry him. Yep, right there, surrounded by boxes and tape. I said 'yes yes yes!' and there we were crying and hugging and just lots of happy tears!
We reenacted the proposal in the park with pictures so you get some kind of visual ;0)

Michael, Miles and ring.
The ring (by the way) is from Brilliant Earth. They are located in San Francisco. The platinum is recycled and the diamonds are from Canada. The halo setting is just beautiful! Michael had just got it in the mail hence his utter persistence and excitement. Very sweet. It's been a long road... literally and figuratively and Michael said that he couldn't wait another second.

This is on the lake in Chicago. About a 20 min. walk from our house.

So excited!! Engaged to my best friend!

Our first picture as an engaged couple!

see.roadtrip.day.7

9.06: day 7 "last day... again"
Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
7:00 AM came quickly as we rushed to pack up and head towards the only mechanic that was open on Sunday of Labor Day weekend. We eat a fast breakfast and hop in the car and it starts... reluctantly. The car was still running at this point, it however, was having a difficult time staying 'on' and really couldn't go over 30 mph... and don't forget we are still pulling our trailer. eh. After taking 3 wrong turns, we make it to a hill. Probably the largest hill in Wisconsin. I am driving so we approach the hill and I look at Michael and say 'well should we attempt this?'
He replies... 'sure'.
We make it about 1/5 of the way up the hill and the car just dies. Frustrated we roll the car and the trailer back down the hill and into a parking lot. And we are at a loss.
Then a woman came out of nowhere and knocks on our window asks... "Do you two need a tow?"
It just so happens that Mrs. Hebert was standing nearby and watching all of the dramatic hill rushing we were doing and after we pulled over she called her husband who has a HUGE truck with a trailer hitch to come help us out! Yea, I know. Dumb luck strikes again!! So they take the trailer, Mike and Miles to the mechanic. I call a tow truck and tow the car.
!!!Thank you to the Hebert Family in Eau Clair, Wisconsin!!!!
2 hours later we are sitting at a Starbucks next to the mechanic's shop (recounting all of our luck we have had and hoping it would continue) we then get a phone call. Seems like the plastic cover over the spark plugs was cracked and needed to be replaced... ha, no big deal. The car was fixed before we finished our coffee. The tow and fixing the car (for both days) did add up but it could have been a lot worse. We were on the road before noon.

The rest of the drive was full of nervous energy. I just knew something else was going to happen, we really just wanted to get to the apartment, unpack and turn in the trailer. I only took 2 pictures this day.

See... we made it :)

And finally the place. Again, since we were so exhausted I didn't take any pictures so all I can provide is an overview. The big pink arrow is pointing to our coach house. A couch house is an apartment above a 2 car garage- at one point long ago this space was used to house coaches and horse-drawn carriages. The main house (across) the yard is where our landlords 'Niko and Cindy' reside. They also rent out the top floor and the basement floor of the main house. So we basically moved into a ready made community. Everyone, was happy to meet us and fully welcomed our arrival!
It's good to be home.

see.roadtrip.day.6

9.05: day 6 "Last Day"

We left Plymouth, MN (which is right outside of Minneapolis) for our final day of the trip. The total drive time for the day... approx. 7.5 hours. The night before, we slept at the Red Roof Inn for 59.00 per night and the dog was free. The room was surprisingly nice considering the price. We let ourselves sleep in this morning till 9AM as we were so tired from driving the day before. It is amazing how sitting in a car for hours upon hours can cause such heavy exhaustion! We were so very hungry because the dinner the night before consisted of 1 snickers bar split 2 ways. We found breakfast and were on our way.
We drove right through Minneapolis and entered into Wisconsin. Wisconsin (by the way) is beautiful this time of year. Sweet rolling hills, green grass, rivers, big shady trees.... BOOM! As we were driving my car decides to have a stroke on the highway. The 'service engine soon' light is flashing and we are off the road. We realize something very bad has just happened on the easiest terrain of the trip. This also happened to be Labor Day weekend. A time when most people are not at work. We called probably 20 - 25 mechanics, my Dad (who is in Florida) is calling around the area we were in too, for us. So the only place we found open and that felt sorry for us happened to be this guy Josh, at an oil and lube shop.

Here she is... 'Ol Velveeta' in the shop.

Mr. trailer not far behind.

And then we wait. Wait to see what Josh can find. Josh was our 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' of the town mechanics. He was our only hope.

I found it strange that the place we ended up was right across the street from a 'Mike's Smokehouse' and (as you can see below) on the corner of Frank St.

Michael's name = Mike Franks... hmmm....

The guy is super friendly and did the best he could but we end up $100 more broke and the car is even worse off. Frustrated, tired (ONLY 5.5 Hours from Chicago) we call a hotel and 'pull over' for the night.
The hotel we found was nice, dinner was hot and delicious, happy hour consisted of cheap local beer and the Gator game was on. From there... rest.

see.roadtrip.day.5

9.04: day 5
As you can see from the map we had simple driving instructions for the day... Due East then take a left and drive North.

About 10 hour driving day plus an additional stop for a (lesser known) national monument...

So this is "Mount Rushmore". It is located about 30 mins. outside of Rapid City. All joking aside... I was actually pretty excited to see this huge rock sculpture.

"Mike- try looking presidential, I'm going to take your picture so it looks like your head is up there too! Your mom is going to love this!" and Mike says "what?" and just smiles. Still cute.

Once we got to the monument, parked, realized Miles was not allowed to roam around with us so we had to leave him in the car, we walked up to the huge rock, checked it out and then... (don't tell anyone) but I was ready to go. Sure it is impressive but you can only stare at a rock for so long. eh.

We were able to get a little hike in around the um, faces. This little hike was more my style. Away from the crowds of people and into these caves where, as seen above, you get a glorious view of nostrils. I felt a little embarrassed staring so blatantly up into Mr. Washington's nose. Lincoln was having none of this and is covered, most appropriately with a tree branch, thank you sir.

Since our little side trip for the day lasted a little longer then we expected, we had to skip "Badlands National Park". We were both pretty upset about this decision but it wasn't an option. The trip to the Badlands would have taken an extra 3 hours. We did however, get to see these little beauties!

We basically drove up to the entrance of "Badlands National Park" just to see what we were missing and on the way back to the highway there was a Historic Prairie Home. But what was even more exciting were the White Prairie Dogs all around the home. SO CUTE! This is the ONLY white Prairie Dog 'Town' in the world.
http://www.prairiehomestead.com/prairie_homestead.html

We laughed for a while just thinking about 'Prairie Doggin'- in case you don't know what it is look it up: urbandictionary.com
Yes, we need to grow up.

see.roadtrip.day.4

9.03: day 4
I promise I will finish blogging about our trip very soon! It gets better I promise. Then, on to bigger news... more on that after a few more posts.
Ahem... Day 4
We woke up early in our tent. During the night, Mike and I both heard some really crazy noises. Perhaps it was elk chit-chatting in the forest... whatever, when a mere thin layer of tent material separates you from true wildlife (as they specialize in Yellowstone) otherwise cute Elk noises in the middle of the night become "mike... do you think that is big foot?" Yea, we were lucky we had a guard dog... or at least something tasty to use as a bribe for a quick get-a-way. Just kidding Miles... moving on.

Our itinerary for the day was to get to Rapid City at a reasonable hour... this was an approximate 8 hour drive then you add in additional trailer time = 10 hours.

Our hotel for the previous night.

Mother and baby elk on the side of the road. Since we were in our car I wasn't able to get a great shot of the baby nursing. It is not difficult to spot wildlife here... just look for the multiple cars stopping and people walking around with cameras... as they were in this case.

Baby Elk.

We packed up as early as possible to make it over to see 'Old Faithful'. Michael was starving and really wanted to go eat. I, however, had this feeling that the geyser was about to go so we waited... about 5 minutes. And then-

The geyser only goes off about once every 45 minutes - to - an hour and 30 minutes. Apparently, it is difficult to calculate the exact time. We got lucky and only waited 5 minutes. Awesome.

Higher!

HIGHER!

See we were here!

As we were leaving 'Old Faithful' and walking to eat breakfast, we heard this ranger say "hey look Castle Rock is going off! That geyser only blows about once every 30 hours!" Yep, we ran over to 'Castle Rock' which happened to be on our way to breakfast and took some pictures. This geyser was much better then 'Old Faithful' and lasted much longer. After hanging out for a while we went to eat breakfast... now that is what you call speed sight-seeing!

On the trip out of the park (this took about 2 hours) we stopped to take a break with some buffalo. We were so impressed with the size and sounds of these animals. This group was just crossing the road right in front of us.

Life in the fast lane...

see.roadtrip.day.3

9.02: day 3

We woke up feeling very rested on this day. Our hotel room in Boise was very nice and we felt less pressure to hurry because our drive was shorter than the previous days. Also, on this day we knew what was coming... Yellowstone National Park! I had planned our entire trip on visiting this special place. We were to arrive in Yellowstone by around 6pm and set up camp.
Yep, we camped!

Map of day 3. Our hotel to the West Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

Each day, Mike and I would share lunch duty. We had a full cooler and dry box where we kept a weeks worth of lunch supplies. This kept food costs down as most of our hotels provided breakfast. That only left us to purchase dinner on the road.
Lunch for day 3- Smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels, potato salad and a nectarine. Yum!

A picture our our lunch spot for the day and old 'Velveeta' (my car) pulling the trailer. She was quite the champ.

I was unaware that about 1/4 of our entire road trip would move right along the Oregon Trail. Apparently I am not the only one who was eager to get to California when I had the chance... now I am on my way to Chicago.

The drive into Yellowstone National Park and out of the Park are really beautiful. Remember the movie 'A river runs through it'... yep it was filmed just outside of Yellowstone. You can visit the house where the movie was based- very exciting.
Once we arrived at the park it was about 7 pm. We figured we had plenty of time to get to our campsite set up. When we pulled up to the West Entrance the Ranger told us where to go: he said our camp was about 1.5 HOURS into the park!!! Yea we had no idea the park was that big and by this time it started to get really dark.

We made it to the campsite in about 2 hours because we kept stopping for this... just off the side of the road- steam coming up from the liquid hot magma below! These spots were everywhere! Amazing!!

see.roadtrip.day.2

9.01: day 2

We woke up in Coos Bay, OR. Our plan was to drive all the way through Oregon and end up in Boise City, Idaho. Approx. 11 hours. As you can see on the map- Oregon is green and lush for a while and then gets dry and the trees just stop. We had a great time driving through. First things first, Coffee. Mike was so impressed with all the drive-thru coffee shops. So we stopped at this one because I liked the name: The Human Bean.

The Boardwalk in Coos Bay-

Checking out the boats

Checking out the sailors

On our way we kept noticing signs for smoked salmon. We had to stop for a snack. 1/4 lb. was just enough- so we loaded up at the Krab Kettle. YUM! Even Miles got a taste.

Oregon is full of road work. It seemed like every few miles there were areas we had to stop while they let traffic through. At this stop, Mike looked over and said 'Mel there are blackberries growing on the side of the road!' I gave him a bag and he took to picking! The sweetest blackberries ever!

Roadside break. We found this little river to just stop and relax for a minute.

As we said farewell to Day 2 we made one last stop- just on the side of the road. Good-night!