The Best and the Worst (According to Simmie)

A few more statistics:

- Number of times Melissa pointed out the corn: 26 (I was sleeping for part of the trip, so I might have missed some)
- Number of This American Life podcasts listened to: 8
- Number of pictures taken: 1294 (That is the actual number...no exaggeration)

Here are my opinions:

- Best State: Colorado. I'm currently planning my bid for the next Olympics so I can go live at the US Olympic Training Center and expand my outdoorsiness in Boulder. My love for Boulder was not misguided...I'm smitten.
- Worst State: I actually slept through 95% of Wyoming so I'm not sure if I can really say.
- Best Attraction: Arches National Park in Moab, UT. The blue sky! The rust red rocks! Amazing.
- Most Disappointing Attraction: The Grand Canyon. Ok, ok, I've already been harassed about this...maybe my expectations were too high, but it wasn't my favorite. Sure, it's huge, grand in fact. And the initial reaction is appropriate to the giganticness of it. But after that...it's a big canyon. Let's take a picture, drive a few miles and take another. Still a big canyon. The hike was nice and maybe if we had spent more time there and hiked down in the canyon or did some of the other activities I would have liked it more. It is intriguing though.
-Highest Ratio of "how good it turned out to be" as compared to how horrible you thought it would be": Wall Drug. Not nearly as depressing as I thought it would be. Plus they give you free ice water and stickers.
- Best Rest Stop: The one with the giant slabs of beef jerky by the counter. I honestly have no idea what state it was in.
- Worst Rest Stop: I agree with Melissa, the sketchy Dairy Queen in Nebraska. I would not like to enjoy a tasty thick Blizzard frozen treat there.
- Worst Drive: I got the honor or driving through Nebraska, South Dakota, and the Rockies. I would say the Rockies were the most stressful...let's not drive off the side of a mountain now.
- Best Elise chosen restaurant (Elise actually chose all of them): Macy's European Coffee House and Bakery. My hot chocolate was delicious!

About the last picture...

You may not be able to read it, but it encourages Olympic athletes to refrain from flushing ace bandages and such down the toilets.

And we're back!

...in Chicago!

We got up early, had a bite to eat in Madison, WI (a lovely Midwestern imitation of Ithaca), and then barreled through the last leg of the trip.

As our glorious (and automotive-failure-free) trip comes to a close, we offer you the following facts, figures, and opinions (Simmie and Elise will be following up with their own highs and lows soon).

Roadtrip 2008!
Fuel
-Total distance: 4,605.2 miles
-Fuel efficiency: 43.1 mpg

On the Road
-States visited: 10 (Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, & Wisconsin)
-Homework assignments completed: 1
-National parks/monuments visited: 8
-Blights on the National Landscape/Human Spirit visited: 2 (The Mall of America and Casa Bonita)
-McDonalds' bathrooms frequented: 12*
-Number of times we listened to the song by "Panic at the Disco": 12*
-Number of times we listened to the Mamma Mia soundtrack: 4
-Number of friendship bracelets made: 3 (Because we were in the car for 40 hours. And we're 12.)



Food
-Total trail mix consumed: 4lbs
-Total trail mix consumed by Melissa: 3.75 lbs*
-Total Wheat Thins consumed: 32 oz
-Lifesavers consumed: 98*

Miscellaneous
-Number of magicians pitied: 1 (1 very, very sad young man at Casa Bonita)

The Best and the Worst (according to Melissa)
-Best State: Colorado!!! I am buying a bike, strapping it to a Subaru, and never turning back!
-Worst State: Wyoming. It stinks.
-Best Attraction: Rocky Mountain National Park and the Grand Canyon (just wait until you hear what Simmie has to say!)
-Most Disappointing Attraction: The Mall of America (it has nothing on King of Prussia. Plus, there were no bald eagles in cages.)
-Highest Ratio of "how good it turned out to be" as compared to how horrible you thought it would be": Camping! (that is, once I figured out that we probably would not be eaten by an elk in the night)
-Best Rest Stop: The McDonalds in Denver--it had a fireplace in the middle!
-Worst Rest Stop: The scary Dairy Queen in Nebraska. Who ever said that toilets needed to be functional?

Well, I guess that's all. Thanks so much for reading our blog!

*These figures are approximations

Is that a dinosaur?

[my preemptive apologies for any overlap between my post and Simmie's...I wrote this blog before reading her post because I stink]

Greetings from the road! I am writing this blog as we wend our way through South Dakota, en route to Minneapolis (where we shall, at our parents’ requests, prance about as independent businesswomen and jauntily throw our chapeaus into the air).

I apologize for not updating the blog yesterday. It was my turn to post, and I fell asleep, or rather, I pretended to be asleep while Elise and Simmie prodded me to add a post…I was exhausted because we had had such a big South Dakta day!

So yesterday, we slept in a bit, procured free newspapers and coffee at our swanky hotel (yay Hotwire!), and then hit the road—the rainy, rainy road. The drive proved that driving so much in such a short amount of time can make you a little wacky! Our wackiness apparently manifests itself in a disturbing obsession with dinosaurs! By the way, does anyone know if there are any dinosaurs in natural gas? If you do, please email Elise immediately and ease her mind.



But before we could venture into cosmopolitan South Dakota, we had to drive through Wyoming! Where buffalo (and nothing else) roam! After stopping at a rest stop in Chugwater (a town aptly named after the action one must take after eating Chugwater’s “world-famous” chili!) and nearly being run over by a dozen Mennonites exiting the washroom in height order, Elise and I determined that we had entered a Coen brothers’ film.

We made it out alive.

Then, we stopped at Wind Cave, where we took an elevator down into the bowels of the earth. Our tour guide led us through the many rooms discovered by one Alvin McDonald in the late 1800s. In an attempt to re-create the “sights, sounds, and emotions” experienced by Alvin and his comrades so many years ago, our tour guide saw it fit to turn off the lights! I immediately tried to burrow into Elise’s shoulder. Who knew if this was a normal part of the tour?? Perhaps our tour guide in his olive green get-up and straw hat had finally had enough of forest ranging. Perhaps he would never turn on the lights and we’d stay in there forever, eventually becoming part of the national park.

After a minute or two the ranger turned the lights back on.

This is what we could see with the lights on.



Then we continued driving to Mount Rushmore! The actual monument is lovely, if a bit smaller than expected. However, the little museum in the complex overlooking the monument is quite spectacular (or at least I thought so). Here are some little known facts that we gleaned from the exhibits:
• Gutzum Borglum (the architect) is the best name ever
• In the original design, the presidents were spooning (with Lincoln in the back looking as though he was playing a very important game of peek-a-boo). I know that Simmie already mentioned this; however, after viewing the photo (again), I think you'll agree that this tidbit bears repeating.
• There was a statewide campaign to raise funds for the construction of Mount Rushmore. Schoolchildren were encouraged to donate 10 cents to the cause. Government officials expected to raise upwards of $10,000. Unfortunately, they raised a mere $1,400. Historians attribute this discrepancy to the fact that a new-fangled toy, the “yo-yo,” was released during the fundraiser. The cost of a yo-yo?—10 cents.




After deciding that we could not eat dinner in the disturbing town that has sprung up around Mount Rushmore (think Disneyworld, with motorcycles and many references to the Flintstones. Or, as Simmie just dubbed it, “tourist hell”). Instead, we continued driving to Wall, South Dakota, home of Wall Drug (basically a glorified rest stop that offers free water and bumper stickers), where we expected to encounter an even greater tourist hell. But it was actually quite nice. Elise rode a barrel, and I even found myself a man.



Finally, we watched Michael Phelps win a gold medal (we should just cut an post this sentence to the end of every post). And thus ended our last Friday of the trip.

We woke up on Saturday full of vim and vigor! Why? Because we were going to the Corn Palace and the Mall of America! But before we could see these blights on the American Landscape, we had to visit one last National Park (so as to not feel too guilty).

Before we headed out on our journey, people (including a real South Dakotan!) had encouraged us to visit Badlands National Park. Most described it as being “Mars-like.” They were quite right. You’re driving through flat, flat South Dakota, barrels of hay being the only topographical relief for miles, when suddenly you’re confronted with giant, crumbing, striated mountains.

We took a lot of pictures.



We are currently 100 miles from the Corn Palace! The rest of this post will be added later, detailing our maize adventures!

****

Okay, so the Corn Palace was a bit of a letdown. The roof isn't even made of corn, c'mon South Dakotans! Nonetheless, we did manage to eat some corn, and Simmie bought a bright orange popcorn ball.



Then we drove some more (along the way, passing my favorite billboard so far: "Inspect our restrooms! We do!" In case you were wondering, it was an advertisement for a campground).

Finally we arrived at what we thought would be shopping Mecca--The Mall of America. Turns out it was just another mall. Hmm. At least the pots were big!



Tomorrow we head back to Chicago! I'm a bit sad that the trip is over (though I am really, really looking forward to sleeping and sleeping and sleeping). Tomorrow we'll post some informal polls about our most/least favorite places. That is, unless we all divest ourselves of our belongings, buy bikes, and move to Boulder.

The tent

By request of my mother, who posted a comment saying that she wanted to see the tent we used for camping, here's a picture of Simmie and Melissa looking "proud" after we successfully set it up for the first time.

By the fourth night, we were able to set that sucker up in less than five minutes!

Let the Kitsch Begin!

Melissa was going to blog tonight but she fell asleep, so I will fill in for her.

We got up this morning and left Denver relatively early (although, not as early as we are going to leave tomorrow) on our way to South Dakota. I can't say that I have much to say about the drive because Elise and Melissa drove and I slept in the back seat. I think I'm doing a fairly decent job at not sleeping the entire time I am in the car, but my car-induced narcolepsy still affects me at times (although not when driving).

All I know, is that I woke up somewhere in Wyoming and we were driving next to buffalo! (or bison, I don't actually know the difference.) Here's a picture of one:


After driving for a very long time (again, according to Melissa and Elise, I was sleeping in the back seat) we stopped at Wind Cave somewhere in South Dakota. It was very cool. We took a tour down about 200 ft and got to explore some of the couple of the rooms down in the cave. We have lots of pictures but they don't really look like anything so you'll have to look up Wind Cave if you want to see something.

Next we stopped at Mount Rushmore. They sure do hide that sucker up some winding roads so that you can't see it from the road.

You know, we got there, took some pictures, read some stuff. Fun fact: the original design of Mount Rushmore had the presidents spooning. Elise took a picture:

Notice Lincoln peeking over Jefferson's shoulder. Peek-a-boo!

Our final stop was to the infamous Wall Drug, in Wall, SD. We began seeing signs for Wall Drug somewhere in Wyoming so there was a lot of anticipation. Between Mount Rushmore and Wall probably 95% of the billboards were for Wall Drug.

It was much less depressing than I think we were expecting. Apparently Wall Drug became successful by giving away cups of ice water to travelers across South Dakota which they still do today. And then things went haywire. There are statutes of dinosaurs, singing mechanical cowboys, 6' stuff rabbits, and more kitsch than you shake a Wall Drug walking stick at. We got there kind of late so most things were closed or closing as we got there. We ate some not-terrible dinner before collecting our required Wall Drug souvenirs and took advantage of the photo-op statues.

I look like a giant in this photo.


And Melissa made a friend:

Up early tomorrow. We're capping off our tour of national parks with a trip to the Corn Palace and the Mall of America. Ah, America.

Hurrah! Hurrah! The Americans win!

The end is in sight...

As Simmie mentioned in her last post, tonight is the Olympic women's gymnastics all-around competition, so I'll be posting again while she and Melissa watch and scream. (At the gymnastics, not at my blogging.)

Yesterday we drove from the Grand Canyon to Santa Fe, where we visited Pecos National Historical Park. We were originally going to go to Bandelier National Monument, but we were running low on time and Pecos was closer. As we walked into the empty visitor center, the park ranger handed us a laminated guide (labeled "RETURN TO NPS") and invited us to go into the theater to watch a brief informational video. It turned out that the "theater" was a room with ten chairs and a few carpeted stairs, facing a 15" TV on a table. We were the only three people in the theater.


Then the ranger pointed a remote at the DVD player and began the film, which I'm pretty sure was made in the late 1980s -- the narrator was a British woman with a very deep voice, and the video featured men in various goofy costumes, from loincloths to suits of armor that seemed to have been purchased at Party City. The video began with extended aerial footage of what was presumably some kind of land near Pecos, and ended with an extended metaphor about the different kinds of shoes that have walked through Pecos. As for the park itself, Simmie had it dead-on: it wasn't exactly bad, just not particularly remarkable after all the other parks we've been to. The fact that we only encountered one other visitor the entire time we were there implies that we're not the only ones who have made this judgment.

Today we headed out early to go to Denver. We were going to go on a tour of the U.S. Mint, but apparently you have to reserve a tour spot in advance, and by the time I realized this everything was already full. So instead we decided to stop by Colorado Springs on the way to Denver -- but first we went to a Cracker Barrel for brunch! I had never been to a Cracker Barrel, which seems to be part of the quintessential American experience, so I was very excited to finally check that box off my bucket list. (Up next: Dairy Queen!) Here's me playing the peg game while we waited for our biscuits:


According to the peg game, I am "purty smart"!

(A side note: the only paper map we have used this entire trip is the Cracker Barrel map that Melissa picked up a couple of months ago. It's a really good map!)

Okay, enough about Cracker Barrel. After brunch, we drove to Colorado Springs, where we toured the U.S. Olympic Training Complex. You may have noticed that Melissa and Simmie kind of like the Olympics. Here we are pretending that we actually accomplished something:


Then we went to the Garden of the Gods, also in Colorado Springs, which has enormous flat slabs of rock sticking hundreds of feet out of the ground. That was also cool.


Okay, I'm about to fall asleep so I'll speed up a bit. After Garden of the Gods we drove to Denver and went to Casa Bonita for dinner. Casa Bonita is advertised as a Mexican restaurant with "live entertainment" consisting of cliff-diving, dancing gorillas, cowboy shootouts, and some other bizarre things I'm forgetting. It sounded like the perfect kitschy cap to an evening. It wound up being pretty depressing, though; the extremely voluminous crowd of patrons consisted of two primary types:

1) White trash families: a man with a crew cuts and neck tattoos, a bleached-blonde woman in a tube top, and their five noisy, unsupervised children.

2) Hipsters who were there ironically.

I guess we fit into the latter category, although not quite perfectly enough for us to fully enjoy the experience. Here's Simmie and me after dinner (and after I discovered that three out of three toilets in the women's room were not functioning):


And now we're back in the hotel, and Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson just won gold and silver, so I'm going to go to bed.

Sleepy in Santa Fe

So, I'm currently kneeling at the end of our little tent area posting this. Not sure how long it will be...I suppose it depends on how long my legs hold out crouching like this. I'm going to guess that I won't be a Major League catcher anytime soon.

We got up around 5 this morning in hopes to catch the sunrise over the Grand Canyon. We've gotten really good at setting up and putting away the tent so it didn't take us too long. We managed to get there just as the sun was peeking over the horizon.

Look, Elise looks so happy to be awake!



We drove down to Flagstaff and got breakfast at this cute little vegetarian cafe that Elise found for us (let's be honest, Elise has found all of our restaurant choices and they have all been excellent) and I got a

After lots more driving where we finally seemed to hit the jackpot with roadside attractions (Mechanical dinosaurs! Petrified wood! Giant fiberglass bunnies! Pottery! Blankets! Oh my!) we managed to find out way to Pecos National Park.


Now to be honest, after Arches, the Canyonlands, and the Grand Canyon, Pecos was a little disappointing. It started with a kitchy video about Pecos Pueblo and then we took a little hike around some of the old pueblo ruins.

Look, you get to climb down things! There was an threatening rain cloud over us for most of the hike and at times, I was fairly certain Elise was going to get swept away by the winds, but we stayed grounded.

We spent the evening in Santa Fe. It's a very cute little town with lots of shops and there was live music on the plaza. We weren't there for long, but we ate at a place called Coyote Cafe (another Elise find) which was excellent.

Now we're back at the campground ready for our trip back to Colorado and to Denver! (and a hotel room)

Also, people have been concerned about whether we have been able to catch the gymnastics. Don't worry, we have. We're keeping tabs and I would say Melissa and I were slightly depressed after last night's women's team finals. Poor Alicia Sacramone. But tomorrow night is Women's All Around so probably expect a post from Elise while Melissa and I go into cardiac arrest around her.

No, we're not dead

So apparently Simmie and Melissa have received concerned calls from family members wondering why we haven't updated the blog in two days. Well, we're not dead -- we're at the Grand Canyon, and apparently providing free WiFi is not high on their list of priorities. But we finally found a place, and it just happens to be a sports lounge that is also showing the Olympics, which also just happens to be the women's gymnastics team finals tonight. So it looks like I'll be doing the blogging tonight, while Melissa and Simmie have conniptions on either side of me.

So, where to begin? We reached Moab, Utah on Sunday night, after Simmie drove us through the Rockies over steep, winding roads in pouring rain. Here she demonstrates her 10 o'clock/2 o'clock grip on the wheel:


Anyway, Simmie got us safely across the Rockies, and Melissa took over driving for what would be the most desolate stretch of road we'd seen to date, in Northeast Utah (state motto: "No Services at this Exit"). But then we made the turn toward Canyonlands National Park, and sudenly the ground erupted into enormous red cliffs that towered on either side of us. Canyonlands was amazing and unexpected; it was our first taste of the southwestern landscape with all of its alien features.


We managed to arrive at a hiking path just as a ranger was about to lead a tour, so we went with him on a 1.5-hour walk along the rim of a mesa from which we could see the rest of the park. We were beginning to grasp just how huge everything in the southwest was.

I decided to do some leisurely boulder-lifting for fun.

The next day we went to Arches National Park, a mere day after one of their most famous arches collapsed. The park certainly had its act together: the visitor's center already had laminated before-and-after photos of the arch. (We're also pretty sure that the arch that collapsed is the arch that's on our annual NPS pass -- collector's item!) Arches National Park, as you may have surmised, contains a lot of arches. Huge, naturally-occurring stone arches.


Melissa and Simmie climbed up into one of the arches, but I decided to stay down at the bottom and watch.


After we left Arches, we headed for the Grand Canyon. We took a detour to Four Corners, which was one of the most depressing places I've ever been. Here's a photo!


Basically, we got out of the car, took this photo, waited in line for ten minutes to buy a postcard from an impoverished Native American woman who was also selling frybread out of her trailer, considered using the bathroom but discovered that there were only portapotties, and then got back in the car and left. I think I can safely say that visiting Four Corners once was enough for a lifetime.

So, the Grand Canyon. I'm not going to post any photos of the Grand Canyon because photos don't really do it justice. Nor can words, so I won't try to describe it except as "unfathomable." We briefly saw the canyon on Monday night, but by that point it was starting to get dark so we headed to the campground to set up our tent. We went to the market and got ingredients for a lantern- and citronella-candle-lit dinner.


Then we went to the sports bar to watch the men's gymnastics team finals and drink soda (the bartender: "What, are all three of you driving?" We got carded for the sodas, by the way). After we got kicked out of the bar (all that caffeine in the diet Coke got us rowdy), we headed to an overlook to watch the Perseids. We saw a few good meteors, but there was too much light around us to really see anything impressive. Driving back to our campsite, we encountered an enormous buck leisurely strolling through the campground, in search of food.

Okay, now we're up to today. Today we woke up early and headed for Bright Angel Trail, the main trail that goes down into the canyon. We decided to hike down to the 1.5-mile rest station, then hike back up. There were approximately 5 million signs telling us not to attempt to hike down to the river and back in one day or we would die. We didn't really need any convincing. There were also a lot of signs telling us not to fall off the edge of the canyon or we would die. Once again, we didn't really need a lot of convincing on that point.


So we set out, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (as you can see above). The descent wasn't too bad; the path was a little slippery at some points and there was copious donkey poop to avoid, but it wasn't particularly taxing and we arrived at the rest station in about an hour. And that's where we encountered the Grand Canyon squirrels.


The squirrels in the Grand Canyon have clearly been fed by many, many people. Not only are they not afraid of humans, but they can recognize human food and they will do anything to get it, including trying to grab it out of your hands despite the fact that you are roughly 400 times larger than they are.


While we were at the rest station, we also witnessed a helicopter flying in and dropping off materials to repair a broken pipe at the water pump.


And then we began the ascent. That part... was not so much fun. Hiking uphill in relentlessly sunny 90-degree heat for a mile and a half is not something I would choose to do on a daily basis. But after many, many pauses (most of which were requested by me), we finally made it back to the top, sweaty and dirty and greasy and just generally disgusting. The general guideline for hiking into the canyon is that it takes twice as long to walk back up as it takes to walk down; it took us an hour to walk down and an hour and fifteen minutes to walk back up. I think we powered our way back up the trail because it was so unpleasant we just wanted it to be over.


We showered, ate an enormous lunch, drove to a few lookout points, took a nap, woke up dehydrated, and we've been eating, drinking Gatorade, and watching the Olympics for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow it's off to Santa Fe!

Awe and Amazement

Just a quick note...seems as if it might start raining any moment, so I gotta be quick.

Left Colorado early this morning. I drove through the Rockies which was amazing although slightly stressful. Driving down steep slopes while raining is not really preferable.

We managed to get to Utah in the early afternoon. We drove straight to the Canyonlands National Park. The entire drive there was amazing. The change in scenery as we drove was awesome. Canyonlands was hot, but beautiful. It was so large and almost inconceivable how great something could be. We were all so impressed by the Canyonlands that we're not sure what the Grand Canyon is going to be like.

In the late afternoon we got into Moab and set up our tent successful. As I write this, the tent is still standing, so I guess that's a good sign. We went for some excellent dinner at Eddie McStiff's (yes, that is the actual name) and managed to con the waitress into giving us a table near the television where Melissa and I managed to spend the entire meal gasping over the gymnastics. We may be camping, but we're going to see our Olympics!

Gotta get into the tent...the rain is here. And hopefully we will be tomorrow morning!

Simmie

Husking and Busking

It was well past nightfall when we approached Boulder last night, so the idea that we were approaching the Rocky Mountains was a rather abstract one. To the left, the distant sky flashed with lightning from a violent thunderstorm; to the right, the last vestiges of the sunset lingered in the clouds; but straight ahead there was only the darkness of a long, unlit highway. Apparently the Colorado Chamber of Commerce does not see fit to illuminate the Rockies at night with enormous floodlights.

But sure enough, when we woke up this morning and went outside... there were mountains!


We set out for Rocky Mountain National Park in the morning, where we used our few precious hours there to drive to a few lookout points and climb rocks by a waterfall. We were surprised by how easily we got winded in the high altitudes, but we were even more surprised by the people biking up the winding mountain roads. Coloradans do not mess around.


From there we went to the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder, where went on a factory tour. Since it was the weekend, the factory floor wasn't in operation; this meant that we didn't get to see the tea being packaged (boo!) but it also meant that we didn't have to wear hairnets (yay!). We also got to watch a propaganda video about how fantastic Celestial Seasonings is, and how Celestial Seasonings only uses all-natural ingredients, and how Celestial Seasonings contains antioxidants, and how Celestial Seasonings will make you more attractive to the opposite sex (or the same sex, hey, this is Boulder after all). The takeaway lesson from the tour: tea factories smell! A lot!


Then it was off to the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder, which is sort of like the Ithaca Commons but with more chain stores. Visiting Boulder is kind of strange after spending four years in Ithaca; there are many similarities between the two cities, but Boulder is more... aggressive? Ithaca's quirks are of the hippy-dippy, broomstick-skirt-wearing variety, whereas Boulder's quirks are of the bizarre-facial-piercings variety. In Ithaca, the unwashed hippies sit on a bench and strum guitars; in Boulder, the unwashed hippies approach you and sing at you. There are a lot of biceps in Boulder. And a hell of a lot of Subaru Outbacks. Ithaca : Granola :: Boulder : Power Bars.

We wandered around the Pearl Street Mall for a while, then headed to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. From there we walked back through the Mall, where we we accidentally got reeled in by an annoying busker who spent far too much time aggressively courting bystanders and not nearly enough time doing anything interesting. ("Okay, okay, the box trick. Here we go. Hey, you! You in the brown shirt! Watch this! I'm going to do a great trick with these boxes! Okay, here we go. Hey you!" etc.) Then we had ice cream, and went back to the hotel to watch the Olympics. And now I'm going to go to sleep, because tomorrow we're waking up early to head to Moab, UT and Canyonlands National Park.

Oh, and to complete the rhyming title of this post, when we got back to Melissa's car in the Boulder garage, someone had thrown corn on the ground behind it:

Boulder is beautiful

Greetings from Colorado! We woke up early this morning and headed over to Rocky Mountain National Park (see photos!). The sky was freakishly blue, the air was freakishly thin, and we were freakishly excited about the prospect of not having to drive 1,100 miles. Simmie climbed atop a very large rock, Elise ordered a hot dog, and I drank 10 cups of free tea at the Celestial Seasonings factory (Blueberry Green Tea is delicious!).

Then, we headed down to Boulder, where we shopped, ate, and were attacked by a rather annoyingly determined wasp. Now we are cheering for Dara Torres! Go U.S.A.!

We made it!

18 hours later, one timezone, over 1000 miles, and two tanks of gas we made it to Boulder!! I am currently sitting in our plush TownePlace Suites room which is definitely bigger than Melissa's apartment.

We managed to get up around 4:30, out the door by 5, and on the road by 5:16. Because we are us, we had matching shirts and even looked to be somewhat awake.

We also managed to get all of our stuff into the car. Elise looks like she's in an advertisement for a bulk foods store.

Other than that...pretty much we drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. Oh, and after that? We drove. The following are some pictures of the scenery:

Illinois:

Iowa:

Nebraska:
I was driving through lots of Nebraska so I don't have too many pictures. I bet you can guess what it looked like though.

Colorado:

We did stop in Des Moines. Verdict: Not too exciting. And AAA books are horribly out of date. And we didn't see one giant billboard of Shawn Johnson.

So today...not so exciting. We did manage to get here though and now it's time to sleep so we can have some fun tomorrow....Rocky Mountain National Park, Celestial Seasonings Factory Tour, and I can confirm my love for Boulder!

Night!
Simmie