Sweet Home Alabama, I’m Comin’ to Visit You

Road tripping to Alabama was great because I got to see the “Sweet Home Alabama Welcomes You” sign as we drove in. Sorry that song is now stuck in your head :)

I’ll just say up front that the drive to Alabama was great – baby Owen was a great travel companion (sleep most of the time we were in the car) and catching up with Stephanie and talking about random and meaningful things was awesome.

Traveling on Black Friday was also awesome because there were not that many people around. The only down side is a lot of things were closed that would have been cool to explore in Montgomery.

Never fear, we found some great gems anyway!

Walking around State Capitol buildings is very fun for me. I don’t know why they are so fascinating to me, but they are. And they are usually beautiful. This one was no exception. And in addition to the building being interesting, they also had something I hadn’t seen before – flags from each state with a stone in front with the state name engraved, and the stones appeared to come from the state. Like lava rock for Hawaii. Very cool.

Then came the best part - meeting Santa at the first White House of the Confederacy!

The man in charge of the White House of the Confederacy was Santa. He even Skypes with kids these days if he has to stop working on their toys to encourage them to be good so he can finish and deliver them! 

He also let me take a picture of his key to the North Pole workshop :)

The rooms and other artifacts on display were pretty neat! Every time I see things like this I wish that I lived in that era. And then I think about being covered in so much material all the time and I change my mind.

There were also fun facts and pictures and things like the "pocket pistol" pictured below:

 

It was also interesting to walk around town and see some of the historic buildings and learn a little more about the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery.

On our way out of town I also saw this gem - a sign for a Daddy-Daughter Diamond Princess Ball! 

It brought back good memories of doing similar activities with my father when I was younger. I hope it was well attended and many great memories were created!

Missouri: Double Arches and Amusement Parks

By double arches, I don't mean this:

I mean seeing this twice:

St. Louis is one of the relatively few places I've been to more than once. On one of my families cross country road trips we stopped in St. Louis and I remember getting out and walking around the Arch. When Amber and I stopped there on our road trip it was really fun to see a familiar thing.

Our plan for St. Louis was to stay with Amber's cousins. It turns out they had some water damage in their kitchen and had to do some unexpected remodeling...so, they put us up in a hotel for the night. So we had dinner with the cousins, watch some of the Olympics, and got a good nights rest.

While I enjoyed St. Louis both times I was there, I have to say that my favorite Missouri memory is related to Branson, Missouri.

We stayed in a time share that was walking distance to Table Rock Lake. It is a GORGEOUS place!

I remember feeling so grown up because my parents entrusted me with helping my youngest brother and making sure he didn't slip and fall on the slippery rocks on the lake bed.

The best part was that my parents found out that the local amusement park, Silver Dollar City, had this great deal. If you go after 4:30pm on one day, you get back in the second day for free! It was perfect. My parents dropped the three older kids off (approximately 12, 9, and 7) and we rode as many rides as we could so we'd know the best ones to repeat the next day.

The worst part is that I wore shoes that ended up giving me a blister - between going on lots of wet rides, and walking back to the time share, I didn't stand a chance. Luckily, there were no rides that required close toed shoes, so for day 2 I just put on flip flops and stuck bandaids over my blisters and we were smooth sailing! (the bandaids ended up being a BAD idea...but that is a sad story involving swimming in the lake later in the day with the bandaids still on, and seeing really cool silver, spiny fish using goggles, and getting back really late and not thinking about taking the bandaids off after the quick shower - so, I ended up with infected blisters. Sad, very painful few days followed - but back to happier things!).

Our favorite ride, hands down, was Wildfire - an awesome roller coaster that the Silver Dollar City website describes like this:

Silver Dollar City's WildFire®, the high-flying, multi-looping, cobra-rolling coaster that travels up to speeds of 66 mph

We rode it again, and again. Often multiple times in a row. Not only was it fun - the view was great:

Our parents always gave us a roll of quarters that we could spend on trips like this. Our money to do whatever we wanted with (and a great way for them to not have to buy us souvenirs - they would say "if you still have money, go ahead!"). We pooled some of our quarters to try our first funnel cake. Yum!

Between the increased trust and freedom of having some adventures just us kids and the actual events - all day amusement park sandwiched with lake swimming - I look back at Branson as one of my fondest family trip memories.

And, we topped it all off by seeing the the Dutton Family perform. My dad bought a CD from them, and I always wish it was mine...

Great Wall of China

People keep asking me what my favorite part of my trip to China was. Honestly, there were so many unbelievable/ incredible elements that I don't know if there is an answer to that question. But, since I have been forced to pick "one" over and over again, the answer I go with is the Great Wall of China.

When I was young, I used to play this electronic game where you would match pictures of famous places to the geographic location. The Great Wall of China was one of the places (along with the Colosseum and the Hanging Gardens). At that time, I never even dreamed that I would be able to see any of those places in person. 

Arriving at the Great Wall was surreal. In part because it was one of the first things we did in China, and mostly just because of what it is. And how long it has been there. All of the buildings where we explored the wall were really neat:

At first I was nervous. Their were so, so many people climbing the wall in front of us that I didn't know how we could even join them. Luckily it thinned out after the first hill.

The steps were all different sizes, which made for an interesting, and challenging climb. And slow going!

We met some fun people - who ended up staying at the same hotel as us! Such a small world. The wife of the pair is in the top right of the photo below

We also came across some interesting signs - graffiti we couldn't read, a sign we laughed about, and then we made one of our own:

At the top, we climbed up on the desk structure. Some nice Chinese man helped push me up from below while my friends pulled me up from above.

Going back down was also interesting - particularly because of the differences in the sizes of the stairs. I ended up running down most of the way, for some reason that was easier for me...

Of course we had to have some photo ops before we left - below are two of my favorites:

One thing I have to mention about the Great Wall of China is what our tour guide kept saying about it: "If you want to walk the whole thing, good luck. We'll pick you up in 5 years. It is the same length as going from New York to San Francisco and back again."

And just because I really can't choose one best part of the trip - this was pretty cool too!

Kansas

One of our things I enjoyed about Kansas was being in a city that is named after one state, but in two (Kansas City) and in another state straddling city named after both (Kanorado).

In Kansas City all we really did was change drivers. But in Kanorado, now there is a story!

We were running low on gas and saw a sign, so we got off the freeway in Kanorado -- turns out the gas station was shut down, and despite having their own community museum, there was not a soul to be seen besides one young, lone biker. Eerie! We got out of there as fast as we could!

On top of the epicness of the actual event, there is some great icing on the cake. My girlfriends from high school and I have done a gift exchange since Jr. High - and for a long time we drew names for both a "silly" gift and a "nice" (but not more than $10) gift. The Christmas after our road trip Amber drew my name. For the silly gift. I read her card before opening the present. She told me she talked to her brother (who lived in NYC) what to get someone in Boston (where I lived, and which I LOVE) - I knew this was going nowhere good ;) 

I opened the box and pulled the wrapping away from a Yankees mug - the horror! But the best part is that she had written "Made with love in Kanorado" on the bottom of the mug. Amazing.

I Got Georgia on My Mind

One summer I visited my Grandpa Todd in Tennessee. While I was there, we took a drive down to Savannah, GA to visit some of his wife Elizabeth's family. The drive down was eventful in ways I'd rather not remember, and choose not to recount.

Luckily I remember being in Savannah with fondness. I remember seeing the moss hanging from trees everywhere. I remember being shy and a bit embarrassed by these (what seemed to me at the time) overly physically affectionate distant relatives I'd never heard of, let alone met before.

We went to the beach - Tybee Island Beach. That was by far the highlight of the trip. It was a beautiful day. And I remember thinking it was absolutely incredible that I had been from coast to coast in a matter of days (my family went to the beach in California right before I flew to Tennessee). To go from having never seen the ocean, to seeing and playing in both coasts was certainly memorable.

I remember getting my feet wet, and letting the waves bury my feet in the sand as I simply stood in one place. It made me feel safe, like I couldn't be pulled out to sea.

More than anything I wanted to find a beautiful seashell to take home. The search was the fun part. Finding what looked perfect, pulling it out of the sand, and realizing it was missing the other half - that was less fun.

But, a stranger made my day. While looking for perfect seashell he found many perfect sand dollars. And he gave several to me. I had never seen anything so beautiful. I was in awe, and so grateful. I still have them, nearly 20 years later.

As a family we visited my Grandpa Todd another summer a few years later and again made the drive down to Georgia. This time was certainly bittersweet. We were planning on going down anyway, but the timing got changed because Elizabeth's relative was killed at work.

Us children were still pretty young then, so we didn't know much about the situation, intentionally (thanks parents!). What we did know was that mom lived in Georgia as a child. We drove by her old school, which she was very excited to see, and show to us. And we stayed at her childhood friend Chrissy's house. It was so cool. They had a golf cart (that they let us drive!) and a pond that had turtles (and we imagined much more - think alligators!) and acres of land that we could explore. Plus my dad and I played a game of Skip-bo that ended up lasting for HOURS.

It's funny the things that stay with you :)

Nebraska

There are two vignettes for this state, both took place on cross country drives.

Driving cross country from Boston to Utah with one of my childhood friends, Amber, was quite a journey. Amber did most of the driving, but one day I took over and drove for hours across the planes of Kansas and Nebraska while she slept.

Miles and miles of vegetation sliding by hour after hour. Some may not enjoy that. I thought it was incredible. It amazes me what variety there is in this world - of things that grow, of people who do such different things, cities vs farms...

On top of my personal interest and interaction, I also couldn't help but think of My Antonia by Willa Cather. I've read that book a number of times, and even wrote a paper about nature being treated as a character in the book - so many great personifications used! There is a passage that came back to me during the trip - about sunflowers. I drove by field after field of them (that's right, not just corn!) and thought about the story of Mormon Pioneers planting sunflowers along the trail as a way to both mark the trail West and provide food for those that followed them. Genius.

The other vignette is from another cross country drive, this one with my family. 

Family road trips are awesome. On this one we decided to stop and visit some family friends who had moved to Nebraska. It was fun to see them, and experience a little bit of life in a place so different than what I was familiar with.

We went to Council Bluffs. I remember feeling peaceful staring out across the windswept prairie. And reviving some of my "Laura Engles Wilder" dreams of living on the land. I remember being fascinated by the history and stories of those who settled that land.

I'm not sure I am actually cut out for a "live off the land" kind of life, but I sure enjoy dreaming about it!

Delightful Delaware

My mom came to visit me in New York, and she asked if I had any nearby states that still needed to be crossed off my list. Delaware fit the bill, and planning for a road trip was set in motion!

Rehoboth Beach happens to be one of my roommates favorite places, so when I mentioned that I was planning a trip to Delaware, she told me to go there. And then when I looked up "things to do in Delaware" it turns out the internet backed up the suggestion. Rehoboth turned into the focal point for the trip, and I invited Amanda to join us.

Notably, this became my first real driving in New York experience (I still count the U-haul I drove across the George Washington Bridge into my neighborhood, double parked for the few hours it took to unload, and then drove over into the Bronx, but this was more sustained, and in a busier part of the city). My passengers and I survived :)

Crossing the bridge from New Jersey into Delaware was great - I love bridges, and we went over some neat ones on this trip:

We stopped in Wilmington to try the states sandwich (think Thanksgiving dinner on a hoagie, yum!) It was large, and tasty. A great welcome to Delaware!

We also wandered around the main downtown area, which was adorable:

Some crazy traffic in Jersey put us a little behind schedule, but we still were able to do a night stroll on the beach - eating an ice cream sandwich (me) and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice (Amanda). We stumbled upon a great sand castle - so cool!

My mom prefers to enjoy the water from a distance, so just Amanda and I dipped our toes in. The water felt warm, and it made me excited to come back in the morning.

It turns out the warmth of the water was deceptive. The next morning (after a leisure breakfast) we put on our suits and headed to the beach. My mom did some shopping and Amanda and I braved the waves. Between the chilly temperatures and the power of the waves, it really did take some braving...I got tumbled around a number of times, but it was still fun to play in the water and remember other great beach trips!

And then there was the family that found a very creative way to keep their baby from running away:

There was a great arcade that had 10 cent skee ball! (you had to buy them a dollar at a time though - so we ended up playing 30 rounds of skee ball :) SO FUN!! and we even got some Laffy Taffy and friendship rings with the tickets we won.

At one point, I turned around on my beach towel and realized that the billowing clouds in the blue sky over the ocean in front of me turned into ominous looking cloudy skies behind me. I'm so glad the hovering rain didn't ruin our day!

It waited just long enough for us to head over to the outlet mall. So, we did a little shopping for the rest of the afternoon. I found some great items (and spent more than I meant to...)

There was a great book store (where I bought several journals...) and they had an amazing mural:

Dinner was at a Chinese Buffet. Not really anything to do with Delaware, but it was pretty tasty!

Sunday we went to Church. I had to make a couple U-turns before we made it to the right place, but we did make it. After Church it was time for a final stretch of the legs and then the long drive back. Luckily Delaware (and Jersey) were kinder as far as traffic goes for most of the drive. Just getting over the George Washington Bridge was a little problematic. But, it was nice to see the city again, and to be home after such a relaxing weekend in Delaware.