My bestie, Pam, got married this past weekend:
It was fabulous and fun! I'll post more, maybe, upon my return.
Have a wonderful and safe 4th of July (my gma will be turning 88 on the 4th!!)
Showing posts with label Road Trip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Road Trip. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Going away
Steve and I are Chicago bound tomorrow for the long weekend - yay! We're driving. We're going to watch fireworks from Navy Pier!
My bestie, Pam, got married this past weekend:
It was fabulous and fun! I'll post more, maybe, upon my return.
Have a wonderful and safe 4th of July (my gma will be turning 88 on the 4th!!)
My bestie, Pam, got married this past weekend:
It was fabulous and fun! I'll post more, maybe, upon my return.
Have a wonderful and safe 4th of July (my gma will be turning 88 on the 4th!!)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Super Happy Fun Time (aka Milwaukee)!
Our road trip to Milwaukee began at 8:30am on Friday morning... (even though the plan was to leave at 7am).
It was an easy drive, a pretty drive, and a drive with many of Wisconsin's finest rest stops!
In all, it took us WAY less time then Google Maps said it would take - I think it was quoted at 6 hours and 12 minutes or something - so I rounded up to 7 hours because I figured in P&P breaks (poop and pee, for reference) along with some traffic and other crap you never expect. We made it to Milwaukee in 5.5 hours, we only stopped at Rest Stops rather than exiting and using a gas station for P&P. Wisconsin has some of the cleanest rest stops I've ever seen, probably some of the only rest stops I've ever seen too, so take that with a grain of salt.
Alright, so off the bat, I assumed Milwaukee was going to be ghetto and dirty - like Detroit. The route we took in neither confirmed or denied this thought, so we'd have to wait and see. Turns out we were pretty wrong.
We arrived at our hotel, got settled in, and then left right away to find some grub. When Steve and I travel we never (EVER) eat at chain restaurants, especially ones that we'd be able to have in the greater Twin Cities area. So we walked to this placed called Cubanitas and ordered A cuban to share along with guac (served with plantain chips - YUM!!) and some ceviche. All the food was amazing! Steve got a beer and I had a Mojito, yum :)
We then walked across the street to Charro - Central and South American Cuisine. We wanted margaritas and they came through for us in that department! The bar tender was pretty amazing, offering up lots of tips and chit-chat about Milwaukee as well as just making general small talk. We ended up with 2 margaritas each at Charro's. Here are a few pictures of inside the place - it was pretty swanky!
We also sat and admired a Lamborghini while we sipped our second margaritas:
All this eating and drinking was just to kill time before making our way to Miller Park to catch a Brewers game. They played the Phillies and pretty much got smoked. Miller Park is a nice ballpark, but FAR from Target Field. They don't really have any standing room to view the game, which Target Field offers everywhere. In fairness, the view from the seats is pretty killer. It's a nice park, and I'm glad I can say I've been there! We didn't stay the whole game as I was anxious to meet up with Krysten and just to see more of Milwaukee.
We had the cabby drop us off at this bar called AJ Bombers - which was a pretty neat bar. A peanut bar, fully equip with shells on the floor and tracks that have bombs attached to them, they fill up a bomb with peanuts and send it down the track to your table - where it hits the target above the table and drops all the nuts into a dog food dish. Pretty awesome.
Krysten is there with her friend Izzy - I'm drunk by this point (thanks to the pre-bar cocktails and beer at the game)... but I order a beer anyways. I didn't care for it (I'm not much for exploring beer, I know what I like and stick to it) so I give my beer to Steve and get a bloody mary instead. Then comes the shots of tequila, you know, because we're there celebrating Krysten's birthday... duh!
I tell you all of this because of the picture you're about to see.. I took it from Krysten's blog... and I guess I'm going to use the excuse that I was drunk, therefore my mouth just hangs open. I don't know. It's not flattering (though I was screaming something awesome, I'm sure) and a good representation of who I am.
Seriously... I don't know what else to say. I'm obviously in a gang.
It was clearly time to call it a night.
Saturday comes and it's time to get pumped for Six Flags!! Get up, shower, eat a small breakfast and hit the road. Just under an hour later and we're there! We spent 5 hours riding roller coasters! There was one coasters that was closed and one that was in complete darkness, so majority didn't want to chance any food coming back up; we passed on that one - much to the chagrin of Krysten, who really wanted to give it her all!
The rides were AMAZING - so much fun, so fast, so scary (wooden coasters are pretty rickety), so PERFECTLY what I had hoped for. The staff at Six Flags was amazing too - they really get into their jobs :)
This is us at the beginning of the day:
After 6 Flags, we stopped up the road at The Shanty - which is a restaurant I found on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (Food Network). It was pretty delish - especially since we had all been walking around going on rides all day, food was necessary!
Then the drive back was... tiresome. I was exhausted. I wanted sleep.
The plan was to go get cleaned up and take some time to do whatever we wanted (sleep, drink coffee, relax, etc.). Steve and I went cheese shopping (pre-shower) and I'm now in the process of planning a wonderful date night at home fully equip with wine tasting and cheese eating. We then met up with Krysten, Izzy, and 2 of Izzy's friends in the hotel lobby bar called xyz. It's like just after 9pm at this point and one martini in, we decide to bar hop a bit. In retrospect I probably should have eaten something other than fish at The Shanty because it simply wasn't substantial enough to hold me over for the entire night. So at one of the bars Steve and I ordered a trio dip which came with tortilla chips, guac, salsa, and queso dips. That proved to also not be enough... so by the time we hit 3 bars and I had 3 drinks, I was about ready to crash. I felt drunk, though I mostly likely was just over-tired, and all I really wanted to do was sleep. Lucky for me, everyone else was ready to call the night as well.
Steve and I crashed hard.
The plan was to be on the road no later than 9am, and we had to make a stop for breakfast. We didn't set an alarm so when I woke up and seen that the time was 8:10am, I knew there was no way we'd be on the road by 9a. No big deal, this is normal for us.
We packed up our stuff and made our way to The Comet Cafe (another from Triple D). Having watched the video of them making the meatloaf I opted for the Meat and Eggs breakfast item. Eggs any way and a slice of meatloaf (seriously, watch the video and see how they make meatloaf). I'm so glad I did because it was amazing! Meatloaf for breakfast is odd to me, but what the hell - you only live once!
Once on the road - at 10:45am - we were STUFFED - and stuffed for the rest of the drive home too! The trip home was nothing special, another 5+ hour drive, excited to walk in the door to our home and see our kitty!
We were both exhausted all day on Sunday...
That's about it... it was a great trip and both Steve and I are anxious to get back to Milwaukee and spend some more daylight hours there!
(special thanks to Izzy for showing us a great time and to Krysten for making the journey as well and letting us chill with you guys!)
Have a Six Flags Day!
It was an easy drive, a pretty drive, and a drive with many of Wisconsin's finest rest stops!
In all, it took us WAY less time then Google Maps said it would take - I think it was quoted at 6 hours and 12 minutes or something - so I rounded up to 7 hours because I figured in P&P breaks (poop and pee, for reference) along with some traffic and other crap you never expect. We made it to Milwaukee in 5.5 hours, we only stopped at Rest Stops rather than exiting and using a gas station for P&P. Wisconsin has some of the cleanest rest stops I've ever seen, probably some of the only rest stops I've ever seen too, so take that with a grain of salt.
Alright, so off the bat, I assumed Milwaukee was going to be ghetto and dirty - like Detroit. The route we took in neither confirmed or denied this thought, so we'd have to wait and see. Turns out we were pretty wrong.
We arrived at our hotel, got settled in, and then left right away to find some grub. When Steve and I travel we never (EVER) eat at chain restaurants, especially ones that we'd be able to have in the greater Twin Cities area. So we walked to this placed called Cubanitas and ordered A cuban to share along with guac (served with plantain chips - YUM!!) and some ceviche. All the food was amazing! Steve got a beer and I had a Mojito, yum :)
We then walked across the street to Charro - Central and South American Cuisine. We wanted margaritas and they came through for us in that department! The bar tender was pretty amazing, offering up lots of tips and chit-chat about Milwaukee as well as just making general small talk. We ended up with 2 margaritas each at Charro's. Here are a few pictures of inside the place - it was pretty swanky!
 |
| The bar |
We also sat and admired a Lamborghini while we sipped our second margaritas:
All this eating and drinking was just to kill time before making our way to Miller Park to catch a Brewers game. They played the Phillies and pretty much got smoked. Miller Park is a nice ballpark, but FAR from Target Field. They don't really have any standing room to view the game, which Target Field offers everywhere. In fairness, the view from the seats is pretty killer. It's a nice park, and I'm glad I can say I've been there! We didn't stay the whole game as I was anxious to meet up with Krysten and just to see more of Milwaukee.
We had the cabby drop us off at this bar called AJ Bombers - which was a pretty neat bar. A peanut bar, fully equip with shells on the floor and tracks that have bombs attached to them, they fill up a bomb with peanuts and send it down the track to your table - where it hits the target above the table and drops all the nuts into a dog food dish. Pretty awesome.
 |
| The track heading over to our table |
 |
| The bullseye it hits and drops the nuts |
Krysten is there with her friend Izzy - I'm drunk by this point (thanks to the pre-bar cocktails and beer at the game)... but I order a beer anyways. I didn't care for it (I'm not much for exploring beer, I know what I like and stick to it) so I give my beer to Steve and get a bloody mary instead. Then comes the shots of tequila, you know, because we're there celebrating Krysten's birthday... duh!
I tell you all of this because of the picture you're about to see.. I took it from Krysten's blog... and I guess I'm going to use the excuse that I was drunk, therefore my mouth just hangs open. I don't know. It's not flattering (though I was screaming something awesome, I'm sure) and a good representation of who I am.
 |
| Close your mouth whore! |
It was clearly time to call it a night.
Saturday comes and it's time to get pumped for Six Flags!! Get up, shower, eat a small breakfast and hit the road. Just under an hour later and we're there! We spent 5 hours riding roller coasters! There was one coasters that was closed and one that was in complete darkness, so majority didn't want to chance any food coming back up; we passed on that one - much to the chagrin of Krysten, who really wanted to give it her all!
The rides were AMAZING - so much fun, so fast, so scary (wooden coasters are pretty rickety), so PERFECTLY what I had hoped for. The staff at Six Flags was amazing too - they really get into their jobs :)
This is us at the beginning of the day:
After 6 Flags, we stopped up the road at The Shanty - which is a restaurant I found on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (Food Network). It was pretty delish - especially since we had all been walking around going on rides all day, food was necessary!
Then the drive back was... tiresome. I was exhausted. I wanted sleep.
The plan was to go get cleaned up and take some time to do whatever we wanted (sleep, drink coffee, relax, etc.). Steve and I went cheese shopping (pre-shower) and I'm now in the process of planning a wonderful date night at home fully equip with wine tasting and cheese eating. We then met up with Krysten, Izzy, and 2 of Izzy's friends in the hotel lobby bar called xyz. It's like just after 9pm at this point and one martini in, we decide to bar hop a bit. In retrospect I probably should have eaten something other than fish at The Shanty because it simply wasn't substantial enough to hold me over for the entire night. So at one of the bars Steve and I ordered a trio dip which came with tortilla chips, guac, salsa, and queso dips. That proved to also not be enough... so by the time we hit 3 bars and I had 3 drinks, I was about ready to crash. I felt drunk, though I mostly likely was just over-tired, and all I really wanted to do was sleep. Lucky for me, everyone else was ready to call the night as well.
Steve and I crashed hard.
The plan was to be on the road no later than 9am, and we had to make a stop for breakfast. We didn't set an alarm so when I woke up and seen that the time was 8:10am, I knew there was no way we'd be on the road by 9a. No big deal, this is normal for us.
We packed up our stuff and made our way to The Comet Cafe (another from Triple D). Having watched the video of them making the meatloaf I opted for the Meat and Eggs breakfast item. Eggs any way and a slice of meatloaf (seriously, watch the video and see how they make meatloaf). I'm so glad I did because it was amazing! Meatloaf for breakfast is odd to me, but what the hell - you only live once!
Once on the road - at 10:45am - we were STUFFED - and stuffed for the rest of the drive home too! The trip home was nothing special, another 5+ hour drive, excited to walk in the door to our home and see our kitty!
We were both exhausted all day on Sunday...
That's about it... it was a great trip and both Steve and I are anxious to get back to Milwaukee and spend some more daylight hours there!
(special thanks to Izzy for showing us a great time and to Krysten for making the journey as well and letting us chill with you guys!)
Have a Six Flags Day!
Thursday, September 8, 2011
argh
Sometimes I wish my blog was straight up anonymous. I wish this was a place I could come and bitch to my hearts content about people and things that piss me right off. But I can't because even though people may not comment... I know my blog is read.
I often wonder if it'd be worth it to start a anonymous blog just to vent these frustrations... but they are so few and far between that I just don't think it makes sense.
/rant
We're going to Milwaukee this weekend... and SIX FLAGS! Meeting up with Krysten there - I'm pretty excited to spend some time in a new city, with a new friend, and check out a new roller coaster or two!
This trip itself is not ideal timing.. but it's no ones fault my our own. We've put off painting the house trim all summer... it's been too hot or too wet or always too something to paint. Labor day weekend gave us 3 days with no plans to get a shit ton of painting done... we took advantage of 2 of those days and made great progress. We HAVE to have this done before the cold weather rolls in... so we have the motivation to do it, but now we're taking 3 days away. Again, it's our own fault, and I know we're going to have fun in Milwaukee...there's just always that big "BUT"... ya know?!
Anyhow... that's all for today. Buh-bye.
I often wonder if it'd be worth it to start a anonymous blog just to vent these frustrations... but they are so few and far between that I just don't think it makes sense.
/rant
We're going to Milwaukee this weekend... and SIX FLAGS! Meeting up with Krysten there - I'm pretty excited to spend some time in a new city, with a new friend, and check out a new roller coaster or two!
This trip itself is not ideal timing.. but it's no ones fault my our own. We've put off painting the house trim all summer... it's been too hot or too wet or always too something to paint. Labor day weekend gave us 3 days with no plans to get a shit ton of painting done... we took advantage of 2 of those days and made great progress. We HAVE to have this done before the cold weather rolls in... so we have the motivation to do it, but now we're taking 3 days away. Again, it's our own fault, and I know we're going to have fun in Milwaukee...there's just always that big "BUT"... ya know?!
Anyhow... that's all for today. Buh-bye.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Black Hills, Day Four: The {long} Road Home
We took I-90 home and the only things worth talking about are Wall Drug and The Corn Palace. Since this post is coming so long after the trip, I was drawing a blank on what to talk about... so I asked Steve if he had any memories worth posting on a blog, word for word this is what he wrote:
Back on the road... it sucks and it's BORING.
We play games, we stop to pee, we stop to get munchies out of the trunk, we stop to change drivers... anything to switch it up from this mundane drive. Want to know how bored we were? Steve says "I'm thinking of a number between 0-100; guess what it is" Then we play higher/lower until I get it. Not only did we play this once, but probably a dozen times. We also played I'm thinking of a letter between A-Z; guess it. That's right folks, South Dakota is amazing. NOT.
After like 27 days of driving...
...we finally make it to The Corn Palace, which is like forever off the highway and NOT worth your time... unless you are going absolutely crazy in the car and just need to see something ... anything ... different, and maybe stretch your legs.
After seeing the Corn Palace we decided to run in an antique store really quick (limiting ourselves to 15 minutes) just for another change of pace; we buy nothing. On the way back out to the highway we stop at the gas station to make up some sammies (sandwiches) before we get back on the road. It's fricken WINDY outside and I damn near blow away while running the garbage to the trash bin. So that was cool.
We finally make it back into our home state; Minnesota!
So now even though we are a good 5 hours away from home, we are at least in our state, which really makes you feel like you're about an hour away. Longest. hour. ever. Not only do we have to slow our speed way down, but Steve takes me on some dumb country road where we are driving slower than being on the interstate. I get over that and just keep driving.
Steve is pretty much amazing when it comes to making up stories and he really knows how to make me laugh, so he makes up this crazy story about Charlotte and Charlie - it's not appropriate for my blog, so I'll move on, but not before letting you know that I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. TMI? Too bad.
We are trying to calculate our eta back home and decide by the time we get home, we'll never get anything to eat for dinner. Mankato is a hop, skip, and a jump away {45 minutes or so} - there is a Buffalo Wild Wings there... we both LOVE wings... so we chose to stop and delay our trip home a bit longer. It's necessary though, it gets us out of the car and gets food in our belly's.
After eating it seems like the rest of the trip was a breeze. It wasn't too much longer before we were in metro area and once you have things around you other than farms it's a lot less boring.
"omg, $0.05 coffee!"
"omg, donuts"
"omg, tacos"
"omg, gas"
"omg, dinosurs"
"omg, breakfast"
"omg, wall drug, soon"
"wall drug, not too far away"
"wall drug, you'll see it before you see a tree"
"wall drug, we have cows"
"wall drug, we have stuff"
"wall drug, we have ads on every piece of land in SD"
Hay.
Wind.
Boredom.
Corn Palace
Breakfast making, part 1, almost eaten alive.
Sandwich making, almost blown over.
We used a wind sail to make it home
Minnesota, the longest leg of the drive.
BW's, a short break from the car
boredom
Minnesota sucks for driving speed limits.
I90 feels never ending Oh, and making up stories
Let me do a bit of explaining on some of those notes:
First of all: Wall Drug... they seriously have ads everywhere along this highway. The ads are for literally everything you can think of. I was trying to amp Steve up for Wall Drug, so I was being obnoxious every time we came across a sign. His memories are tainted with my over the top antics. That whole top portion of his notes are based on those signs. We did finally make it to Wall Drug:
We decided the night before that we should just pack up camp as soon as we wake up and on one of the stops we can pull out our camp stove and make omelets. It'll be a good break for us from driving. While on the road to Wall Drug we decide that it'll be a good place to make this happen. So, after literally just using the bathroom at Wall Drug, we get back in the car and head to the gas station as we needed gas as well. I asked about a park with picnic tables and was instructed where to find one. After we fill up we want to go see this huge dinosaur at the end of the road - as we approach this huge dinosaur we see picnic tables right there... who needs a park?! So we pull out the stove, the cooler... all the essentials for making our breakfast - just as we're about to get everything going, Steve notices these little gnat type bugs all over his white shirt. They are biting us and they are ALL OVER! ugh. We pack everything back into the car and head to the park. We are finally able to make our omelets and the town of Wall ends up being an hour long stop.
Back on the road... it sucks and it's BORING.
We play games, we stop to pee, we stop to get munchies out of the trunk, we stop to change drivers... anything to switch it up from this mundane drive. Want to know how bored we were? Steve says "I'm thinking of a number between 0-100; guess what it is" Then we play higher/lower until I get it. Not only did we play this once, but probably a dozen times. We also played I'm thinking of a letter between A-Z; guess it. That's right folks, South Dakota is amazing. NOT.
After like 27 days of driving...
...we finally make it to The Corn Palace, which is like forever off the highway and NOT worth your time... unless you are going absolutely crazy in the car and just need to see something ... anything ... different, and maybe stretch your legs.
All these 'murals' are made of ears of corn. It actually is pretty neat... but not enough to make it exciting. At least we got out of the car.
After seeing the Corn Palace we decided to run in an antique store really quick (limiting ourselves to 15 minutes) just for another change of pace; we buy nothing. On the way back out to the highway we stop at the gas station to make up some sammies (sandwiches) before we get back on the road. It's fricken WINDY outside and I damn near blow away while running the garbage to the trash bin. So that was cool.
We finally make it back into our home state; Minnesota!
So now even though we are a good 5 hours away from home, we are at least in our state, which really makes you feel like you're about an hour away. Longest. hour. ever. Not only do we have to slow our speed way down, but Steve takes me on some dumb country road where we are driving slower than being on the interstate. I get over that and just keep driving.
Steve is pretty much amazing when it comes to making up stories and he really knows how to make me laugh, so he makes up this crazy story about Charlotte and Charlie - it's not appropriate for my blog, so I'll move on, but not before letting you know that I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. TMI? Too bad.
We are trying to calculate our eta back home and decide by the time we get home, we'll never get anything to eat for dinner. Mankato is a hop, skip, and a jump away {45 minutes or so} - there is a Buffalo Wild Wings there... we both LOVE wings... so we chose to stop and delay our trip home a bit longer. It's necessary though, it gets us out of the car and gets food in our belly's.
After eating it seems like the rest of the trip was a breeze. It wasn't too much longer before we were in metro area and once you have things around you other than farms it's a lot less boring.
If you missed part of the trip, here are all the posts:
Thus concludes my postings of this trip; I hope you've enjoyed all the pictures and things that we got to see while on our road trip! You can view all my pictures on my shutterfly (all unedited): hopesdope.shutterfly.com
PS - this is the front of my car taken at Devil's Tower in the beginning of the trip -
I wanted to take one at the end but was too tired when I got home and it rained the next morning on the way to work - so a lot of the bugs washed off. Imagine this doubled in guts. We killed a lot of bugs, and a bird, and almost a magic rabbit.
Black Hills, Day Three Part Four: Rushmore at Night
Let's just get right to business - we've already covered Mount Rushmore - so all you need to know is we went back at night, this trip was another highlight of the overall trip - here are a couple pictures:
I spent most of my time taking the same picture with different settings, so I won't bore you with the details.
Here are some shots zoomed out with people in them moving about - ignore how washed out the mountain is:
It was simply amazing to see this mountain lit up at night! Steve and I both had to take a step back and pull our eye away from the camera to really take this in. Photos help you remember it forever but the actual memory of being there can never be captured. I highly suggest seeing this at night if given the chance.
Up Next: The Road Home (aka the last post about the trip)
What you've missed:
I spent most of my time taking the same picture with different settings, so I won't bore you with the details.
Here are some shots zoomed out with people in them moving about - ignore how washed out the mountain is:
It was simply amazing to see this mountain lit up at night! Steve and I both had to take a step back and pull our eye away from the camera to really take this in. Photos help you remember it forever but the actual memory of being there can never be captured. I highly suggest seeing this at night if given the chance.
Up Next: The Road Home (aka the last post about the trip)
What you've missed:
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Black Hills, Day Three Part Three: The Cave
Day Three was a great success for us, we made it to a lot of places and saw a lot of things.
After Mount Rushmore we decided to head to a cave in the area, turns out nothing is too far from anything else in the area. After looking at my pictures on the big screen I can't seem to tell which way is up in any of them ... so you'll get some shots of a cave, but little to no explanation as to what it is. I will tell you we went to Jewel Caves in South Dakota and give you the link if you'd like to read about some of the things down there.
We were not allowed to touch anything down there, so no people pictures just pictures inside a cave which will likely be boring to you people reading - feel free to just move on.
I felt like I had to keep moving since we were all in a single file line - I hate holding people up. At one point she turned off all the lights inside the cave. As someone who isn't a huge fan of the dark I was hoping this wouldn't last too long. It was icky. Thank God for boyfriend.
Up Next: Rushmore at night!
After Mount Rushmore we decided to head to a cave in the area, turns out nothing is too far from anything else in the area. After looking at my pictures on the big screen I can't seem to tell which way is up in any of them ... so you'll get some shots of a cave, but little to no explanation as to what it is. I will tell you we went to Jewel Caves in South Dakota and give you the link if you'd like to read about some of the things down there.
We were not allowed to touch anything down there, so no people pictures just pictures inside a cave which will likely be boring to you people reading - feel free to just move on.
Cave popcorn:
This one is pretty neat if you enlarge it:
Cave bacon:
I felt like I had to keep moving since we were all in a single file line - I hate holding people up. At one point she turned off all the lights inside the cave. As someone who isn't a huge fan of the dark I was hoping this wouldn't last too long. It was icky. Thank God for boyfriend.
Up Next: Rushmore at night!
What you've missed:
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