6 States, 2 Days

We left Wisconsin the morning of the 20th, planning to get as far as Cleveland, then head all the way to Cambridge on the 21st. Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio = a bazillion dollars in tolls. No me gusta. Other than stopping to empty out pockets of change at the toll booths every 30 minutes, it was an uneventful day. We found a Hampton Inn by the freeway and called it good.

Saturday the adrenaline was going. We were on the last day of our trip, we couldn't wait to just get to Cambridge. There was a HUGE weather front going through, and we were expecting to hit some rain while driving. It was a band of weather that extended from Canada to the Gulf and we were going to be driving right through it. Sure enough, as we crossed into Pennsylvania we got hit HARD. Rain so heavy and hard that you could hardly see in front of you. This was by far the scariest day for me driving. I was worried about Paul in the truck, and I was on an unfamiliar, winding highway through the Allegheny mountains where it seemed like every semi-truck was flying by me at 70 mph, shaking my car and throwing even more water up in front of me. Things cleared up a little by the time we got to Baltimore. I had one last obstacle between me and the Eastern Shore: the Bay Bridge.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/53290362

Crossing the bridge everything finally hit me. I quit my job and left my parents, grandparents, Mariah and everything familiar to me; and took a leap of faith into the next phase of my life with my family. I was scared, excited, overwhelmed and exhausted. I kept saying, "This is home, this is home" over and over to myself. The distance we had just crossed in a few days, suddenly, I felt the magnitude of it. It was starting to get dark as we finally arrived in Cambridge. We passed through town and into the darkness of the country roads to get to the Horn Point campus where we were going to stay until we had a place to move into. We collapsed into our beds.

When we woke up it was like we had landed on another planet. The crickets from the night before were still chirping away, louder than I had ever heard crickets. The air was heavy with a dampness that just kind of sits on the earth. Different than other humid places I have been. It was called the Marsh House for a reason. We were in a flat, wetland area. Not even the grass was familiar. We didn't have time to rest though, we had to find a place to live!

The Marsh House

Big Bird could finally take a break

Lucia was fascinated by all the new bugs. Me, not so much.

This photo cracks me up. Random, but I love it.

Days 11-19: Wisconsin & Grandpa Joe

We had always planned to stop for a week in Milwaukee and visit with Paul's family as part of our road trip across the country. We last saw his parents when they were out for his thesis defense Memorial Day weekend, and last saw his grandparents and extended family when we were there in December. However, this stop in Milwaukee turned into much more than a quick visit when Paul's grandfather, Grandpa Joe, passed away on August 19th, less than two weeks before we were supposed to start our trip. Paul had gone home to be with family that whole week and when he came home we had to double our efforts to get packed by the time we needed to leave. Paul's family was kind enough to wait until Paul, Lucia and I got to Wisconsin to have the memorial service, so that became the focus of our time in Milwaukee. To be with family, especially Paul's Mom and Grandma, and mourn the loss of Grandpa Joe, but also to laugh, remember and celebrate the impact that he had on so many lives. He was truly an extraordinary man. I didn't get to spend that much time with Grandpa Joe, but I feel blessed for the part he played in making Paul the man, father and husband that he is. Once I met Grandpa Joe, Paul made a lot more sense to me (in a good way!) and it makes me happy to know that Paul will pass along those lessons and stories from Grandpa Joe to our children.

2008

February 2011

December 2012

Probably imparting some Grampa Joe wisdom

The service was on Saturday, so Thursday and Friday were occupied with preparations for that. Saturday was emotionally draining, but the service was beautiful. Oh, and Lucia peed on my lap...twice. Luckily, I was wearing a long summer dress with a lot of pattern. I was able to dry out mostly unnoticed.

The rest of our time in Wisconsin was spent with family and preparing for the final leg of our trip. We celebrated Lucia's birthday (she requested pizza), and spent some time with Paul's Dad and Cyndi, including a trip to the Milwaukee Zoo, which was fun! Lucia loved the bats and the giraffes. Paul and I got serious about finding houses to look at when we got to Cambridge, and lined up four potential houses to look it. Here are a few more photos from our week in Wisconsin. We are excited to be just a little bit closer to our Wisconsin family.

Lucia and Wendell bonded and spent many mornings hanging out together

Pizza party - Extra olives please!

Thanks to cousins Anna & Bobby for the birthday present

Sitting in Great-Grandpa's barber chair

The Milwaukee Zoo!

"Don't worry about your knees Grandpa, I don't weigh thaaaat much!"

Day 10: Milwaukee, WI...finally!

We woke up with leisurely plans to drive a short day and camp outside of Madison, WI at Devil's Lake, then the next day visit friends who just had a baby who live in Madison, before a short hop over to Milwaukee. That all came crashing down when we hear a little voice from the tent as we cooked breakfast, "I peed in my sleeping bag!", following by crying.

We have been putting her in diapers at night for this exact reason, as to avoid an accident in the sleeping bag, so I thought maybe she wet her diaper and woke up out of a dead sleep thinking she had peed through. Opening the tent door however, we realized that somehow, she had indeed peed through her diaper, through her pajamas and there was basically a puddle in the sleeping bag. Sorry for the the TMI. Clothes were quickly stripped off and the puddle and sleeping bag contained in a trash bag. That sealed the deal. We were going to make the 8+ hour drive straight through to Milwaukee.
We packed up our gear and hit the road. It was a mostly uneventful drive, lots of construction. We crossed the Mississippi River! Southern Minnesota was really boring. When we crossed into Wisconsin it was much more picturesque. Paul and I were talking back and forth on our radios as he told me things he remembered here and there as we were driving. Wisconsin has the red barn and rolling hills thing down pretty good. We arrived to Paul's Grandma's house in Mequon with little fanfare and stayed for dinner with her before heading down to his Mom's house where we were going to stay for the week.

Consequently, no photos from this day except for a car photo.

Day 9: Sioux Falls, SD

We had about a 6 hour drive today across South Dakota, so we slept in a little and had a leisurely morning and breakfast. We drove straight through with just a few breaks. Once you get out of the Black Hills, South Dakota is pretty boring. As we were coming in to Sioux Falls it started to rain. We were a little worried because we were planning to tent camp and weren't looking forward to setting up in the rain. We got off the freeway and headed through cornfields, following my Google maps directions for Palisades State Park. We drove through cornfields and soybean fields, and I was starting to doubt Google. The photos from the campground website showed a wooded area. Then the directions turned us onto a dirt road and I got a little more nervous. Suddenly a stand of trees appeared in the cornfields, and a sign directing us to the park. We got to our campsite and got out. It. Was. Humid. The sound of bugs was deafening, not sure what they all were but it was a chorus of crickets, Katy-dids, cicadas and whatever else. But it wasn't raining anymore. We set up camp and got dinner going. Our nice campsite neighbors from Massachusetts, brought Lucia a treat of microwave popcorn from their camper van. We went to bed to the sound of the bugs.

Another car photo. This is the only photo of the day. No pics of the campsite.

Day 8: Black Hills, South Dakota

We survived our thunderstorm last night and were eager to get up and explore the area. We only gave ourselves one day for a brief tour of the area. The big things we wanted to hit were Wind Cave National Park, Crazy Horse, Needles Highway and Mt. Rushmore. We took the scenic drive through Custer State Park south towards Wind Cave. We loved the Lewis and Clark Caverns in Montana so much we knew that another cave exploration was top on our list. We stopped at the Custer visitor center and saw lots more bison on our way to Wind Cave. We also saw lots of prairie dogs and a few wild burros who inhabit the park. We got to Wind Cave and had time for a snack and browsing the exhibits before the cave tour started. We ended up in a large group for the cave tour because of a crew of cyclists who were there. Still, Lucia did a really good job of keeping up and did most of the walking in the cave by herself. She was however very disappointed that there are no bats in Wind Cave. I was not disappointed. Wind Cave was very different from the cave in Montana. It was much drier, there were no stalactites or stalagmites. Instead there was something called boxwork formations that covered the ceilings and walls of the cave. Wind Cave has 90% of the world's boxwork. The other impressive part of Wind Cave was the 3-D nature of it, everywhere you looked there were offshoot passageways above, to the right and left of you.

After the cave we made our way back towards Crazy Horse where we had lunch and toured the museums there. We took the opportunity of Lucia being asleep in the car to drive the Needles Hwy and do a drive by of Mt. Rushmore before heading back to the campsite for dinner and to get packed up for the drive the next day.

Wild burros

Kiri loves bison

Wind Cave National Park

Junior Ranger Lucia with her bat t-shirt on, just for the caves!

Needles Hwy

Tunnel at Needles Hwy

Our drive-by of Mt. Rushmore

Day 7: South Dakota

Today was our longest driving day, at 8+ hours, down the mountains, across Wyoming and into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Today was also Lucia's. birthday. After the Grand Meltdown of yesterday, we were a little worried about how today would go. We reserved a cabin at Custer State Park, but still wanted to get there before dark. Paul and I got up at 5:30 and packed everything back into the car and truck. We hit the road right around 7am. No bear sightings this morning, although I was hoping I might glance over and see one. Western Wyoming was beautiful, coming down the mountains. Some parts reminded me of John Day and the Painted Hills. We were going to do a full pit stop in Casper for lunch and gas, but didn't easily see a good place to stop,  we headed north towards our turn off to South Dakota. As it turns out, our turn off took us straight through oil and coal mining country. We passed through the largest surface coal mining operation in the country. It was fascinating to see, and a little scary too.

We finally, after about 7.5 hours, crossed into South Dakota and began climbing up into the Black Hills. They didn't seem particularly special to me at first, until we got into them, driving Hwy 16 towards Custer and you see the exposed granite up close. We arrived at our cabin at Stockade Lake a little after 4pm. Since Lucia spent her birthday in a carseat (she was ecstatic to watch Little Bear all day and eat snacks), we gave her her birthday present right away. The restored trike and helmet were an instant hit, and after a couple times around the wooden deck of the cabin she got the hang of it. When asked what her favorite part of her trike was, she said," the sparkles" which made Paul's day, as he especially picked out the red with sparkles paint color for her. Thanks to Grammy for the perfectly coordinated ladybug helmet too! The other special birthday surprises were birthday cake in the Dutch oven and new pajamas made my Mommy (with help from Grandma Julia).

Lucia in the car photo

"New" bike!

Our cabin at Custer SP, highly recommend!

Birthday Girl!

It's hard work being 3

We ate cake inside the cabin because the ranger came by to tell us of a severe thunderstorm warning with wind gusts up to 70 mph. So we brought everything inside and hunkered down. We are looking forward to a full day of exploring the Black Hills tomorrow.

Day 6: Grand Tetons, The Grand Meltdown

We didn't give ourselves much time to spend in Grand Teton NP, so we got up early again. Our plan was to drive to the southern end of the park and work our way north back towards our campground, then spend the evening packing up. We weren't more than two miles south of our campground before entering GTNP before we saw a couple of cars pulled over in the early morning fog. Paul pulled over and we started scanning the hillside. Bear! Right near the road, sauntering through the brush was a scruffy-looking Black Bear. Paul had been hoping to spot a bear the whole time we were in Yellowstone, and had conceded that maybe we wouldn't see a bear this trip, and here was one and we didn't even need our binoculars to see this one. He walked along the road for a bit, then started down a gully and back up the hillside and was gone behind the trees. That was a great start to the day!

Good Morning Mr. Bear!

We continued to drive south, but unfortunately with the fog, you couldn't really see the mountains. We hoped it would clear soon. At the very south end of the park, we stopped at the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center, which looked fairly new. It had some great exhibits and was virtually empty when we arrived. Lucia had fun with the dioramas and we watched a video about the Tetons. Luckily we were ready to leave around the time that a large group of seniors with southern accents descended upon the gift store and bathrooms.

Mt. Moran in the morning

The only moose we saw on this trip

Craig Thomas Discovery Center

We had planned to stop at Jenny Lake for lunch. It was really busy, and we had to park far away. We stopped at the visitor center to check things out and that is when the Grant Meltdown started. Lucia was running all over the place, and not listening to us. She kept hiding in the clothing racks, and generally disturbing the other people in the area. When Paul scolded her and she hit him, he took her outside for a time out. Even with the time out, we could tell that Lucia was not going to cooperate. We decided that it was too crowded, and we would move on and maybe find a quieter picnic spot. We got in the car and Lucia was now mad that we were getting back in the car. Can you blame her? She has been in the car all day every day for almost a week now. Paul and I were feeling slightly guilty. Then in her frustration she threw her water bottle from her cup holder onto the floor. I picked it up and put it in the front seat with me. She wanted it back and told us so with her screaming. I told her she needed to ask nicely and she could have it back. Then, she lost it. For the next 30 minutes she screamed "I want my water cup!" Over and over and over. She was beyond reason. She finally fell asleep and we made the decision to just drive back to camp. We got to the cabin, rolled the windows down in the car and let her sleep a little while longer. When she woke up, she remembered exactly what she was mad about, and resumed her screaming. Paul was over at the main office and I was running out of ideas to get her to calm down. Paul walked in, and asked her to say, "Please can I have my water cup" calmly. And she said it. We were all fine after that, but we let her just chill out in the cabin and read books while Paul and I packed our things. Hopefully we can go back to the Tetons when the kids are older and actually do some hiking around. Tomorrow is a new day.

The Grand Tetons

The Grand Meltdown