On the Trail of Manny, Sid, and Diego

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, so we went to the church we attended when we lived here in Chicago. Easter breakfast has been a long-standing tradition, so it was nice to have a chance to chat with many old friends and family before the service.

After church, we went back to R's aunties' to pack our bags for a quick trip up to Wisconsin. Then we headed over in the late afternoon to crash the gathering at R's cousin's son's house. (This is his dad's side of the family that we usually see when we come back to Chicago, as well as in Vegas at our reunions.) Most of the cousins' kids now have littles of their own, so it was fun to watch them scramble around the backyard to hunt for Easter eggs! We hung out for a bit after dinner (so much good food!) and then hit the road straight from there. Once on I-90 west, it took us about 2 hours to reach our hotel in Madison, WI.

Like a Rolling Stone

We arrived home from DC on Wednesday night. Not being ones to gather moss, we were on the road again less than 36 hours later for a quick weekend trip up US-395N to the Lake Tahoe area for the wedding of our friends' son.

This is what ChatGPT gave me when I asked for a rolling stone with no moss 🤣

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

...begins with a single step.  -Lao Tzu

Or, in this case, a journey of *three* thousand miles begins with a single *park*!

In order to get to our last two stops in Independence, MO before closing time, we had to stick to a tight schedule today. So we said our goodbyes to my parents and were on the road by 7:45AM. 

An hour later, we arrived at Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield. Since we have been here many times before, this was just going to be a "stamp-and-run" stop. But because the visitor center wasn't open yet, we walked over for a selfie in front of the house while we waited.

Ten Crucial Days

When R and I received an invite to the wedding of our close friends' daughter, we decided to tack on some extra days and make a vacation out of it! Working son (M) and college son (J) didn't come with, so just us two empty-nesters flew into Newark yesterday. 

The air quality is so much better than it was a week ago!

Travel tip: Seats 48A/B on a Boeing 777-200 are great because there is no third seat in the row = extra room for economy price!

Nidoto Nai Yoni

Since it was almost 90 miles to the state capital, we checked out of Lake Quinault Lodge and were on our way well before 8:00AM this morning. It was quite foggy, so we decided to stick to US-101 through Aberdeen instead of the small, winding roads that the navigation apps were trying to kill us on. As we drove, R looked up online reviews of breakfast places along the way - Phoebe's Pastry Café in Olympia got our business because it was open (some places weren't) and pretty close to the capitol. I had a yummy breakfast burrito, and R's bacon and tomato quiche was quite good, too (no pics, sorry!)

Hawaiʻi Five-0

Our last day on Oʻahu.

To check out of the condo, we just entered a code in the keyless entry to let them know that we were leaving - totally contactless! We would definitely stay here again!

Then we drove over to Diamond Head Market and picked up some goodies from the bakery.  Clockwise from the top left:  Diamond Head torte (peanut butter cheesecake, chocolate pudding, bananas, Oreo crust), chocolate ganache cake, blueberry cheesecake scone, and lemon crunch cake. Although we are all about the food, dessert for breakfast is a little much, even for us. So they all went straight into a cooler bag for later enjoyment.

Playing Hooky

Very rarely do I have to travel for work. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of places I've been while on the company dime. So even though the purpose of my business travel has been to attend scientific conferences (admit it, you just yawned), I've been fortunate to have enjoyed some extra time to play tourist in... 

• New Orleans (1993): Preservation Hall, Jackson Square, Cafe Du Monde, tons of great food and cool jazz
• New York City (1994): Manhattan, Empire State Building, Staten Island Ferry
• Frederick, MD (2017): not exactly a hotbed of tourism, but there is a Civil War battlefield and national park passport stamp (woohoo!)

Up 'til now, I've only blogged about our travels as a family, but I think I'll make an exception for my solo trip to Atlanta.

C Is For...

Cold coast.

After we checked out of our hotel, we headed over to Fort Stevens State Park to see the wreck of the "Peter Iredale," a cargo ship which ran aground in 1906. It was super windy and cold this morning so we didn't stay very long!

Melting Points

By the numbers...

• 3057 miles
• 8 states
• 15 new NPS units
• 38 NPS passport stamps
• 19 NPS Centennial stamps
• 2 state capitals
• 6 smushed pennies
• 4 cans of spray paint

Flint and Spray Paint

This morning we were up early again and on the road to our first destination, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area. The park offers ranger-guided kayak tours on Monday mornings, so M was disappointed that we were visiting there a day too late. (He really enjoyed the one we did in Whiskeytown NRA in 2014.)

I had made reservations for a 10:00AM ranger-led tour at nearby Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, so the extent of our visit to Lake Meredith consisted of stopping by the visitor center (for my passport stamps) and then heading over to see the lake. From the boat launch, it was very apparent how much the water level has dropped.

Sooners or Later

Today's route: 415 miles

We hit the road early this morning because we had a 180-mile drive to Oklahoma City and even more ground to cover after that. Our first stop was the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, and it was well-worth the time and cost of admission ($15/adult). The museum does an excellent job presenting the story of the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Hoosiers

Having lived here in California for 15 years, we're used to driving long distances to get anywhere: 4.5 hours to Las Vegas, 5.5 hours to San Francisco or Sacramento, and 6 hours to Phoenix. And that's on a good day with no traffic, of course! 

So whenever we come back to visit our families, I'm always looking at a map and figuring out where else we can go for a side trip. And in the Midwest, multiple states are within 4-6 hours! Woohoo! Today our Las Vegas-equivalent drive would take us from Louisville to Indianapolis, and finally to Chicago. First stop - the Indiana Statehouse!

Meet Me in St. Louis

About a week before we came back to Illinois, my parents received news that one of their dear friends had passed away. They wanted to attend the memorial service on June 27 in Columbia, MO – but didn’t want to cut our visit with them short. Knowing how close they were to their friend and his family, we totally understood. Since we were planning a day trip down to Springfield anyway and the Cubs just so happened to be playing the Cardinals in St. Louis, it was easy to find a way to entertain ourselves while my mom and dad were out of town. And thanks to a couple of great guys from my hometown, we were able to get tickets to the game tonight!

It started to rain as we were driving to Springfield. Actually, torrential downpour is more accurate – the scary kind where your windshield wipers cannot go fast enough, and semi-trucks are kicking up more water on top of that. If only there were a way to import some of that rain to California!

Saving Summer

Ever since we got back from spring break, I had been dreading summer. Why? Because there was nothing to look forward to! No Saiki-delic adventure to plan, no place to go! We knew that nearly M's whole summer would be likely be taken up between freshman basketball and marching band. Since we didn't know whether or not he'd make the team and what the schedule would be if he did, we couldn't book anything in advance. A certain sibling wanted to go on vacation anyway, leaving him behind to fend for himself. Tempting as it was to consider, it was not an option. *sigh*

Once we knew that M had been selected for the summer team and got the schedule from the coaches, we saw that there was a small window of opportunity at the end of July. In spite of layoff rumors at my work, we decided to go ahead a take a quick trip. Because we've picked all of the low hanging fruit, we have to keep expanding our radius to get to national park units we haven't visited yet!

Chicago West

The latest installment of our travel blog started when we loaded up the covered wagon, um, minivan and hit the road for Phoenix right after the kids escaped school for spring break on Friday. Unfortunately, we weren't quite as lucky in our efforts to get out of Dodge, um, Southern California, so our trek took more than an hour longer than usual. Ugh.

If you haven't guessed by now, this road trip will take us through the Old West (a.k.a. Southern AZ). Our pre-trip homework involved watching a lot of (laughably bad) Westerns. Among them: Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, 3:10 to Yuma, and The Lone Ranger. Does Cowboys vs. Aliens count as a Western?!

The Longest Day

Because our flight home didn't leave until late afternoon, we checked out of the Marriott and left our bags at the bell desk. After breakfast (Dunkin' Donuts, what else?!), we went back to the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial to start off on the Black Heritage Trail. The State House is right across the street from the memorial. While we were waiting to cross the street, the buses transporting the Boston Pops to rehearsal for the Fireworks Spectacular drove past, complete with their police escort. You would have thought it was a presidential motorcade! Haha!

The Tri-State Area

Since it was still overcast this morning, my hopes of getting a morning pic from one of the national seashore beaches were dashed. But after checking out of the hotel, we went out to see the Nauset Light...