Road Trip Summary

Well now, that was rude of me. Not a peep for months on this blog. Who knows how many viewers I've lost at this point? There's been plenty of blog-worthy events in the past few months but I just hadn't gotten around to talking about them. Anyone want to take any bets as to whether or not I manage to change my ways? :-)

Kate and I just got back from a road trip through Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Ostensibly, we were traveling to eastern Iowa for a wedding reception for one of Kate's college friends. But since we had many friends and family along the route, we decided to see how many would be interested and available to see us. Much to our surprise, a lot of them were!

Usually, I'd post a number of pictures with this post, but since we took over 500 of them, I decided just to suggest that readers pop over to our Shutterfly page where I'm uploading all the pictures from the trip. Fair warning - the pictures are being loaded pretty raw, without editing or review. I'll eventually clean up the album, but for a short while at least, the pictures may be a little off.

On to the summary then!

Day One: We had a little trouble getting ourselves out on time on the day we left. Since we weren't trying to catch a flight or train, we fell into our own pace and ended up leaving close to three hours later than we intended. We traveled down CO-14 until it joined up with I-76 around Sterling, which then connected with I-80 in Nebraska. We then just shot straight down I-80 (with a couple stops for gas or stretch breaks) until we reached Council Bluffs. Terry and Karl - friends of Kate's family - had opened their home to us for the night, even though between our late start and our forgetting about the time change, we arrived close to 10:30pm local time. Terry and Karl were still very welcoming, having saved some roast beef and sweet potatoes for us to have as dinner. Tessa had great fun exploring the house and finding breakable decorations.

Day Two: Terry made us some breakfast and we sat around chatting for most of the morning since we didn't get a chance to do so the previous night. In the late morning, we headed back into Omaha, which was just across the Missouri River. We paid a visit to the Henry Doorly Zoo, which both of us recall fondly from our childhoods. Even though we only spent a couple of hours there, it was still amazing, especially the Aquarium, Desert Dome, and Kingdoms of the Night. After the zoo, we made haste down I-80 in Des Moines and arced south to Norwalk. We met up with my uncle Dean and my aunt Rachel, who were letting us crash at their place for the night. In addition, my aunt Karen had organized a grand dinner gathering with all my relatives that still lived in the area. The gathering included: Dean and Rachel, Karen and my uncle Pat, my aunt Donna, my uncle Stan, my grandfather, my cousin Kristi with her husband Nick and their three kids, my cousin Kari with her husband Mike and their daughter Hailey, my cousin Sean, my cousin Dan (though he was mostly downstairs minding the dog), and my cousin Tanya. I hadn't seen my aunts Karen and Rachel since my wedding, and I hadn't seen the rest of the family in almost ten years. It was great seeing everyone, catching up, meeting spouses and kids, and so on. It was like I'd never been gone so long! Tessa had fun playing with my cousins' kids too! After everyone left, Kate and I stayed up a little longer to chat with Dean and Rachel.

Day Three: After some breakfast with Rachel, we headed out to the little town of Milo to visit my grandfather and see the old farmhouse. On the way, we stopped off at Indianola to pay our respects at my grandmother's resting place. That was a little emotional for me but I'm glad I stopped by. In Milo, we hung out with my grandfather for a little while. (I helped him copy some pictures of my cousin Erika's wedding onto his computer.) Then it was off on IA-92 to Muscatine, with a stopover in Oskaloosa for lunch. We checked in at the Strawberry Farm Bed and Breakfast, which was so casual and homey that it was very much like visiting someone's house and staying the night. After settling in, we popped over to the Moose Lodge for the wedding reception of Kate's college friend Ann. We managed to catch her early before she got swamped with other guests and festivities. We stayed around for dinner, cake cutting, dances and speeches before returning to Strawberry Farm to crash for the night.

Day Four: We spent a casual morning enjoying breakfast with Karl and Linda (the owners) then made a point of visiting the Mississippi River for a little bit. Tessa was not all that impressed. :-) Then it was skipping up to I-380 and US-63 to Rochester. There we met with Kate's college friends Dave and Gina (and their two boys Zach and Sam), who were giving us a room for the night. We had dinner, got introduced to a cool new game called Dominion (which Kate and I might have to buy for ourselves), and played some Lego Star Wars. Tessa had fun playing with the boys (and didn't want to go to bed) while we enjoyed chatting with Gina and Dave.

Day Five: We woke up early the next morning to walk over to the Holy Spirit Catholic Church that was less than a block away from Dave and Gina's house. When we got back, we hung out and chatted a while longer before cruising down US-14 to St. Peter. This was the home of Gustavus Adolphus College, Kate's alma mater. We rendezvoused with two more of Kate's friends Jill and Jen on campus and took a walk around to see what things had changed since their time there. Jill had to bail shortly before that but Jen joined us for dinner at Whiskey River. Kate's friend Dana met us there as well and we all gabbed well into the night. (Tessa dozed off early on to our surprise!) Then Jen headed back to the Twin Cities while Dana guided us down to Windom to stay the night at her place. We watched the Viking-Packers game and talked a while before retiring for the night.

Day Six: The next morning Dana made us omelets for breakfast and we departed around mid morning to start the trek back to Colorado. We took MN-60 down through Sioux City then bounced to US-75 and US-30 until we stopped in Grand Island, which I had determined would be a good midpoint stopover. We actually made most of the trip with minimal breaks, though we did stop in Columbus for lunch at Quizno's. (This represented our lone deviation from stopping at a Hy-Vee grocery store for meal breaks, as we did in Oskaloosa and Waterloo, though we did end up stopping at Hy-Vee for dinner in Grand Island.) We checked in at a local Days Inn and pretty much spent the night vegging out. Tessa was a little temperamental that evening but not too bad.

Day Seven: After partaking in the continental breakfast (which included biscuits and gravy and do-it-yourself waffles), we hopped back onto I-80 and blazed across Nebraska toward home. We had to fight strong winds the whole way, which made the trip sporting and gas-consuming. I decided to cut straight down I-80 into Wyoming (we made a stop in Pine Bluffs just inside the Wyoming-Nebraska border) and hooked up with I-25 around Cheyenne. We skipped lunch in preference of getting home and made it back to Fort Collins by late afternoon. We even had enough to time get unpacked, do a bunch of laundry, make a spaghetti dinner, and relax a bit before going to bed.

The trip was a great deal of fun and while it seemed rapid-fire at times (we wished we had more time to hang out with folks), it was still very relaxing. All the friends and family we met up with were so welcoming and gracious and it was fantastic to see all of them. We hope to make this a more regular vacation option, instead of waiting 5-10 years before another visit.

In the meantime, there's always Facebook. ;-)

Tessa did remarkably well on the trip. Most of the time, when the car was moving, she was dozing or quietly watching out the back window. The couple of times that she became particularly upset, Kate was able to placate her with Cheerios and peaches. And despite her stranger shyness, she still seemed to do well with all the strangers she met on the trip. What a good girl!

So that's the quick and dirty summary of our road trip through the Midwest. Like I said, it was a ton of fun and we hope to have the chance to do it again sometime.

As always, thanks very much for reading and I hope you're having a great day.