Epic Road Trip Part 1: The Farvers!

July 7th, 2016

Our driving day was real easy today: just a 2-hour drive north to East Lansing, home of the amazing and wonderful Farvers!

Sarah, Tyler, and Laura on the playground. Too much fun.

Since we didn't have a lot of driving ahead of us, we got to spend the morning exploring a nearby park and an avenue lined with beautiful homes. Sarah and Tyler took us on a little post-breakfast (chocolate chip pancakes!!) adventure, and it wasn't even too hot and humid yet. Ben and I gaped at the luxury homes and were quite judgy about their yards.

Wow, Ft. Wayne!!

After a stop at Kroger so I could stock up on delicious, unattainable-in-Minnesota, Kroger-brand peanut butter cheerios, we were on our way to East Lansing.

Cheerios-y bliss!

If you've met the Farvers, you know they are just the funnest, kindest, most enjoyable people to be around. I haven't figured out a way to become a permanent part of their family, so a visit will have to do for now. Scott and Erin are more old Peace Corps friends, who I got to see fairly often when they lived in New Mexico, but haven't seen them in their current life in Michigan.

Family photo: Scott, Erin, Brayden, Sierra, and aunt Laura

When we got to their house, the kids gave us a tour of the house, and then we went to campus (MSU) and walked around a bit, and got ice cream. That afternoon, we watched a Germany/France soccer game, played bocce ball, and then had tacos for dinner. The Farvers had some friends over to watch the game, and we all (even the kids!) ended up playing a round of Complicated Charades of Death (fun!!) and after the kids went to bed, and the friends went home, Horse Thief (even more fun!!) And I don't want to make ya'll too jealous, but.... we ordered cookies. Warm, gooey cookies. Delivered to the house. At 10pm.  I guess there's no way you wouldn't be jealous about that, sorry. Day four started off with fun at the park, and ended with fun in the dark. With cookies. 

Epic Road Trip Part 1: Three States in One Day

July 6, 2016

Goodbye Wisconsin! On to Chicago!

In Chicago, I was picking up my friend Ben, a grad school friend of mine who was there visiting a friend of his named LeAnne. I had never met LeAnne, but Ben has told me wonderful things about her, all of which turned out to be true.

Ice Cream in sea shells in Chicago! With Ben and LeAnne

I got to LeAnne's apartment mid-day, and the three of us hit the street! We walked her neighborhood (lovely), complained about the heat and humidity (one of my favorite activities) and got lunch at a Greek restaurant (where none of us felt compelled to convert to Greek Orthodox in order to marry the waitress.)  We also visited a Chicago library (another of my favorite activities) and got ice cream on the walk back.

Back at LeAnne's place, we relaxed on her comfy furniture, then all too quickly, had to say goodbye. We were trying to get to Ft. Wayne, Indiana by 6pm.

Ben and I got in my car and sped off into the Chicago suburbs, barely glancing over our shoulders at the skyline rapidly receding behind us. This is a sentence I would like to say is true, but it is not. Instead, we got into my car and sat in traffic for several hours, getting plenty of time to look out the window at the skyline, take pictures of the skyline, take selfies of us looking at the skyline, do a mad lib, and generally begin our time together by being irritated.

A deceptively lovely skyline. As seen from the car window. Notice the absence of any type of motion.

When we finally broke free of the hell that is Chicago traffic, and drove through charming and lovely Gary, Indiana, we made another discovery: we were changing time zones, and therefore, were now another hour later than planned.

The most beautiful part of Gary, Indiana: the empty highway

So, we made it to Ft. Wayne not by 6pm, but still in time to enjoy a delicious homemade dinner with my college roommate, Sarah, and her husband Doug, and their adorable son, Tyler. We were happy to be out of the car and get some tasty lasagna in our bellies. Yet again, I had a wonderful evening catching up with Sarah, and getting to know Doug and Tyler. Day three, three states, three new friends.

Tyler and I quickly became friends

Epic Road Trip Part 1: Wisconsin!

July 5th, 2016

I left Northfield, MN in a timely manner the next morning. (If you know me at all, you know leaving on time is one of my strengths).

I parked next to two other older-model silver CR-Vs in Madison. It was kind of amazing!

I made it to Madison, Wisconsin for lunch with my old Peace Corps friend, Tim.  It was great seeing him and catching up. He has a boat, too! People out here have a lot more boats than people in Colorado or Arizona do.  Tim and I got lunch and walked around Madison for just a bit, and it's a very nice city.

As you can tell from this picture, Tim is a very important lawyer now.

On the road again, I went to Waukesha, Wisconsin (suburb of Milwaukee) to spend time with another Peace Corps friend, Erin Dowe Steinman. We caught up, and went to dinner with her husband Eric, at a really pretty and tasty lakeside restaurant, The Seven Seas.

I bet you wish you were at the Seven Seas restaurant with us. Look how pretty the view is!

A relaxing evening at their place after dinner, and day two was in the bag!

Wisconsin has some very thoughtful highway rest area restrooms.

It also has some interesting roadside attractions, such as this pink elephant.

Epic Road Trip Part 1: Fourth of July

July 4, 2016

Day one of the epic road trip. The day started out pretty poorly, as I discovered a bad oil leak in my car. I had taken it in to the mechanic a week earlier with the instructions "get it road-trip ready, including an oil change." As it was the 4th of July, they were closed, so I couldn't take it back to them. This was also the last day I had to move everything out of my apartment, and I was driving to Buffalo Lake in the afternoon to spend 4th of July with my friend Claire and her family.

So, not knowing what else to do, I called my friend Belinda and asked if her husband Scott would help me. Since they are both the best people in the world, he came right over, with his brother, his truck, and all the parts a CR-V needs. I felt bad that they were missing the St. Joe 4th of July parade (I felt bad I was missing it, too,) but they said they really didn't mind, and I am inclined to believe them.

A real American Hero

They jacked my car up, went underneath, replaced my oil filter, and told me they couldn't figure out what was wrong. They filled my car back up with oil, as it was quite low, gave me another quart for the road, and left me feeling extremely grateful for competent and helpful friends. I don't know what I would have done without them, but starting my road trip on time probably wouldn't have happened.

A real American way to move out

I finished moving everything from my apartment to my storage unit. The apartment has a convenient shopping cart so instead of making 100 trips to the third floor and back, I only had to make 5.

A real American amount of household crap

Dropped the last of my things off in storage, and I headed for Buffalo Lake.  I spent a delightful afternoon and evening with Claire, a good friend from grad school, and her family, at their lake house.

A real Minnesotan 4th of July

 I went on a boat ride in a pontoon boat, ate delicious 4th of July food, and just had a nice time chatting with people. Claire and I left near dusk to head to her parents' house in Northfield, MN, about an hour and a half away. I spent the night at their house, and day one ended much better than it had started!

A real American friendship

Claire and her cousin about to get pulled around the lake behind a jetski. AMERICAN!

Christa's Wedding in Austin!

This past weekend I got to go to Austin, Texas for my friend Christa's wedding! (Here in Minnesota, I have to make it clear that I'm not talking about Austin, MN, home of SPAM). 

What a great weekend. I took an incredibly early flight on Friday that changed planes in Denver. Lucky me, my mom got invited to the wedding too! So we met up at DIA and got on the plane to Austin together.

Things are bigger in Texas

We got to Austin and got checked into our hotel. That evening, we went to Christa and Nathan's rehearsal dinner at a park. I got to meet her friends from AmeriCorps and nursing school, and we listened to wonderful speeches about them both and just got to hang out in the very warm weather. It was lovely.

Nathan and Christa!

That night, I went to Christa's bachelorette party at a hip bar. It was extremely warm. It was great to meet all the amazing ladies that think Christa is the best, because she is. She has lots of friends in her fan club.

Saturday morning, my mom and I took a tour of the state capitol. I found it very interesting and it was a pretty building. It's the largest state capitol in the country. (Are we surprised?) The hinges in the doors are custom made and weigh 3 pounds each.  The legislature only meets every other year. Texas has been a part of 6 different countries (USA, France, Spain, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederacy).

3 lbs each!

After the capitol, we found a delightful little cafe called the Sage Cafe, inside a plant nursery center. We got some delicious lunch and cold fruit smoothie.

Married!

Beautiful setting for a ceremony

Back to the hotel, showered and got ready for the wedding. It was held at this cute little stone clubhouse high on a hill in a park overlooking downtown Austin. It was very private, and very neat. Christa and Nathan's ceremony was super fun, and Christa put a lot of work into making so much of the wedding pieces by hand, herself. It was a really nice ceremony. We had BBQ for dinner, and cake, cookies, cupcakes, anything you could think of for dessert! Dancing, games, socializing, and then a sendoff with sparklers held above their heads...which looked amazing, but I think was a little scarier for Christa and Nathan than they had anticipated.

Homemade giant banagrams!? Yes, please!

Getting ready for a group picture

Sunday morning, mom and I went to Zilker Botanical gardens, where, even though it was very hot, we enjoyed the various gardens - cactus garden, Japanese garden, rose garden, prehistoric garden, butterfly trail, and finally, the air conditioned gift shop.

Dino spotted!

Japanese garden at Zilker Gardens

We flew home that night, and I got to spend about 16 hours in Denver, which was also great. Just visiting family and having lunch with them and hanging out.

Chippewa Falls, WI

Today I took a day trip over to Chippewa Falls to meet up with my friend Erin from grad school. She has been living in Madagascar, and is back in the states for a couple weeks' vacation, and so we met halfway-ish for an afternoon of fun and catching up.

First of all, Wisconsin is lovely.

View of Hudson, WI, a stop I made on the way to Chippewa Falls.

When we found each other, we walked around Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls and saw lots of neat things.

We found a large log with a label on it inside a cage. I made Erin pose next to it. We don't know what it is.

Rumble Bridge

St. Croix river behind us!

An adorable old schoolhouse

Erin at the petting zoo in the park

Other cool things we saw at the park: an old settler's cabin; an albino bison; elk; a zoo with tigers, hyenas, and bears; graduation parties at the gazebo; a white ash tree (labeled); enormous ducks at the duck pond. 
We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that had good food and campy decor.

We got ice cream at a sweet candy shop next door. (Get it, sweet??)

Beautiful candy

We walked around downtown Chippewa Falls, which is quite cute. I eventually found the public library, but I was driving, so I didn't get a picture of it.

It didn't rain on us, as the weather channel had told me it would.

On the way home, I stopped at a very lovely rest area.

It was a great mini-adventure with a good friend!

Flowers

Sometimes, fate decides that a person should have a pot of flowers on their balcony. That's what happened to me.

Last week, I was at the grocery store and thought it would be nice to get some flowers for the kitchen. So I asked the florist: "Do you have any cheap flowers that would look nice on the kitchen table?" Florist: "we just got these gerber daisies in, they're $7."
Me: "hmm...those look like flowers that are going to live awhile."
Florist: "Did you want flowers that were going to die?"
Me: "Well, kinda. But those are nice. Okay, I'll get those."

And I brought home some daisies in a little pot.

The next Tuesday was teacher appreciation day, and the parent group at our school put on a nice brunch, with flower centerpieces on each table.  And can you believe it, I won one!

Now I had two flowers in little pots.

The daisies I bought, on the right, and the dahlias I won, on the left

So I thought, I guess I should put these in a bigger pot and put them on the balcony. But two flowers shouldn't be alone in a pot. They need a third. So I went to the nursery with a picture of my two flowers, and said, "do you have a yellow flower that would look nice with these two?" and she found me a nice yellow dahlia.

I also bought a pot, soil, and a trowel.

Ready to garden!

Then, amazingly, I potted my flowers! Turns out, I didn't need the trowel.

They look beautiful!

Gone Sugaring!

Last weekend, my friend Belinda invited me to come see how to turn maple sap into maple syrup. She and her family do a joint sugaring venture with friends of theirs near Avon, MN. I followed Belinda out to their house, which involved several turns onto increasingly smaller county roads, long stretches of farm land in between, then a dirt road, another dirt road, and finally, a dirt road leading to their house by a lake with woods. Amazing.

Saige teaching me how to collect the sap

The Walsh family working the sugar Maples

First, we went out and collected the sap. They have around 100 trees tapped. Belinda, her husband, Scott, 3 of her kids, one of the other family's kids, and myself went to all the trees, and collect the sap from bags that are specially made for the purpose. We poured it into 5-gallon buckets. It looks completely clear, and has the viscosity of water.

The sap bag nailed to the tree

Scott collected the 5-gallon buckets as they got full and piled them into a trailer pulled by a 4-wheeler. We trecked through the woods and collected all the sap, and it was lovely in the woods as the sun set, and it had been a very warm day, so it wasn't too chilly.

I'm helping!

The 5-gallon buckets then get poured into a giant holding tank (about 5 feet tall, 3 feet wide, 4 feet long...) and is filtered as it it's poured in, to get rid of all the bugs. Scott did the pouring, while Belinda and I handed him up buckets and the kids ate pizza.

A forest of Sugar Maples

Scott and the dad of the other family have a setup in a different part of the woods, near the house, which is a fire built inside a cinder-block frame about 5 ft long by 3 feet wide by 1 foot high. We went on Saturday night, and the fire had already been going steady since Friday. On top of the frame is a big open tray for the sap. There is also a smaller tray that empties down into the big tray, so it heats slowly before it's poured into the big tray. Then the sap is boiled down. It takes 40-80 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!! It boils down for a long time. I was there for hours and didn't see much change in the syrup. I helped stir it for a bit.

Boiling down the sap

After it's done there, they will pour it into big pans and filter it through a much finer filter, then bottle it in Mason jars. So much work goes into the maple syrup!! It was amazing to see all of this, and help out with it. For one night.

The buckets we collected of sap, waiting to be poured into the big holding tank