Rocky Mountain National Park and Boulder

Finally, a day without driving! We headed to Rocky Mountain National Park for some hiking. The ride there held stunning views and I think I took about 50 pictures just on the way . We drove about a half an hour into the park and hiked about two and a half hours to Lock Lake. I haven’t done much hiking before, but the trail wasn’t too bad. There were gushing snow-melt fed rivers, beautiful waterfalls, and snow still on the top of the trail! The view of the lake at the end was absolutely worth the journey. It was so picturesque.

 

Also, this was fantastic:

The whole day made me want to make hiking and camping more of a priority. I wish I had a car to get up to the White Mountains at home and a tent and more camping and hiking gear… and more time… I felt so happy just making my way along the trail, and I’m really jealous of people who get to live in Colorado. They have so many opportunities for intense outdoor adventures. Plus they do it all on less oxygen. I was quite short of breath for the start of the hike, but it got better as we went.

After hiking, we went to Boulder. It was an adorable town! It’s at the base of the mountains and has a wonderful downtown area. I guess I should see what it’s like in the winter before I decide to up and move there tomorrow.

North Platte, NE- Loveland, CO

We left the North Platte Super 8 around 10 this morning after a fortifying banana waffle breakfast. We thought it was 11 because out computers are still on EST. It was a pleasant surprise to find that we would make it to Colorado not one, but two hours earlier than expected simply because of time zones. Today we only drove 4 hours total anyway. It was nice after yesterday was so long.

 

Along the way was mostly more of the same- farms and fields. I was actually very surprised to find that Eastern Colorado is flatter and more desolate than Nebraska. It was very pretty though. Once we starting getting further from the Colorado-Nebraska Border, the plains started to roll so that we felt like the end of the earth was just sitting over the next hill. It was rolling fields and blue sky. It is the classic picture in my mind of the quintessential “open road.”

We only needed to make one stop to change drivers today. We found a rest stop where the sign before it said: “Do not pick up hitchhikers. Correctional facility nearby.” And sure enough, we pull off to the information center and there’s a jail in the back yard. We went inside the Northeastern Colorado informational center, and were greeted by three sweet old people. They gave us free coffee and cookies and were so happy that we had driven all the way from Massachusetts. When Taylor told them she was moving to San Francisco, their reply was, “Oh… well that’s different.” I struck up a conversation with a local farmer in there too. He seemed to be a sweet old man who basically told me he’s only really ever left the area once when he took a train out east. We talked about that and farming for a few minutes, but it was really hard to understand him since he had no teeth left… Everyone was just so nice though, and that was probably one of my favorite rest stops so far.

 

After leaving there, we drove on for about another other, and Tay and I got really excited when we could see mountains. It is so unexpected after so much flatness; they seem to just grow out of nowhere. It’s quite flat right up until you feel like you’re practically at the base of a steep mountain. The plan is to stay in the area tomorrow and do some hiking. A friend said Rocky Mountain National Park is beautiful, and we’ll hopefully check out Boulder as well.

 

As we move farther and farther west, I feel like I want to see more. I wish we had so much more time to explore off the interstates and go talk to people, visit their farms and bars, and see the silly things they have built to try to pass the time and get people to come visit. I thought I would want to get through Iowa and Nebraska as fast as possible (without doing double the speed limit), but I actually found myself wanting to explore those states more than I really wanted to see Chicago. We were originally pretty disappointed that we really only saw the Chicago skyline and basically one block of a neighborhood, but we also had the feeling that, ok whatever we have other stuff to do. With Nebraska, where I was expecting to spend every moment wishing to get through it, I just wanted to see more. There’s a lot of fun stuff right off the highway- silly statues and kitchy stores, but I would love to see how people truly live. I think we came the closest to seeing that when we ventured off in Iowa to see the windmill in the middle of this small town where a group of Danish people settled 150 years ago and never left.  I already know that this is a journey I am going to make again someday, and hopefully I will have the time to do it more thoroughly.

Buffalo-Chicago, Chicago-Nebraska

6/26/11

The earth is amazing. It has formed itself into such beautiful vistas and interesting terrains. I’m not even a third of the way across the country and I’ve already seen such wonderful variety. From woods to hills and valleys to flat planes and Niagara Falls, I am just mystified at how Earth has created itself. I was so sure that in upstate New York nothing could be as picturesque as the farm valleys, but then the flat plains of Canada between the Great Lakes make the grand skies look like the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen. Then we pull into Niagara Falls, and I am dumbfounded by how much water is simply moving through there each second.

As I write this, our day’s journey is only half done and we’re sitting on the bridge back into the US from Canada. I’m looking out over a great lake and wondering how it is not the ocean. What a wonderful world.

Our stay at Hostel Buffalo-Niagara last night was quite nice. I was right about us being out too early… apparently the bars close at 4am in Buffalo, so anyone out before 11pm is jumping the gun. We fell asleep to the techno club beats of the neighboring bar. Even louder than that was our only roommate’s 5am snoring session. I’ve never stayed in a hostel dorm before, and I was really excited when Taylor and I were the only two in the 6-bed until our middle-aged Canadian mom showed up. She was really nice and had purple hair, but the snoring was a little intolerable. Other than that it was a really pleasant experience. The hostel was really cool- fun colors, clean rooms, and lots of advice on stuff to do in Buffalo.

We left at 9am and headed to Niagara Falls. What a sight. It was over packed with unnecessary tourist attractions; I was just so content to stare at the falls, I didn’t feel the need to go up into the skyview tower or into the random casino. It’s quite the operation overall, capitalizing on nature’s beauty and power.

The drive up to this point has been beautiful but pretty uneventful. Tay’s been driving like a champ as I’ve done my GRE flashcards and typed part of this entry.

6/27/11

It’s been harder to find both time and wifi to update this blog. When I have the time, I have no wifi, and when I have wifi at like a truck stop, I don’t really have the time to do this justice. Hopefully tonight this gets up online.

Yesterday I left off leaving Niagara Falls. Taylor introduced me to the wonder that is Tim Horton’s. It’s a better version of Dunkin’ Donuts- better donuts, healthier lunch choices, and prettier travel mugs (which I bought). We stopped twice in Canada because it was so awesome. I wish they had them around here. The absolute best was the banana glazed Tim Bit. Just trust me on this one.

From Canada, it was back to the USA through Michigan. Overall, kinda an uneventful drive. I took the wheel for the end of the day and took us into Chicago at night. It was quite a sight all lit up. We went to Taylor’s friend’s house out in one of the neighborhoods. It was super-uber hipster. We both really wished we had time to explore Chicago… I guess I’ll just have to add it to my list of places to explore more.

This morning, we slept in a little and were out of the Chicago area by 11. After a thrilling drive through Illinois, we crossed the border into Iowa and came right to the World’s Largest Truck Stop. Let me tell you, it is quite a sight. The building we went in was a gift store/convenience store/auto store/trucker showroom/food court/country-style restaurant/movie theater all in one. There were other buildings that we didn’t venture into as well including the history of trucking museum. The gift store was the weirdest collection of stuff you could ever want in a store- everything from little stuffed animals to samurai swords, ceramic decorative roosters to Jesus t-shirts . I ended up getting a pretty awesome cowgirl hat that I plan on wearing every day from now on.

We just have to conquer the rest of Iowa now and all of Nebraska…. Probably not all happening today to be honest… It has been so nice to sit back and relax in the car. I’ve really enjoyed driving and just looking at the scenery. I’ve also really been pleased with the confidence I’ve had driving. I took us into Chicago last night- a city I’ve never been to before and I wasn’t even worried about driving through all the tight highways and roads. Even on the “open road” things get a little intimidating when you’re next to a semi in a construction zone, but so far so good.

On my list of things I want to see today are:

A road with nothing but fields

Crop circles

Some ridiculous statue someone made to get people off the highway in Nebraska

A dive bar in the middle of nowhere filled with one-toothed farmers

Cows

A tornado

6/28/11

Just arrived in our motel in Nebraska. My checklist for the day was mostly successful- lots of road with open fields, some really interestingly patterned corn that could really be used to communicate with aliens, a Danish Windmill off the highway in Iowa, a local bar in York we weren’t brave enough to go into, and lots of adorable cows. Unfortunately no tornado.

Driving has been so much fun. I thought I would be bored out of my mind, but the scenery is simply stunning. The other entertainment is the radio. Once we got into Nebraska, it’s all songs about Jesus, talk shows about Jesus, and country songs. For a little while near Lincoln we got some Top 40, but other than that I’ve learned a lot about what people think about Jesus out here.

Overall, Tay and I drove about 12 hours today without stops, but it simply flew by. We stopped for a late dinner at a place in York called “The Kitchen.” It’s the first restaurant we’re really stopped at that wasn’t fast food or anything, and it was delish. If you’re ever driving through York, I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow’s plan is the rest of Nebraska and Denver, then after that a whole day of fun in Denver! Thanks for reading!

Boston-Buffalo

Over 450 miles and nine hours of driving later, Tay and I have wound up in Buffalo. It was a pretty fun drive, and it seemed much shorter than a nine hour drive should thanks to Taylor’s iPod full of terrible pop music and wonderful Disney songs. The weather was both rainy and sunny (sometimes at the same time).  It was just nice to drive again after not having a car for so long! I forgot how much I love singing in the car and just driving in general.

Some of the highlights of the trip included seeing a pick-up-driving nun (see photo below), the landscape of rolling farm valleys, and the pouring rain that made us get off the highway in Schenectady. We rolled into Buffalo, NY around 9pm after practically every college-student affordable hotel/motel was booked. The place is pretty nice, but I’ll let you know tomorrow if that is still true.

Buffalo on the other hand is quite the town… we went out for a bite to eat at 10:00 and the town was dead. Absolutely dead. We walked down a street packed with empty bars. It looked like they might be fun if anyone was in them, but it was like a ghost town. We ate at a thrilling place called Bada Bing Bar & Grill. The bar & grill was decent with an interesting selection of food, but the crowd was the best part- ranging from Jersey Shore  to uber-bro. Needless to say, we didn’t stay long.  We are probably just so lame that we were out before the crowd, but even still there were a lot of empty storefronts. It’s pretty creepy to be honest. I would like to see Buffalo in the day because it seems like the area would be pretty lively in this pedestrian area, and all the wandering homeless people wouldn’t stand out as much. Unfortunately, we’re leaving pretty early in the morning…

Tomorrow’s plan has us stopping by Niagara Falls pretty early, swinging through Canada, and ending up in Chicago. Any suggestions for stops along the way?

My Journey Blog

Hello Friends!

I have plans for the upcoming year. Big plans. I wanted a way to share my experiences with you, so here it is! A blog. For real. Last time I tried one of these was LiveJournal in high school, and that didn’t turn out so well. But since the passing of teenage angst and the onset of tons of adventures, I have decided to make this a priority.

I’m going to share stories, pictures, and experiences from my journeys both near and far. I have a lot of trips to exciting places penciled (and some sharpied) into my calendar, and I am itching to share them with you. And some of my journey will be close to home; more of a personal journey than a trip to somewhere. I’m thrilled to share that with you as well.

First order of business is a road trip!!! Tomorrow morning, I’m embarking on a 10 day adventure across the USA- Boston to San Francisco- with one of my best/longest/sexiest friends. Stops are still a little TBD, but look for Tay and I along I-80. Here’s to stretching horizons!

@!3*