We made it to Orlando. Robin is having a great time with her friends. They are twins, but I’ve been able to tell them apart. Kinda proud of myself for that, but they do look a little different, so they made it a little easier on me. The drive was really easy, which is always nice. So far so good.
Tag: travel
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June 20
We had a pretty smooth trip home, but I felt sad the whole time. I already miss the mountains. I guess I’m also glad I get to see the pups again, though. I missed them too.
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June 19
I really did not want to leave. I looked for any excuse to stop and see just one more thing. Everyone else was ready to go. We did at least make it back in time to get the sticker I’d seen when we first arrived to the park, and that made me happy. And even just driving through Yellowstone without stopping is pretty special.
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June 18
We fit almost the entire Tetons into our day today. We started with sunrise at Oxbow Bend, then Schwabacher Landing, Mormon Row, Craig Thomas Visitor Center, an ill-advised stop at Jenny Lake, a drive up Signal Mountain, horseback riding at the hotel, and a sunset drive in search of wildlife. Teton is a gorgeous place.
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June 17
We crossed into Grand Teton National Park today. We stopped at the fishing bridge and Lewis Falls before getting there. We were disappointed not to see any wildlife at the fishing bridge since the guide books all said it was a really good place for it. Robin is getting tired of driving and seeing the same thing over and over again. But the Tetons are beautiful. We stopped by Colter Bay and then since everyone was tired, we drove to the Willow Flats overlook and played Five Crowns in the car until it was time to check into the hotel. Christina beat the pants off us. I’m excited to see everything tomorrow.
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June 16
We learned a lot about geysers today, and we saw quite a few of them too. It seems a little trite to say my favorite part of the trip so far was seeing Old Faithful when that is probably the only thing I’d heard of (or all most people think of) before we came, but it really was very cool to watch. We stopped at some other mud pots along the way, which I had NOT heard of but were also cool. We had early dinner reservations at Old Faithful so we didn’t get to see Grand Prismatic Spring, which was the only other thing I’d heard of besides Old Faithful. I was a little bummed, but made up for it a little with the huckleberry ice cream cone I had, which had about a pint of ice cream in it. There was so much ice cream in the cone that the cone literally couldn’t contain it. We debated when we ordered whether to get one scoop or two and decided to keep it light with one since we had that early dinner. I cannot believe what I ate was one scoop of ice cream. But it did taste good.
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June 15
We slept in a little more this morning and hit the road toward our campsite. We hiked to the Yellowstone River after seeing Tower Falls and then made our way to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The falls were pretty cool, and we hiked down to the very top of the lower falls. We were literally right on top of it. The drive to the campground was beautiful through the mountains. We saw more bison. We got our campsite set up and had dinner on the lake. Another great day.
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June 14
We were up before dawn to make it into Yellowstone. It is a pretty amazing place. We walked around Mammoth Hot Springs, drove through the Lamar Valley, saw some bison, pronghorn deer, a coyote, and Billy and Christina saw a bear. We went for a five-mile hike that just about killed everyone for some reason – everyone finished the hike hating life and hating each other. I personally enjoyed it and was in a decent mood at the end other than dealing with all of the attitude around me. Oh, but we saw an otter in one of the ponds we walked past, so that was cool. Good first day.
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June 13
We made it to Bozeman. Up at 4:30am and spent the day flying. I was happy that everything went smoothly, from the Uber to security to the flights being on time, smooth connections, no problem with the car rental… nice lunch at a saloon where we learned that soda is pop here. The mountains are beautiful!
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May 17
We had another nice day today. We spent almost the entire day shopping. We did have ice cream for lunch, which I do recommend. My ice cream cone, which was technically only two scoops, weighed approximately four pounds. So much delicious ice cream! We went to a very fancy restaurant for dinner, which was as fabulous as we expected – probably more, even. It was a great finish to a great weekend. And now it is 10:20pm and I have to get up at 6:30am and I have just accidentally taken my morning medication instead of my evening medication, which royally sucks because my morning medication includes a strong stimulant and now I’ll be lucky to sleep at all tonight. At least I’ll be home early and I can sleep all afternoon. What a great trip with great company. We need more times like these.
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May 16
Siggi and I had a great day touristing around Savannah. We took the trolley tour around town and visited Forsyth Park, St. John the Baptist church, ate at Clary’s, and took a house tour of the Owens-Thomas house. We had a rooftop dinner overlooking the river at sunset. I loved the house tour, and I’m so glad we did it. The weather is absolutely perfect – mid-80s, no humidity, perfectly sunny. I decided that Billy and I need to come here for a date weekend without the kids for my birthday. It’s way more fun without kids. No offense, kids. Trips with you are fun too, but every once in a while, it’s nice to get to just be an adult.
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March 20
I was on the road and couldn’t fill out a bracket before the March Madness started, so I printed out paper ones for me and Billy before I looked at any scores. Billy had already seen some of the scores, so he got one freebie that I missed (really, High Point?), but otherwise we’re on even ground. I’m having fun looking up all the scores and marking up the brackets. I am a nerd. We were going to go to Sea World today, but Christina still isn’t feeling well. We did come to Orlando (which was a wall of traffic from start to finish, thank you, Florida), but I think we’re going to stay in. Hopefully Christina feels better tomorrow. If not, she’s going to have to find a bench to lie down on because we have to check out of the hotel at 11.
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March 18
Pretty decent drive from NJ to VA today. There were a couple spots with traffic, but nothing more than a few minutes and otherwise traffic was very light. I hope tomorrow is just as easy, but I take nothing for granted. We got to the hotel pretty early, around 3:15. I spent some time telling ChatGPT how disappointed I was with it (for some reason this felt necessary), did some crossword puzzles. Then we went to the Subway at the gas station for dinner, bought some snacks, played some Uno, called Billy. Now I’ve showered, watching some basketball, and pretty soon I’ll be off to sleep. I’m hoping to get an early start tomorrow. Arriving early enough to have time to relax before crashing is nice. Fingers crossed for another easy day. We’ll see. I’m ready for anything. Kind of.
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March 17
We had a nice day living the life at Aunt Cathrine and Uncle Bob’s senior living facility. It’s like living on a giant cruise ship. The place has everything imaginable. Today’s highlights included visiting the facility thrift shop, going to the pool, playing Uno, and having a fancy St. Patrick’s Day dinner in the dining room. They seem so absolutely happy here, and honestly, who could blame them? It has been so good to spend some time with them. I’m glad we made the trip.
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March 16
We traipsed the town today. I learned a very important lesson, which is that ChatGPT is a terrible trip planner. Like, class-Z-minus terrible. Still, we managed to have a good day. Not hard to do because let’s face it. NYC. We had dinner with an old friend and was spotted at random by my old boss while we were eating. What a cool NYC moment. We did a lot. Black and white cookies at Zaro’s at Grand Central, Color Factory, Miniso, lunch and frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity, Chelsea Market, High Line, the Lego store, a stop at Starbucks during the worst of the torrential rain, dinner at Cowgirl, cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery, and back to the Jerz. I am exhausted and wired all at once. And that is why I ❤ NY.
