Holly's Summary

Ok, so an entire week has passed since we got home. I found I do not mind driving in the car as much as I thought I would, as long as it is for relatively short distances, but I hate getting gas. We stopped over 30 times in three and a half weeks and I just don't want to stop and get gas anymore. My light came on this week before I finally forced myself to fill up. Other side effects of being home: part of me misses the constant companionship, the roadside is just not as beautiful or exciting, and homemade food tastes absolutely amazing. I also am so appreciative of having cell phone reception 24/7, I missed not being able to pick up the phone and call people at any time.

I am happy to be home, and happy to be falling back into a schedule and regular routine that does not involve driving for 10 hours a day. At the same time, I am still living in the excitement of the trip. One of my first nights back, I went out and met up with some friends and just ranted about all our crazy traveling adventures. When it was time to leave and I got back into the car, I wanted to keep talking to people about the trip, I wasn't ready to be quiet and go to bed. Those are the times that I miss having the girls around, there was always somebody there to listen or sing along to the radio.

The trip really was amazing in the geographic aspect, but also in the personal. It helped me see a new side of Monica and Shannon, and despite living with them for basically four years, I learned about new aspects of their personalities and lives.

I have done my best to print out the pictures and put them into albums. I narrowed it down from over 1,300 photos to about 400. I'm trying to go back and fill in the captions so they are self-explanatory and I can actually remember all the silly details years and years from now. Because as everybody told me before the trip, it really is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I will always have with me. I love watching the news and being able to say, "wow, I was there..." when I hear about some distant city or national park.

There was something therapeutic in driving and watching the entire country side pass me by, knowing that what I saw would never look the same to anybody else ever again. Those scenes will fade and change as time and weather take their toll; people will continue to casually drive through those same roads, but they will never see or feel exactly what I did as I drove through there. That is a unifying and solitary thought for me and I like it that way. Sure, millions of people travel all over the world and sometimes traveling loses its excitement or hype, but despite it being a universal activity, this trip was distinctly mine. The memories and experiences are all mine for a lifetime.

...Looking forward to some more traveling, but until then, back to reality and routine.

Home

My last update.

Here I am. Four days after the return from THE ROADTRIP. I am very glad to be home, although the trip was literally amazing. It is so nice to be with my husband and kids (dog and cat) again. Steve took a day off of work to spend more time with me. We had a wonderful three days spending quality time together.


My final thoughts on the trip.

The trip was one of the most amazing experience of my life. I appreciate and cherish America so much more after this trip. It is so beautiful! I loved seeing the change in landscape especially starting in the Southwest. (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona) You can see from the previous pictures that it is so different from Pennsyvania. I was not disappointed by any area of the United States. I also must say that as for favorites, San Francisco is my favorite city. California my favorite scenic area (everyone must do the coastal route!). But, everywhere is just so beautiful. I would definitely do this trip again. Next time focusing on some of the middle states where we missed. Route 66 perhaps? I also appreciate how close I got to the girls even though we had lived together for four years. More importantly, I was able to lean about myself on this trip which added to the awesome experience.

Now, it is back to reality. School begins in about 2 weeks and I am spending time preparing for that. My last words? If you ever get the opportunity to do this, DO IT! And keep us all at home posted!

Shannon's Summary

So it seems we've all come home and started our normal routines again, not having time for this lovely website. Our last night on the trip was absolutely wonderful. We just played around with the makeup, watched one of the four DVD's of our trip (because the other three we can't get to work :( ), and we finished watching Prime, the movie we started when we were bored in Wisconsin. The next morning we all left completely excited to go home, see our family and friends, and start the routine in the SAME house, the SAME bathroom, the SAME bedroom.

More than 8,500 miles, $905 worth of gas, $495 worth of camp sites and hotel (the hotel was $200 of that $495) later, we're home and broke... or at least I am. Thank goodness that was all split by three people.

Since I've come home, the famous question is, "What was your favorite part?". Here's my answer. "Well, Austin was to me the most beautiful and diverse when it comes to nature because it's a whole beautiful area, being hill country, and there's all these secret things, lakes, waterfalls, restaurants that look over the lake from a million feet up, and a million and a half bats that all fly out from under a bridge. The trip up Rt. 1 in California was beautiful as well but not as diverse as Austin. Yellowstone was AWEsome with things I've never seen in my life and probably won't see again unless I visit the park again. I liked watching the video in Mount Rushmore at night cause at the end it had the "Oh Beautiful Song" (which was my favorite when I was three years old and I still don't know the actual title for it, for most of you who don't know that about me) because it showed all these pictures of the county as the different phrases were showing up on the screen and it just made me see how much of our country we really were able to experience and how beautiful it was. But besides nature, my favorite days on the whole trip were the days we were able to relax. It made me appreciate more of what it is to be able to be tired and fall asleep in a bed instead of setting up the tent first. Being able to sit in front of a TV or computer to watch a movie and even if you're not really talking to the people next to you, you know that they're sharing the same appreciation. To sit and chat with people you barely know and get to know more about them and share stories in a love-filled room. Relaxing can really be so great, when done correctly. :) My favorite past-time with the girls?... "I really like how..." is a game that my friend Molly helped me make up that makes you appreciate everything around you. Just fill in the sentence and since it says "how", it makes you explain why you like something. We got to pick each other's brains and see how we each see things in the world. Good bonding game. Plus, everybody gets compliments here and there. :)

I'm sooo glad Jessica moved out to San Diego and that Monica had the brilliant idea to drive out to see her. What an experience. It was wonderful to read and hear that so many people were following us along on our trip. It made it even more exciting knowing that we could tell everybody about it and they'd be excited too. Hopefully you were able to get to know more about our country and appreciate it at least a little more after following along so dedicatedly to our wesbite.

Cleveland, OH

It's our last night of our trip!!! Bittersweet of course. We drove 7 hours to Cleveland and we checked into a hotel, yes, I said it. It was so exciting. The girls wanted to do another hall of fame... rock and roll this time. I decided to stay back and organize the car and whatnot. The girls seemed to have fun, learned a lot, walked a lot, and got into Johnny Cash's tour bus. Even if it didn't drive around, they still were happy.

When they finished at the Rock n Roll hall of fame, we met up for happy hour to celebrate our last night with a drink. We had dinner at Key West Café which seems to have a wind tunnel down that street. It was crazy. I noticed the sunset as we were walking home. My Favorite! I made the poor girls with tired legs walk down to Lake Erie which was just a couple blocks down. We took some pictures and headed back for a nice pampering night in our HOTEL!!! still excited... sorry. So here we are. Our second to last update. We decided we'll all update when we get home so stay tuned!

Sioux Falls, SD and Chicago, IL

So Tuesday night it was all nice and breezy as we went to sleep around 11pm, very calming... I had trouble falling asleep with lots on my mind so around 2am I noticed big flashes of light. I checked the weather from that same phone number that got Holly and I back to Uncle Wendell's when we got lost (1-800-555-TELL, its free). Anyway, long story short, HUGE thunderstorm hits us around 3am. Thank goodness I fixed the fly on the tent so that no holes showed but it ended up not being all that waterproof anyway. About 5 minutes into the pouring rain, that was louder than ever since it hit our tent, I started getting dripped on, all over the place. The tent was under a tree, except the end where I was, so the girls stayed pretty dry. I got my beach towel to soak up the water. In the morning, after falling asleep around 4am, I wake up with my towel soaked, the underneath of Holly and my sleeping bags all wet, and the corner of Holly's pillow soaked. Monica, in the middle, managed to stay dry but woke up with a cold. Go figure.

We had a relaxing Wednesday with nothing planned except to drive to Wisconsin. We drove, stopped at Walmart, ate at Texas Roadhouse (our favorite), and then watched part of a movie until our laptop battery died. Lazy but enjoyable day.

Thursday's the day we went to Chicago! Yes, it is the windy city! We had a pass that could let you into most museums and other things that are very neat. Only we got there around 2, had trouble finding parking, and had lunch at Millenium Park which didn't give us much time since the museums closed around 5:30. Millenium Park was really neat with this Cloud Gate statue made of some shiny material that is seamless and I just kept calling it the bean thing. Holly also got run over by this guy that walked on a barrel. We went to the Adler Planetarium and watched an IMAX about blackholes and we went to the Field Museum and saw the largest and most intact T-Rex in the world. They named her sue. There was an exibit on the America's or something where it had old Peruvian culture stuff (Inca) so I went in there while the girls checked out Sue's skull. If you know me and museums, I was in and out of the exhibit within just a few minutes and if you know Holly and Monica, you know they were in there for a lot longer than that. We got separated and no reception. It took a while but we found each other again.

It was about 6 when we were ready to go and had to walk really far, next to Lake Michigan mind you, and we ate at Lou Minalti's Pizzaria. That place is known for their Chicago style deep dish pizza. We got sausage and it was pretty good, but too much sausage we agreed. Long walk back to the car but we ended up passing a street that was blocked to film for the movie "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie and the guy from Bruce Almighty that acted as God. Sorry, I'm not good at famous people. That was the end of our wonderful stay in the Windy City. We camped for our LAST TIME!!!! It's not bad camping but it is bad when you get to your campsite in the dark and all you want to do is sleep but you have to set up your tent first.

South Dakota- Badlands and Sioux Falls

Hello All!
Our day started out by "sleeping in" as Shannon said. This was until 8 am. Holly and I did NOT want to get out of our sleeping bags. We stayed at the 2nd biggest KOA and it was very comfortable grass if I must say so myself. As Holly and I stumbled out of the tent, we all decided to go the cook's tent and have all-you-can-eat pancakes. YUMMMY! Then we headed on the road. Off to the BADLANDS... dun dun dun!

This area is called the Badlands because the Indians called it that. It is an area that use to be filled with prehistoric animals and was actually a tropic area and is now very dry. It is pretty amazing. On all the rocks and buttes you can see the different levels of earth and how the earth has changed. AND.... there are all these fossils of prehistoric animals. SO SO Cool. We had lunch there. We all bought rings together. Fun Fun. So then, we left.

We drove, and drove and drove. I was tired. Holly entertained me by playing "Would You Rather". Shannon was sleeping or else she would have LOVED to play. It is her absolute favorite game. She loooooves to make choices. (Please sense the dripping sarcasm.)

Then, we arrived at the campground. We were tired. Talk to everyone soon!

South Dakota- Devil's Tower, Crazy Horse, and Mount Rushmore

So we awoke to a blustery Wyoming morning, showered quickly, restocked the ice and were on our way to South Dakota with our ultimate destination being Mount Rushmore.

We were on the road again with a shorter distance to go than we thought because we traveled farther the night before.

Our first stop was a mini detour to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. This is a huge rock that juts out of the earth. Some believe it was created by the inside of a volcano. BUT, there is a Native American legend that a bear was chasing seven brothers and the one brother had magical powers. He sang a song and the rock rose out of the earth and carried the seven brothers to safety. The bear still tried to claw its way up to the brothers which created the markings you know see in the tower. No one really knows why the tower is called Devil's Tower, but one surveyor said that a group of Indians called it "Bad God's Tower" which obviously translates into Devil's Tower. It was pretty awe inspiring. It is truly amazing all there is in America.

We left there and headed toward Crazy Horse Memorial. This is the largest monument in progress in the world. It is dedicated to War Chief Crazy Horse who took down Custer's 7th Infantry. (Look how much we are learning!) When it is finished it is going to have him on a horse pointing towards his lands. It is actually a tribute to all Native Americans and their pride in their land. Right now, it is just his face. Here we had an early dinner at Laughing Water Restaurant. We all had some variation of Native American food. I had a buffalo beef stew on top of Indian Fry Bread (very comparable to funnel cake taste, just flat) Shannon had an Indian Taco and Holly had a buffalo beef burger. We said goodbye to Crazy Horse and headed to see some of our presidents.

Mount Rushmore. A symbol of the development of America. George Washington- who began our country, Thomas Jefferson- who expanded our country with the Louisiana Purchase and wrote the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln who preserved our country by taking the first steps to abolish slavery, and Theodore Roosevelt who took pride in our country by creating national parks and monuments among his other accomplishments. Here, we spent time admiring the view and learning about the development of the monument. Then, we got some ice cream and watched the night show. Here we learned about the end of the Indian Wars, and the presidents who are on the monument. The monument lit up to the patriotic sound of "America, America". The three of us noted how it felt like the climax of our trip. We are all astounded by how much we appreciate America after this trip. Our country is so amazing, something we all probably take for granted.

All in all, it was a breathtaking day of see the country. Another plus, our campsite was only 5 miles from Mount Rushmore. Holla! We got to the camp the earliest we ever have. It was still dark. I hope you are enjoying keeping track of our journey! It is wrapping up rather quickly! See everyone soon!