Our final two days of the trip were intense. We travelled from Rapid City in South Dakota to the suburbs of Chicago, IL, almost 1,000 miles, in that short amount of time. We began the day at our hotel in Rapid City, waking up and packing up and heading to Wind Cave straight away. Again, … Continue reading Cross-Country Road Trip- Taking it home
The next morning, we packed up our campsite and headed out. We still had a long drive to get to the northern rim of the loop and the park exits in that direction. We drove up through Hayden Valley again, seeing some buffalo along the way. We also decided to stop on the northern rim … Continue reading Cross-Country Road Trip- Reaching the Black Hills
Yellowstone. The nation's first National Park. The world's first national park. The quintissential national park. Established in 1872, Yellowstone is a mix of forests, canyons, geothermal features, and wildlife. It takes up a decent chunk of Wyoming, as well as small parts of Idaho and Montana, in its nearly 3.5 thousand square mile area. Many … Continue reading Cross-Country Road Trip- Yellowstone
The next morning, we headed out for our trip across Idaho. Thus began our adventure of chasing the Snake River, whose path we followed during the majority of our drive. The river starts in Yellowstone, our ultimate destination for this portion of the trip. We began with a scenic drive to Thousand Springs State Park … Continue reading Cross-Country Road Trip- Idaho, Jackson, and the Grand Tetons
The rest of our evening was spent travelling. We crossed over into Oregon not long after leaving Tule Lake. Our goal that evening was to stay in Burns, Oregon. However, a small dip into Nevada would have added less than two hours drive time to our trip. We decided to go the long way around, … Continue reading Cross-Country Road Trip- Leaving the Pacific Timezone
The next morning, we ventured into Lassen National Park. It was a new national park for both of us, up in the middle-of-nowhere California. We got a later start than we wanted because we had to turn around when we'd forgotten gas, but we still arrived at the visitor center at the south entrance of … Continue reading Cross-Country Road Trip- Volcanoes
I spent most of my August on a sixteen-day cross-country road trip, moving Joe from San Francisco to Ann Arbor for his upcoming master's degree at the University of Michigan. We hit ten states on our adventure (and Joe hit two more as he drove through Indiana to Michigan after dropping me off in Chicago). … Continue reading Cross-Country Road Trip- California
A short weekend getaway between my Germany trip and my slew of conferences in November, I visited New Orleans in mid-October with Joe. He was there for a school reunion he'd helped organize, and I got to tag along. Since I'm usually sprinting through trips and trying to pack as many plans into my time … Continue reading New Orleans
My final stop on the Germany trip was Dresden. My mom and sister were supposed to travel with me before heading off to other places in Europe, but they had to change their plans because of my Grandma's funeral, and the switch in flights left them heading home before the Dresden leg. That meant I … Continue reading Dresden
After the hour-ish long train ride, during which we caught sunset, we arrived in Munich in the evening and immediately made our way to the hostel. Overall, we were really impressed with the hostel. Because it was Oktoberfest in Munich, and because we were making our plans without much time in advance, there weren't many … Continue reading Munich
