Teachers will tell you that they work so many hours during the regular school year, that it all balances out when they get summer "off." I'm not going to lie to you, we both work incredibly hard during the school year, and not having to report to my classroom every day for 2.5 months is a HUGE perk. But in NO way did we have this summer "off."
Barb was asked to co-write the online-based Spanish curriculum for the entire county. Pretty exciting stuff, and high honors considering this is the first year she had worked in the county. However, this meant that she had to write an entire course, with both instruction and instructional materials, over the course of the summer.
Brandon taught summer school online. He had 25 Earth and Environmental Science students, which is a HUGE online load. Its actually two separate classes, and we were happy for the extra funds, because we had decided to go on a four week road trip to see our families.
"Wait..." you ask. "How could you go on a month-long road trip when Brandon had to teach summer school and Barb had to write a course? How could you possibly get enough time online to do all of that?" The answer: Mobile hotpot! God Bless whomever invented that. Now, curses to Nevada, Kansas, Wyoming, and wherever we couldn't get enough signal to get online. Bah!
Many of you may have seen the highlights of our trip on Brandon's facebook page, but he claims that's only about 1% of the pictures he took, so we thought we'd share a few more here.
We started out early Saturday morning, with a relatively lightly-packed car (Brandon had figured out that we were never more than 5 days away from a washing machine), and Java packed into the back seat. Well.. we put her in the back seat, but she really hated the car, so she always tried to sneak up on us.After a full day of driving, we made it to Nashville, TN, and checked into our hotel. And hey, its Nashville... It's time to hit the town.
So we were driving through a darkly lit, sleepy town trying to find the two-block strip of country clubs when suddenly Las Vegas appeared. Oh wait, no. But there were that many neon lights...
We listened to some amazing players (especially this one stand-up bassist) and called it a night early so that we could head to Kansas the next day. On the way, we decided we just had to stop at the St. Louis Arch in Missouri. Java LOVED all the peoples, and the chance to stretch her legs out. Brandon loved the New Orleans-style jazz coming from a boat on the Mississippi.
Java and Brandon Java and Barb
The Mississippi River
We made it to Topeka without incident, and got up early again the next morning. However, we didn't get very far before we started seeing all of these ridiculously interesting signs advertising "The OZ Museum."
We had made a pact on day 2 that every day we would try to do something fun. Considering most of our day was supposed to be driving through Kansas, we seized our opportunity.
We had made a pact on day 2 that every day we would try to do something fun. Considering most of our day was supposed to be driving through Kansas, we seized our opportunity.
That night we made it all the way to Ft. Collins to visit Barb's Aunt Kay and Uncle Ken. We even got to see all three of Barb's cousins, Kevin, Laura, and Steven. Ken took us on a tour of his workplace, a pharmaceuticals lab, and Kay took us up to Estes Park to go hiking in the Rockies. It was all beautiful!
Kay took us up the alluvial fan in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was amazing! We had quite a way to climb, but the view from the top was phenomenal!!
After a short visit in Colorado, we set out again for California! We traveled by way of the I-80 up into Wyoming, and then across Utah. Park City is possibly the most beautiful place in America. It was such a lush green that it looked more like Ireland than the middle of the high plains.
We stopped for a quick picture in Salt Lake City. Beautiful lake, horrible smell. The salt flats were amazing. They were SO FLAT. I guess that makes sense... since they are salt flats.
The next day, we drove the the entirety of Nevada. B-O-R-I-N-G. It was flat. And borning. We thought Kansas was bad, but truthfully, Nevada was terrible. And the worst part was that there were no places to stop. You had to be VERY careful about where you pulled off the road!
Coming down the pacific side of the Rockies was intense. Brandon nearly had a stroke careening around the mountain ledges at such high speeds. And yet, other drivers were flying past at even higher speeds.
We knew we hit Sacramento when we hit traffic. We got to meet Brandon's immediate and extended family at a mexican restaurant in Vacaville, CA. The highlight of the meal was when the police were called to take Java away. In California, it is illegal to leave your dog in the car, no matter whether she has a FULL bowl of water, no matter if the windows are open, no matter if you go out to check on her every 15 minutes.Luckily, we were out at the car when the police came, and explained that we were out-of-towners. We got off with a warning, but we certainly knew we weren't going to leave her in any cars anymore!
Brandon's cousin had his graduation (and we have no pictures! oh no!) and we got to spend some nice time with his family in the set-up, take-down, and general festivities of graduation. We really had a great time!
It was on to Napa Valley after only a few days in Vacaville. Since we have connections in the industry, we were able to score an AMAZING tour through Wine Country (thanks, Henry Fox)! We had a tour of four wineries: Louis M. Martini, William Hill, Frei Brothers, and Fred MacMurray, in celebration of our second wedding anniversary. We have no pictures of the Martini winery, even though it's the only winery where we actually purchased a couple bottles to bring home.
Since we knew we were going to be parking and visiting the wineries, we knew that we couldn't keep Java with us. Brandon's parents were nice enough to take Java back to Seattle with them, where we would meet back up with them in two days' time.
At Martini we met our somalia and another couple for our tours. At William Hill, we learned all about how to grow wine grapes. We also did a very interesting exercise learning how to pair food with wines. We tried the same wine with dried apples, cheese, and oil on crackers. It was really interesting to see what flavors were enhanced (or knocked out) by what you paired the wine with.
 |
| Downtown Sonoma |
That evening we had some time to explore Napa and Sonoma. We ate some AMAZING pizza at the Kitchen Door Restaurant in the Oxbow public market in Napa for lunch. Then we headed to Sonoma to find our hotel and to explore a little. We tried to go out to dinner when the time came, but everything in small-town Sonoma closed down before we made it! So we ended up getting food at Safeway and getting a redbox to relax with.
The actual day of our anniversary saw us on a private tour of the private Gallo vineyards. We started off at Frei brothers, which is not open to the public. We actually drove past it twice on accident. It's just an address on the side of the road. However, it was incredibly beautiful, and we learned about Gallo's acquisition of the Frei brothers winery, and their commitment to the area. We also learned a lot about how high-tech they are.
The later morning saw us on the road to Fred MacMurray's winery. (Yes, THAT Fred MacMurray from My Three Sons). His winery's story was incredible. So cool that Gallo has honored his wishes to keep his land as family-owned agriculture. We had a privately catered lunch right there on Fred MacMurray's porch, and then hit the vineyard in a topless Jeep. It was absolutely amazing and beautiful!
We then hopped back on the road, and headed up the Californian coast to see the giant redwood trees!
When they say GIANT, they ain't kiddin'!
What's great about the drive through the redwoods is that you can totally tell that whatever team built the road tried to preserve as many trees as possible. The trees grew RIGHT next to the road.
Our big goal was to make it to the Chandelier Tree - ya'know... the one you can DRIVE through! (check out the video!)
We were amazed that the tree is still thriving!
We continued along the Trail of 100 Giants, and stopped a few times just to see the beautiful trees!
Since the majority of our Anniversary day was spent in the car, we decided to stop in Eureka, CA for a nice Pacific seafood dinner. We took a walk on the boardwalk, and finally got back in the car to drive to Crescent City for the night.
The next day we drove all the way to Portland, OR, without stopping. However, while there, we stopped in on Brandon's Great-Grandmother and spent some time visiting with her and his grandparents, who happened to be there too! After a very quick stop, we took off for Seattle! (After we made it through the CRAZY fourth of July rush hour Portland traffic... It took Barb 2 hours to go about 30 miles...)
The next day we celebrated the Fourth of July in classic Roeder-style by having block party with the neighbors. It was great to see the twins really get into it, and to see Jacob's eyes light up with the bright shiny stuff! Raymond's chicken didn't hurt, either :)
Everyone kept their fingers!
Over the next few days we got to spend just hanging out with the family. We hit up some markets, the park, and even celebrated Brandon's birthday a little early. His mom, Debra, makes the BEST rhubarb crisp, and he probably ate half of it himself!
 |
| We were obsessed with this game this summer. Brandon's parents had it when we were in CA originally. We couldn't stop playing it the entire time we were with the Roeders, so they helped pass the fun along! |
It was soon time to hit the road again, and we were off I-90 headed to Mt. Rushmore! We camped that night in Montana. The next morning, we got a little distracted when Barb realized we really weren't thaaaaat far away from Yellowstone. Brandon IMMEDIATELY said "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!" and we changed our plans!
 |
| We started out with some WOLVES! |
Then we moved on to some hot springs and geysers....
....some painted pots....
...Old Faithful....
...some buffalo....
...some elk...
...and beautiful views. Barb was bound-and-determined to see a bear, but one never materialized. Brandon, on the other hand, was fairly happy about that.
We had to finally tear ourselves away from Yellowstone, and we ended up going through Bighorn state park. We saw deer, and a WHOLE herd of elk!The whole road was stopped with cars taking pictures of the elk. It was a fairly epic moment when the ENTIRE herd turned tail and ran over the ridge.
By the time we finally got to our night-stop destination, Java was exhausted.
Pretty sure we were more exhausted....
The next day we took off for the tower of mashed potatoes... I mean, Devil's Tower. Barb couldn't believe that Brandon had never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She made him watch it when we got to Michigan with Barb's dad, Tom.
We continued into South Dakota, and went to the Crazy Horse Memorial. We took a bus ride around the back side and heard the whole story of the original artist.
We also had some time to go around the cultural center and learn more!
We hopped into the car and went down the road just a little bit to Mt. Rushmore.
It was a HOT day, so we rushed in to see Rushmore, and rushed back out, in order to save our hot little puppy in the car.
Good thing we weren't in California!!
And since we were in the Black Hills, we HAD to stop and get Barb her anniversary present: a Black Hills Gold necklace!!
As we were heading to Minnesota now, we kept seeing all of these strange, clever, and ridiculous signs on the side of the road advertising Wall Drug. Brandon was so enamored by these signs that he determined he MUST go see what the fuss was all about. Free Ice-Water?? HECK YES! (OK... it was the 5-cent coffee that really excited him...)
It was RIDICULOUS! It was HUUUUUUGE!!!
It was everything you could possibly think of: camp supplies, cafe, pharmacy, museum, chapel, souvenirs from here to tomorrow, art gallery, spray park, dinosaurs, and more!
We hopped back on the road, and finally pulled into camp after dark. Luckily we had already set up the tent once, and we were able to do it quickly the second time!
We made it to Michigan late the next day, and we were able to spend some time with Barb's family. And Brandon started his bathroom-fixing phase of the trip. He tore out Joanne's tub shower doors, and fixed Tom's running toilet. It was at this time that Barb finally educated Brandon about Devil's Tower. He finally started getting the mashed-potato jokes.
We decided to head to Detroit to visit with Barb's extended family. We had a great dinner with Nana and many of Barb's Aunts and Uncles. Java had a blast with her dog-cousins too!
From Detroit we headed up to Grand Bend, Ontario. We spent the entire week reading, playing games, napping, and lounging on the beach. It was the perfect stress-free end to a fast-paced month....except for the part where Brandon went to work to fix one more bathroom: a new wax ring on the cottage toilet. Now he's internationally renowned as the Bathroom Fix-It Guy!
Perhaps the best part of the trip to Canada was Tim Horton's coffee and donuts. Brandon is absolutely obsessed with their coffee, and Barb loves their Vanilla Creme donuts. The fact that Tim's is the only place for free wi-fi in town (and our phones were not-usable out of the country) made our summer workload the perfect excuse to visit on a daily basis.
Luckily, Tim's exists a little further South than the border. Brandon had some great "go" juice for the 1-day drive from Detroit to home.
We arrived at home, after dark, exactly 29 days later with roughly 7500 miles under our belts. More importantly, with no tickets, no car trouble, no accidents and without losing Java in California! Most importantly, we were able to make amazing memories with each other, and the important people in our lives.
To all of you who hosted us or partook in our summer adventure, thank you so much!
To those of you who waited two months for a new blog post and actually held out and read this entire post - more power to you. You deserve a cookie. :)
