Weekend vacations are so thrilling because, at least for me, I want to get my weekend’s worth! I like them busy and packed with goodness. That is how this trip was. I hadn’t ever been a tourist in Chicago – it was new to me. We saw Navy Pier, the Hancock Observatory, and the Shedd Aquarium (even a dolphin show!). We also saw a lot of historic buildings and bro told all.
This layout used the rope trick again for the brochures, some coins from tourist machines, tickets, hotel key (apparently that’s pretty standard for me…), my CTA transit card, some things cut from brochures, and the Chicago sign I bought at a scrapping store. You can see I’ve started to cram things onto my pages. This isn’t everyone’s taste, but I have been drawn to scrapbooks since seeing really old ones where the eye never stops traveling. Loaded with information, photos, and memories.

I used loud colors with a hint of gaudiness because, well, to be frank, that is how I feel about Vegas. We flew on Hooters Air, which gave us these little box lunches that had “Fun” and “Fly” cut out on them so I utilized them on my page. A Margaritaville napkin. Hotel room key and business card. Boarding passes. Maps, brochures, tickets. I bought some gambling stickers and whatnot to spruce it up.

Then Boy and I spent a lot of time outside of the city. We saw the Hoover Dam, the Valley of Fire, and drove around sight-seeing. On this page I got creative with using string through grommets so that the map could be pulled out later. I also got a little more creative with the matting. And yes, those are palm tree swizzle sticks. Think outside the box when you scrap, it is amazing what will work!

You  may have already seen some photos from this trip which I recently posted. In 2004, we went with our friend Jesse to San Juan, Puerto Rico over Halloween weekend. School must have gotten pretty busy because I still have a packet of things to scrap for this trip.

(I have these 9×18 inch envelopes which I take on my travels, collecting all kinds of things to scrap with. It is an awesome idea because then when I get home, I label the envelope(s) and set it aside until I can get to it. It keeps all my things organized and easily stashed away. Try it for yourself, it will amaze you, the simplicity of the idea!)

This spread tells the story of our arrival and plans to see Old San Juan and Camuy Caverns. It also showcases our Bicardi trip. I used a map, a postcard, the timeshare business card and room key, our boarding passes for the airline, and lots of things cut from brochures to spice it up. I also got crazy with cutting our photos. I bought one die-cut (“Our Vacation”) and used some puffy tape squares to make some things pop off the page (unfortunately, this is kinda lost in the photo).

The first day we spent with the family touring the common sites: the hotels, the shops, the casinos, and the strip. If we were into consumerism, gambling, and drinking it might have hooked us. But alas, we are boring old souls. We did check out Cirque du Soleil though, which was amazing. I had no idea the super cool things that can be accomplished in plays. No photos allowed of course:(

The next day we discovered the vast expanse of the desert. We stumbled upon the Valley of Fire State Park and some super cool petroglyphs.

We also found some desert dwelling lizards and the silliest looking rabbit you ever did see, the jack rabbit. I learned first hand what a real echo is like. That was awesome. We found an oasis, too. These are things I had only ever heard of in theory but seeing them in real life was so very cool.

We spent the last full day checking out the Hoover Dam and its area. It was more of Boy’s thing than mine – cool to see how big it is and all that but the touring of the turbines and such did not do it for me.

I’m glad Katie got to celebrate her birthday in a big way just like she wanted with all the family, but I’d be happy never going back to Vegas. That’s just me. The region was fun though, so I’m not at all sorry we went:)

In 2004, we went with our friend Jesse to San Juan for Halloween weekend (how posh does that sound?). His parents had a time share so it was a pretty cheap holiday.

We walked around San Juan each evening, and planned one big tour a day. The last day I fell really ill with a wretched hardcore cold of some kind, and I think my ear drum came close to bursting on the plane (in fact, I honestly believe there is permanent damage and seriously the pain was almost too much). Aside from that, the trip was awesome. The only regret I have is that it was pre-anthropology class and I was definitely there as a tourist instead of being interested in the culture, so I feel like i missed out, but I didn’t think this way at the time!

We first toured Old San Juan and the Fort San Felipe del Morro. Our bus driver was very nice and his son tagged along for the tour. We did a little window shopping, learned to order Subway in Spanish (as I said – pre-anthropology days! Plus we were not given much time to eat), and experienced the giant fort. My favorite part was seeing where the prisoners were kept (this theme is true in any of my visit to castles). Here, they drew ships, dreaming and wishing their fleets would come rescue them.

We also visited Casa Bicardi, which was a little lost on me since I don’t like rum. The tour was neat and we were given free samples to taste in their outdoor pavillion. Beautiful weather as I recall. Of course, any sunny day with green grass is beautiful to me at this time of year…

We also spelunked in the largest cave system in the Western hemisphere at Rio Camuy Caves. I’ve been in a few systems before, but nothing like this one – you can kind of see the scale in the arial view below. The Camuy River runs through it in parts. Our camera at the time was not up to snuff for low-light so very few photos turned out well.

We finished up with a view of the largest single-aperture telescope in the world at Aricebo Observatory. Essentially, it is used to understand space – measuring rotation speeds, identifying asteroids, and what not. It also functions as military intelligence locating spy satellites, and searches for life beyond Earth.

Okay, now I’m really itching for summer!

Originally, there was no destination. I had one week of vacation and I drove west, turning around mid-week. Zero. Destination. Do you know what that feels like? Giddyness. No stress of getting someplace in time to do something, no stress of getting lost – the entire focus was on the journey itself. And do you know what solitary travel is like? Perfection. No one to compromise with, no argument over the temperature of the car or the loudness of the speakers, and no one to annoy with frequent pee breaks. And in the end, a complete growing experience.

I did this trip on roughly 1000 dollars. About 650 was gas, if I remember correctly. I saved on food cost by bringing bread and cereal and then buying tiny amounts of milk and lunchmeat each day to last in my cooler. I saved on hotel bills by inadvertantly (and unexpectedly) sleeping in my car for a few nights. See, without having a destination, I did very little research and chose my birthday week in the hot hot heat of August, right? Which incidentally coincides with Sturgis Bike Week. That was quite an experience in and of itself! But all the hotels and campgrounds were full so…yeah.

Oh, why the outdated post? Well, I had thought these photos were lost forever!! But Boy surprised me by finding them. Some are still missing but we found the bulk of them, yay!

I crossed the great Mississippi River and it was a lot…less great…than I was expecting. Maybe it’s great elsewhere? I stayed overnight in Iowa next to this archaeological site that you could volunteer on but they were closed for the day. I almost went to Denver but decided I wouldn’t have time. Then I found a dinosaur dig that I registered for but getting lost prevented me from making it in time so that was cancelled too. Then, the photos begin:

The rock formations out there are a geologists dream. Having just taken a geology class, they were even more fascinating than if had I known nothing about them:

I rode a Giant Jackalope, crossed the Continental Divide, saw a lot of waterfalls, and discovered I was standing on the edge of a super volcano (and having taken said geology class, it was a little daunting).

I saw miles and miles of devastation from a forest fire, listened to a short lecture about buffalo, and saw Old Faithful (among many other beautiful sites).

I had to spend the first night in my car once I entered the park, down a super duper dark gravel road, to some random campground (outside of the park, beyond the filled hotels, in the state of Wyoming), passing signs about grizzlies and freaking myself out about the whole prospect. It was like 2am by the time I could stop to sleep – no other cars or people that I could see. Creepy. I had tried to avoid contact with Boy or anyone during my trip except to text my locations, but I needed some control over my imagination – bears ripping open my sunroof trying to attack me for my box of food. I almost peed in my pants (literally too – I had to go so badly but there was no way I would walk to the little shack!!) Thankfully he convinced me to get out of the vehicle and at least pull my blanket out of my trunk, as I found out harshly that the nights up there are COLD.

But then I found the buffalo. I have gobs and gobs of photos of them – August is mating season, wouldn’t you know, so they were swarming. I saw babies and beefy males fighting (in fact I have some vids where they pushed into my car!). Stunning experience. I limit it to this one photo though because I was fascinated to learn that they could swim. Who knew?

Then on my way back I almost went to Mount Rushmore. But the idea of blowing up nature’s beauty to make faces of people, as if they are more important than nature itself? RIDICULOUS. Tacky, gawdy, AWFUL. (And then later during cultural anthropology, learning how devastating that must have been for the local natives? Heartless.) I stopped at Devil’s Tower instead. And was surprised to find that the locals still practice their beliefs there.

And then I found a little bitty ranch where I could feed the uber adorable prairie dogs. So cute!!

My car and I made it to the Badlands next. I found them appropriately named. I walked to the end of one of the little walk ways, snapped some photos, and left right away. The Badlands? In August? Not a good idea, unless you want to waste away to dust and bones in a matter of minutes. Oh, and there were signs about some snakes I wanted to avoid…

A funny surprise on my way back, the Jolly Green Giant!

It was an amazing experience. I suggest it to everyone. People say “What would I do? I would be bored! I need to know where I am going, though” and bla bla bla. Really, what are you afraid of? Quit being silly and drive:)

A bit late in coming, as this happened in September. We stayed mostly at my aunt and uncles cabin in northern michigan (thank you Judy and Bill:D:D:D), visited sault st marie for a train ride in canada, and ventured around the UP a bit. It was incredibly relaxing – Boy even felt good at being disconnected from the internet and phone and therefore all things work-related. Workaholism is a terrible thing :P

Story in photos:

Beautiful cabin

“Roads” and trying to get the Forester stuck (dont ask)

Driving all around (Traverse City Area to Alpena Area to the UP )

The Icebreaker

Sault St Marie and its locks

Agawa Train Tour

Oswalds Bear Ranch

Tahquanenon Falls

We spent it relaxing in Palavas. Our hotel was the one of the blue ones in the middle.

We toured the beaches and the town – its a really neat place built right there on the water. Definately a tried and true fishing community. And it was kind of like a fair, with these booths of food and souvenirs – although it still didnt seem that touristy.

Tidbits? Dont eat carnival style hotdogs, unless you like gross carnival sausage dogs. We checked out a cemetery (ok, dont ask me, that was boys idea) and learned that photos on tombstones were quite normal, as were all kinds of items – books, toys, flowers, tea sets, etc. Everyone really truly does say bonjour (for instance, you walk into a shop, you say bonjour – I read about it, but seeing it in practice really made me think differently about it). Oh, and their sea gulls sound french! I had heard about a study done with ducks or geese, I cant remember. But that one group from say England, didnt really understand the calls from say the American birds. Neat, huh? :)

And the rest of the story is just that we woke up at 4am to catch our flight. The last plane was the nicest one Ive ever been on and we got to have our own monitors in the seat in front of us, for movies, music, or even video games. We watched Angels and Demons and tried to sleep. Then we finally shared with everyone our little secret of getting eloped.

Uhm…the end:)

Then, we headed out to Nimes, one of the great cities of ancient roman architecture. Unfortunately for us, there was a festival about to begin. The Maison Caree looked under construction, not to mention a stage with full lighting and sound systems was being set up against its side. We looked then for the Arena, but it is very difficult to navigate sometimes in cities (ok, maybe all the time?). We did find it, but the festival was literally just getting started – booths lined up the main road and we could not find any parking. We did try, but the longer we searched, the more crazy it became to drive.

We were undaunted though, as we decided to continue driving on to Arles, another gem of the romans. And whats along the way? Oh, just a giant aqueduct: the Pont du Gard. Amazing! If you look close, you can see people along the bridge – yes it is *that* big. Again, the notion of being a “visitor” rather than a “tourist” really struck me. People are so respectful, and its a shared moment, to walk across such a massive work of engineering. Not a rush to be first, not crowded, not selfish. Simply awe inspiring.

On the way to Arles, we passed through Avignon. Its always kinda cool to finally meet the cities you hear about. If we had more time, it would have been a stop. But dark clouds were coming in, and we had to see an ampitheatre first hand, dangit! So although it did completely *torrentially* downpour on us at Arles, our curiousity was satisfied.

The arena is under renovation, and should be finished this year. It will look amazing. Arles has other cool places to see too, but by the time we found them all, they were closed. It was still fun though, following the map (sodden with rain, as were our persons) and finding all the sites. Kinda like a treasure hunt:) Here is a pic of the theatre:

Back in Palavas, there was the most interesting conversation I had in french, and the most understood conversation at that. So although the man was clearly drunk (i guess it slowed his speech enough, and he often repeated himself, so thats why i understood 99% of it?), he was so sweet to help us find a place to eat. We were looking for pasta, and ended up at a pizza joint but neither of us were disappointed. Thank you Bob;)

Other things i noticed of south of France: No one honks their horn really…until you reach, oh, about Avignon. Then its pretty bad. And the roundies out there are pretty gosh darn scary for one such as myself. Thank goodness boy drove!

The most amazing part is just seeing for yourself what you already know from history – castles were built to be defensive forts, so they are placed at the peaks of mountain tops. And as such, the parking is in the valley, so you have to walk up an enormous hike to see the castle. The French also do not tarnish the experience with stupid signs and ropes to “protect” visitors – if you are going to fall off the obvious side of a mountain, maybe you deserve it? I dunno. Maybe its just that Americans really are that retarded in comparison? Its hard to say. But there was no litter, no graffiti, and it wasnt overwhelmed with visitors, and it was awesome.

Our last stop was on the Mediterranean Sea, just south of the Montpellier Airport, in Palavas-les-Flots. We stayed at Hotel le Brasilia, which was very sheek. From our balacony, we could see the beach. And of course, our first meal there had to come fresh out of the sea!

I also realized here, out in the middle of the french countryside, something that had been trying work itself out in the back of my mind – something was very different here than in the US, something good. And what is it? Well, there are no annoying bugs!!! No mosquitos, no flies, no gnats, i dont even think i saw a spider. The only bug i can remember was a bee. Everywhere you go, you see windows thrown open – no screens, not even at the hotels. You eat outside everywhere. We walked through the woods on several occasions. Nada. You can go to the riverfront in the late evening and nothing! Now that is a convincing factor in deed on living in France, dont you agree? :)