Robb + Jessie Married & in the Badger State
Longing
I am longing to be here.
Hiking amongst the tall trees,
valleys and hills,
secluded lakes,
crisp morning air, and
roaring rivers.
Sleeping under the stars
in my green tent.
Where can I find this in Wisconsin?
Welcome home!
Ah. It is great to be home.
I posted photos on Flickr from our trip and the wedding
Rachael and Jonathan’s beautiful wedding cake:
Celebrating my 24th birthday in rainy Duluth:
And now for the Stankey Road Trip Recap …
- I felt like my mom, in a good way, when we left. Packing a tasty lunch and bringing a roll of paper towels and extra water bottles. All of which were needed.
- We listened to half of John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise. At one point, I was laughing so hard (while drinking water) and I ended up spitting it out…quite a wet pants situation. (This is where the paper towels came in handy.)
- We watched the gas prices increase from $3.80 to $4.05 as we drove north and spent $175 in gas over 900 miles.
- We were adopted into the Cushing family as Rachael’s long lost Cottey College sister and were invited to the yummy rehearsal dinner.
- We took advantage of our hotel (Polynesian Water Park theme) and acted like kids, sliding down the huge water slides and screaming during each turn.
- We took around 300 photographs during our trip, only the good ones made it onto Flickr.
- We, once again, were adopted into the Cushing family as they invited us over after the wedding for pizza and beer with the whole family.
- We helped set up and tear down for the wedding. We liked this much better than actually being in the wedding.
- We celebrated my 24th birthday in Duluth and then driving home to Madison.
- We bought some tasty dark roasted coffee beans from the Whole Foods Co-Op, as recommended by Jonathan and Rachael.
- Robb majorly stubbed his big toe when we were packing up the car to go home. Tore off about a million layers of skin. Emergency trip to the grocery store where I stocked up on Band-Aids, ibuprofen, and cookies.
- Enjoyed 9 hours of thunder and lightening and rain storms (apparently most of Wisconsin was on Tornado Watch when we were driving home).
- We found a quaint indoor mall near the water in Duluth and spent a while walking around, enjoying being warm and dry.
- Treated ourselves to some coffee after being severly under-caffeinated (Jessie, mainly).
- Robb provided breakfast in bed at the hotel (via the contential breakfast in the hotel) consisting of cereal, homemade waffles and hot chocolate. Yum! And we watched My Super Ex-Girlfriend and decided it was better than the reviews claimed.
- And we went to Robb’s favourite for lunch: Famous Daves. Not half bad. And my birthday cake was a big serving of Bread Pudding.
I hope you have enjoyed our little recap. Quite an eventful road trip, especially for our first one.
$30 Nail
Well, the nail didn’t actually cost $30. The nail was free.
The damage it caused to my tire cost $30.
Pretty crazy … it went through my entire tire in two places and resulted in a nice flat tire. Not to mention an awesome clicking noise that reminded me of putting a baseball card in the spokes.
Thankfully, I was right out side my friend’s apartment when it happened and close to the bike shop.
I forgot to take a photograph, but I would much rather not remember my bike’s first injury.
Meanwhile, we went to the Dane County Farmer’s Market. So crowded and fully of amazing produce. I can’t wait to go with an empty bag and return with a bagful of goodies!
This week is finals. Thursday afternoon has never looked so good.
Say “hello” to my little friend
Yes! That is right. My first road bike ever. We celebrated the first day of Spring with a new bike. When the gentleman at REI asked me where I liked to bike, I told him “Seattle”… and then explained I just moved here in January. So silly!
As some of you know, I had biked to work most of the year last year until I had a painful accident that left me bruised (black eye and really hurt arm) and my (dad’s) bike broken.
But I am getting back in the saddle. This spring and summer, Robb and I are looking forward to biking all around Madison. We hear there are some excellent trails close to us. After all, they do host an Iron Man here!
Unfortunately, Madison itself was not quite ready to welcome in Spring. Yes, that is right, as I write this post… there is a fresh layer of snow on the ground and the flakes are still falling. We got a lovely teaser the past few weeks … temperatures in the 40’s … snow melting everywhere! Birds returning, the lake starting to defrost… I even went running with just some lightweight pants and a long sleeved tee. Alas!
We are now waiting for the first big rain to wash away all of the salt and sand on the roads that like to rust bikes. I didn’t even think about it when we bought the bike. I mean, who puts salt on the road in Seattle?
Loose ends
Yesterday was a sigh of relief.
It seems like all of our loose ends from the fire were tied up:
- Painting in our apartment (walls, ceilings etc.) is finished
- Robb’s younger brother bought us a wedding/Robb’s birthday/Robb’s Christmas gift that arrived: A brand spanking new Calphalon Tri-Ply Stainless-Steel 8-Quart Stockpot to replace the one we lost in the fire
- The house is clean
- Our replacement ink cartridge arrived (we found that if you buy from HP directly, it’s cheaper!)
- Robb printed out our Eagle Heights Gardening Manual so we can start reading up on how to garden organically in Madison
- We got to video chat with Robb’s parents and wish his dad a happy birthday!
- Our landlord dropped off our new drip drays for our electric stovetop (the other ones were falling apart well before we acquired the apartment!)
- Our landlord also told us to expect the new cabinets in the next week (remeber, the other ones were burnt and the paint was peeling off from the fire… they were not very good quality to begin with)
Well, that sums it up. While not everything had to do with fire-related stuff… it feels like winter is over and spring is here. The sunny weather really helps with that, too!
And Robb is off on the set for “Public Enemies” being a hard working extra. He got up at 4 am this morning and left at 4:15 am to drive to the set! He’ll be home around dinner (hopefully!)