6/22/10: Kennebec, South Dakota

So we woke up around 5:30, and filled our bellies with some cereal. We bid Aunt Joyce farewell and thanked for her taking us in for the last few days. First stop of the day – Clarinda, Iowa to see Uncle Jon and Aunt Jane. We filled up with gas and coffee and arrived at the house around 9:30. It was really nice catching up and getting a tour of all the new puppies and the new red barn. We shared with them our trip so far and they gave us a couple of great suggestions . . . Wall Drugs here we come!! Uncle Jon and Aunt Jane raise and breed English Bulldogs and so it was really neat for Rachael to experience the amazing and unique aroma of the dog kennel. After snapping a few shots we headed over to Ali’s grandma’s house where we perused pictures and heard some fun stories.

Unfortunately we had to make the visit short because we had a good chunk of driving ahead of us. We said goodbye and in true Stimson fashion, Uncle Jon hung out of the window and Aunt Jane honked the horn as we parted ways on the road :)

Only in Iowa – well any tiny town really – would one run into someone they know after only being there for a few hours. We stopped at a subway to grab a bite for the road and low and behold a buddy of Ali’s cousin Jesse, Nathan, stood behind us in line, towering over us as everyone in the Midwest seems to do. It must be all those corn-fed boys!

From then on, we counted down the miles – and the billboards – to the Corn Palace in Mitchell. **Trivia Question: what is the ONE thing that Las Vegas and South Dakota have in common?? . . . a PLETHORA of billboards** Advertising for the Corn Place started about 100 miles back! Anyways, once we reached the corn palace we became true tourists. Snapping shots of the building and each other standing next to Cornelius the Corn Cob. We fit right in though – we could have even been seen as the cooler bunch because we knew what the walking taco was on the “cornsesion stand.” BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA people in Mitchell are so funny! And off again we were – to our KOA in Kennebec.



Ok, let’s break this down. For starters, most interesting KOA night. About 20 outside of Kennebec we realized we might just be driving INTO the oncoming storm . . . and we were right. Luckily the rain held off for about an hour after we got there so we could get everything situated (moving luggage, making the beds and putting up the bug net). The minute we got situated inside, the storm began. No, but literally, a MASSIVE storm. We are dramatic people – we know. But dramatize this, we do not. Rachael’s dad could vouch for us as he was watching the weather radar reports all night long for us and our safety. It was nice to get the confirmation from a Dakotean that this thunder and lightning storm could be fun rather than dangerous. With flashing white and purple lights and cracking, roaring and popping thunder and let’s throw in a little pouring rain and car shuttering wind we curled up and watched half and episode of Gilmore Girls. In the middle of our episode we saw a bunch of dancing flashlight lights around us and were concerned that we were going to be told to evacuate the campground (as we had been warned might happened). We later realized that our neighbor’s tent site had be flooded with about 3-4 inches of rain directly where their tent was at and the flashing lights were just them packing up all their stuff :( We considered ourselves pretty fortunate after we saw that. We must mention that our mission for that evening was to befriend Positive Polly. So instead of whining and complaining we spent the night laughing and enjoying our scary yet cool adventure.

To make our experience even better we decided to head to the bathroom before going to sleep, as the rain had stopped and there was a calm outside. The walk there gave a chance to see all the damage the storm had done. It seemed like a swampland. We wadded through puddles and mud as Rachael talked to her dad on the phone telling him that the storm had passed. So of course, as we stepped out of the bathroom the head back to the car it started to pour. Well, what else to do but run back. We took off our shoes to ensure optimum speed and agility and we did our best to not splash mud all over ourselves. We did make it back, wet and muddy, but as always we just laughed it off and ended up having a good night’s sleep. The next morning we were to head off to Rapid City, where the beautiful faces of South Dakota awaited us!

9/20-21/10: Meet the Family

(20) Ali’s Aunt Joyce held a open house kind of gathering for all of the relatives to come in and out of. Since there were a lot of people to see it was nice to just have the whole day for people to trickle in. We spent the day enjoying the kids and their shows they loved to put on and caught up on what was going on in everyone’s life. It was great both meeting people and seeing how much the kids have grown up. We appreciated having a solid day of sleeping in, no travel and friendly folks. We didn’t once leave the house except to later cross the yard to hang out with the cousins and play a couple intense games of Wii Mario and the card game Nerts (where we created awesome team names and Rachael’s team always had a cool handshake). Then, off the sleep.

(21) Halee took us out to coffee that morning where we just hung out and talked for a good two hours. After that it was about lunch time, so we went back to their house, picked up Andrew and headed out to the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri (another state to add to the list!) We ate some great BBQ and walked into some random stores, a lot of the time to escape the humidity :) It was a slow pace day and everyone was very low key and so we felt very welcomed and relaxed. When we got back to Aunt Joyce’s we had some chill time where we did laundry and caught up with Aunt Joyce around the dinner table. It was dark by that time and at one point Rachael yelled and Ali jumped as Jordan’s face appeared out of the darkness, pressed against the kitchen window. He and Liz came in as Aunt Joyce was heading off to bed and we got to have a good talk with them too around the table (that table tended to draw good conversations throughout the whole trip). We walked over with them to their house and saw that they had caught a raccoon which had been breaking into their sun room and eating their cat’s food. After admiring how cute it was and discussing how dangerous it was we said our goodbyes and went to sleep. It was a really nice bed :)

6/19-21/10: Olathe, Kansas

That morning we woke up around 6:30 after a rather windy night. We had both woken up around two due to some wind that slightly shook the car. But, we woke up on solid ground, with an overall goodnight sleep and were on the road again. Our first destination – Worlds Largest Prairie Dog in Oakley, KS.

After seeing billions of signs advertising this place (which Ali had been to once before with her family when she was little) we pulled off on the exit labeled “Prairie Dog Town.” Overall, way sketch. Overall, the first REALLY exciting thing we saw in Kansas. When we first walked in we paid a fee and went straight to the Rattle Snake pen, where the woman who worked there held the light over all twenty snakes to irritate them – so they all rattled and Rach and I move on to the “petting zoo” outside.



There might have been stuff going on there that wasn’t quite humane, such as a group of small coyotes in a small pig wired cage pacing back and forth. BUT we looked at all the animals and Rachael even fed a goat!!!! The goats were Ali’s favorite because she could pet them and feed them. While the peacocks were Rachael’s favorite because they were pretty and you did not have to touch them. Typical. Then came the moment of truth. The Prairie Dog – wait, there were actually TWO!!!!! Even better than Ali had remembered . . . well, not really. They seemed to have shrunk in size and maybe excitement. However, when you are two good pals in the middle of Kansas, anything is exciting.



So we drove and drove and drove and finally arrived in Olathe around 7 sometime. Ali’s cousin Andrew and wife Halee hollered at us from their yard as we pulled up to Ali’s Aunt’s house. We ran over and said hey and they took us into their home and showed us around. Inside, another cousin Jordan with his wife Liz awaited. We all chatted for a bit and Jordan and Liz told us about how they would soon be moving to Michigan and Andrew and Halee to Macedonia. Big moves and very exciting! We ran back over to Aunt Joyce’s house to unpack and see her and some of her friends. Then the six of us eventually decided on Olive Garden for dinner, where we met up with yet another cousin, Seth, and his wife Heather. We goofed around, ate good food, enjoyed each other’s company and then headed back for a good night’s sleep in a REAL bed :)

6/18/10: Goodland, Kansas . . . and where the heck is that? We don’t know either

After Kathy so graciously made us a homemade latte with homemade bread AND homemade jam, and a few more stories from their eldest daughter Maddy, we hopped back on I-70. We took a quick detour, thanks to the suggestion of Kathy and Chris, and got to go directly over the continental divide with breathtaking views. It’s a good thing we enjoyed the beautiful mountainous scenery of Colorado, because after only a few hours of driving – it was gone :( Kansas is, well Kansas. It is very beautiful, but not as ever changing and dramatic as the scenery in Colorado. We quickly learned that after leaving Denver, there would be no more Starbucks to come. With the help of Rachael’s mom, we discovered that there was no Starbucks on the western half of Kansas. We even called Safeway to see if there happened to be one in the store – only to be laughed at by the man on the phone for an apparently silly question. His exact words were, “Ha, I wish there was.” We settled for a store bought Starbucks frap from the gas station.

A few hours later, we arrived at another KOA only to find out that Kansas is filled with bugs. We made a second run to the Wal-Mart supercenter (the ONLY store in good ol’ Goodland) for some supplies; food, bugs spray and materials for a homemade bug net. With the humidity we soon realized that we would not want to be sleeping with the door shut. So we got creative and we made a bug net out of material we purchased by the yard and Command Velcro strips. Yeah, we were pretty proud of ourselves. Now, we sit in our cozy bed, listening to crickets and entering our blog. Hope all is well and we’ll let you know how our visit with the World’s Largest Prairie Dog goes tomorrow.

P.S. We’ll post a pictures of our awesome sleeping quarters plus the bug net tomorrow.

6/17/10: Roan Creek Ranch

So, after a slightly uncomfortable night at our SUPER cute KOA, we woke up with a few kinks in our necks. But overall we really enjoyed the KOA experience. For breakfast we purchased a quarter gallon of milk at the KOA store to go with our cereal that we already had bought. It ended up being too much so we found a nice lady and gave it to her – she said her daughter would thoroughly enjoy it. We’re so nice.

We left and headed to Telluride which was SOOOOOO cute. It was a little ski resort type town with lots of local restaurants and shops which were fun to peruse. It was tucked in a valley that was surrounded by HUGE mountains. Coincidently, there was a big bluegrass festival taking place, which made the town more fun to visit. There was a lot of hustle and bustle, lots of music and we had great food from a local café.



After about two hours we continued on our journey towards De Beque, where the daughter of Ali’s pop’s professor lived on a ranch with her family. They, Kathy and Chris, were kind enough to let us stay for the evening. Not only did they give us a place to stay, but they provided us with great entertainment, company and an AMAZING meal. Their daughter and her friend showed us around the ranch. Like AAAALLLLLL around the ranch, and introduced us to all of the animals – chickens, ducks, kittens, horses, cows, sheep . . . everything :) And the gang of dogs, who like the Las Vegas crowd, varied greatly in shapes, sizes and colors. We had a lot of fun sitting around the fire with Chris and his buddy Fur, where we heard a lot of really great stories (how true they were, is still a little questionable ;) A little later, around 10 we all sat around the dinner table and ate a great meal. Chris truly is an amazing chef and they picked on us so we felt right at home. Around 12, we headed off to bed for a great night sleep (no kinks in the neck the next morning). Thanks pop/Bob for making that connection for us :)

6/16/10: Mesa Verde

We got up good time, ate some breakfast and hit the road. We got a good glimpse of what the Grand Canyon might have looked like when we stopped at the Navajo Bridge to snap some picks. Back on the road, 20 minutes in Rach is asleep and Ali rocking out to Taylor Swift. We were surrounded by beautiful red cliffs and amazing sweeping views. We drove up, down, back and forth, against the wind, with the wind and through a dust storm.

Ok, so the first, and only might we add, bump we had for this day was to pull up to the Four Corners National Monument (which is the first BIG DEAL thing we’ve seen in a while, besides a dust bowl) and read the sign that said CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION . . . who does construction during the summer? So, we decided to just follow the crowd. Some people had walked into through a crack in the fence and headed down to the LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG road to the monument. OK, we’d driven a long time and we were GOING TO see our four corners. So we made it half ways down and a lady in a red car came ZOOOOOOOMING bye yelling at us about how we were NOT suppose to be in there. Well, what else would we do after she drove away, keep walking. WE WERE SO CLOSE TO THE END WE HAD NO OTHER CHOICE!!! We made it to a sign that might not have been the ACTUAL monument, but it was close enough for us. We got pics which will have to suffice because we saw that dreaded red car heading our way again. Crap, we made it out alive.

So we drove and around 5ish we made it to Mesa Verde – cliff dwelling pueblos, here we come. It MUST be noted, this was one of Rachael’s most anticipated sites. And, being the nerd that Ali is she was OOOOOOOBER excited to see the cliff villages that she learned about in her Native American West Class. She even bruoght her class text book to read us history of the civilzations and was sickly proud to follow in her professor's footsteps. Of course, they’re doing road construction in the middle of June. So in true Rachael and Ali fashion, we cranked the jams and waved at all the construction workers all 20miles up. We took a guided tour up and down to the Cliff Dwelling Palace, which was an amazing site to see. Did you know, that girls around 12 and 13 would be married and starting a family. Also, the people of these communities were all about Rach’s height – yay! She found her civilization!!!!! Fun and good!!!

Then we headed back and checked into our oh so lovely KOA. Actually, it really is lovely and we’re excited to try out sleeping in the car tonight.

6/15/10: Grand Canyon Day

So to start off, let us just say that we did not make it there, so don’t get too excited. BUT we will recap the still exciting day. We started off down the Interstate and eventually broke off to highway that lead us to Zion National Park in South West Utah. So that was an adventure in itself and we got thrown a couple of curve balls.

As we got closer to the park, we drove through some small quaint towns, which we thought were really adorable. Springdale was right outside of the park entrance, and OF COURSE as we pulled up to get into the park, the park ranger told us that the road to get to HWY 89 was under construction and would be until 4 (which was about an hour and half away). We flipped a U-ey and happily turned back to the town we were previously admiring. We spent some time perusing a couple of gift shops and got some coffee where we overlooked the beautiful red cliffs. Once four o’clock we entered the park!!! Only to immediately run into construction. But no worries, we blasted our music, rolled our windows down, and had a good time. We used the stopped traffic to take some WICKED good pictures and we waved at everyone driving past – as well as all the construction workers because they looked tired and sad and we wanted them to feel happy. Overall, the park was beautiful and well worth the extra wait.

Sadly, due to the delays we missed out on the Grand Canyon. But we drove on – like true road trippers. We ended up at the Cliff Dwellers Lodge . . . in the middle of NOWHERE! But literally, there was NO civilization to be seen. However, with such few people in the middle of nowhere, you made friends with everyone around you. For starters, our biker buddies who gave us some advice on not trying to rush to the Grand Canyon at such a late hour (and who also gave us South Carolina and Georgia to add to our seen license plate list – 35 states and counting). Then, our super cool waiter who made sure we ate all of our tomatoes. The most memorable however was a sweet lady named Barbara who told us all about her recent reunion with her college friend after 37 years. She went on to explain their friendship and we found many similarities between us – even down to the hair color and states we were from :) She expressed to us that we need to appreciate the times that we are having because they are some of the best days of our lives. Next, our other new friend (maybe not) came all the way out from the behind the chef’s window of the kitchen to let us know that he made the dish ESPECIALLY good because he knew it was for us. We chatted a bit and he made it clear that he just felt the need to give us a complement – Awww, what a nice guy. I mean can you blame him? BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, just kidding ;) We finished off the night with some star gazing and a well deserved good night sleep. So thanks papa/Bob for the great night at the Cliff Dwellers lodge.

P.S. The picture of Rach is of a small "fake town" on our drive to Zion. Rachael LOOOOOOOOOOOVES fake towns such as these.

First stop – LAS VEGAS!!

What better place to start out an epic road trip for two 22 year olds than Vegas?! Ok, so after an easy eight our drive we hit Sin City. And sin we did!! Nah, just kidding. However, out of all the hotels in Vegas, where else did we end up, but HOOTERS HOTEL AND CASINO. Well, can you blame us? Air conditioning, pool, tv and two VEEEEEERRRRRRRYYYYY comfortable beds for only $25.



We spent the first night soaking everything in as we walked up and down the VERY long Las Vegas Blvd. We had a great sit down dinner with free entertainment – meaning the passersby that varied greatly in size, shapes and colors. One person almost ran into us while we were walking down the boulevard. He was zipping and weaving around people yelling “I’m a bee! I’m a bee!” After dinner, we headed further down the strip in search of the Treasure Island show. After walking for what seemed like forever without any luck, we realized how tired we were and turned around. We got back to the hotel and crashed around one.



The next morning we slept in. Once we got going we decided to take a drive down the entire strip – from Mandalay Bay to the Freemont Experience. We parked for free in Bill’s Gamibin’ Saloon and spent the day walking around again. We went to the world’s LARGEST gift shop, people watched at Starbucks (where we drank our overpriced, but very much needed frappacionos), went into tons of hotels and casinos to check them out and of course we played the slot machines ( . . . we did do a bit of shopping as well, :) That evening we stayed out late and got to both see the Treasure Island Show and walk down Freemont Boulevard. The show was really cool, lots of lights and very vegasy – i.e. lots of girls dancing around in skimpy clothes. We got back to the hotel around 2 and fell asleep without any trouble.



Before heading out early the next morning, we met up with a friend of ours named Eli (who had gone to Ecuador with Ali) and is currently living in Vegas. We had a cup of coffee and some Krispy Kreme donuts by the HOOTERS pool and got to hang out and relax before hitting the road. Around 9:30 a.m. we headed out and said goodbye to Vegas in style by getting our picture taken with the famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign. Next stop, Grand Canyon . . . or not so much . . .

And so it begins...

ROAD TRIP!!! Last semester, when we were bogged down with lots of schoolwork and fun thesis research, we decided that by the time graduation came around we would go on a well deserved road trip. But not just any road trip, a trip that would take us to see our dear friend Camie – who is currently still working her butt of in Americorp.


Well, it wouldn’t be a typical trip without SOME problems, some BIG changes that is. We found out about three days before leaving, that instead of being in Vinton, Iowa, she was called south to the Gulf Coast to help with the oil spills. How good for her to help human kind, but Rach and I are selfish and were really, really, REALLY bummed that we weren’t going to see her. So we changed our destination. We decided to stick with the route and all the exciting sights along the way. Our destination now became Olathe, Kansas, where a LARGE portion of Ali’s family lives :)