What have we been up to?
So after Chicago, what did we do? We went to Oak Brook, Illinois where we stayed with David and Mary Sabo. Dave is an MIT fraternity friend of my dad's and they kindly stored our car for us and gave us a place to stay. We also went to Oak Park, which is the home of the great architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. His home and the surrounding homes in Oak Park which he designed, are really worth seeing. Wright developed the Prairie style of architecture so his houses occupy a lot of lateral space, rather than the vertical space (so many storied houses) the Victorians preferred.
We then went on to Mitchell, South Dakota, the home of the FAMOUS Corn Palace. Well, we didn't know how famous it was but everyone seemed to stop there when driving through the state. Here's a picture of Kevin at the corn palace...enjoying, of all things, an ice cream cone!
That night we stayed in the Badlands national park in South Dakota. It was incredibly hot but there are some awesome formations of nature there, especially the pink rocks that form little peaks throughout the park. There are so many beautiful things to see in this part of the country, though we've decided we will have to just rent a camper van and take 6 months to do it all someday.
Of course, you cannot go to South Dakota without seeing Mount Rushmore. We hit some bad weather when we got there so at first I thought we would not see any of the presidents' faces. But luck prevailed and slowly the fog lifted. Here is a rather eerie scene of the four presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln.
And finally, here is a clearer view (with a few posers underneath the presidents)
On the road, we were reminded that despite its big cities having many culinary delights, America has its fair share of extremely dire cooking. Here is a lunch I had in South Dakota. Kevin now says he didn't like the look of the place, but frankly we had hardly any options outside of fastfood. But this looks pretty grim, huh? It's supposed to be a hot turkey sandwich... Needless to say, I left most of it on my plate (oh, and American customer service isn't all it's reputed to be as the waitress refused to exchange it for anything else and said we would have to pay extra if she got me something else).
We have now been in Boulder, Colorado for the past few days and spent 2 days in the beautiful Vail resort area. Colorado is a must for nature lovers and we have some awesome pics from a day's hike that we did. We have enjoyed the great hospitality here of another of my dad's fraternity buddies, Bud Wonsiewicz. He and his wife Marie have been great hosts and though we are sad to leave tomorrow, we need to make our way to New Mexico tomorrow so that we have ample time to get back to the east coast.
We then went on to Mitchell, South Dakota, the home of the FAMOUS Corn Palace. Well, we didn't know how famous it was but everyone seemed to stop there when driving through the state. Here's a picture of Kevin at the corn palace...enjoying, of all things, an ice cream cone!
That night we stayed in the Badlands national park in South Dakota. It was incredibly hot but there are some awesome formations of nature there, especially the pink rocks that form little peaks throughout the park. There are so many beautiful things to see in this part of the country, though we've decided we will have to just rent a camper van and take 6 months to do it all someday.
Of course, you cannot go to South Dakota without seeing Mount Rushmore. We hit some bad weather when we got there so at first I thought we would not see any of the presidents' faces. But luck prevailed and slowly the fog lifted. Here is a rather eerie scene of the four presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln.
And finally, here is a clearer view (with a few posers underneath the presidents)
On the road, we were reminded that despite its big cities having many culinary delights, America has its fair share of extremely dire cooking. Here is a lunch I had in South Dakota. Kevin now says he didn't like the look of the place, but frankly we had hardly any options outside of fastfood. But this looks pretty grim, huh? It's supposed to be a hot turkey sandwich... Needless to say, I left most of it on my plate (oh, and American customer service isn't all it's reputed to be as the waitress refused to exchange it for anything else and said we would have to pay extra if she got me something else).
We have now been in Boulder, Colorado for the past few days and spent 2 days in the beautiful Vail resort area. Colorado is a must for nature lovers and we have some awesome pics from a day's hike that we did. We have enjoyed the great hospitality here of another of my dad's fraternity buddies, Bud Wonsiewicz. He and his wife Marie have been great hosts and though we are sad to leave tomorrow, we need to make our way to New Mexico tomorrow so that we have ample time to get back to the east coast.
posted by Karen at 7/24/2007 08:50:00 PM
2 Comments:
Dear Kevin and Karen,
Excellent blog! I stumbled upon your blog a few months back while doing research for my India trip. Since then, I've been a frequent reader and enjoyed reading about your adventures and seeing your many GREAT pictures. You both have given me some great ideas for my next destinations. Thank you and continued safe travels!
Stacy
Ottawa, Ontario
Stacy,
Thanks for your comments. Glad to hear you're enjoying our blog. We're definitely enjoying posting about our adventures. We were wondering who up in Ottawa was checking our blog so much. Ottawa is actually 3rd (after Boston and London) in terms of amount of users checking our blog. Glad to know it's a big hit north of the border!
Kevin
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