Road Trip Essentials

Road Trip Essentials

uyguguygu   05.00   Comment  

Last week we drove across the country with all of our belongings in a 16 foot moving truck with my husband's project car trailered behind. J.R. drove the truck and trailer and I followed behind in our regular car, stuffed to the brim with everything that I didn't want bouncing around in a moving van like musical instruments, my computer, and the camera.

This wasn't the ordinary type of road trip where we ambled along stopping and looking - we were on a mission to make it to Michigan in one piece! We had one stressed out cat and two stressed out human beings and we were driving through some of the worst weather I've dealt with on a road trip. Parts of I-80 were completely flooded out causing delays where we were simply stopped in the middle of the freeway in a sea of traffic and water waiting for something to happen miles up the road.

Despite the stress and chaos of packing, moving, living out of a hotel and a suitcase, loosing all our pillow cases, leaving my pillow in Nebraska, and the cat crying for four days straight we made it here. Mostly intact. I still haven't found the pillowcases but they'll turn up. I think. Anyone want to mail me some while I wait?

So, how do you keep it chill on a road trip that is less a classic road trip and more an adventure to be conquered? You keep the essentials close by you in the car. You stop a lot for snacks and coffee and photos. You sing along to a really fantastic upbeat playlist. And, when all else fails, you cry in the thunderstorm in Iowa and eat at Cracker Barrel because it's the closest thing to the hotel that has food and hot cocoa.

For your listening pleasure I put together the fifteen songs that I listened to the most on our way out to Michigan:

1. Tablo - Eyes, Nose, Lips (cover)

2. The National - I Should Live In Salt

3. James Vincent McMorrow - We Don't Eat (Adventure Club Re-Mix)

4. Lana Del Rey/Cedric Gervais - Summertime Sadness (Radio Remix)

5. G-Dragon - MichiGO (This was our joke theme song because we were Michi-Going)

6. Fleet Foxes - Mykonos

7. Alt-J - Matilda

8. Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks Skeet Skeet Remix (super old song but such a good driving song!)

9. Calexico - Man Made Lake

10. Marina and the Diamonds - Primadonna

11. Taeyang - Ringa Linga

12. The National - Graceless

13. T.O.P., Taeyang, and G-Dragon - Hallelujah

14. Fleet Foxes - Montezuma 

15. Lord Huron - Lonesome Dreams

The Desert in Bloom

The Desert in Bloom

uyguguygu   14.43   Comment  

We went out to Moab, Utah for the holiday weekend at the end of May. I have never been to Moab on an overcast, rainy weekend but this turned out to be the most visually dynamic trip I've ever taken out there. In contrast to the harsh, direct light that is typical of Moab in Spring, the clouds acted like a soft box and the colors of the red rock and wild blooms changed as the sky changed throughout the day.

We camped in the desert outside of Moab and arrived just in time for the sky to clear up for a brief moment. I saw the Milky Way splashed across the sky and a meteor shower sparkling and streaking above me until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. The second day it rained like crazy, with all six of us hiding in a car during a torrential downpour with epic lightening strikes. Right before the rain shower I took a quick walk with my sister-in-law and we photographed everything we saw blooming. Finally, on the third day it was overcast and cleared up around the time we left. We got to see the clouds rise out of the canyons, hiding just the very tops of the mesas and rock formations, forming islands in the sky.

Amber Waves

Amber Waves

uyguguygu   05.00   Comment  

The prairie hasn't woken up yet. It's still dry, despite our spring thunderstorms, but the snow cover is gone. We only get a few days of green here, at least for the spaces left on their own to grow and thrive, and we have to wait for them to come through the long summer, autumn, and winter. Usually I have a hard time dealing with the dust and the drab colors but sometimes you drive past an expanse rolling in the wind like waves on the ocean and you catch your breath, startled by the beauty of it all. The gold of the fields amplify the blue of the sky.

Also, there's a kind of vastness, that's another thing I won't soon forget. Even on the edge of the city there are fields and views where you can see for miles and miles, all the way up to the foothills and to the fourteen thousand foot mountains beyond, still blowing with their snow and covered in blue and purple.

***

I'm wearing a Lacost polo shirt (similar here) and a skirt from Target. The shoes are from j.crew. 

The Longest Winter

adventure Great Sand Dunes National Park New Mexico Santa Fe Tent Rocks Travel

The Longest Winter

uyguguygu   08.25   Comment  

It's really, really cold here in Denver. It's been below freezing for almost a week now, which is pretty amazing considering that almost never happens here. I don't mind it at all, because I'm used to the cold. I do much better with extreme cold than with extreme heat for whatever reason.

I have some good news and some bad news for you - the good news is that I have a lot of wonderful blog post ideas and outfits to shoot. The bad news is that I left my camera charger in a hotel in Indiana and have had to order another one online. I'll be getting new outfit posts up as soon as that charger comes!

In the meantime I'm going to borrow from my instagram account - we hiked a slot canyon in New Mexico and stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park on the way home. It was completely amazing. I've never seen a sunset like that before!

Farm Scenes and a Word of Advice

Farm Scenes and a Word of Advice

uyguguygu   20.59   Comment  

There is something to learn from everyone, that I know is true. 

I used to work with this man when I was restoring antique textiles who I learned so much from simply from saying good morning to and asking how his morning was every day.

"Every day above ground is a good day!" he would exclaim honestly as we filed in to start our days of quiet, solitary work. 

It's easy to learn gratitude from someone with that sort of relentlessly positive attitude. Thank you, friend, for teaching me the glory of morning and the worth of work. With that approach to life how could I possibly ever lose?

(More pictures from the farm, as shot by Jessica Triggs!)

Under the Shadow of Denali

Under the Shadow of Denali

uyguguygu   17.29   Comment  

It's so wonderful to blog about the trip after you get home because it's kind of like reliving the trip, in a way. You get to reflect on it when all is said and done, and really think about the way it went. 

We left Anchorage and drove to Denali National Park. The sky was so blue, Southwest blue, the color of the turquoise found in bracelets out here, that it was startling and almost oppressive. I hadn't expected it to be so hot or humid.  

The roads up there have lower speed limits than the roads we have here so it felt like we didn't so much drive to Denali, we ambled. And I think it was a good thing. We stopped wherever we wanted. We took in the view again and again and again, and we watched as Denali loomed closer and closer, finally becoming clear in the distance, floating on that blue sky like a mirage or a dream or a reflection of something bigger than everything.

"That," JR said to me at one stop where we looked at it "is bigger than anything I've ever seen that's been made by a person." And indeed it was, towering over us, omnipresent in the way that only God's creation can. 

After we got into the car I thought to myself, "It's good to be awed. It's healthy. We don't do it enough." I thought about what awe was, about awe as a transformative process. To be awed is to allow ourselves to be humbled and that's a tough thing to do. Humility, at it's core, is making ourselves lesser to become greater people and I don't want to be lesser. I struggle with that and it is a continual process I have learned to at least allow myself to be humbled by the experiences I have and the people I love, and yes, even the things I see. 

All Aboard!! Train Travel in Alaska

All Aboard!! Train Travel in Alaska

uyguguygu   11.40   Comment  

One of the other things we were able to do in Alaska was take a train. Train travel is de rigueur for tourist travel throughout the state. Even though we had rented a car for a portion of the trip I wanted to see what it was all about - and lets be realistic...I just wanted to ride on a vintage train and experience life at that pace.

We headed to the station in Anchorage and got there obscenely early which turned out to be a good thing. I got some coffee, wandered around their gift shop, and then settled down on a bench. A sweet grandfatherly man from Montreal was kind enough to have a patient conversation in French with me so I got to practice that for a while. My autodidactic strategy for learning French has been to ask anyone and everyone to speak French with me if I find out they speak it so this was a great bonus. I mostly speak French to people with North African accents so I had to adjust and listen closely to adjust to the accent!

Our first seats we picked were in the Dome car, which were awesome. You could see everything from up there. Eventually I figured out that the pictures were better from the open air spaces between the cars and there was a bit of a "party crew" out there - rambunctious anniversary celebrators from Texas or some other southern state on their way to an Alaskan cruise. They were awesome and just about the funniest people I've ever met while traveling. I shared my Wasabi peas with them and they almost fell over dead from the taste (him) and spice (her). I guess they're not for everyone!

We settled in to watch the scenery pass (and it was quite lovely!) after awhile and arrived to our destination on time and in fine style!