We have finally decided to take the trip we have talked about for a long while.
To get away.
Explore.
While this has been a thought of ours for a while, it is only through a bit of luck, and a bit of misfortune that we are being given the opportunity. Until February, I was nose to the grindstone – 70+ hours a week devoted to a company. While I learned a great deal in the position that I was filling, there was just something missing. The freedom to travel!
At the end of February, I was laid off due to company cut-backs. While at first this was very upsetting – and certainly a huge shift in the way I lived my life – I am now relieved that it happened then instead of later.
For both Melody and I, few things are more exciting than travel – both planning and executing (see State Signs Tour: I, II, and III). With this newfound freedom we plan to live out, plan and execute a mutual goal to step foot on every country in the world, together – beginning with every country in Europe over the Summer.
While I do not regularly post on here, I encourage you to follow our Facebook Page for more regular announcements from myself and Melody. Once we get a little further into the planning stages, you can expect to see more regular posts both here and on our Facebook where you can follow our progress to see how we are doing with our goal.
Until then, stay well and don’t be afraid to let the travel bug bite you too!
What was supposed to be a trip to Miami to Dallas and back turned into Miami to North Dakota.
I’m tired just thinking about running this trip again, but it is one of our craziest adventures to date.
The fourth of July holiday lent us a four day weekend. Considering we covered nearly 2,000 miles in less than 72 hours, we were excited to see what mess we could uncover with four whole days.
We took off early afternoon on Wednesday July 3rd. The trip leaving Miami to get up to Tallyho (Tallahassee area aka Seminole Nation) was relatively smooth. However, anyone that has driven any length of Interstate 10 knows it’s the most boring but difficult road to drive. It’s like driving on a cooked spaghetti noodle. There is no part of the road where you set cruise control and just coast. It’s treacherous. It was raining. And in Mark-like fashion, the wheel got turned over to me at 2am, but not without snapping these gems first.
If you’ll notice, I’m still in dress pants that I wore to work. Fashion faux pas, I know.Before the galaxy camera and definitely before the Nikon. The humidity was getting to the poor Iphone camera. Welcome to Mississippi sometime around midnight.
It was raining. It rained for awhile. We were dodging rain drops like they were bullets.
If you’ve ever wondered which hour is the longest of the night, it’s the time between 3am and 4am. From about 3:30 on, all I was wishing for was the sun to rise. I needed a wake up call, mother nature style.
Once the sun came up, I was anxious to get some shut eye. I wanted to doze, but we were so close to Arkansas! Once the Mark has slept, he becomes quite vibrant and alive. Everything outside the car becomes positively awesome. I’ve reclined my seat back, a shirt over my face to block out the sun I so desperately wished for, and I’m just about asleepwhen I hear..
OH MY GOD! Look at that! That is cool.
Moments pass. I think to myself, that was probably something neat to see. Not a minute later does Mark go, “Wow! Those are gorgeous!” OK. Now I can’t sleep. How can anyone sleep with that much enthusiasm balled up in the driver’s seat?
Looking spiffy and proud as we leave the bayou for Texas
Coffee, I’m thinking. Anything. But now the sun is up, and honestly the fact that I was in the car in a different state made me so excited that sleeping now became impossible. The seat back gets propped up and we make our way through Texarkana. By the way, an interesting place. We spent about an hour trying to figure out whether it’s TexarCONa or TexarCANa. Goodness.
For the claim that everything is bigger here, the sign was a little underwhelming (Please see Rhode Island). I’m on the phone. And here’s why…
It’s about this time where we begin to discuss driving to NORTH DAKOTA. It’s only another thousand miles or whatever, right? What’s the difference. We’d already driven that. I’m on the phone with Hertz trying to determine if it’s even remotely possible to drop the car off in a different state and fly home.
Improvising at its best.
Not a state sign notwithstanding, I was pleasantly surprised to pull up to this five star resort in Dallas. Ahh, sleep at last. And a happy Melody. That’s a winning combination.
Finally a nap. We go to explore Dallas. Where’s all the fireworks? Where’s the drunken debauchery? Nowhere to be found.Dear Dallas, your Independence Day festivities are lacking. Sincerely, ME. We wound up rubbing shoulders with some young Marine friends and some woman that was very interested in my man. Which made me very interested in her. Until I saw this gem.
Good ol’ Johnny telling the world what he thinks about it.
That’s about all I remember about Dallas.
The next thing I remember is leaving Dallas and heading up to the Dakotas. So close, but yet so far.
We’re driving to Oklahoma and I, as a sunflower lover, went bug eyed for this little patch of tall and skinnies.
We zigzagged across state lines which is pretty easy to do; there’s really only one interstate that takes you straight up the country.
The first sign we saw made completely out of stone.Good afternoon Kansas!Maybe we’ll see you next time Joplin. It also took a lot longer to get through Missouri than I expected.Endless cornfields and a cloudless sunset made for a beautiful setting.
By the time we got to Iowa, it was time to eat. We were chugging along with the help of Monsters and an assortment of candy ranging from Twizzlers to sour gummy worms to chocolate . It was time to eat real food.
Interestingly enough, we got welcomed to Omaha before the state of Nebraska.
Good to meet you Omaha, but what state are we in?This sign was an act of Congress to get. We drove back to Iowa from Omaha and there was no Nebraska sign. The only option was to drive up to South Dakota and make a U-turn.
We’re getting into the wee hours of the morning again, so that means it’s my turn to drive.
The road from Nebraska to North Dakota is lonely. The speed limit is 75. There was construction. It was dark. The sky was truly a blanket of stars. Had I been camping, I would have loved it.
But I wasn’t camping. So I didn’t love it. It was in fact a very stressful drive. There were warning signs for all kinds of wildlife that may be bouncing around in the bushes. I feared every reflector post on the road was a pair of beady little deer eyes. From about 10pm to 4am, (Mark will disagree with this to no avail. He calls this an exaggeration) I carried the tremendous burden of transporting us safely to the Dakotas, waking him gently once we finally arrived.
It’s well past midnight. Exhaustion is setting in.
Finally we get to North Dakota. I’m gently awoken that we’ve arrived at the North Dakota sign. I sleepily open the passenger door and these MOSQUITOES THE SIZE OF SOFTBALLS get themselves knotted up in my hair. Rude awakening. What’s more is that we got a crap shot of the North Dakota sign. The iphone did the best it could.
Don’t worry, we got a real one.This is at the North Dakota / Minnesota state line. For some reason the Iphone had some kind of heart attack and went completely belly up in picture taking, but resumed completely normalcy upon entering Minnesota.Crossing into Minnesota just as the sun peeked over the horizon.After stopping at the Mall of America for lunch (Awesome!), we wander into Wisconsin. Awesome cheese and a wicked cool welcome sign.We have a couple of hours to hang out in Chicago, so we went to the top of Sears (Willis) Tower to take a look at the city. Beautiful view over Lake Michigan.
By the time we leave Chicago (after failing at obtaining Chicago pizza, that story soon to come), it’s nearing 9pm. We’ve decided at this point to drop the rental car off at the Louisville International Airport and fly back to Miami from there. There are five more states to go. Ready?
Sometime around midnight, we hit Indiana. A quick U-turn gives us a shot of Illinois.I appreciated the carving of the welcome sign into the overpass as well.
It’s well past midnight. We make Michigan.
In the state for a solid ten minutes.
It’s raining. We’re both exhausted. We need to sleep. We pull off on the side of the road to take a quick nap. A highway officer knocks on our window, tells us, You can’t sleep here, but there’s a rest stop a mile up the road.Mark drives us to the rest stop. We get some shut eye, and wake up with the sun and begin our drive again.
We make Ohio shortly before breakfast.
Shortest state visit to date – about 45 seconds total! A turnaround lane about 1/5 mile up let us get back on the road, headed south.We make Louisville in record time, enough to explore Louisville’s bridges.Two peas in a pod, ready for a nap and a flight home.
Every Country Couple 