A Sister Road Trip Across America - Part 4

As you may know, at the end of January I drove cross-country with my sister, Meghan. We had a lot of fun, and took a lot of awesome pictures, and I've been wanting to share mine with you, but to be perfectly honest, her's are better. She's put together a few posts with some of her best, most amazing pictures from our journey and a few fun realizations. This is Part 4, the final installation. Read the rest here. 

Part 4: California!    

After four days in the car, a few exciting tourist adventures, a completed book on tape, and an enthusiastic rendition of "Colors of the Wind" by the Canavan sisters, we made it to California. All LA traffic and sleepiness aside, we were happy to finally arrive at Katie's adorable new apartment; complete with a mermaid fountain, '60s color scheme, courtyard pool, and a couple of fat cats hangin' around.

 

Over the next three days we started getting Katie settled in and made time for a little fun, too.  We checked out some good places to eat and shop in Burbank, went to The Getty Museum to enjoy art, gardens, and the scenery, and went to Santa Monica so that I could get my ocean fix before heading back to the Midwest.

 

 

I wish I could've stayed for another week or two to explore, but we did the best we could with the time we had. Here are some photos from our California adventures. Again, taken with my Nikon and my iPhone. I'm already planning a trip back to visit this year, but for now, enjoy this small taste of California!

xo Meghan

A Sister Road Trip Across America - Part 3

As you may know, at the end of January I drove cross-country with my sister, Meghan. We had a lot of fun, and took a lot of awesome pictures, and I've been wanting to share mine with you, but to be perfectly honest, her's are better. She's put together a few posts with some of her best, most amazing pictures from our journey and a few fun realizations. This is Part 3, read Parts 1& 2 here. 

Part 3: More Tourist Attractions

Last week I wrote about the first couple of tourist attraction stops we made along the way on our drive to California. The World's Largest Truck Stop and the World's Largest Time Capsule left us wanting more. Little did we know, the best was yet to come...

Our third attraction stop was our absolute favorite. We're talking about childhood dreams coming true, here. From the second we spotted the first old, tattered billboard advertising Pioneer Village (hours before we were anywhere close to it), Katie and I were intrigued. It was a little out of the way, but our love for Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Oregon Trail could not be suppressed and we just couldn't resist stopping.

 

 

Pioneer Village is located in Minden, Nebraska, amongst a million and one cows. The friendly elderly lady who sold us our tickets was probably confused as to why two twenty-somethings were giddy with excitement before roaming around the village. There were approximately six visitors at the village, including us, which was actually quite perfect.

This meant more freedom to explore, climb on trains, climb on covered wagons, take goofy pictures, take artistic pictures, and touch absolutely everything that was stamped with a little red 'OK TO TOUCH' hand (you know, the kind of signs that let young children like us know it's OK to touch things).

Our short stop turned into a few hours, we purchased some amazing maps of the Old West for $2, and being famished from all of the excitement we hit the road to find some food.

Our fourth stop was at Hole 'N the Rock in Moab, Utah. Hole 'N the Rock is a 5,000 square foot former home/restaurant for local miners that a man named Albert Christensen carved in red Utah rock. 

Though we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the actual home (click here to see their website with interior photos), we were amazed at some of the features--for example, a fully-functioning fireplace and a bathtub made of rock?! Awesome.

 We were also mildly disturbed by some details--for example, Albert was experimenting with taxidermy in his later years and stuffed his wild horse-friend in a less-than-professional manner. Poor horse. 

  

There were a lot of interesting weathered and rusty things around for me to photograph here (yay more old stuff!), so I enjoyed doing that. Partially exhausted from our journey and partially creeped out by the stuffed wild horse, we left Hole 'N the Rock to refuel at a brewery in Moab. Yum!

For our final act of American tourism, we stopped in Las Vegas for lunch and a quick gamble. Since we were driving through anyways we figured we had to stop.

 
Katie and I enjoyed walking around and people watching on the strip, we ate lunch at Margaritaville, and finally, we tried our hand at gambling. It was actually the first time either of us had gambled at a casino. Can you believe that?! Needless to say, we stuck to penny slot machines and were not lucky.

The variety of tourist attractions we stopped at made our travels go by quickly, and it was fun to experience new and different things. The beautiful, the exciting, and even the creepy.

Next stop--California!

xo Meghan

A Sister Road Trip Across America - Part 2

As you may know, at the end of January I drove cross-country with my sister, Meghan. We had a lot of fun, and took a lot of awesome pictures, and I've been wanting to share mine with you, but to be perfectly honest, her's are better. She's put together a few posts with some of her best, most amazing pictures from our journey and a few fun realizations. This is Part 2, read Part 1 here. 

Part 2: Tourist Attractions

Before departing on our westward journey, Katie planned stops at various tourist attractions located on our route. We wanted to see "traditional" attractions that would give us a taste of our surroundings and still allow us to make it to California in the time we had allotted. Let's face it, some of the stops sounded completely silly and ridiculous, but also entertaining and fun. Although we accidentally surpassed the World's Largest Ball of Stamps (oops!), Katie and I made plenty of stops that made our trip worthwhile, and happily added to our souvenir penny collections along the way. This assortment of tourist attraction photographs comes from my camera and my iPhone. 

Don't underestimate the quality of iPhone photos! It can be really fun to play with different apps to give your photos interesting effects and character.

Our first tourist stop was the World's Largest Truck Stop. While driving up to the stop we didn't think it looked very exciting. Actually, we almost passed it. I mean, we have seen many-a-rest-stop in our day and this one didn't look any different.

But after 2 Orange Julius' (my FIRST, can you belive it?!), 1 pair of moccasins for Katie, and about 30 minutes time, we were very happy we didn't miss the exit. Yes, we may have been the only non-truckers wandering through the aisles of spirit animal T-shirts and auto parts, but Katie and I (and Katie's feet) were glad we stopped.

Our second stop was at the World's Largest Time Capsule. We almost gave up on finding this attraction. In the small town of Seward, Nebraska, we wandered around trying to find the capsule for what seemed like forever, until finally we located the white sculpture-like capsules on a residential street. 

There really wasn't much to see, just two plaques listing the capsules' contents. So, naturally, we took the opportunity to photograph each other holding up peace signs and modeling like professionals. Admit it, Katie makes that time capsule look good. 

There was also an interesting old building/store right behind the time capsule, so I squeezed in a little photo session using a toy lens my sister-in-law gave me (the fuzzy/antique style photo of Katie and her boyfriend is an example of what this lens does). 

Old, rusty, weathered objects are some of my favorite subjects to photograph. I love capturing the beautiful and interesting within the aged and weathered.

Looking back, I find it pretty amazing that all of those things fit in the capsules--some 5,000 relics, including a couple of cars. Who wants to go back for the opening in 2025?

TO BE CONTINUED...Stay tuned for more tourist attractions next week, including our favorite!


xo Meghan