The Final Post

Post Trip

It is hard to put into words the effect a trip like this can have on someone. It was life changing and has brought new light to the way we view our country. We had some great experiences and only a few not so great, which turned out to be great stories in the end. We experienced new towns and saw different ways of living than our own.

Here are some things we accomplished:

Didn't kill each other.
Didn't get attacked by a bear.
Went to 5 National Parks (skipping 2 due to weather :( ).
Drove through 17 different states (although we only drove about 10 miles into Michigan to get Subway).
Visited 13 breweries.
Drove over 7,000 miles.
Got 4 new tires and an oil change.
Made 3 camp fires (although they were all on the same night).
Didn't take many showers.
No speeding tickets or car crashes.
Only one minor injury (Lauren was learning how to use a hatchet).
Saw bison, big horn sheep, a ton of cows, prairie dogs, rabbits, ground squirrels, burrowing owl, bears, moose, elk, deer, Icelandic horses, a ton of sheep(not as many as cows though), a fox standing on a hay bale, a coyote, a few goats, and lots of dogs. 
Camped 8 nights, 3 nights in a yurt, and all other nights in a hotel.

The sound track to our trip was:

SiriusXM - 90s Rock, Classic Rock, Bluegrass, and Blues
The Dirty Life on Farming, Food, and Love by Kristin Kimball
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

Beers we came home with:

A LOT

This trip has given us a new appreciation for Vermont and what a great state it is to live in. One of the best parts about coming home is seeing our little boy, Scooter, who we missed so much.

And after all this...we're still in love!

Day 26

Day 26

The last day.

We left early from the hotel since we had the longest drive in our trip ahead of us. We stopped in Rochester, NY to check out a large beer store and to get some lunch. After picking up some more beer to take home, we found that a Wegmens was just around the corner, so we went. It was very exciting since we hadn't been to one in years.

As the Green Mountains came into view, we got more and more excited to get home. Once we crossed over Lake Champlain, the smells told us we had finally made it back to Vermont. Seeing Camel's Hump and Mt Mansfield, it reminded us how these mountains may be small, both being around 4,000 ft in elevation, but they are our mountains and we love them. To put that in perspective, most of the mountains we saw out west were around 8,000 to 10,000 ft in elevation, with a few getting close or over 14,000 ft in elevation.

We finally made it home around 9pm to a hot house that had been closed up for almost 4 weeks. We dragged everything out of the car to finally give it a rest and enjoyed a good nights sleep in our own bed.

Day 25

Day 25

Happy 4th of July!

Well this day was pretty boring. We drove from Madison to Cleveland and not much happened other than having a really awkward bartender at the hotel bar; granted we were the only ones there, so he probably felt the need to chat it up. We also finished the last of the audio books we had for the trip.

Wanting to get on the road early, we didn't venture out to see any fireworks. We did hear something that could have been fireworks, but could have also been thunder since there was a fairly large storm rolling through the area.

Tomorrow, HOME!

Day 24

Day 24

Today we decided to go to State street, which is a popular destination. It is a pedestrian only street, lined with shops and restaurants. We stopped into a handful of shops as we walked in the crazy heat to cool off in the AC. One store was really cute, and we got a postcard and a shirt from there. Walking by the shops you can tell a lot about the city. It had a very similar vibe to Portland, OR but less weird, and reminded us a little of Burlington, VT and Portland, ME.

For lunch we got a brat at State Street Brats. An obvious college go to with the University of Wisconsin only a few blocks away and with an obvious party vibe. Still, it was a great lunch with good beer, having New Glarus on tap made us talk momentarily about moving here. We got over that though...

Bar at Brasserie V

For dinner we checked out a highly rated place called Brasserie V - a little of Belgium on Monroe Street. It reminded us of one of our favorite places in Vermont called Bobcat, very small, cozy, and with a long wait. We were finishing our first round of beers and were about to head out, and just then we got a seat at the bar. With it's handful of taps and amazing bottle list, it was hard to pick the next round; but we went with a Cantillon, a Belgium brewery highly sought and hard to find in the US. After an awesome cheese plate we had some sliders next that were just perfect, each having their own twist. The Malt house was the last stop, before heading to bed. Cleveland is tomorrow and our trip is basically over.

Day 23

Day 23

We woke up early today, to make our way to Madison, WI. We took a small detour in St Paul, MN to check out a beer store and pick up some Minnesota and Midwest based beers that we can't get on the east coast. While we were there we asked the very helpful guy at the store for a lunch recommendation. He pointed us to the Happy Gnome. It was on the way so we checked it out. Not only did we have some great beer there, it was one of the best meals of the trip! After that we got into Madison to check in and prepare for tomorrow, which will be dedicated to walking around and checking out Madison some more.

Day 22

Day 22

You can see the cow off in the distance

As we got into our car and checked the weather for the day, we saw not only was it 92 degrees already at 9am, but that the low for where we were going to camp was 84 degrees. We decided that was a bit too hot for camping so we drove straight to Fargo, ND.

Both Montana and North Dakota were pretty boring to drive through (and hot), but we did see these odd huge sculptures. We got a picture of the cow and there was also a buffalo, a crane, and a weird eye thing with geese flying around it.

Cow up close

Since we got to Fargo a day early, we decided to drive to Madison tomorrow and spend the whole day in Madison the day after that.

Day 21

Day 21

We woke up to a beautiful blue sky. On our way out of Glacier we tried to take a few more pictures since the day before was so gloomy. After that, we went on our way to Billings, MT.

The drive was pretty uneventful, other than being hot. When we got into Billings we checked in and then went out for dinner at Montana Brewing Company. The beers were pretty good and so was the food. One beer that stuck out to us was their Oatmeal Pale Ale. You usually think of Oatmeal with Stouts, but this was a pretty tasty beer.

Tomorrow we'll continue heading east to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.