midwest road trip part 3

and finally, we get to the end of mom and danielle midwest road trip 2010. next week we will continue with fun fact friday, but for now....

my mom and i did this very same road trip two years ago, and just so happened to be there on the best.weekend.EVER (its a small town, so this was a big deal)

32 miles, 2 donut stops. for each donut you eat you get 5 minutes taken off your finishing time. now this is my kind of race!!

(and this is exactly how i would want to partake in the event... front seat, of course)

there is also a "rib off" that occurs during the race. about 40 (thats truly a really bad guess, its probably either like 25 or way more than 40) groups set up these huge smokers and try to win "best ribs". the town smells so awesome. they all get judged, someone wins, then everyone gets day drunk and eats ribs til the sun goes down. like i said before, best.weekend.EVER.

and obviously no road trip is complete without a bridal shower!! :)

all of these are for me??? (i mean us hehe)

my best friend and maid of honor helped to put it all together with my aunts

im supposed to do what with this thing? cook? no comprende... but ty looks good in pink!

homemade quilts from both of my grandmas. xoxo


thank you to everyone!!! and thanks to the camera girl who didnt notice the conveniently placed pink bow right behind me that looked like i was wearing it. yaaaay.

as much fun as we had during our stay, monday came and it was once again time to get back on the road and head home. not even a half hour into our drive we came upon this sign, and my mom freaked out and made me turn around to go buy fresh tomatoes.
whatever makes her happy (and keeps her from singing!! hehe love you mom!)

we ended up staying at the same hotel we stopped at on the way out in erie. again i didnt use the jaquzzi, but this time i did try. the water wouldnt get hot and i was too tired to try to figure out why. i layed in bed watching the homerun derby (yay big papi!!) before falling asleep. mom got this pic of me before leaving in the morning, i was watching out the window for the krispy kreme light to come on. when you dont have these things where you live, its like finding gold when you find one.

this pretty much summed up my feelings on this last day of the trip:

and of course i really needed some french fries about halfway home so we stopped at burger king (soooooooo healthy) and this was the view from the parking lot. of course my mom went over to check it out, and we both ended up buying little baskets.

when i was little i had these in my bedroom. they have been stored in my grandmas garage so we decided to bring them home (i mean i am getting married soon, its just the natural progression after that, right? hahahaha).

safety first kids!

and finally, i was lucky enough to be able to stop off in new hampshire at a gas station and see ty for five minutes. he and his boss were headed to new york and our paths just happened to cross perfectly. it was a quick meet up, but i was so happy to see him for the short amount of time. its the little things :)

overall a great road trip, but im happy to be back home.

midwest road trip part 2

so lets see here, where did we last leave off…. oh yes.

so we made it to my grandmas house about 7ish tuesday night. mom kept thinking the gps was wrong and we were going to arrive much earlier. yeah, how about you dont doubt the gps, even if youve made friends with her and named her matilda.
gps: 1, mom: 0

wednesday evening we went into forest park for dinner at "the boathouse" and then my mom, aunt, cousins, and grandma were going to the muni (an outdoor theater). i think the shows are kinda boring and its sooooo hot and humid that i dont really have fun, so i didnt go. they saw Titanic and they all said it kinda sucked anyway, so im pleased with my decision.
all who went to the muni: 0. danielle: 1

oh and they had blue moon on tap. with orange. yum!

i also got to meet my cousins new baby, nathaniel! this is her 5th child and she is 11 months older than me. apparently i didnt get the memo.

on thursday serena made me try okra. anyone who knows me knows im not one to try new things easily, so actually going through with trying this new foreign thing was rather scary. especially since it was slimy and didnt smell all that great. in the end… actually not that bad! i do think it would be SO much better though if it were fried with a side of ranch.

after the okra experience, we headed out to the most upscale mall ive ever been to. they had stores like sacs fifth avenue and lord & taylor. we felt really out of place, so we went to a more normal human being like me and you mall. they had the gap and foot locker. we checked out the sales at lululemon but weren’t able to find anything. then i came upon this!

i didnt buy anything but i LOVE crocs, especially my wedge heels. im pretty sure i own almost ten pairs of crocs. xoxo

on friday my best friend (and maid of honor, cassie) headed out after she got out of work to meet her brothers for a boat ride. on our way there we drove by this sign, which i have found to always have some sort of random saying on it. two years ago it read:

this time it said:

yeah i have no idea what the deal is with this school.

anyway, the weather was so beautiful and i even attempted wake boarding, which i swore up and down i wouldnt even attempt to try (again, not into trying new things, especially with the potential of drowning…. yeah ill pass thanks, but hey you have fun!) this is more what i had envisioned myself doing all afternoon

but alas, its no surprise i got talked into at least trying....

things didnt start out too well, i think about ten tries started out much like the following sequence....

but as with most things, if you dont at first succeed, try and try again

i suppose i should try more things, cuz most often times i end up liking them in the end :)

and finally, i saw this on our way back after boating, and of course i had to take this pic…. only in small town hamel, illinois my friends.

stay tuned for part 3, coming soon!

midwest road trip part 1

so my mom and i set out monday morning at 5:30am from south portland, maine heading to staunton, illinois. the following is part 1 of our trip. enjoy! (i decided bullet points and photos worked best)

*maine is pretty much trees and highway, so there was nothing special about the first hour or so. i had gotten barely any sleep sunday night but my mom likes to talk so at least that kept me awake

*ezpass might be the greatest invention ever

*we stopped at dunkin donuts in mass to get some coffee (i knew that we soon would not be able to find a dunkin donuts anywhere). obviously i had to get a pic with wally!

*along some highway in western mass we saw a road sign that said: "correctional facility area. do not pick up hitchhikers". seriously wish i could have snapped a pic. i cant make this stuff up.

*this was one of the coolest/scariest things on our first day of driving. an overpass walkway to rest area. mom got a hot fudge sundae, which she spilled all over herself. i got an oreo mcflurry.

*by far one of the best buildings we passed along our trip right here

*we got to our hotel about 5:30pm and headed up to our room to drop off our stuff before heading to dinner. we realized we didnt have a fridge, so we asked if we could switch rooms. our first room had 2 beds...

*the one we switched to had a king size with fridge and we also got a jacuzzi. WIN!

* we headed to applebees for dinner where i ate cheese cheese and more cheese (in the form of a personal pizza with a mix of asiago and italian cheeses, mushrooms, brushetta, and artichoke hearts, with a side of motz sticks. yay cheese). we then found this lovely store nearby where i got some yuengling which we dont have in maine. its pretty awesome.

*i hadnt gotten much sleep in the 4 days prior to leaving so i was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. we had shut the curatins before we left for dinner so the room was pretty dark when we got back. after eating and watching a bit of the bachelorette, we decided too turn the tv off and hit the hay. i noticed a little sliver of light coming through a crack in the curtains and decided to see what it was coming from. this was the view of our room before i opened the curtain... (you can barely make out the sliver of light in the right side)

...and this is what i found after opening them

i thought it was rather ridiculous that we were going to bed when it was still light out! haha. on a side note, those curtains would be super sweet in my bedroom! apparently it stays lighter here much later than at home but doesnt start getting light in the morning til almost 6am. weird.

*this has to be the most ridiculous "do not disturb sign" ever. hahaha. me time.


*i ended up sleeping til almost 7am which was almost 11 hours. haha. thanks nyquil! i went down to the lobby to get some coffee and something to eat from the not so continental breakfast. chose some mixed fruit and oatmeal, although the line cook was trying really hard to make me waffles with chocolate chips or an omelette. my breakfast cost me $2.07, which i thought was cool since its our area code at home. the guy didnt seem to care. he was still mad i didnt have the waffles i think.

*as we were puling out of the hotel getting ready to drive on for the day, we saw the light on at krispy kreme... you know that that means! mom thought she really needed this bag... i talked her out of that one.

*i didnt know what to choose!

....so i went for just the plain hot glazed

ok, i had two.

*at a mcdonalds somewhere in ohio i got a coffee... and they gave me a quarter back from maine!

*every time we pulled off an exit to get gas the GPS lady would go nuts, telling us recalculating turn around, go back, do a u turn, do the hokey pokey... it got annoying, so i would mute her when we knew we would be getting off. once i forgot and my moms exact words were "mute that bitch:!! haha. eventually my mom named the gps "matilda".

*i think this is either right before illinois (in indiana) or right after you get into illinois, but its the biggest cross ive ever seen. this pic does no justice, but its huge!

*as we got nearer to illinois the land began to turn into corn field after corn field. lovely. at this point my mom started singing some song that went "the corn is as high as an elephants eye" over and over and over... this trip couldnt end quick enough. lucky for me, we still had over 4 hours left to go.

*with about two hours left we stopped for a quick snack at steak n shake (i was soooo healthy on this trip) where i tried sliders for the first time. i asked for please no mustard or pickles. they looked at me kinda funny. whatever. but boy were those little guys yummy! i also had french fires and an oreo milkshake.... that was not my first time having those. also very yummy!

*we did eventually make it, and my grandma was so excited to see us. stay tuned for part 2, as im sure there will be much more random crap to tell you about!! oh, and this town is like going back in time... no where have i found wireless internet, my cell phone has shady service... what did we ever do without those things?!