Well I am finally back in NJ and I arrived to insanely great weather! It was a great road trip and craps I am sooooo tired!
In my last post I was going to explore Denver the next day. Well I did and I totally love Denver and all the other towns I embarked upon in Colorado. Downtown Denver was like a more spacious and cleaner Hoboken, NJ. We also got to see the Rocky Mountains and killed a fat beaver on the highway - drats, the guilt still eats away at me. I met so many cool people and saw many adorable cabins - kinda looked like the cheesy holiday cards you get at the 99 cent store. After exploring Colorado, South Dakota was next on the agenda.
Mount Rushmore was cool and great to see but nothing like seeing the natural wonders of this little planet (such as the grand canyon) as opposed to the man made. South Dakota was unreal. We arrived at 2am and saw deer like we see squirrel - well in NJ atleast. They were everywhere - on lawns, by traffic lights, chillin in packs just literally mowing lawns. Bison and elk burgers swarmed every menu - a grrreat spot for a vegan ;) Needless to say potatoes were my best friend in this state. OH and I have never smelled cow farts that intensely as I did driving through SD - I dry heaved and blamed Humberto a few times for the stench.
We then went to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was a pleasant experience - kinda like sitting on a swing with your grandma talking about the latest craze in denture wear, pleasant. Adorable little town with a flourishing art community. Pretty falls, coziness, and total cleanliness everywhere. I stumbled upon this great Dutch cafe where my cool ass coffee cup was the hot topic of conversation for atleast 20 minutes. Woooohoo!
From Sioux Falls we drove to Madison, Wisconsin and hung out there for the night. We went bar hopping and ended up at this cool gay bar called the Shamrock. We got hooked up with a few drinks then went to hang at this cigar bar for awhile before we stumbled into the Shamrock again. I met this one guy from Minnesota and he had the coolest accent! I swear - at one point I kinda didn't know what he was saying but that just didn't matter - his accent was fascinating and kept me drooling!! So that night Humberto was getting hooked up with drinks left and right (yes the boys loved him ;) and I had to drive the 2 hours to Chicago. You think "hmmm, 2 hours not so bad" right? But at 3 am after a few drinks it was kinda torturous and harder than the 9 hour drives - sheesh!
So we got to Chicago at 5 am. Lugged our asses out of the car - slept for 4 hours (you know my cheap ass has to take advantage of the free breakfast!) and explored a rainy Chicago. Cute shops and an insane sales tax of 10.25% kept me from purchasing anything!! Ate some great Chicago pizza at this place called Giordiano's. They totally made me a great cheese-less pizza that was scrumptious! Since it was constantly pouring that day it was hard to really do anything - kinda sucked but we still wandered around like wet rats anyway. I also got to meet Kelly Maron (gal I am working on greeting cards with) from Paper Stories. I got to meet her hubby, adorable baby Jackson and see her cool letterpress machine along with her studio. She was great and I was siked to finally meet her in person :D
Our next stop was Cleveland, Ohio to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I was completely smitten! From the gorgeous building designed by I.M Pei (photos here) to the massive amounts of music you can submerge yourself into - we were there for 4 hours! We got to see great installations, costumes, Janis Joplin's car, etc. I also discovered how much music that we hear today are actually covers by old school blues and motown artists! So fascinating! Also I loved viewing all the record and poster designs! Droolable material! :D
After Cleveland - we headed for NJ and arrived at 2 am. My family was thrilled and zombie like at the same time (I don't how they pulled that emotion off but they did). I was delirious as well and stuffed my face with my mom's homemade potato salad (yay more potatoes!) and passed out! ZZZZzzzZZZzz.....
Check out photos from my trip below. Some of the photos from Rock & Roll Hall of Fame were dark cause photography was actually prohibited so no flash.
Enjoy! :D
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