Our Impromtu Camping Trip

Last Thursday night when I was at the Rascal Flatts concert at the State Fair, I got a text from Joe.

 

Joe: "Can we camp tomorrow? I'll start packing us up right now so you don't have to worry about much. Stella wants to:)" 

Me: "Can I bring a text book?"

 Joe: "Yep. I just want to hike, finish my book, camp and spend some time with my girls. Can I book it?" 

Me: "Yeah go ahead!"

 Joe: "Doing it. I'll start packing up now. Excited (Stella is too:)"

 

Well, we went camping but I didn't get anywhere near reading my text book. Go figure. We did hike eight and a half miles on Friday and had the trails to ourselves. The lucky spot? Great River Bluffs State Park near Winona, MN.

 

 

We set up our campsite and hit the trails.

 

The views of the bluffs were amazing. Can you imagine what this will look like in a few weeks with the fall colors?

 

 

And great views of the Mississippi too!

 

 

Stella was always off and running...until the end. And then she stuck a little closer to us because she was a pretty tired pup.

 

And remember when I told you we had the trails to ourselves? Here's a picture of the parking lot. Remember, we were here the Friday of Labor Day weekend. I'm sure it was busy over the weekend...all the campsites were booked for the rest of the weekend.

 

 

Oh hey grill in our campsite. You're from my hometown!!

 

And this little guy was on our tent the next morning.

 

Joe has a friend!

 

It was such a great little getaway even if it was just for a day/night. The campground was really nice, the bathrooms had showers for goodness sake!!...which was really nice when we came back dirty and dusty from our hike. We had to leave early Saturday morning so I could make it back for the bachelorette party. I could have stayed all weekend... ahhh. Next time.

Chicago Bound!

Finally. Time to sit down and tell you all about Chicago! Joe and I were there from Thursday through Sunday and it was such a great, quick getaway. Joe had spent the summer before his senior year of college near Chicago for an internship so it was nice having my own personal tour guide.

Day 1 We did a lot of exploring and walking around the city taking in all the sights.

This was a big amphitheater in Millennium Park. We sat on the grass and listened to a free Jazz concert for a bit and had some free raspberry lemonade that was AMAZING.

Here we are taking our picture in the reflection of the bean. A must do in Chicago!

The mouths would eventually move and a fountain of water would come out of them. Pretty neat!

Walking along Lake Michigan.

Day 2 we rented bikes for the day and went on a 17 mile bike ride.

So I have a funny story which Joe could definitely tell better in person but I'll give it a go with words. On our bike ride we were coming around this corner and one of those segway tours was coming passing us by. A lady in the back started losing control of her segway and her natural reaction was to jump off. Totally understandable. Well, this segway keeps moving and Joe and I had to get out of the way before it ran us over (it was really close to taking one of us out), it tipped over and kept moving straight off the pier and into the water. The look on the lady's face was priceless and the look on the tour guide's face was pure shock. Joe and I just looked at each other and kept saying, "Did that really just happen?" haha. Yes. Yes it did.

Before we returned our bikes, we made a pit stop at a beach. It was the perfect way to cool down on such a hot day and the water was surprisingly warm!

After we took a dip in the water we went through Lincoln Park Zoo.

Day 3 we met up with my friends Kelsey and Joe who were heading to Lollapalooza (music festival) for brunch. Then we did some more walking around and hopped on a water taxi to ride on the river!

We visited Navy Pier on our last night in the city and were loving the views.

Day 4 We, you guessed, walked around some more before catching the train back to the airport.

It was so nice to take a break from our every day life and spend time with each other. Although, I really missed Stella. She had fun being spoiled by my sister though and I'm sure she didn't miss us that much. Here's to another pin on the map!

Trip Details Part III

FINALLY! The last post of our trip! I know, I know, you're probably sick of hearing about our last adventure but I can't start a story and not finish it. :)

Okay, so Friday morning we left our campsite along the river and headed to Sequoia National Park. We knew it was suppose to be a little colder than normal (low 60's when it's usually in the mid 70's) but we didn't expect to just watch the temp drop as we climbed in elevation and then see snow start falling from the sky. Yes, SNOW in California. We stopped in at the Visitor Center and asked questions about the campgrounds and decided to go down into King's Canyon (2000 feet lower than where we were) because we thought 1) it wouldn't be snowing and 2) would be a little warmer to sleep in.

Once we made it to the campground and ended up turning around. It was about an hours drive to the campground from the Visitor Center and figured it'd be another hour to get to where the main attractions are and we really didn't want to do that much driving. On our way back we took some pictures along the way...

Once we got back up to top we checked into our campground and headed to the Grant Grove. These trees are huge!

After we visited the grove we decided to head down to the main guy, the General Sherman. Unfortunately we were probably 20 minutes away and the snow was making us a little uncomfortable. We had a little Ford Fiesta and didn't want to risk being out on the curvy mountain roads. So we headed back to the campground and went to bed, at 6pm. Joe and I were both a little under the weather with colds. :(

And this was our campground when we woke up 12 hours later...

Oh yeah, 2-3 inches of snow. We threw everything in the car and got out of there. I have never been so cold while sleeping and it will definitely be a night to remember. We were originally going to spend another night in Sequoia but mother nature had other plans for us. Those plans led us to San Jose where we got a hotel and once we checked in at 3pm I did not leave the bed. I actually spent the night with a fever and fell asleep at 7:30pm. Joe was so sweet and took good care of me.

We spent our last full day driving down to Monterey and taking Highway 1 back up to San Francisco. It was such a great way to end the trip.

We did the 17 Mile Drive near Pebble Beach

I'm such an ocean girl...

One last view of the ocean...next time my friend!

We spent our last night near the hotel and flew out early Memorial Day. We knew it was a good trip because we were ready to come home and I was so excited to see our little Stella!! We saw a lot, had a lot of little hiccups and it was a total blast.  

Trip Details Part II

On Tuesday we made our way from Nevada back to California and drove into Yosemite National Park on the Tioga Pass road. We were really excited for this day because Yosemite has been on our travel bucket list for awhile and we love being outdoors.

Our first glimpse of Half Dome. We applied for permits to climb Half Dome but our names didn't get drawn out of the lottery. Now that we completed some of the other hikes, we are glad we didn't have to climb it. I don't think I would have made it haha.

Yosemite Falls

We had such beautiful days for both our hikes. On Wednesday, we took a bus up to Glacier Point and then set out on our hike. It was a 13 mile one way hike and once we got back down on the valley floor we had to walk another mile and a half or so to catch the bus. Well, the bus never came and we ended up hiking 20 miles back to our car that day. We were a bit tired...

Up at Glacier Point

Our view on the Pohono Trail

Love this view! Okay, a story about the large rock on the left in this picture below, El Capitan. 

I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it but in the middle of this picture are two rock climbers on El Capitan. It takes on average 3-5 days to rock climb up El Cap and the record goes to a guy who did it in 2 hours and 37 minutes! At night you could see lights here and there on the rock where climbers were sleeping for the night. I could stare at El Capitan all day and look for climbers. Unreal!

This was our "home" in Yosemite. Thankfully not on the side of a rock:)

Hike number two was on the Panorama Trail. Apparently after hiking 20 miles the previous day, we couldn't wait to do another 8 the next day. We started up at Glacier Point again and ended up at the top of the falls near Half Dome and back down to the valley floor.

Climbing down the falls...

Taking the Mist Trail down the last fall...we got soaked on this part of the hike! haha

And a great way to end our days in Yosemite, seeing a bear! No, this isn't a grizzly bear, it's actually a black bear, only brown:)

Yosemite is such a neat place to see. The valley was carved out by glaciers way back in the day and it's hard to wrap your mind around how big the rocks actually are. Everything is super sized!! I'll share the rest of the trip with you tomorrow!